[1][LINK] Calgary Herald BUSINESS _________________________________________________________________ Managing Your Money [2]Stock and Mutual Fund Quotes [3]Your Investments [4]Family Finance [5]Columns [6]Technology [7]Stock News [8]Search --> [9][LINK] [10]Calgary Herald Online Home Page [Main Menu............] __ Press group refuses to join Internet rating scheme Amy Harmon The Ottawa Citizen A group of major news organizations took the digital high road last week. The group members -- which include Time, CNN, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press -- said they would allow their online editions to be rendered invisible to some Internet users rather than conform to a rating system that screens material dealing with sex or violence. "We support open access to information on the Internet," the group said in a statement. "And we will not rate our sites." That such a proclamation would be necessary, that it would be hashed out in a tense meeting that was closed -- oddly, given its agenda -- to reporters and that it would be considered an important step forward by many of the executives participating is itself a commentary on the uncertain state of the free press on the Internet. But the electronic news publishers left unresolved the more baffling question of how to wedge such a seemingly routine commitment to the U.S. constitution's free-speech guarantees into the architecture of cyberspace and the cultural politics of the United States in the late 1990s. The bind that Internet news providers find themselves in began with the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling earlier this summer that the Communications Decency Act was unconstitutional. The court found that the law, which banned the transmission of indecent material to minors over computer networks, was an overly broad restriction on speech -- in part because existing technology would allow parents to control their children's access to such material. Eager to head off regulation, the online industry expressed enthusiasm for various rating systems at a meeting convened by the Clinton administration after the decision. Microsoft and Netscape, which together control the market for the browsers used to navigate the World Wide Web, agreed to incorporate a standard for ratings in the next release of their software. Theoretically, the standard (known awkwardly as the Platform for Internet Content Selection, or PICS) would allow any entity from Good Housekeeping to the Spice Girls to create a rating system. The browser would recognize all of them, and parents could choose the one that best fit their world view, or at least the lens they wanted their children to see through. But so far, the only major group to use PICS has essentially adapted to the Web a rating system designed for video games. Under the Recreational Software Advisory Council system, sites rate themselves on a scale of one to four for nudity, sex, violence and offensive language. The council, a non-profit association of entertainment and computer companies, performs random checks to make sure sites are representing themselves correctly. Parents can set the level of each category that they wish to screen for, and, significantly, unrated sites are blocked out. So far, about 40,000 of the Web's nearly one million sites have used the system. News sites, however, have for the most part found the ratings either inapplicable or abhorrent. "The rating of content, particularly in the area of violence -- to tell people whether they should or shouldn't read about war in Bosnia -- takes news and turns it into a form of entertainment," said Daniel Okrent, editor of new media at Time. It is perhaps not surprising that an entertainment-based rating system would be incapable of describing the vast quantities and qualities of information on the Internet. Religious organizations and government agencies are also reportedly unhappy with the Recreational Software Advisory Council's limitations. But the problem is more than just a given rating system. It is inherent in the technology -- or at least the purpose it is being used to achieve. Because to screen out certain material, like sexual images, every site has to be labelled in some fashion. "In the real world, you don't know what you're going to get before you get it," said Paul Resnick, one of the creators of PICS. "We're trying to create an online world where you do know what you're going to get, and once you set that as your priority, you have to start classifying things." To accommodate the concerns of news sites, the Recreational Software Advisory Council has proposed a "news" label that would rate by category, not by content. But that raises the question of how and who would define which sites would bear the designation. The ratings group had appealed to the Internet Content Coalition, a loose alliance of online news organizations that organized last week's meeting, to serve as a monitoring body. The idea was denounced by several attendees, but they did not offer a better one. _________________________________________________________________ We welcome your suggestions; send e-mail to [11]online@theherald.southam.ca This web site is a supplement to the Calgary Herald, a daily newspaper published in [12]Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Contents copyright 1996. [ [13]Calgary Herald Home Page ] References 1. http://ads.galaxy.southam.com/OAS/rm/try-it.cgi/www.ch.com/b-mm-m-1.htm 2. http://www.southam.com/calgaryherald/cgi/finance/stocks&funds/overview.pl?paper=calgaryherald 3. http://www.southam.com/calgaryherald/cgi/newsnow.pl?nkey=ch&file=/business/investments/investments.html 4. http://www.southam.com/calgaryherald/cgi/newsnow.pl?nkey=ch&file=/business/familyfinance/familyfinance.html 5. http://www.southam.com/calgaryherald/cgi/newsnow.pl?nkey=ch&file=/business/columns/columns.html 6. http://www.southam.com/calgaryherald/cgi/newsnow.pl?nkey=ch&file=/business/technology/technology.html 7. http://www.southam.com/calgaryherald/cgi/newsnow.pl?nkey=ch&file=/business/markets/marketsmenu.html 8. http://www.southam.com/calgaryherald/cgi/newsnow.pl?nkey=ch&file=/business/search/searchch.html 9. http://ads.galaxy.southam.com/OAS/rm/try-it.cgi/www.ch.com/b-mm-b-1.htm 10. http://www.southam.com/calgaryherald 11. mailto:online@theherald.southam.ca 12. http://www.southam.com/calgaryherald/almanac/almanac.html 13. http://www.southam.com/calgaryherald