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

[EricBarbour]

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.

But you can attend an American anti-abortion rally, and see "good Christians" carrying large close-up photos of mangled, bloody fetus parts.
If such fools had their way, all such photos would be banned--unless THEY wanted to use them to protest something. Thus goeth the true hypocrite.

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

Excellent point. Unlikely to happen at this rate, sadly.

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.

They said almost identical things in 1967, when the movie rating system was being debated.
AND in 1930 when that asshole Hays was pushing his "Code", the predecessor of the ratings system. It fell apart in the 1960s, primarily because of changing social values.
Similar arguments were advanced when Nixon was pushing his "War On Drugs" in 1969.
We went thru this shit with comic books in the 1950s, music at various times, and repeatedly with books and magazines.
It's been suggested that the opening of the Internet to the public could only have happened during the Clinton years. If it happened during the W years, it would have been heavily screwed down and regulated.

The fool's response to every social problem is to BAN, BAN, BAN.
And it NEVER works.

[dtobias]

t's been suggested that the opening of the Internet to the public could only have happened during the Clinton years. If it happened during the W years, it would have been heavily screwed down and regulated.

Though, the beginnings of the public, commercialized Internet happened during the Bush the Elder years... it was in 1989 (I believe) that the rules that formerly limited Internet usage to research and military related activity were loosened and publicly-accessible services run for profit could connect to the net. At that time, the first visible effect was that some of the online services like CompuServe and AOL were able to send e-mail to Internet addresses (including other commercial services as well as the universities and research labs that were previously on the net); before that, you could only send mail to other subscribers of the same service, just like in the earliest days of the telephone when there might be several competing phone companies and your phone from company A couldn't call people who subscribed to company B. It took the development of the World Wide Web, and especially graphical browsers (starting in 2003 with Mosaic, and continuing the next year with Netscape) to get the Internet to catch on with the public, and by then Clinton was in office, but he really didn't have anything to do with it; it had been set in motion before him.

The very beginnings of the Arpanet, predecessor to the Internet, were in 1969, during the Nixon administration.

[tarantino]

It took the development of the World Wide Web, and especially graphical browsers (starting in 2003 with Mosaic, and continuing the next year with Netscape) to get the Internet to catch on with the public, and by then Clinton was in office, but he really didn't have anything to do with it; it had been set in motion before him.

You meant "starting in 1993 with Mosaic", which was the first browser to display inline images.

[dtobias]

You meant "starting in 1993 with Mosaic", which was the first browser to display inline images.

A decade here and a decade there, and sooner or later it adds up to real time!

[Peter Damian]

1. "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. "

The only time I mentioned 'abuse' (I think) was in connection with the abuse of women. Let's add abuse of animals to that. Don't most people agree this is abuse?

2. "What we need is a healthier society to begin with, and banning things like that [violent porn] is basically the equivalent of putting plague victims behind a big black curtain"

A very dim-witted argument. Banning violent porn would stop off the funds that fuel the exploitation of the victims. It's not like a plague or a famine that has external causes. It happens because certain sick people want to watch. The market to see it actually causes the exploitation and abuse.

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

To clarify my position: the truth should never be censored. Some people here may remember my year-long battle for Wikipedia to admit that some edits had been oversighted. The truth is the most important. Other things, like violent pornography (and pornography in general, in fact) are not true, for all pornography is inherently fake and phoney.

4. "You have given a list of things you personally do not like to see. "

I gave a list of things that many or most people would not like to be publicly viewable. Most people (views on capital punishment aside) are against the public viewing of executions, are they not?

There are also some things I don't mind seeing in private, that I would object to the public seeing.

5. "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."

Difficult one. It depends what showing something is for. Here is a film of the annual ritual in the Philippines where volunteers are crucified with real nails.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=GGe-DkDPHR4

I'm not sure of the real reasons they do this. I'm certain, however, that the reasons people watch this film on YouTube are mere entertainment and prurience.

Should we allow pictures of starving people in Africa in order to loosen the purse strings? I'm not sure about that either.

My point: if showing something in public helps us get closer to the truth, I am all for it. If preventing prevents the truth coming out, I am against preventing it, very much so, and very much more than anyone here, I suspect.

6. "The fool's response to every social problem is to BAN, BAN, BAN. And it NEVER works."

Actually, history shows that it works quite effectively. Here is the Christian historian Tertullian on the evil of the Roman games.

http://www.tertullian.org/lfc/LFC10-13_de_spectaculis.htm

His arguments worked eventually and the games were 'censored' and never came back.

Dickens wrote about public executions in the 1840's.

http://www.umd.umich.edu/casl/hum/eng/clas...eb/PUBLICEX.htm

Eventually his arguments won the day, and public executions were censored. Good.

I have a strange little book in my collection called 'Epaminondas', a children's book from the 1950's. It has pictures of black people with big lips, the story line is about little Epaminondas, who is called a 'piccaninny', and who gets into foolish scrapes. His 'mammy' uses all sorts of odd and caricatured language like 'Lordy' and 'you sure am one foolish piccanniny'. It is quite incredible and almost shocking that this was publicly available less than sixty years ago. Now it is censored. Anyone publishing this now would be jailed for race hatred. Good.

Detractors of censorship like to imagine there is some historical process going on that can never be reversed, pointing out things like the Hays code, comic books in the 1950's and so on. But there is no historical process. Just changing views about what is acceptable. Epaminondas was acceptable in the 1950's, violent pornography involving treating women as sex objects was not. Now it is the other way round, as far as I can judge.

I was, purposely, in the spot, from midnight of the night before; and was a near witness of the whole process of the building of the scaffold, the gathering of the crowd, the gradual swelling of the concourse with the coming-on of day, the hanging of the man, the cutting of the body down, and the removal of it into the prison. From the moment of my arrival, when there were but a few score boys in the street, and all those young thieves, and all clustered together behind the barrier nearest to the drop--down to the time when I saw the body with its dangling head, being carried on a wooden bier into the gaol--I did not see one token in all the immense crowd; at the windows, in the streets, on the house-tops, anywhere; of any one emotion suitable to the occasion.

No sorrow, no salutary terror, no abhorrence, no seriousness; nothing but ribaldry, debauchery, levity, drunkenness, and flaunting vice in fifty other shapes. I should have deemed it impossible that I could have ever felt any large assemblage of my fellow-creatures to be so odious. I hoped, for an instant, that there was some sense of Death and Eternity in the cry of "Hats off!" when the miserable wretch appeared; but I found, next moment, that they only raised it as they would at a Play--to see the stage the better, in the final scene. (Babington 225)

William Ewart Gladstone was a Member of Parliament who advocated the abolition of the death penalty in 1840. He tried to push through several bills eradicating capital punishment but all were denied. In March of 1866 a bill to stop public executions was finally received and passed into a law in 1868. It wasn't until May of 1869 that public executions were totally abolished. This was almost twenty-three years after Dickens' letter was published and nine since the publication of Great Expectations.

This post has been edited by Peter Damian: Sun 28th December 2008, 10:12am

[JohnA]

Peter

You appear to be expert in not answering the questions asked, not quoting your opponent correctly and ignoring statements you cannot refute.

Those are not answers to questions posed. You change the subject to suit your whim.

Personally I think the desire to edit Wikipedia is a form of mental illness and I regard your behaviour in dancing around clear points in order to make facile points of mere conjecture a form of abuse. Try answering the substantive points and stop fucking about make asinine trawls through history that neither impress nor answer the questions posed.

This post has been edited by JohnA: Sun 28th December 2008, 11:59am

[Peter Damian]

Peter

You appear to be expert in not answering the questions asked, not quoting your opponent correctly and ignoring statements you cannot refute.

Those are not answers to questions posed. You change the subject to suit your whim.

Personally I think the desire to edit Wikipedia is a form of mental illness and I regard your behaviour in dancing around clear points in order to make facile points of mere conjecture a form of abuse. Try answering the substantive points and stop fucking about make asinine trawls through history that neither impress nor answer the questions posed.

Each of the numbered points contain questions that were actually raised in the discussion. If you think the answers do not address the questions, say precisely and clearly why instead of using abusive language.

Why was my point about history 'asinine'. It is quite an important point. Those who argue that there is a sort of tide in history against censorship are clearly wrong, as my citations show. Or if you think not, say clearly and precisely why, instead of swearing and accusing me of mental illness.

[dtobias]

I have a strange little book in my collection called 'Epaminondas', a children's book from the 1950's. It has pictures of black people with big lips, the story line is about little Epaminondas, who is called a 'piccaninny', and who gets into foolish scrapes. His 'mammy' uses all sorts of odd and caricatured language like 'Lordy' and 'you sure am one foolish piccanniny'. It is quite incredible and almost shocking that this was publicly available less than sixty years ago. Now it is censored. Anyone publishing this now would be jailed for race hatred. Good.

Maybe the Censor Squad should bust into your house and search your collection for things that need to be banned and burned? This happened recently to a manga collector (Manga are a Japanese form of comic books, and the U.S. federal government is alleging that this person's private collection of them is obscene because of some drawn images of children in possibly-sexual contexts). The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is defending him... great organization.

[Peter Damian]

Maybe the Censor Squad should bust into your house and search your collection for things that need to be banned and burned? This happened recently to a manga collector (Manga are a Japanese form of comic books, and the U.S. federal government is alleging that this person's private collection of them is obscene because of some drawn images of children in possibly-sexual contexts). The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is defending him... great organization.

Maybe not. Your argument is meant to prove that all censorship is therefore wrong?

[Silly Fake Name]

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

To clarify my position: the truth should never be censored. Some people here may remember my year-long battle for Wikipedia to admit that some edits had been oversighted. The truth is the most important. Other things, like violent pornography (and pornography in general, in fact) are not true, for all pornography is inherently fake and phoney.

Please give me credit when you quote me.

Are you personally going to be deciding what should and should not be censored? If not, then you have not told us why we should trust the censors.

I do support censorship, but only when I trust the censors. Additionally, the position of a free speech idealist is a position I understand and respect. If you want to write a good argument in favour of censorship, then you should also strive to understand and respect that position.

In my post, which you quoted, I gave the example of Russians censoring homosexuals. This is a recent example in a long history of people censoring things that are good and allowing things that are bad. It is not one of the worst examples.

Looking at that long and sad history, it is easy to come to the conclusion that censorship is too dangerous a power to be entrusted to anyone. This is the opinion of many free speech idealists.

I know free speech idealists are annoying when you want to censor something that is actually very bad. However, we need free speech idealists. They help by constantly reminding us of the mistakes bad censors have made in the past. These are mistakes we should be careful not to repeat. They are there to notice when we censor the wrong things. Censors should be watched closely to ensure that if that happens, the mistake is corrected. They are there to remind us that the following is an invalid argument.
1. Censors are infallible.
2. Because censors are infallible, then if something is censored, it must be bad.
3. X is censored.
4. Therefore, X is bad.

Mr. Damian, I agree that some things should be censored. However, you are not writing a good argument.

[dtobias]

As far as I'm concerned, the fact that somebody wishes to set themselves up as the judge of what others should be allowed to read or write makes them inherently not trustworthy, so hence my "free speech absolutist" position against censorship.

[Silly Fake Name]

As far as I'm concerned, the fact that somebody wishes to set themselves up as the judge of what others should be allowed to read or write makes them inherently not trustworthy, so hence my "free speech absolutist" position against censorship.

I understand that opinion, even though I do not agree with it.

However, there should be people who have the power to criticise the censors. That is one reason regular censorship laws should never be enforced in the courtroom. There must be some place that people are free to try to prove that the censors made a mistake. If you cannot legally criticise the censors in the courtroom, then you have a serious problem.

I know the following is an extreme example. However, I believe it shows a flaw in free speech absolutism.

Mr. Babble and Mr. Point are both fictional characters in my example.

Mr. Babble is criticising Mr. Point.

Mr. Point gets something that looks like a gun, which may or may not actually be a gun, points it at Mr. Babble, and tells him to stop criticising Mr. Point if he wants to live.

Criticising Mr. Point is speech. Threatening Mr. Babble is also speech.

Maybe the gun is not loaded. Maybe it is not even a gun. However, Mr. Babble does not know. It might be a loaded gun. It is a threat to him.

If Mr. Point is allowed to speak freely, then Mr. Babble is not allowed to speak freely. In this situation, it is impossible for both of them to be allowed to speak freely.

I believe Mr. Point should be censored.

[Peter Damian]

Are you personally going to be deciding what should and should not be censored?

No.

If not, then you have not told us why we should trust the censors.

I was merely arguing against those who claim that censorship is in principle and always wrong.

I do support censorship, but only when I trust the censors.

Then we are wholly in agreement.

Additionally, the position of a free speech idealist is a position I understand and respect.

I do not believe in the censorship of any kind of speech, or view, or expression of belief. I do believe in the censorship of certain images, and certain modes or manners of expressing beliefs.

If you want to write a good argument in favour of censorship, then you should also strive to understand and respect that position.

If you read my arguments above, I said that it is always wrong to suppress the truth. At the same time I also claimed that pornography is not truth, being fake and phoney and artificial and fundamentally a lie.

In my post, which you quoted, I gave the example of Russians censoring homosexuals.

I didn't understand how one could censor a person. One can only censor statements or information (visual or otherwise).

Looking at that long and sad history, it is easy to come to the conclusion that censorship is too dangerous a power to be entrusted to anyone. This is the opinion of many free speech idealists.

I have not advocated anywhere the censorship of any views or statements. This is different from the censorship of ways of presenting views, or mere pornography.

[I snipped the rest of your post, since I do not disagree with that part]

[dtobias]

If you read my arguments above, I said that it is always wrong to suppress the truth. At the same time I also claimed that pornography is not truth, being fake and phoney and artificial and fundamentally a lie.

Oh, then do you join the fundamentalists in wanting to ban the Harry Potter series? After all, Hogwarts doesn't really exist, and magic spells don't really work, so it's all a lie!

[EricBarbour]

The fool's response to every social problem is to BAN, BAN, BAN. And it NEVER works."
Actually, history shows that it works quite effectively.

Perhaps, sometimes a ban will reflect popular opinion positively. But there have been too many examples of edicts and laws passed that were disastrous in the long run. Try the temperance movement in the US in 1919-1920. It was pushed mainly by extreme-conservative religious groups. The result: among other things, for the first time, organized crime managed to get a solid foothold in American society--by providing the demon rum. (War On Drugs, anyone?)

I have a strange little book in my collection called 'Epaminondas', a children's book from the 1950's. It has pictures of black people with big lips, the story line is about little Epaminondas, who is called a 'piccaninny', and who gets into foolish scrapes. His 'mammy' uses all sorts of odd and caricatured language like 'Lordy' and 'you sure am one foolish piccanniny'. It is quite incredible and almost shocking that this was publicly available less than sixty years ago. Now it is censored. Anyone publishing this now would be jailed for race hatred. Good.

I doubt that. Perhaps it might result in a civil lawsuit. Do you realize how many white-supremacist groups continue to operate in America with relative impunity?

Do you know about the many black people who deliberately collect racist ephemera like your book? Should they be prosecuted for race hatred? Why not prosecute you, for saving it?

Ask Matthew Shepard's family about prohibiting hate speech.

I didn't understand how one could censor a person. One can only censor statements or information (visual or otherwise).

Ask David Gerard about that someday. He LOVES to censor people out of existence. (From Wikipedia anyway--the only place where a choad like him can have any real power.)

Detractors of censorship like to imagine there is some historical process going on that can never be reversed, pointing out things like the Hays code, comic books in the 1950's and so on. But there is no historical process. Just changing views about what is acceptable.

That's right. It changes--constantly. One can't expect the "great unwashed" to adopt a consistent policy. They won't.
Someday, mark my words, Americans will develop a fondness for public executions once again. Available live on pay-per-view, just like those "Ultimate Fighting" competitions that are so disgusting, yet are consistently among the top-rated pay-per-view programs......

This post has been edited by EricBarbour: Mon 29th December 2008, 3:45am

[Peter Damian]

Actually in all the furore about censorship and how bad it is, we have missed the key point of the proposal: changing Britain's libel laws to make it cheaper for people to sue the publisher of a website if they have been defamed online.

That is a form of censorship that is more agreeable to Wikipedia Review, I assume?

If you read my arguments above, I said that it is always wrong to suppress the truth. At the same time I also claimed that pornography is not truth, being fake and phoney and artificial and fundamentally a lie.

Oh, then do you join the fundamentalists in wanting to ban the Harry Potter series? After all, Hogwarts doesn't really exist, and magic spells don't really work, so it's all a lie!

No, read what I said. Saying it is wrong to suppress the truth is not the same as saying it is right to suppress the false.

[Random832]

No, read what I said. Saying it is wrong to suppress the truth is not the same as saying it is right to suppress the false.

No, but you started with saying that it was right to suppress things in general, then qualified it by saying it is wrong to suppress the truth.

This post has been edited by Random832: Mon 29th December 2008, 1:04pm

[dtobias]

Actually in all the furore about censorship and how bad it is, we have missed the key point of the proposal: changing Britain's libel laws to make it cheaper for people to sue the publisher of a website if they have been defamed online.

That is a form of censorship that is more agreeable to Wikipedia Review, I assume?

For a lot of people here, no doubt... but I, for one, am already concerned about the chilling effect on free speech British libel law has. It's one of the few areas of law where the U.K. is actually more encouraging of lawsuits than the U.S., and it has resulted in forum shopping where sometimes plaintiffs not even located in the U.K. have sued defendants also not in the U.K. in British courts because the laws are so plaintiff-friendly. Even publishing true facts (which you insist must be protected) can be chilled by this since it can be expensive to prove your innocence, with the law shifting the burden to the defendant unlike in the U.S. where the plaintiff has a heavy burden to prove defamation. How does the proposed law plan on making it even cheaper on the plaintiff, and does anybody have a proposal to make it cheaper for the defendant?