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Re: ALERT: PICS Rules, not OK!


In article <[email protected]>, Seth Finkelstein wrote:
>In article <[email protected]>,
>Richard Letts  <[email protected]> wrote:
>>In uk.net Paul L. Allen <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> With PICSRULES they can tell ISPs, say, that all web traffic (see
>>> qualification above) must go through the ISPs proxy (some ISPs would
>>> probably like to make their routers enforce that anyway for bandwidth
>>> reasons) and that the proxy should use PICSRULES that the govt specify.
>>
>>Replace PICSRULES with 'English language specification' in the sentance
>>above.
>
>	Doesn't work, because there is no standard "English language
>specification" for content restrictions on proxy servers. This "PICS
>is like English" bit is getting really tiresome, if PICS were really
>like English, then there would be no need to construct such a special
>system in the first place! The fact that there is a need for such a
>language *designed* and *optimized* for censorship should give the lie
>to this comparison.

Right. I must be missing something here:

PICS is designed to label information under a variety of criteria. The stated
reason is that we want to "protect the children and those with frail minds" 
from "bad" information. Of course the definition of "bad" information varies
from person to person.

Let's assume PICS doesn't exist. Instead there's a single flag which can go on
a web page, USENET post, text file, FTP site, or whatever which denotes
whether the material is "suitable for children." I go off and publish bomb-making
information. Since that material is available in a high school chemistry textbook
with a little synthesis on the reader's part and I don't believe in censorship
of information, especially based on age, I mark it "suitable for children." How
is anybody going to stop me? I've expressed my opinion. And, after all, SingleFlag 
isn't for censorship, so theoretically nobody can do anything about it.

Of course people won't like this. Further if a bunch of people do that SingleFlag
becomes completely and totally useless. The only ways to enforce it are to sue me,
throw me in jail, or blacklist me from ISPs. In all three cases censorship is in
effect. In the first two cases people scream to the government <Exon> "We *already*
censor or rate content on the public airwaves, in computer games, on TV, and at
the movies. Why not on the Internet too?" </Exon>, and that's assuming that such
a law isn't in place already.

So say SingleFlag doesn't exist. Instead we have MultiFlag which rates content on
the basis of sexual content, violence, language, and nudity. Again, because I don't
believe in censoring content, I rate my material as "no sex, no violence, no lude
language, and no nudity." And again, the only way to enforce it is to sue me,
throw me in jail, or blacklist me from ISPs. And, again, in all three cases I'm
censored.

And if all the ISPs censor USENET feeds and HTTP connections, nothing keeps me from
playing all kinds of games with TCP/IP (or making my own protocol entirely) and 
distributing information that way. But then I suppose we have to ban that too,
since after all it has no use except to "corrupt the youth of the world" and to
espouse politically incorrect thoughts.

Now let's say that does happen. I go off and post my pornography anonymously, or
stick it on an Eternity server. Well, I guess we'd better ban those pesky anonymous
remailers now, right? After all, who needs anonymity unless they have something
to hide, right? "Good users are known users," we should have digital signatures
required on everything (and they aren't just any digital signature -- that would
defeat the purpose. We need some kind of central certification authority!), and
ban those politically incorrect opinions -- after all, we have the framework, right?

Posted anonymously. After all, this is politically incorrect and I wouldn't want to
get on somebody's ban list, right?