OFF: READ THIS AND SEND FWD

[Ted O. Jackson]

>
> > advocates are talking out of both corners of their mouths; on the one hand
> > they say they Internet should be treated no differently from other media,
> > yet on the other they demand unlimited, unfettered access to material that
> > is legally restricted outside of it.  Unless I am missing something...
>
> I think you are.  Whereas there are restrictions as to what bookstores
> can display, there aren't restrictions (or they are much less) on what
> you can mail out/deliver.  A couple of days ago, a local nude bar sent
> out a mass mailing, which contained several pictures of totally nude women.
> Due to a screw up in the mailing list, a large number of the mailers went
> to family homes, with wives and kids and whatnot.  No law was broken
> in the mailing (unless one or more of the recipients had regestered with
> the "no junk mail" agency).
>

Yes, but there are very strong penalties against hardcore
pornography, kiddie porn etc being sent in the mail.  If we were
talking about simple nudity I don';t think there'd be much of an
issue.  I think the stuff paul was talking about was truly disgusting
stuff without any merit or 'art' value.  And I'm all for censoring
shit like that too.

> I think the basic argument here is that, if you choose to subscribe
> to the Sun in the UK, you get a picture of a topless woman on Page 3,
> and it's your responsibility to keep your kid from seeing it.  Similarly,

Totally agree here.  Parents want to duck their responsibility and
have the gov't do their job for them.  If you're a parent you need to
be extra careful to keep stuff like that from your kids.  On the
other hand, you can't be everywhere at once.  It's impossible to
screen everything that choldren see...

> if you subscribe to an Internet service that advertises "all Newsgroups"
> or whatever, it means you will get sexually explicit newsgroups, and
> it's your responsibility to keep your kids away from those areas.
> >
Right!


> > Also, I think it is a little disingenuous of you to point the finger at
> > parents as being the sole raison d'etre behind the CDA.
>
> The "protect the children" call is the main rallying cry of the pro-CDA
> forces, thus it is the main target of the anti-CDA forces :-).
>
True.  The rabic pro-censorship types are into control. period.  They
often hide behind the issue of protecting children to disguise their
own need to control the 'morality' of others they deem threatening to
their precious turf.


> > There are many ways to achieve this; as you suggest, such material could
> > be flagged so that appropriate blocking software could detect and screen
> > it.
>
> But there's no reason to get the government involved.  Companies making
> blocking software *hire* prople to surf the net, looking for obscene
> web sites or whatnot for updates to their software.  IMHO, some
> monolithic ratings system imposed by a government would be much less
> efficient, and probably squelch much of the fun, "I'm going to throw
> up a web site about my pet goldfish" side of the net.
>

Yeah, and gov't ratings systems have gaping holes.  Look at the
arbitrary application of the film ratings [not a gov't body, I know].
Rating Internet stuff just creates another huge organ of bureauacracy
of dubious value.


> Also, having the US government step in runs into a major problem with
> international boundries.  Already, most of the really hard-core web
> sites are in Europe, and most of the really, truely nasty stuff on
> usenet comes through the Anon server in Finland.  So you run into the
> potential danger of actually doing more *harm* than good by US
> government regulations.  If the average interent user in America,
> feels secure that the Government will keep their kids safe, they are
> less likely to buy a blocking software package.  Which means that there
> won't be much of anything stopping their kids from accessing Sex
> sites in Holland.
>
Again, parents willing to abandon their responsibility in favor of
letting 'big brother' take care of things.  We all need to be
responsible ourselves.

> >  Or, prior age verification could be required for areas having adult
> > content---this scheme is commonly used in adult BBSs (quite why people
> > object to it being used on the Internet is a mystery to me).
>
> How do you mean, "age verification?"  Just a "don't view if not
> over 18" warning?  Or a "send a copy of a driver's license" warning?
>
> I think the second is obviously impossible, and the first is only
> possible with stuff like mailing lists and web sites.  With usenet,
> it's simply not an option, because there is no central distribution
> mechanism--once I post, I have absolutely *no* control over where
> the message ends up (*mabye* geographical distribution, but the
> Distribution: header rarely works right).  In any case, isn't a
> newsgroup title like "alt.sex.bondage" warning enough?
>
> >  Or, as is
> > common with many specialist services, the user should pay to access it,
> > and such payment would carry the burden of proper authentication.
>
> I don't know of any ISP that accepts payment in forms other than
> Credit Cards or checks--the big hue and cry is over parents who buy
> the account, then let their kids go hog wild with it.
>
> > I'm probably being grossly ignorant here so forgive me, but I believe
> > congress doesn't "make" the law; it's left up to "local standards of
> > decency" to define what is or is not obscene or prohibited.  (At least
> > that is how I remember it being explained to me.)  It is for this reason
> > that oral sex, for example, is illegal in certain states (or areas) in the
> > U.S.A. but not in others.
>

You're right.  'Community standards' determine what is obscene.
That's why porn shops here are in derelict sections of town where
there is unlikely to be any lobbying against their presence.

> But how do you define "community standards" on the Internet?  About a
> year ago, the Amateur Action BBS in California was shut down and its
> operators arrested because a sheriff in Tenn. called the BBS up,
> and found that it violated *his* community standards.  Using that
> as precedent, it appears that "community standards" means that the
> standards are that of the most restrictive community that the internet
> connects, which is more than a little problematic.  I'd be more than
> willing to bet that various BOC lyrics violate the community standards of
> some Southern communities :-).
>

No idea how to approach that one!

> Now, if "community standards" were applied in a slightly more logical
> fashion on the net, there might not be as much of a problem--each
> newsgroup or mailing list could be its own "community."  Although
> Web sites might still be a problem.
>
> --
>             David Zeiger              dzeiger at netcom.com
>
> Windows 95: The Dracula of Operating Systems--it sucks up all your
> memory, bleeds your hard drive dry, and only works an average of
> 12 hours out of every 24.
>