Re: PICS is not censorship

["Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net>]

At 4:18 AM +0000 12/8/96, Robin Whittle wrote:
>I do not believe that PICS is a form of censorship, except for those
>people - children and employees - whose computing environment is
>beyone their direct control and who have to live with a browser that
>filters based on PICS labels.
>
>For much, much more on the Internet content regulation debate, see my
>WWW site.
>
>PICS is basically an excellent idea in my view.  It provides a means
>of child protection which is not censorship of the net or censorship
>of sources of information.  It is also useful for other things.
>
>However I don't beleive it is practical or desirable to insist that
>all people use PICS and a particular value system to label their WWW
>material - there is likely to be no suitable value system which is
>adequate in all situations.

PICS is yet another "sword of Damocles."

While I agree that a completely voluntary PICS system is unexceptionable,
how long can we expect that PICS will remain voluntary? Given the way our
democracies work, when little Johnnie and little Suzie start accessing
"naughty" or "controversial" material, sans PICS, or with "fraudulent PICS"
(e.g., "PICS = G, for all ages, ethnic groups, genders, and emotional
maturities"), how long will it be before governments respond to pressure
and make PICS mandatory?

Now it happens that this probably runs smack into the First Amendment, for
U.S. folks. While there may or may not be valid controls on access to
pornography--a hotly debated issue for many decades and not one I'll get
into here--it is almost a certainty that one is under no compulsion to
categorize and label one's speech or one's writings--modulo the porn issue,
as noted.

A requirement that one categorize and label one's words, based on some
criteria established, is tantamount to making a law about what speech is
acceptable. (Legal bozos may jump in here with proposals that PICS
standards not be enforced as a prior restraint, but that anyone who fails
to PICS label his or her material is potentially liable under civil law...a
distinction without a difference, as I see it.)

So, as long as PICS is fully voluntary, and I mean _fully_ voluntary, civil
libertarians will likely not object. After all, it's just a system _some_
other people (maybe even most) are voluntarily adhering to. However, the
pressure to stop "rogues" from "subverting" the PICS system by either not
using it, or by deliberately monkeywrenching it, will be enormous.

(As an example, there are many folks who, for their various reasons,
believe children _should_ be exposed to sexual material at an early age. If
they label their explicit material as "suitable for all children," who is
to decide they have committed "fraud"? Will their be "PICS courts"
arbitrating? And if so, the system is no longer fully voluntary, at least
in terms of interpreting the standards.)

This is why I fear PICS. Democracy has run amok in the Western world, and
the various "herds" will vote to constrain the freedoms of other members of
the herd.

My Prediction: If PICS is used voluntarily by more than 80% of Net users to
label their Web pages and their writings, etc., then less than 3 years
later PICS will be mandated in the United States and other such countries.

--Tim May

Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside"
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
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