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cyrnel · 01-25-2006, 03:52 PM

Alaska's Senator Stevens is rebounding from his "saddest day"* by going after the filthy underbelly of society. First on the agenda: mandating a pornography rating system. It's important we know the degree of nastiness in our porn.

(It's a crappy, rigged world out there, and while I believe in some layer of protection for the underage from the of less seemly parts of society, I nearly unloaded my cornflakes on the keyboard upon first reading about this.)

Quote:

Alaska senator calls for porn rating system

1/24/2006 10:24:41 AM, by Eric Bangeman

Ratings systems work fairly well, when people pay attention to them and follow the guidelines. People don't take their preschoolers to see R-rated movies like Silence of the Lambs, and you don't buy "Adults Only" videogame titles like Leisure Suit Larry for an eighth-grade graduation present. There comes a point, however, where ratings become pointless. Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) has arrived at such a point with his suggestion that porn sites receive ratings.

I thought it was a joke when I first saw the headline myself, and the punchlines are obvious: "this site is rated A for..." Unfortunately, Sen. Stevens isn't joking. During a committee hearing on the Child Online Protection Act last week, he put the adult entertainment industry on notice that if it didn't come up with a rating system, Congress would do one for them.

As asinine as rating adult content sounds (adults-only means no kids, right?), there is apparently a method behind the madness. The vision is that a rating system will somehow magically turn into a better content filter, enabling parents, schools, and other concerned parties to more easily keep children from looking at smut on the 'Net. So if all porn sites are forced to carry an "XXX" rating, and filtering software is tweaked to detect the ratings, it could conceivably work to block those US-based sites that are forced to use ratings.

There's always a catch, and in this case, it's the same issue faced by every other piece of legislation that tries to legislate the Internet. The online world is no respecter of political boundaries. Even if adult sites located in the US comply with a government-mandated ratings system, ratings-based filters wouldn't do a lick of good when faced with European and Asian porn sites.

The ever-popular ideas of .xxx domains for porn and .kids for child-friendly content was raised as well. ICANN signed off on a new .xxx top-level domain last summer, but then backed down late last year in the face of concerns from some parties that it would just end up resulting in "more opportunities to distribute smut on the Internet."

Keeping racy and violent videogames along with porn away from the eyes of children is a popular theme with politicians these days. What other explanation is there for the continued advocacy and passage of laws that have no chance of passing constitutional muster? Ratings are useful as a guideline as to what kind of content a game or movie contains. They're not meant to function as some kind of a technological barrier separating children from inappropriate content. And they shouldn't—that's the parents' job.

Link

Quote:

Stevens demands online porn rating system

By ELLIOT SMILOWITZ

WASHINGTON, Jan. 20 (UPI) -- In a week in which the Child Online Protection Act is back in the news, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, used a committee hearing Thursday to fire a warning toward the adult entertainment industry.

"My advice to your clients is that you better do it soon or we will mandate it," Stevens told Paul Cambria, counsel of the Adult Freedom Foundation, of developing a rating system for online content.

Cambria, the object of derision from several senators, said his industry is trying to take steps toward keeping minors away from adult entertainment.

"We're going to attempt to come up with solutions in helping the filtering process be successful," Cambria said.

Cambria said that his organization represented "a group of very influential producers and distributors" within the adult industry, but that not every pornographer will go along with AFF standards.

He said that most of what his industry does is fully constitutionally protected.

"It's lawful adult expression that is accepted in America in both the marketplace of ideas and the commercial marketplace," Cambria said.

COPA has been hung up in court since becoming law in 1998, challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others.

The Department of Justice, preparing for the next legal battle, this week subpoenaed Google to provide data that the search engine will not release willingly.

The ACLU contends that COPA is overreaching and that Internet filters do an adequate job of blocking objectionable content from children. The DOJ wants information from search engines to see just how effective filters have been.

Yahoo!, among other search engines, complied with the DOJ's request, which is for information that is general and not user-specific.

Google said in a statement, "Google is not a party to this lawsuit and their demand for information overreaches. We had lengthy discussions with them to try and resolve this, but were not able to and we intend to resist their motion vigorously."

Rebecca Jeschke, spokesperson for the EFF, said Google's stand is "a good statement in the battle for privacy."

She noted the chilling effect that COPA could have.

"One of the fears is that people may not search for information that they want because of Big Brother watching over their shoulder," she said. "It would be a shame if people weren't able to use the Internet the way they would like to."

She noted the EFF Web site offers anonymizing software for users who are concerned for their privacy.

Several senators broached the idea of creating a dot-xxx suffix for pornographic Web sites.

Laura Parsky, deputy assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice, said dot-xxx is not a realistically useful idea.

"There are several issues of practicality and whether it would be effective," Parsky said.

Cambria noted that pornographers could flout the rule by setting up offshore sites. He instead suggested a dot-kids domain, where parents could set their computers to only allow the age-appropriate sites that have a dot-kids suffix.

James Burrus, deputy assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Investigation Division, said that the FBI was doing a good job curbing child pornography within the current legal climate.

"We're doing as best we can," he said. "With additional resources we could expand, but we can work without our present budget."

Burrus said the anti-child pornography effort should be two-pronged.

"In addition to the enforcement side, we think prevention is a key," he said.

James Weaver, a Virginia Tech professor, agreed.

"We must accept that no single solution will be sufficient," Weaver said. "We need multifaceted and innovative approaches to the problem at hand."

Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., used the hearing to revisit a bill she authored last summer that calls for an Internet Safety and Child Protection Trust Fund, which would finance government attempts to crack down on child pornography.

The trust fund would be bankrolled by a 25-percent excise tax on all legal Internet adult entertainment transactions.

"These are not costs that should fall on the backs of ordinary citizens," Lincoln said.

Jeschke said that Lincoln's proposal "seems to impinge upon the rights to possess constitutionally-protected material."

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said that there are problems on the Internet beyond the mere existence of pornography.

"Online pornography is being enabled by spam and by spyware," he said, calling spyware "an insidious problem."

Link

I can't wait to read transcripts of National Porn Classification Board meetings.

*Stevens is Alaska's beloved Senator who a month ago attempted to slip his ANWR-opening provision into the defense appropriations bill. What a rascal.