Re: KidCode: Next steps

At 3:34 AM 6/19/95, Nathaniel Borenstein wrote:
>Excerpts from mail: 19-Jun-95 Re: KidCode: Next steps Terje
>Norderhaug@Xerox.c (3253*)
>
>> However, why should we faciliate the activities of the Christian Coalition?
>> [...]

>Politics.  That's how.  I don't like it, but it's a fact of life.

>The reality, for those of us in the United States, is that these groups
>have a tremendous amount of power.  Look at the overwhelming majority by
>which the Senate passed the Exon amendment.  I don't think of this as
>technology that makes the CC's job easier.  I think of it as technology
>that can give the middle-of-the-road people -- who will ultimately make
>the political decisions -- a non-censorious alternative in between
>"anything goes" and all-out censorship.

In other words, you provide the legislators with some technology that
they can decide to enforce instead of censorship. Suddenly, an
interim quick solution might became the legislated standard. Thus it
is somewhat contrasting when you write:

In message <AjrmBBH0Eyt5J4brpl@nsb.fv.com>, Nathaniel Borenstein writes:
> The KidCode proposal is a proposal for standardizing some URL naming
> conventions, not an assertion that this is the ONLY way to do it,
> the RIGHT way to do it, or anything like that.  As it happens, I
> believe that the URL approach is the QUICKEST way to get a 75%
> solution in place, and I believe that time is of the essence.

The quickest way to get a solution in place should not necesarrily be
the way that is legislated. This is not the moment to provide legislators
with some simple quick solution they can embrace.

At 3:34 AM 6/19/95, Nathaniel Borenstein wrote:
>If I thought that by ignoring the censors we could make them go away, or
>make them irrelevant, I wouldn't be bothering with this effort.  But the
>reality right now is that, in the US, anything posted on the Internet is
>already liable to be held obscene by the standards of the most
>narrow-minded jurisdiction on the net.

That is, if you limit the net to the US. However, smart content providers
might just move the content to a more liberal country, and it is basically
outside US jurisdiction. No reason to take any chances with what the
CC might convince the authorities to do. Do I see a growing business in
the Netherlands, Denmark, and ceratin Asian countries...

>The situation is already bad &
>could get a lot worse.  In today's America, if the only choices is
>between A) a total lack of even voluntary restrictions and B) ham-handed
>censorship, the latter will almost certainly win.

May be censorship of content providers has already lost, given the global
nature of this medium. However, voluntarly restrictions can't hurt, just
as long as they don't become legislation. What would you do to avoid that
it does?

-- Terje <Norderhaug.CHI@xerox.com>
   <URL:http://www.ifi.uio.no/~terjen/>

Received on Monday, 19 June 1995 14:53:59 UTC