Voluntary Mandatory Self-Ratings and Limits on Speech

[Tim May]

On Thursday, August 16, 2001, at 10:38 AM, Sampo Syreeni wrote:

> On Wed, 15 Aug 2001, Tim May wrote:
>> Given the notion that a local community may ban certain items because
>> they violate the "community standards" of the community, one is left
>> with the inescapable conclusion that a local community could also ban
>> Mormonism, or Catholicism, or any religious practice they deemed to be
>> violative of their community standards.
>
> Not really. Most of the anti-porn crusaders base their rhetoric on some
> vague idea of harm caused by the material. With most religions, you 
> cannot
> easily draw the conclusion that they are harmful to the community. And 
> where
> some people think you can, as is the case with Satanism and the lot, 
> one can
> see that the public opinion already (mistakenly) sides with regulating 
> them.

You're missing my general point. If you prefer that I not use 
"religion," I could just as easily use an example where certainly people 
of some community think that some otherwise-constitutional practice is 
"harmful."

I shant spend my time here constructing examples. My point was the issue 
of "community standards" vs. a constitution which stipulates rights and 
places limits on government, not the issue of whether in fact Judaism is 
or is not more dangerous than "Debbie Does Dallas."

(I know folks who think Judaism is in fact far worse, and who hope and 
pray for the day when 4 million Jews in Occupied Palestine are rounded 
up and liquidated. I take no position on this, except to think it deeply 
ironic that Jews frrom America, Ireland, Denmark, Argentina, etc. all 
decided to go to Palestine and kick Arabs out of land they have lived on 
for more than a thousand years, on the bizarre grounds that a) some 
desert mystic claimed that YHWH gave this piece of land to some tribe, 
b) that Jews in Argentina whose ancestors were mainly Spanish, European, 
etc. need their own space to do their thing, and c) that the "collective 
guilt" of Americans for somehow being mostly Aryans as Hitler was means 
that some "sand niggers" in Palestine should be kicked off their land in 
favor of some yentas from Brooklyn. It will serve the Jew right if he is 
again liquidated, at least the ones in Occupied Palestine.)

>> We talk a lot here about the Constitution. Strange for two reasons:
>> first, this is an international list, second, many of us are not 
>> exactly
>> supporters of government in general.
>
> I dunno. Constitutions are meant to legislate the state where the rest 
> of
> the law legislates the state's subjects.

Not sure what you mean, but if I understand you, I strongly disagree. 
The U.S. Constitution is in fact a series of limitations on what 
government may do...including what it may due to its "subjects."

The notion that the U.S. is a "majority rules" state is incorrect, at 
least in terms of what the Framers and the Constitution say.

>> None of the proposals for "voluntary self-labelling" are actually about
>> any kind of voluntarism except in the Orwellian meaning of the term.
>
> Naturally, but why not embrace and extend? The fact is, one of the 
> reasons a
> good part of the CDA was struck down in the SC is the existence of
> self-labelling technology. The next time around, it'll probably still 
> be a
> good idea to have true, voluntary self-labellers around, if not else, 
> then
> to show off that "self-labelling works".

As Declan noted pithily, a slippery slope.

We don't need a proposal for "voluntary self-labelling"...if it's 
voluntary, people can already do it. In fact, they already do. Of 
course, what people are now doing is not at all what the proponents of 
"voluntary self-labelling" apparently intend to be the voluntary labels.

We all know where the slide down the slippery slope will take us.

>> As we discussed several years ago when the CDA was being debated, there
>> are profound problems with self-labelling. Some people will self-label
>> "incorrectly" for various reasons. Much debated several years ago.
>
> Yes, I've gone through the archives on that, and plenty of other 
> sources as
> well. Still, most of the critique is about why self-labelling will 
> never be
> perfect. It does not render the idea completely useless -- I think of 
> labels
> as metadata, some of which can be useful even if not perfect for any 
> given
> use, filtering or finding hardcore S&M.

Truly voluntary self-labelling, without imposed standards, is IPSO FACTO 
what we already have, right? If someone voluntary says their site is 
"hot" or chooses to say nothing, this is "voluntary."

Right?

>
> As for misrating, that's a problem of reputation. If you can solve it 
> in an
> anonymous economy, you can certainly solve it in a non-anonymous rating
> context.
>
Actually, this is a separate topic worthy of more discussion that simply 
saying "you can certain solve it in a non-anonymous rating context."

By the way, what does anonymous vs. non-anonymous have to do with truly 
voluntary self-ratings, that is, whatever anonymous or non-anonymous 
agents _say_?

A voluntary system means an uncoerced system...this point explodes in 
too many obvious directions for me to even try to write about here, 
given the low level of interest in the discussion the two of us have 
been having.

--Tim May