Cinema-style age ratings for websites, including Wikipedia? Options Rating

[Peter Damian]

Interesting and important piece doing the rounds in the UK press today.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/...overnment-obama

Fully quoted below. I welcome this. Fed up of putting content filters on the client side - these either don't work or they block out the most innocuous stuff. It's not up to me to do this, the providers should be doing it.

And what does that mean for Wikipedia? There will have to be some sort of get-out for genuinely and properly educational material, but as many of us have argued here, the educational content bit is very questionable (e.g. 'cream pies'). Will the Wikipedia administration have to argue on a case by case basis? Or will it be compelled to provide a blanket assurance about content, with adequate and provable quality control. Probably the latter.

[UK] Culture secretary Andy Burnham wants cinema-style age ratings for websites Aidan Jones guardian.co.uk, Saturday 27 December 2008 01.00 GMT Article history

Internet sites could be given government-approved age ratings to prevent children accessing inappropriate material, a cabinet minister has suggested, in a move that is likely to trigger fears over web censorship.

The culture secretary, Andy Burnham, says in an interview today that the government is considering the need for "child safe" websites – registered with cinema-style age warnings – to curb access to offensive or damaging online material.

He plans to approach US president-elect Barack Obama's incoming administration with proposals for tight international rules on English language websites, which may include forcing internet service providers, such as BT, Tiscali, Sky and AOL, to ­provide packages restricting access to websites without an age rating.

"There is content that should just not be available to be viewed. That's my view. Absolutely categorical," Burnham, the MP for Leigh in Greater Manchester, told the Daily Telegraph. "If you look back at the people who created the internet, they talked very deliberately about creating a space that governments couldn't reach. I think we are having to revisit that stuff seriously now."

Other safeguards mooted by Burnham include compelling websites such as YouTube and Facebook to remove offensive material within a specified time after they have been alerted to it, and changing Britain's libel laws to make it cheaper for people to sue publishers if they have been defamed online. Internet providers will be urged to adopt the proposals in the new year, but if that failed to work, Burnham said the proposals might have to be enshrined in law.

Burnham, a father of three, insisted his proposals were not intended as an attack on freedom of speech, but were a necessary counterweight to the proliferation of "unacceptable" material on the internet in a similar mould to the 9pm watershed on television. "It worries me – like anybody with children. Leaving your child for two hours unregulated on the internet is not something you can do. The internet has been empowering and democratising in many ways, but we haven't yet got the stakes in the ground to help people navigate their way safely around what can be a very, very complex and quite dangerous world," he added.

He said the change in administration in the US gave an opportunity to set new standards across the internet industry. "The more we seek international solutions to this stuff – the UK and the US working together – the more an international norm will set an industry norm."

His comments are likely to spark a row with those who are opposed to government interference in online publishing.

Admitting his proposals might be criticised as "heavy-handed", Burnham said: "I think that there is definitely a case for clearer standards online. More ability for parents to understand if their child is on a site, what standards it is operating to. What are the protections that are in place?"
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This post has been edited by Peter Damian: Sat 27th December 2008, 11:04am

[dtobias]

Sounds like another unworkable anti-liberty proposal that will undoubtedly go absolutely nowhere just like all the others that have proliferated over the last 15 years. Even if the UK and US governments were solidly behind it (a dubious thing given that even between those countries the standards, culture, and legal systems are sufficiently different to get in the way of them both backing a uniform censorship regime and having it upheld by the courts as constitutional), there are hundreds of other countries in the world with differing degrees of tolerance for different things, and different degrees of governmental power.

The ability to self-rate Web sites through meta tags has existed for at least a decade, but has never caught on to a great extent. Movies can be uniformly rated because there are a relatively few of them coming out (and even then, there are unrated movies on video and premium cable). Who's going to review millions of websites and apply ratings to them, and which community's standards will apply to set the international standard... Iran's or the Netherlands'?

[Moulton]

In the US, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) formed their own broadcast standards and rating systems, mainly to stave off governmental regulation.

In consumer products, there was the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval and the recommendations of Consumer Reports.

In the area of electrical appliances, there is Underwriters Laboratories which gives a UL seal to any electrical appliance meeting their safety standards.

While the vast majority of web sites will probably never join in any voluntary rating system, I imagine that many of the larger sites will subscribe to such self-regulating norms so as to accurately advertise the suitability of their content for different audiences. This will especially be true for commercial web sites that carry advertising, where the advertising consortiums seek to match their targeted audience to the audience a given web side draws.

It would not surprise me if Google Ad-Sense develops a rating system along the lines of MPAA, providing web sites the option of subscribing to a given rating category supported by corresponding tiers of advertising sponsors.

[lolwut]

That emoticon really is the only one that fits.

[dtobias]

And the comic book industry in the US adopted the Comics Code Authority to stave off government censorship in the 1950s, holding back comics with such restrictions as banning the words "horror" and "terror". This started to weaken in the 1970s and now no longer exerts much control even over the companies that follow it (and Marvel, notably, withdrew from it a few years ago in favor of their own rating system).

[Peter Damian]

Why anti-liberty? Freedom and licence are not the same thing. As far as the practicality of it, all the stuff has to be routed through domestic ISP's at some point, doesn't it? Seems to have worked for China, why not in the UK?

[edit] The word 'censorship' seems to be used here and in Wikipedia like it's a bad thing. Guys: censorship is a good thing. Think of it as a form of quality control.

This post has been edited by Peter Damian: Sat 27th December 2008, 2:55pm

[dtobias]

...until the stuff you like is censored.

[Peter Damian]

...until the stuff you like is censored.

What things do you like?

[dtobias]

...until the stuff you like is censored.

What things do you like?

Is that any of your business?

[Peter Damian]

...until the stuff you like is censored.

What things do you like?

Is that any of your business?

Public executions, incitements to race hatred, extreme sexual content visible to children, snuff movies, animal pornography, pornography involving violence to or abuse of women. If you disapprove of any of these, you cannot have an in-principle objection to censorhip.

[dtobias]

You're kind of obsessed with that stuff, aren't you?

I can't say I've got a liking for the kinds of things you mention, but I do like Harry Potter books (which some religious fundamentalists want to ban for promoting witchcraft), and collect comic books (which "concerned parents" burned and tried to ban in the 1950s) and sometimes listen to rock 'n roll (also burned/banned in the '50s); I also like reading books and magazines expressing a variety of viewpoints on controversial topics of politics, religion, and other things, and often proponents of some extreme view will want to ban opposing opinions. And, of course, I'm a participant in the notorious BADSITE Wikipedia Review. So I can never be sure that the things I like, even if they're not the "perversions" you're obsessed with, won't be the target of somebody's attempted ban.

[Somey]

You're kind of obsessed with that stuff, aren't you?

Watch it there, buddy-boy...

I can't say I've got a liking for the kinds of things you mention, but I do like... (snip)... So I can never be sure that the things I like, even if they're not the "perversions" you're obsessed with, won't be the target of somebody's attempted ban.

Of course not, but he's talking about things that are already banned in many physical venues, either through government or corporate censorship, or because of simple common sense - you can't find books advocating/illustrating sex with animals in the average shopping mall bookstore, for example, nor can you find photos of children being tortured hanging in your local post office.

You could probably find someone out there who'd advocate banning photos of things that are made out of wood from the internet, based on the idea that such images promote the destruction of trees, if you looked hard enough. But nobody would take such a person all that seriously, at least not until the Earth was down to its last few-dozen trees, at least...

Then again, I personally am not arguing that things like violent porn or whatever be completely eliminated from the internet, or even controlled to a much greater degree than they are now... What we need is a healthier society to begin with, and banning things like that is basically the equivalent of putting plague victims behind a big black curtain, and then selling tickets to people who want to go behind and watch them wallow in their own filth. And frankly, while voluntary content ratings would probably make some parents feel better, as far as children are concerned you might as well put labels on websites that say "Hey kids! The really cool stuff is in here!"

To me, the real problems are personal defamation, lying for political ends, and distorting facts in such a way as to make criminal activities (including quite a few things that some would call "lifestyle choices" seem socially justifiable or beneficial. And a lot of that involves the nature of the presentation. It should be easier to stop people from doing that stuff, but it should also be a far better definition of what that stuff is, and also some way to legally differentiate between defamation that's presented as objective fact vs. defamation that's clearly presented as just one person's opinion.

[dtobias]

"Censorship restricts your people’s imaginations. That’s really, really dumb."
-- Thomas L. Friedman

[Random832]

[UK] Culture secretary Andy Burnham wants cinema-style age ratings for websites Aidan Jones guardian.co.uk, Saturday 27 December 2008 01.00 GMT Article history

Internet sites could be given government-approved age ratings

Hold on... your cinema ratings are set by the government, then?

If you disapprove of any of these, you cannot have an in-principle objection to censorhip.

Actually, for several of those, someone merely not wanting to see it (which is what a pro-censorship stance would amount to) would seem rather shallow to someone who would prefer that they not happen at all.

[Eva Destruction]

Hold on... your cinema ratings are set by the government, then?

Yes. Who else would do it? Self-certification by the industry would cause more problems than it solved.

[Peter Damian]

You're kind of obsessed with that stuff, aren't you?

No, I was using an argument that is familiar to philosophers, of using examples that clearly contradict the opponent's thesis. You appear to be arguing that censorship is morally wrong 'in principle'. So. I gave some examples of things which most people would argue should be censored. If you agree with them, I have refuted your argument.

Or perhaps you weren't arguing that censorship is wrong in principle?

In any case, you replied with a personal attack, which philosophers call ad hominem.

Hold on... your cinema ratings are set by the government, then?

Yes. Who else would do it? Self-certification by the industry would cause more problems than it solved.

Actually the BBFC is a trade body, independent of government.

[Somey]

"Censorship restricts your people’s imaginations. That’s really, really dumb."
-- Thomas L. Friedman

It depends on what you're trying to censor, doesn't it?

You have to look at these things in context. That particular quote is from an op-ed piece that lauds the recent infrastructure improvements taking place in Communist China, and lambastes American society for not making similar improvements. Friedman then goes on to say:

America still has the right stuff to thrive. We still have the most creative, diverse, innovative culture and open society — in a world where the ability to imagine and generate new ideas with speed and to implement them through global collaboration is the most important competitive advantage.

... followed by the censorship quote, in the context of China's decision to block many Western news websites from domestic internet users.

It should be noted that there are lots of people out there in the world who'd tell you that America does not have the right stuff to thrive at all, and that we now have one of the least creative and innovative societies in the world - and moreover, that our people are poorly educated, overindulgent, narcissistic, too easily manipulated by mass media and advertising, and seriously lacking in moral and ethical self-restraint... and above all, way too obsessed with money, privilege, luxury, and celebrity. (Remember the old saw about how, in the USA, you can get 6 different kinds of boner pills and 140 flavors of ice cream, but you can't buy a house with decent insulation, or anything solar-powered that isn't a pocket calculator?)

The Communist Chinese leadership would probably go so far as to think that our high degree of openness and diversity is a weakness, and possibly even a cause of the aforementioned problems. I happen to think they're wrong about that, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong about Western society overall, at least from their own cultural perspective.

Ultimately, though, censoring Western ideas and news sources in China is stupid, not because it restricts people's imaginations, but because it makes Western ideas seem far more interesting and attractive than they actually are.

[Silly Fake Name]

...until the stuff you like is censored.

What things do you like?

Is that any of your business?

Public executions, incitements to race hatred, extreme sexual content visible to children, snuff movies, animal pornography, pornography involving violence to or abuse of women. If you disapprove of any of these, you cannot have an in-principle objection to censorhip.

Even if he disapproves of any of those, he can have an in-principle objection to censorship.

Censorship only works so long as the censors can be trusted to censor things that are bad and allow things that are good.

Sometimes censors censor things that are good and allow things that are bad.

In 2006, there was a gay pride parade in Moscow celebrating the 13th anniversary of the de-criminalisation of homosexuality in Russia.

The parade was prohibited by the authorities. However, it happened anyway. Volker Beck, an openly gay German politician, attended the event.

Russians with extreme homophobic views attacked the paraders. Beck was attacked with a stone and a fist. He was later detained until the Russian authorities recognised his German parliamentary credentials. Many homosexual Russians were also attacked. Because Beck was there, the incident attracted more attention from the media.

You can read about Volker Beck after clicking on this link.
http://www.volkerbeck.de/cms/index.php?opt...=348&Itemid=105

Here are two articles in English about the incident.
http://dw-club.com/dw/article/0,,2034254,00.html
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,2042128,00.html

[lolwut]

Then again, I personally am not arguing that things like violent porn or whatever be completely eliminated from the internet, or even controlled to a much greater degree than they are now... What we need is a healthier society to begin with, and banning things like that is basically the equivalent of putting plague victims behind a big black curtain, and then selling tickets to people who want to go behind and watch them wallow in their own filth. And frankly, while voluntary content ratings would probably make some parents feel better, as far as children are concerned you might as well put labels on websites that say "Hey kids! The really cool stuff is in here!"

Agreed.

[JohnA]

You're kind of obsessed with that stuff, aren't you?

No, I was using an argument that is familiar to philosophers, of using examples that clearly contradict the opponent's thesis.

Actually you haven't. You haven't come close. Your argument is flawed because it assume that everyone agrees on the meaning of those terms such as "abuse" and everyone agrees that such "abuse" must be censored.

For the sake of example would flogging a man nearly to death and then nailing him to a piece of wood to die be considered "abuse"? Can we agree that such things are beyond the pale of a modern civilized society? Then explain the right of people watch such events happening in graphic detail in the film "The Passion of the Christ" or being represented in art in every Catholic Church. Should children be allowed to see a near naked bloody corpse nailed to two pieces of wood? I guarantee you that they do every week.

You appear to be arguing that censorship is morally wrong 'in principle'. So. I gave some examples of things which most people would argue should be censored. If you agree with them, I have refuted your argument.

No you haven't. You have given a list of things you personally do not like to see. That's a long way from arguing that because you don't like them, therefore everyone else should be prevented from seeing them or knowing that they exist.

Or perhaps you weren't arguing that censorship is wrong in principle?

In any case, you replied with a personal attack, which philosophers call ad hominem.

Actually he wasn't. He was arguing that you have no right to tell him what he can and cannot see. He would argue that as he lives in a Constitutional Republic which values freedom of speech (and you don't), that his Government has no right to tell him what he can and cannot see, read or discuss. He was arguing that there is a larger principle at stake than what you find distasteful.