Third party rating services NOT self-rating (was Re: Yet another self-labeling system (do you remember -L18?))

[Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>]

James Love <love@cptech.org> writes:
> Paul Bradley wrote:
> > > [Pissing, Fisting and beastiality!]
> > >
> > > 55%   http://adult.mdc.ca/free/xratedp.html     (Size 4.5K)
> > 
> > We can clearly come to no agreement here as I cannot see any material
> > listed above which would be harmful in any way to a viewer, child or
> > not.
> 
>    Paul. Do you *have* any children?  Jamie

I have children.  My views are generally liberal.  I could probably
come up with a few things I think would not be appropriate
viewing/reading at this stage (4 year old?)

However, and this appears to be a point being missed here, it is
pretty much irrelevant what I think should be appropriate for my
children, because the person you are proposing to rate the site is the
site's author.  It is inevitable that the site's author will have
different views about what is suitable for children than any
particular parent.  Pick 10 people, you'll have 10 different sets of
what is suitable.

Even if government were to insist that everyone self rated, it would
be damn near meaningless.

If you as a parent are too lazy to observe what your children read,
you could use a third party rating service.  I believe that there are
several on the market right now.

You should attempt to evaluate the rating services to see what they
block.

Perhaps you would go on the advice of a ratings service rating
service.  Perhaps you would obtain demonstration versions and form
your own opinion.

Clearly government mandated self-rating is moving towards thoughtcrime.

Third party rating services are services.  If you don't like the
service, don't buy it, or start up your self in competition.

Now where does the need for government come into this picture?

General rhetorical question: indeed why have governments at all?

Adam
-- 
Have *you* exported RSA today? --> http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/

print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<>
)]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`