************ From: leavitt@webcom.com Subject: FC: CNET editor endorses self-labeling, "news site" standard (fwd) To: chris_barr@cnet.com Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 06:53:49 -0700 (PDT) Cc: declan Chris, What is your response to DeClan's comments? My own is that restricting use of the labeling system to "bona-fide" news sites is a self-serving action, consistent with a desire to create barriers to entry and establish restraint of trade, and would likely result in an organization co-opted by industry leaders, like other "regulatory" institutions. Furthermore, I think generic endorsement of the validity of rating systems, and of collaboration with government in encouraging them and other companies in making not having them result in invisibility (instead of merely presenting people with the option to choose filtered or unfiltered content from a search engine, perhaps based on a browser header or equivalent communication of intent/desire), is very threatening to the integrity of the 'net and free speech. In fact, the whole mania for ratings, the V-chip, tv ratings, etc. is extremely alarming to me. Look at how the Hayes' code crippled Hollywood, and the entire industry for decades. Ratings and censorship, etc., are very damaging to creativity and freedom of speech... media that endorse and accept them inevitably wind up being corrupted and failing to realize their potential. Ratings endorse (and provide a means for) the basic impulse to impose ones views about the appropriateness of content on another. Look at the nut cases parading around our local libraries, protesting that "Dangerous Addictive Materials" are being made available to children because the library refuses to install filtering software (every implementation of which I've heard about is horribly unselective and politically/culturally suspect). They reflect the same impulse that lead an elected member of Congress to state that "the Constitution is a barrier to religious freedom" (something which days later, still shocks me) since it prohibits granting religion access to state resources, in acknowledgement of the preferential treatment likely to be given to particular branches (and the inevitable conflicts that would result). Do you really want to get in bed with this kind of mentality? Is it appropriate for a journalistic institution to be making these kinds of judgements? I don't see the L.A. Times providing age and appropriate guidelines at the beginning of every story. The image of a child running down the road, skin burning with Napalm, is horrifying, and potentially traumatic, to a child. At the same time, how many careers, how many idealists and crusaders have developed as the result of seeing the unvarished truth, at a young age? Do you really want to be responsible for enabling a parent to deny their child the potential for this transformative event? Isn't there a conflict of interest here? What if you find that 40% of your content gets blocked by various filters, and the organization down the street has 5% of their content blocked, and as a result, is making more money that you are? Won't this produce a race to the bottom, a tendency towards "palatable", generically unoffensive content that is not affected by your self-imposed filters? Would a writer or editor whose interests/style/topics of choice result in 80% of his or her articles falling under broad layers of your filter have the same success as a writer/editor who wrote about nothing but happy puppy rescue stories? The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that journalists and media have no business involving themselves in any way shape or fashion with rating of content. This is a formula for pablum... network news is already bad enough. And your proposal, desire, etc., would impose this requirement on an entire industry. No "bona-fide" journalist would be free of this conflict of interest. Every article, report, photo, would be influnced by the question "how will this be affected by the filters... will I be able to sell this if it is... will I reach the audience I wish to reach with my message/story, if I present it this way". Is that what you really want? Regards, Thomas Leavitt [ Jesus, DeClan, this is far worse than I thought it would be when I started out writing this letter. ]
Since the Supreme Court said the online world should be as free as print, and no self-labeling system exists for magazines or newspapers, why should the Net be any different? Why isn't the Net community opposing "mandatory voluntary" self-labeling systems as staunchly as newspapers and magazines would fight a similar requirement? It's best to ask these questions of Christopher Barr (chris_barr@cnet.com), editor in chief of CNET, who endorsed such a proposal in his column below.
Barr says that he wants to ensure "that only real news organizations claim [the] privilege" of rating as news sites with RSACnews. But who decides what's a news site? Is CNET? pathfinder.com? epic.org, which the government treats as a news site when responding to FOIA requests? The Drudge Report? How about the NAMBLA News Journal?
My report on the possible perils of such systems is at:
http://pathfinder.com/netly/opinion/0,1042,1173,00.html
-Declan
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-- WebCom (sm) Thomas Leavitt--leavitt@webcom.com Voice: (408) 457-9671 x101 Executive Vice President WebCom Home Page <URL:http://www.webcom.com/>