Re: [rant] A thought on filters and the V-Chip

[Rich Graves <llurch@networking.stanford.edu>]

On Fri, 26 Jan 1996, jim bell wrote:

> At 11:56 AM 1/26/96 -0800, Alan Olsen wrote:
> >[Not Perry(tm) approved -- Skip of this offends you]
> >
> >I am waiting for someone to come out with a product that will modify the
> >v-ship (or the various internet "protection" tools) in such a way that it
> >scans *FOR* pornography.
> >
> >Porn is big business.  You would think that people would pay for a way to
> >sort through all of that non-smuttiness and just "get to the good stuff".  I
> >also imagine that as soon as such a product appears, the censors will scream
> >bloody murder.
>...
> On the other hand, this would be an EXCELLENT "argument" to bring in front
> of a Congressional committee considering the adoption of any V-chip type
> proposal.  Once they discover that a ratings system could be used for the
> diametrically opposite reasons of their reason for having it in the first
> place, they'll try to modify their proposal to prevent this.  
> 
> If we're lucky, this'll have the effect of killing the whole concept of
> government-sponsored (required?) V-chip-type technology.
> 
> OTOH, I agree with other posters who think that truly voluntary content
> selection would be an excellent addition to television:  In effect, an
> automatic, programmable TV-Guide search engine.

While it's hard to find a general theme here, I think I disagree. Anyway, 
I don't think that even truly voluntary content selection is a good idea, 
because it reduces art to numbers, which is wrong.

Rating the amount of sexual content tells you nothing when comparing 
D.H. Lawrence, the Marquis de Sade, Showgirls, and Playboy.

Rating the amount of violence tells you nothing when comparing All Quiet 
on the Western Front, Repo Man, Faces of Death, and Platoon.

Rating the amount of political content tells you nothing when comparing 
JFK and The Green Berets.

Rating the amount of religious content tells you nothing when comparing 
Jesus Christ Superstar, The Last Temptation of Christ, and The Argument.

You shouldn't try to engineer art.

Classification systems lead to a balkanization that diminishes the common
culture. I think it was good the way network TV was limited to the lowest
common denominator, but with variety. People who wanted something with a
little more flavor than WonderBread [tm] were able to find it, but they
did have to look, which often involved *meeting other people* with common
interests, and they still tuned in to Ed Sullivan to see what the Joneses
were watching. Give people 1024 bits' worth of channels to choose from,
classified by arbitrary criteria involving no human contact, and you get
something entirely different. I'm not sure what's happening now, but I
don't think I like it. 

-rich