Re: 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>]

Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com> writes:
> On Thu, Jul 31, 1997 at 01:45:15AM +0100, Adam Back wrote:
> [...]
> > Even if government were to insist that everyone self rated, it would
> > be damn near meaningless.
> 
> I think you are seriously underestimating the usefullness of 
> self-rating.  Yes, indeed, there are people who will spoof them, or 
> who may have a completely weird view of the world that allows them an 
> odd interpretation of what the ratings mean, so you won't get 100% 
> coverage.  

problem #1: I think the coverage rate will be abysmal.  People are
lazy.  Are you really going to go modify all your html files?  I've
got 8 megs of material on my personal web site
(http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/), and I can barely generate the energy
to apply dead link mods which people email me.

problem #2: If government "asks" you to self-rate your pages, that
will in a lot of net people generate ire, they'll monkeywrench their
rating in some creative way.

problem #3: Kids can hack around the system anyway, so it doesn't
matter whether it's rated or not.  Especially where "hacking" around
the system consists of just downloading a free browser from
netscape.com, or installing one off a magazine cover CD.  Are the
government going to legally require netscape to release browsers which
are content crippled and require an is-an-adult cert to disable it?
So just use an older browser.  I'm sure kids will be trading adult
certs like football cards at school.  Internet drivers license is
another likely dumb move to try to enforce it.

Given the likely dubious reliability of the ratings, and near semantic
meaningless because of differening values, political and moral beliefs
in various communities in different parts of the world it looks like a
non-starter to me.

Further presuming the government goes for it anyway, I can't see them
managing to persuade many people to use it.

As you note some porn sites will probably rate themselves, but they
will only be doing it to generate more hits (search engines looking
specifically for such pages).  As Dimitri noted under 21s are probably
generating most of the porn hits anyway. (It is 21 in parts of the US
right?  Surely they're not serious that you can have been legally
married 5 years before you're allowed to view soft porn?  It'll be 16
or 18 in UK)

> > General rhetorical question: indeed why have governments at all?
> 
> General rhetorical answer:  Because people are the way they are.

I'll take this comment to a new message.

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

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