Tim May wrote:
After reading several of James Love's posts, I think we are either just talking at cross purposes, or that he hasn't thought carefully about the constitutional issues.
Tim, on the one hand, you seem to be saying that you have constitutional rights, which would make the government's enforcement of labeling systems illegal. On the other hand, you seem to express concern that the government will succeed at making such labeling mandatory. I'm not sure which case you believe to be true, or if you are still unsure how courts will rule on this issue down the road.
We have already seen this in the SurfWatch and KiddySafe filter debates, where the inclusion of certain words is enough to get a site blocked. (Understand that I am not arguing against KiddySafe's "rights" to do this, only noting that words are clearly as important to some folks as images.)
The AI programs like Surfwatch have to rely upon text, because they aren't smart enough to read the images. But more generally, the whole censorware software industry is feeding off the inefficiency of present adult labeling systems. You actually need a censorware program to filter stuff that is already voluntarily labeled by the porn sites, because the *current* voluntary system doesn't work very well (it is not standardized enough). Regarding Huck Finn or any number of other disputes where various groups seek to force adult labels (or the more complex RSACi or Safesurf labels) on a wider array of information products, it would seem that these problems are going to simmer along, as they have in the past. But the real problem comes when the society reaches a critical mass to do something, particularly at the national or international level, when the Internet is concerned. I doubt that Huck Finn is going to be the defining issue of this debate.
Ah, you admit that the "voluntary" labeling will likely become not-so-voluntary.
At various points, things are more or less voluntary. I run about 12 Internet discussion lists. Most lists are open and unmoderated. I have never removed someone from one of the lists, or established "rules" for list behavior. At one point earlier this year, a member of one list was acting pretty strange, and was very hostile, trying to drive everyone off the list who he didn't approve of. Off list harassment, online insults, very repetitive posts, etc. He kept pointing out that there were no rules that would require him to act more civil, and that he was free to do whatever he wanted on the list. This was true, at the time. But after a long period of trying to deal with this, it was becoming less true. I was getting fed up, and ready to make some damn rules, and boot him off the list if he didn't follow them. Turned out that he backed off before it came to this. My point is that if people who use the Internet make the occasional effort to be civil, to respect others, etc.... then it isn't necessary to make very many rules. But when you have endless commercial spamming, or make no effort to make it easy to filter porn from k-12 classrooms, then you may end up with more rules that you might want. In this sense, rules will be result of a failure to solve problems informally. Voluntary is also something that means different things to different people. I try not to litter, because I like to live in a clean environment. I reframe from all sorts of behavior in public places, not only because of legal sanctions, but also to be considerate to others who are using the same space. I think that the cyber porn debate would be more of less ended if there was an agreement of the standard meta tag for adult material. But I don't see this happening. The debate is so polarized, and people are trying to prove so many different things, that it seems unlikely that there would be much of a constituency for what I am proposing. For one thing, I think there is a big difference between a simple rating=adult system, used on tiny number of porn sites, and the more ambitious RSACi or other PICS systems. It seems to me that you think they are basically equivalent (trying not to put words in your mouth). Could be that this whole debate is much ado about nothing, since nobody wants to to use the RSACi system, and maybe the incompetence of those who want to be rating bureaus will delay action on this for years. Jamie _______________________________________________________ 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