New Internet Regulation Proposed 429
bumgutts writes "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has suggested a mandatory website self-rating system. The system, very similar to one suggested under Clinton's administration, would require by law all commercial websites to place 'marks and notices' on each page containing 'sexually explicit' content, with penalty up to 5 years imprisonment." From the article: "A second new crime would threaten with imprisonment Web site operators who mislead visitors about sex with deceptive 'words or digital images' in their source code--for instance, a site that might pop up in searches for Barbie dolls or Teletubbies but actually features sexually explicit photographs. A third new crime appears to require that commercial Web sites not post sexually explicit material on their home page if it can be seen 'absent any further actions by the viewer.'"
The defense moves (Score:5, Insightful)
What ? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd say that the sites that still want to expose erotical/sexual content, would just move 1 inch outside the US, probably Canada. So while all american sites and their revenues are hit bigtime (the search engines will definitely start to filter on this), the other countries get the profit.
Every tenth poster about Madonna or Catherina Zeta Jones or any other female celebrity is somewhat sexual content.
Since i'm not an american and i'm nowhere near US, it won't affect me, but it still seems enormously stupid idea. The motivation could be correct, but the implementation will suck.
Re:Hell's frozen over! (Score:3, Insightful)
This won't work, unless it's an international standard. That's just never going to happen....
uh, search? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What ? (Score:5, Insightful)
That, my friend, is the definition of the USA.
I generally don't like Gonzales (Score:5, Insightful)
Note: I am a conservative, but I still don't like most of what Gonzales does.
A third new crime appears to require that commercial Web sites not post sexually explicit material on their home page if it can be seen 'absent any further actions by the viewer.
This one actually makes sense. I have young students that occasionally search for school-related things using Google. Some of the sites that come up are questionable at best. I apprecite those webmasters that have the decency to place a warning and no explicit material on their portal page. Even better are those that make you agree to view the content and set a cookie. That way no matter what page you enter to (since Google doesn't give preference on most searches to a home page as opposed to one deep in the site), the cookie is checked and you get the "agree/disagree" page no matter what.
However, it seems a bit unenforcable. I mean, what about websites overseas? What about websites overseas operated by American's? What about websites in the US operated by foreigners? I think that there are still too many unresolved questions about jurisdiction on the Internet. I would think that as a lawyer, Gonzales would understand that. This is something that depends on the goodwill of the webmasters, much like most other things on the 'net.
Definitions needed... (Score:2, Insightful)
Afterall the difference between kinky nad perverted is just that between using a feather and the whole bird to tickle...
Damned Feds!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
obvious question (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Hell's frozen over! (Score:3, Insightful)
The definition of sexually explicit broadly covers depictions of everything from sexual intercourse and masturbation to "sadistic abuse" and close-ups of fully clothed genital regions.
A little broad, eh? So now we get some neopuritan in the FCC or whoever gets to control this deciding what constitutes "sexually explicit". And what constitues a commercial website? Most museums and non-profits may be safe, but what about newspapers? Magazines? This is prior restraint, and this is one of the reasons the First Amendment was passed.
A litmus test (Score:3, Insightful)
Gonzales seems way too obsessed with pornography. Someone should give him a subscription to Hustler online or something like that so he can, er, release a little pressure.
Future criminal prosecutions - the future is now (Score:5, Insightful)
Future criminal prosecutions, whenever the government deems it necessary for those who might cause problems for them. The implication is the government does not trust its own citizenry, and must have the ability to invade their privacy at any time in order to control or silence them.
What other ways can people be spied on by the government? Is this what we want, a paternalistic government and a paranoid society?
Misguided legislation (Score:3, Insightful)
What is with this disturbing attitude towards sex in the US? It's just sex people and nothing more. Violence is far worse than boobies and has a more profound effect on kids. Its insane that showing people getting killed and beaten is more acceptable than sex. Sounds like the US still hasn't excaped their puritan past and that's sad.
http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]Can anyone say "Offshore hosting"..? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The defense moves (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of reading the the summary, thinking for 9 seconds, and posting as quickly as possible with the first kneejerk reaction you have, in order to get karma, you might want to consider reading the article. Among other things, this has been proposed before, it is also being considered in Australia (getting closer to home yet?) with the next logical step being that search engines will only (be forced to) index rated sites (effect you yet?), and the US will be able to use it's considerable clout to help get similar legislation passed around the world?
Re:Damned Feds!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The defense moves (Score:5, Insightful)
The definition of sexually explicit broadly covers... close-ups of fully clothed genital regions.
There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. It's all laid out right here. They want to criminalize something because it triggers a certain thought. A thought-crime if you will.
Re:Hell's frozen over! (Score:5, Insightful)
Both.
As parent, the thought of such a regulation gave me pause--I consider myself responsible, I want my 11-year-old to have access to the Internet, and I don't want to have to sit there with her ALL the time.
But then, I came to my senses and thought, "it IS my responsibility to monitor her Internet access." The silver lining to such a regulation proposal is that it has made me rethink of my parental priorities...
is it only the US politicians obsessed with sex? (Score:3, Insightful)
I used to wonder how obsessed people must be over sex to get all worked up over this. Then I had a conversation with a Christian fundamentalist. Wow. The things they believe. They truly think they are doing God's work by imposing their will on the rest of us. And even more frightening, it's not just sex, but their whole perspective on everything which explains a lot about our foreign policy.
I hear that in Europe, their advertising has bare-breasted women. I don't see the Europeans running crazily through the streets and their societies falling apart. Yet when JJ flashed a boob at the SuperBowl, the US gov went nuts. Makes you wonder who has the more stable society...
Re:What ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Too late (Score:4, Insightful)
She did yell out [cnn.com] to Bush and Jintao, which maybe could be considered disturbing the peace or something given the context. It was not a rally, not a demonstration, it was two heads of state with press coverage. So maybe it was in bad taste on her part, but I don't see how she did anything as bad as the press makes it out to be.
I think this law, while it might have some positive consequences, is bad overall. The first step to restricting freedom of speech is regulating speech. While we do have broad categories of "bad" speech such as speech designed to cause panic and mayhem ("fire" in a movie theater), or false claims (slander), there really isn't a whole lot of regulation by the government. This is a good thing. I want the government doing its job (defending my borders and protecting my rights) while I do my job. I don't see how regulating citizens' speech or removing their freedoms is the government's job in a country that prides itself on how free it is.
What's commerical? What's explicit? (Score:3, Insightful)
You can subscribe to Slashdot; does that make slashdot a commercial site? Will Slashdot have to put up a "sexually explicit" warning just in case some geek posts a comment about his hot-and-bothered thoughts about Princess Leia or Natalie Portman covered with grits?
Slashdot'll be in a real bind -- either censor comments, or get filtered out of any work sites because of the "sexually explicit" label. Indeed, any blog that accepts user comments will face the same dilemma: either start censoring, or be censored by filtering software and employer policies.
How do you determine what's "sexually explicit"? Recently someone on Fark (also a site that has subscription membership) posted about getting his balls stuck in the slats of his chair. and Fark regularly features a photoshop of a squirrel with enormous testicles.
Are those posts and pictures sexually explicit? Ask your lawyer when you're faced with five years jail time for guessing wrong.
Metafilter.com requires a one-time fee to post; it has a popular section devoted to users' questions, many of which are of a sexual nature. Does a post asking about a relationship that's lost its "sexual spark", with details of the sex life, count as sexually explicit?
Will the site owner be willing to risk five years in jail to find out?
Gonzales also wants ISPs to keep records of what sites customers browse, so here's where I think this is going:
Of course, they'll start with uncontroversial prosecutions of people looking at kiddie porn, but they won't stop there: next it'll be anime and manga, then it'll be BDSM, they anything -- like gay porn -- that violates the "community standards" of the most narrow-minded Federal venue they can find. Expect a lot of the cases to be tried in Utah and Georgia and the ever-conservative western District of Pennsylvania.
Look guys, it requires the House of Representatives to pass this crap. If you're an American and you're old enough tot look at "sexually explicit" stuff, you're also old enough to vote. Check out the political party Gonzales is a part of, and vote for the other one in November. Or you'll have only yourself to blame when any but the most vanilla sites disappear from the Internet.
Re:I generally don't like Gonzales (Score:5, Insightful)
If the proposed bill is anything like the description in the article, then it shows that the drafters of said bill have no fucking idea what they are doing or what the internet is but rather view a "site" as something like a teevee channel. If they actually gave a shit about the content that young children are exposed to, then they would push for a
"I hope that Congress will take up this legislation promptly," said Gonzales, who gave a speech about child exploitation and the Internet to the federally funded National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The proposed law is called the Child Pornography and Obscenity Prevention Amendments of 2006.
Guess what. We allready have laws about child exploitation and child pornography. Drop the red herring, stop the sensational bullshit, and work on the problem in a rational manner.
Re:What happened to that freedom thing? (Score:3, Insightful)
The PICS ratings and stuff always seemed like a good idea, considering the majority of well funded (more advertising) porn sites aren't trying to serve their pages to 5 year old kids, but it never really took off. Anyway, isn't IE the only browser that supports this sort of thing? Probably a way to block it off from squid or something though.
Start the ratcheting .. (Score:4, Insightful)
Self rating yet mandatory? Is it me or is there an inherent contradiction in this? This is just a law to get "a foot in the door" so the government can have more excuses to eventually control the net as a whole. "Self regulation has been proven to fail, we MUST apply this NEW more restrictive law
Bastids.
Either way, his numbers seemed off to me (Score:5, Insightful)
To which my wife and I looked at each other and went "Uh - really. One in five."
And then I started to wonder. Was this children solicited by adults? How are we defining children? Is this just a sampling of MySpace users, assuming that all solicitees are children, and all soliciters are adults? Are we including two teenagers including lovey-dovey emails to each other, or kids hanging out in Pokemon chat rooms getting hit on my a pedophile?
I'd like to see the numbers, because I've been in lots of forums, have recieved emails from adults and teens about things I've written (like a "Xenosaga Backtracking" article), and I haven't seen a random person pop up in one of these forums "Hey, that's a nice Pikachu - now I'd like to see you naked!"
Granted, maybe I'm naive - but I have the feeling that "one in five" is either inflated, or including things that most people would never consider solicitation (again, such as minors hitting on minors).
Re:Hell's frozen over! (Score:4, Insightful)
So every commercial site (is slashdot commercial? They sell subscriptions) should have to go to enormous expense to label it pages or risk five years of jail time -- because you and your wife make typos?
My god, do you and your wife ever make the mistake of buying the wrong toothpaste at the grocery? Perhaps we ought to abolish the Free Market and go to a Soviet system of allowing only one brand of toothpaste, to protect your family.
While we're at it, do you and the wife ever have a little too much to drink? Perhaps we ought to bring back Prohibition to save you from your hangovers.
Part of being a free citizen means not asking the government to hold your hand to prevent you from making stupid mistakes. By all means, if you feel you can't handle the consequences of typos, get rid of your Internet service. But don't ask the rest of America to go to great trouble and expense just because you can't type.
Incidentally, what lasting harm did seeing this porno site do to you, that its owners should risk five years in prison? You still seem to be around, your wife and kids are still alive -- did your marriage break up or you dog die because of this typo?
New crimes (Score:4, Insightful)
Am I the only one who is disgusted by the wording? What, are prisons not full enough yet?
I guess when there are not enough criminals, we just have to make new crimes...
Re:Hell's frozen over! (Score:2, Insightful)
We have 9/11. This is one of the reasons the First Amendment, along with the Fourth, is being repealed. Such hypocrisy from the gov't(what else could we expect?), lecturing China about freedom of speech while trying to pull this off.
Re:The defense moves (Score:5, Insightful)
On a separate note I have absolutely no clue why the the United States is so against nudity of any kind and how sex is such a hush-hush topic that parents can't even openly talk to their children about. I mean it's not as if nudity and propagation by means of sexual intercourse are natural or anything. Maybe the United States just wants to do away with sex all together and all offspring will be test tube babies. Think "Demolition Man" type society. Hmm... Have sex? Go to Jail! Comming in 2025!
Re:I generally don't like Gonzales (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides... if you wanna step into the "individuals' rights" territory: how about my right to do what I want with my voice (and scream at them) or email server (and email flood them) or botnet (and DDOS them)? It's my property, you know?
The only thing that's needed here is some sense in both the pr0n distributors and those who dislike pr0n. To the latter: you don't wanna see it, ok, but don't censor it. To the former: they don't want to see it, but you want to make it accessible, ok, but don't go scrubbing it in their face! Otherwise it will simply degenerate in yet another war, fought by means of regulations and laws and trials and public campaigns and blocking software and circumventing popups and DNS poisoning and...
Re:Less Government/Bureaucracy not more... (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps a better approach would be to educate kids about the things they're likely to run into, while giving them a more solid foundation from which to evaluate it morally and ethically.
Re:Future criminal prosecutions - the future is no (Score:2, Insightful)
We'll find out in November.
Re:The defense moves (Score:3, Insightful)
You've obviously never clicked on a cleverly-hidden goatse link here, have you?
Which is disturbingly on-topic. How does a forum/blog operator self-protect against posters violating the content regulation implied in this law? If your frontpage doesn't have a "warning: may contain pr0n" tag, and some troll posts tubgirl or something, are you screwed?
Re:The defense moves (Score:5, Insightful)
Gad! You've gotta be kidding me.
This would outlaw the Sears catalog and Victoria's Secret catalogs, as well as Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit edition. (Though, the argument could made that the latter two are more like pr0n
I wish I could disagree with you on this, but I can't. If the US is going to define close-ups of fully clothed genital regions as sexually explicit, the US is now being ran by moral purists and fundamentalists no better than the Taliban.
What next? Government mandated knee length skirts and an outlawing of tank-tops and makeup? This is absolutely scary.
Time for a regime change methinks.
Re:What happened to that freedom thing? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I generally don't like Gonzales (Score:2, Insightful)
I call bullshit.
Back in 2000 when the library filters case was winding its way through the courts, there was this urban legend that if you searched for chocolate chip cookie recipes, there'd be a porn site in the first page of results. Yet nobody when put on the spot could come up with a search string on any website that would return recipes for chocolate chip cookies and porn on the same page of results.
For that matter why are young (I'm presuming this means elementary school) kids being allowed to cite stuff from Teh Intarweb? Through high school, college and law school (the web scarcely existed when I was in 8th grade) the refrain has always been: show them how to do dead-tree research first.
Another Shell Game (Score:4, Insightful)
Like so much of the spew that the current US Regime continues to produce, this is clearly another case of "distract them while we slip it to them". I am actually surprised that out of the 40-some-odd posts I've read here about this resurrection of Tipper's late abortive attempt at protecting the Internet from Children, only one of them has even mentioned the real thrust of this legislation - which unsurprisingly has nothing at all to with pr0n or protection of netizens from it.
This is wrong on a number of levels, and Gonzales' attempt to exploit minors as "victims" of the Internet and its alleged pr0n is just that: Another Republicrat attempt to exploit children as a means of manipulating their parents.
Furthermore, fuck Gonzales and his repeated and ongoing assertions that use of the Internet is de facto evidence of some "criminal activity". He is at the heart of what is arguably the most criminal Regime ever to control the US - the crimes of his mentors in this administration start with treason and continue down thru spousal abuse and criminal malfeasance. How can it not be obvious that this pathetic smokescreen is simply backing for his attempts to force ISPs to aid in government efforts to regulate and control political Speech?
A headline has been running for several days now concerning Yahoo's apparent liability in the imprisonment of a Chinese national for political speech in China. How much longer before we see reports that ATT, Google, Yahoo, or MSN have supplied information leading to the political imprisonment of US citizens? Careful, that's a trick question - if that Chinese fellow had been in the US, he would have been labelled a terrorist, and there would have been no reports, since there is no longer any requirement that the govt announce the fact once they have imprisoned a citizen for this new class of "crimes"....
"You might be gang-related..."Joy-Killers (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The defense moves (Score:5, Insightful)
The Devil is in the Details (Score:2, Insightful)
Proposals like this amount to little more than political grandstanding. Legislators and their staffs know perfectly well what the courts have ruled on restrictions on speech. The problems caused by various forms of "offensive speech" are real (ask any parent), but government is severely limited in what it can do about it by the First Amendment:
The fact that it "merely" proposes labeling won't save it. Because of the stiff penalties, it would encourage self-censorship -- which is often the most damaging kind. The threat of prosecution under a vague law amounts to a restriction on speech.
It is a content-specific regulation of speech, and therefore courts will apply a very strict standard when testing whether it violates the First Amendment. Commercial speech receives less protection than artistic or political speech, but there will be a fight defining which web sites are covered by the law.
What about Benetton ads? They are commercial, political, and artistic at the same time! (Even if you don't like them)
It needs to carefully define what is prohibited, otherwise it will challenged because nobody can tell what they are required to do. The word "obscenity" has a legal definition, in terms of local community standards (problematic on the internet), but words like "pornographic", "sexually explicit", or "harmful to minors" are not legal terms, and the law would have to define them. The most important question will be "who decides." Local communities (and juries) have a lot more leeway than the federal government - which is strictly forbidden to regulate speech.
Of course, the proposal will probably get some votes, and embarrass members of Congress who vote against it. That is the purpose of the proposal.
Re:The defense moves (Score:2, Insightful)
My those kids today.... (Score:2, Insightful)
How about minors hitting on adults? I had a conversation the other day with a mother of two teenage boys who found out that they were pretending to be adults and responding to personals ads put up by adult women.
(Why didn't they have the Web when I was a kid?)
It's all statistics (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong. Why? Because that could be 1 child that frequents certain sites of ill-repute and getting 20 solicitations. That's 1 in 100, not the aforementioned 1 in 5. While I don't think it's that low, I don't think it's that high.
Odd how a story about porn reveals the perverse nature of statistics.
Re:The defense moves (Score:3, Insightful)
And as the other person who replied to you stated, you won't stop them. They'll have sex, look at porn, probably try smoking, maybe a bit of drugs, and I'm sure alcohol is in there somewhere. But hey, what's the worst that can happen by just keeping them sheltered in your warm arms? I mean aside from getting pregnant, getting an STD, becomming a smoker, drug addict, or alcoholic.
At least use rational thought as a parent.
Re:The defense moves (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The defense moves (Score:4, Insightful)
Hey, be fair! The Sears "young miss" section was pr0n to many a resourceful young lad before the Net.
Re:The defense moves (Score:3, Insightful)
They are also voluntary systems. There is no law against putting out an unrated film. There is no law against using deceptive advertising for film content. Look how many Hollywood films promise to be interesting or funny or exciting when they're really just dull rehashes of the same crap that stunk the first time around.
If the pr0n industry wanted to adopt the system as described on a voluntary basis, no one would care. Giving it the force of law and setting up some federal board as the arbiters is dancing on the edge of a slippery cliff.
Re:What ? (Score:4, Insightful)