Tim, if you think that no web site are unambiguously inappropriate for children, then you are in a state of denial. However, while I don't expect to change your mind on that point, let me set the record straight on your note. I don't favor RSACi or other PICS systems. I think these are a mistake, and should be resisted. However, I do favor a far less ambitious and less informative system (less is more, as far as I am concerned), which involves a simple, single voluntary tag, selected by the web page publisher, at their discretion, of the nature of <META NAME="Rating" CONTENT="adult"> I think this is quite different from RSACi or SafeSurf's system, for the reasons mentioned by my missive to Jonah. Jamie <love@cptech.org> Tim May wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 12:08:32 -0400 (EDT) From: James Love <love@cptech.org> To: Jonah Seiger <jseiger@cdt.org> Cc: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>, fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu, chris_barr@cnet.com Subject: Re: CDT, RSACi, and "public service" groups
Jonah, I think the problems with the RSACi rating system are pretty obvious, and I also think it should be obvious that *any* rating system that would aspire to rate all or even a significant number of web
At 9:16 AM -0700 7/25/97, Declan McCullagh wrote: pages
would be a bad thing. That said, it seems to me that there exist web pages that are unambiguously inappropriate for children. Has CDT rejected
"Unambiguously inappropriate for children"?
No such thing. I can think of many, many things which many consider inappropriate for children (what age?), but which others, including myself, consider perfectly appropriate. I see no particular need to recite examples here.
Even with "obscenity," whatever that is (I seem not to know it when I see it, which would make me a poor Supreme Court Justice), that there are obscenity prosecutions and trials would seem to indicate that such materials are not "unambigously obscene."
The "mandatory voluntary" PICS/RSACi ratings, with penalties (presumably) for "mislabeling," just are another form of content control.
If they are truly voluntary, then people are free to say that a nudist site is appropriate for children, or not to label at all...the null label is just another label.
(Nudist sites, in realspace as well as cyberspace, are a classic example of the difficulty of judging "appropriate for children." Some jurisdicitions are attempting to legislate against children being in nudist camps. They would even claim that children seeing adults and other children nude is "unambiguosly inappropriate." Others disagree. So, how would their web site be labeled?)
The notion that something is "unambiguously" inapproprate, obscene, heretical, treasonous, whatever, is a flawed concept.
--Tim May
There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."
-- _______________________________________________________ James Love | Center for Study of Responsive Law P.O. Box 19367 | Washington, DC 20036 | 202.387.8030 http://www.cptech.org | love@cptech.org