Re: KidCode: Next steps

On Tue, 20 Jun 1995, Darren New wrote:

> > It gives puritanian legislators a pretty good chance to require censoring,
> 
> The puritanian legislators already require censoring.
> 
> > though. It makes it rather easy to require filtering as information passes
> > state borders.
> 
> No more than naming the newsgroup alt.sex does, and I don't see that 
> happening. What about all the unrated pages? What about when I go from my 
> machine to the machines where I used to commute to work (same LATA, mind 
> you), and it goes thru some 8 other states including California?
> 
> I honestly think your mechanism for automatically or semi-automatically 
> editting out bits of documents that are advertisements is much more 
> likely to turn into a censorship tool than a voluntary naming convention.
> 
> > To enforce KidCode means that there is a legal ruling saying that
> > a KidCode convention should be followed for any on-line document.
> 
> That's silly. OK, so what does it mean to say a KidCode convention must 
> be followed? That every URL in the country be broken? That's not how 
> people write laws. They say "You won't put filthy stuff where the 
> community doesn't like it."  They don't say "You should include the 
> string KidCode and the the age the material is appropriate for." Besides, 
> if they do this, it's censorship, and the Supreme Court has already 
> struck that down repeatedly.
> 
> > Your choice. US or any other.
> 
> You miss my point. What I'm looking for is a single example of the 
> statute that you fear.  I think if you try to actually write one, you'll 
> see that it'll either be trivial to get around or it'll be applicable 
> regardless of whether you label your stuff or not.
> 
> > Because this might vary between cultures, subcultures, and individuals.
> > It would be a more ellegant solution to make it possible to adapt
> > the rating dependent on the preferences of these, rather than by some
> > local legislation or tradition where the content may be located.
> 
> I thought you were against mandatory labelling anyway.
> 
> > Well, several places in the world, Playboy isn't on the top of the shelves.
> 
> Then people in those cultures won't be running KidCode-enabled browsers.
> 
> > Some places it is not available,
> 
> Well, it is now.  Try http://www.playboy.com.
> 
> > other places you might find that even
> > more "elaborate" material are freely accessible on the frontmost shelves
> > for everybody. Some parents might also be more liberal - or restrictive.
> 
> And that's why making up 3rd-party lists of "good" and "evil" sites isn't 
> going to work too well.
> 
> > Do you think that will stop content providers to locate outside the
> > legislation of their market? There are exiting times to come...
> 
> My point is, what makes you think that content-providers are going to be 
> the ones going to jail?  The guy in CA who got nailed in TN certainly 
> didn't get arrested in his own jurisdiction.
> 
> > No. Some of those in charge would use whatever mean they have available to
> > control others. Do you want to be their helping hand?
> 
> Nope. That's why I wrote KidCode. I don't understand why you seem to want 
> both a more elaborate system for filtering *and* not do anything at all 
> to aid in filtering.
> 
> > I am not a legislator. I believe that you, with your attention to detail,
> > might be a more appropriate person to write a proposed legislation.
> 
> That's my point. Legislation about censorship isn't going to mention 
> KidCode. It had to go to the supreme court just to find out what words 
> were too naughty for television. Legislation about censorship isn't even 
> going to be web-specific *or* internet specific. It's going to talk about 
> children and "filthy language" and "electronic communications media."
> 
> Anyway, until someone comes up with something other than FUD, in the form 
> of an actual example statute that makes KidCode bad and is even 10% 
> enforcable, I'm no longer going to comment on the evils of letting 
> legislators get their hands on such censorious technology as putting the 
> appropriate age on a URL.  Heck, next thing you know, they'll want 
> magazines like Playboy to put the word "adult" on the spine of the magazine!
> 
> > Just remember to add a backdoor, in case it actually gets implemented :-)
> 
> KidCode is voluntary. Use of a KidCode browser is voluntary.  Viola: 1 
> back door.
>    --Darren
> 

Urb

Urban LeJeune lejeune@acy.digex.net    W2DEC    609-294-0320
Author of the "Mosaic & Web EXplorer" 500 fun pages plus a CD-ROM
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Received on Tuesday, 20 June 1995 08:55:47 UTC