Re: Yet another self-labeling system (do you remember -L18?)

[Tim May <tcmay@got.net>]

At 11:05 AM -0700 7/26/97, James Love wrote:
>William H. Geiger III wrote:
>> What is your proposal for those who would "mislable" their sites?
>
>    People who "mislabel"?   I am only proposing a tag for rating=adult.
>I guess someone could put a rating=adult tag on a page that didn't need
>it, but who would care?  Not me.
>
>   Suppose on the other hand that someone had a page that people thought
>should have a rating=adult tag.  Well, the person who didn't use the tag
>would just have to deal with whatever crap you would get for not
                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
You mean like imprisonment and fines?

It is this "crap" and "consequences" we are talking about.

There is no requirement that one's writings be labelled as "adult."
Leastwise, I've read a lot of stuff in my life, and very rarely (if ever)
have I seen much of it labelled as "adult" material.


>labeling.  If you thought your site had some constitutional right not to
>label the content adult, then just don't label it.  I really don't think
>this will be that big an issue, but I don't know (no one knows).  I
>think that a significant percent of porn sites would use the
>rating=adult label in a second if they thought it would get people off
>their back.  Those that didn't use the label could just put up with the
>consequences, whatever they are.  I would expect (and hope) that the
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Such as the multiple years in prison that each of the Thomases got?

>rating=adult label would be used infrequently, mostly for sites
>involving explicit sexual images.  I don't think a rating=adult label
>would be much of a barrier to teenagers who wanted access to this type
>of material, since one could download a browsers in a few minutes that
>wouldn't block the data.  But like a childproof top on aspirin, it would
>work pretty well with pre-teens, I imagine.

The utter ineffectuality of an "adult" label stopping the behavior which
the politicians want stopped is exactly why such a lukewarm proposal as
yours--no offense intended--is a poor idea. The next step will be a
mandatory rating, with penalties for "mislabelling."

(Again, just what is "mislabelling"? If I feel all children should be
exposed to sexual materials, or "Huckleberry Finn," whose standards am I
supposed to use if not my own?)



>      Are you calling me a lazy parent?  What is the obligation of a
>parent?  To supervise a kids web browsing?  Please, I think kids are
>better off with more privacy, and less parental (and teacher)
>supervision when they browse the web.

Fine. But it is constitutional to require others to label their writings or
utterances in any way.

This means that parents cannot count on any labelling system to protect
their children from finding sexual material, atheistic material, drug
advocacy material, bestiality advocacy material, and recruitments for
homosexuality.

(For the sake of this argument I'm avoiding inclusion of actual images of
things like bestiality and the like, as these may or may not run afoul of
the "obscenity" laws. Not that I support obscenity laws. But all of the
other things are mostly protected under the First Amendment, and labelling
is not required.)

As long as ratings are completely and full uncoerced, fine. It's the "crap"
and "consequences" you speak of that worry me. If one of the pieces of crap
is  a $100K civil fine for mislabelling, or one of the consequences is 5
years in jail, then it ain't a voluntary system, is it?

--Tim May

There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."