CNET editor endorses self-labeling, "news site" standard

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

Since the Supreme Court said the online world should be
as free as print, and no self-labeling system exists
for magazines or newspapers, why should the Net be any
different? Why isn't the Net community opposing
"mandatory voluntary" self-labeling systems as
staunchly as newspapers and magazines would fight a
similar requirement? It's best to ask these questions
of Christopher Barr (chris_barr@cnet.com), editor in
chief of CNET, who endorsed such a proposal in his
column below.

Barr says that he wants to ensure "that
only real news organizations claim [the] privilege"
of rating as news sites with RSACnews. But who decides
what's a news site? Is CNET? pathfinder.com? epic.org,
which the government treats as a news site when responding
to FOIA requests? The Drudge Report? How about the NAMBLA
News Journal?

My report on the possible perils of such systems is at:

  http://pathfinder.com/netly/opinion/0,1042,1173,00.html

-Declan

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http://www.cnet.com/Content/Voices/Barr/072197/index.html

rating online content can work (7/21/97)

With the Communications Decency Act vanquished once
and for all, it's time to explore alternatives for
protecting our youth from inappropriate online
content. As an independent content provider, CNET's
position has always been to give the power to the
reader (or the reader's parents) and not the
government, to decide which sites have acceptable
content. And now, President Clinton has been forced to
come around to our way of thinking. After initially
supporting the CDA, Clinton is recommending that sites
rate themselves and that parents use filtering
software to set limits for their children.

Self rating systems allow sites to attach labels to
themselves to indicate what kind of content the sites
contain. The labels are interpreted via the Platform
for Internet Content Selection (PICS) technology
endorsed by the World Wide Web Consortium standards
body. The PICS technology allows any group, such as
the PTA or a church, to set content standards that can
then be adopted by individual Web sites. There are
already several rating services such as the
Recreational Software Advisory Council on the Internet
(RSACi), Safe For Kids, and SafeSurf. Early on, CNET
supported the RSACi rating system and chose to rate
both CNET.COM and NEWS.COM.

Controlling content takes two things: content-ratings
and filtering-software. A number of software programs,
including Cyber Patrol, Cyber Sentry, Internet
Explorer, and SurfWatch, already support PICS and can
read the rating labels. Such software blocks out any
sites that don't correspond to the ratings you've
selected. For instance, if your rating system says
that images with partial nudity are inappropriate, the
software won't load those pages.

To be sure, filtering- or blocking-software is not
without limitations. A number of groups, including the
American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic
Privacy Information Center, support the use of such
software on principle, but they also point out that
filtering software can be used to block any kind of
content, not just sexually explicit material, and so
it can end up restricting free speech. These groups
are also fearful that a foreign government could use
filtering software to control what content its
citizens can access. These are just a few of the
thorny issues that the technology introduces.    
Nevertheless, we at CNET feel that content ratings are
the best alternative, and we'll continue to rate
ourselves using the RSACi guidelines. But we also feel
that different rating systems are necessary to cover
different types of sites. For example, sites that
carry news stories cannot be accurately rated under
the RSACi standards. These were created to allow
parents to block sites with nudity, sex, violence, and
offensive language. But what happens when you visit a
news site that publishes pictures from a war zone
depicting death and destruction? Or a legitimate news
story about an online scam involving pornography
sites? Microsoft faces this dilemma: its Internet
Explorer supports PICS but several of the rating
systems unintentionally block access to its news site,
MSNBC.

Because of situations like these, we feel that bona
fide news sites should be subject to different
criteria. To that end, CNET is also a founding member
of the Internet Content Coalition, which seeks to
establish ratings for news sites and to make sure that
only real news organizations claim this privilege.
Users can then choose to allow access to news while
selecting another rating system like RSACi that
prohibits access to other kinds of sites. We intend to
use the Internet Content Coalition's guidelines to
rate NEWS.COM, while other of our sites, such as
GAMECENTER.COM, will be rated using more restrictive
systems.  

The success of any self-rating and filtering system
depends on how well it works and how it's accepted and
used. What's your opinion? Do you use filtering
software? Should news sites have a separate rating?
Email me and I'll put the responses in my next column.

Christopher Barr is editor in chief of CNET.

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