Web site operators posting sexually explicit information must place official government warning labels on their pages or risk being imprisoned for up to five years, the Bush administration proposed Thursday.
A mandatory rating system will “prevent people from inadvertently stumbling across pornographic images on the Internet,” Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said at an event in Alexandria, Va.
Site operators face 5 years in prison for violating rating system intended “prevent people from inadvertently stumbling across pornographic images on the Internet.”
The Bush administration’s proposal would require commercial Web sites to place “marks and notices” to be devised by the Federal Trade Commission on each sexually explicit page.
This doesn’t make any sense. How can putting warnings on pages containing porn “prevent people from inadvertently stumbling across pornographic images.” This has got to be the first step. The second step will be requiring search engines to block sites that contain the notice unless the user’s age is verified. To put it simply, we’ll have to turn over our ID or credit card information before we’ll be able to search for porn!
not to mention non U.S. sites
Here we go again. What happens if I post a photo to my web page showing one of my grandchildren playing in the bath? Is this going to get me a visit by the “child Porn” protection group along with a fine from the “Porn Picture Patrol”?
What is “pornagraphy” anyway? How will I know when I need to make some comment to keep others away? What are the rules I must consider and obey?
Oh, yea. How will this be inforced in Holland or Denmark? Never mind how they will deal with Tuvalu, Tonga, or other obscure places that don’t seem inclined to care what laws we pass?
I love it. We haven’t enough real problems to work on we have to spend time on this? Wonderful!
Because a grading system worked on the Games we buy. Just like the warning label on the side of a pak of cigs keeps kids from smoking.
They should just filter all content and only let us view Government Approved sites, and if the content changes it is pulled untill approved again.
After all it’s our governments responsability to keep us safe from others and most of all safe from our selves. I need the local mayor to come and install the gaurd around my wood stove, it heats my house and I might get burned.
The fed’s are going about it all wrong. Wasn’t it a couple of years (decades it seems) ago that there was a proposal to put in metadata on the page for its rating. Something like XXX And then have the browsers have the software equivalent of the v-chip.
The commercial porn sites will have no problem complying with this, and would do so willingly (there are no negatives for them).
It seems like a perfect solution, just like the V-chip. (and I”m serious about that, and if I hear anything about the v-chip stuff not being used because of x, or y, I ready to give it up and just realize that 99% of the people in this world are lazy idiots.)
YAY! Canada will soon be the porn capital of the internet!
We are willing to block out porn, but all the videos of grisly deaths and violence are OK?
Who is there to really defend the porn industry? If someone stands up they’re branded a pervert or a nut like Larry Flint. I’m not speaking of what people do in private, but what they say in public. It’s an easy target to appeal to an increasingly centrist America. They want tougher laws and prison sentences for everything, but the prisons are full now. Mostly from the dumb war on drugs. Hell, maybe Tim Leary was right, turn on, tune in, and drop out.
Killing a mosquito with a mallet!!! Just enact the XXX domain, push all providers to mandetory use and shazam the marketplace will provide lockout filters for those domains. I am sure all of the players would jump on this as another marketing tool for their Browsers, Spam Filters & Adware stuff!
#7
I like the porn tax idea Paul, although it would double what I pay.
I think the Administration is taking a half-assed approach. If they can’t control the source, they should strangle these evil images at the destination. They should be installing V-chips in our children’s brains so the little darlings can’t circumvent whatever anemic screening processes the government devises for the internet. And for extra measure, they should design it so our kids really do go blind when they masturbate. It’s always been the Lord’s will, but sometimes it’s up to us to make it happen.
#13 “dvorak uncensored: The Hyperbole Express”
…with no shortage of people vying to be the engineer 😉
This is an “apple pie” issue, you can’t go wrong supporting it. The only organized opposition would be from the ACLU and EFF. Right now the White House is looking for ANY issue to take some of the heat off of it and maybe help some of the Republican Congressmen getting ready to update their resumes.
The issue is if it is successful, the web sites will just move off shore. Canada, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Bahamas are all nice this time of year.
For years I’ve thought that porn labeling was a great solution. Maybe I’m naive but I assume that most pornographers have no desire to get in legal trouble over access to minors — they just want to make a buck.
So, if they label everything, they can legally claim they made a good faith effort to keep their stuff from kids.
Here is my labeling plan which I think would work, I thought of this about ten years ago and it’s too bad no legislator had the good sense to also think of it:
[list]
[li]Special porno domains.[/li]
[li]Porno header designations for emails, htmls, etc.[/li]
[li]A porno watermark for pictures and videos.[/li]
[li]Porno designation file for web indexers/crawlers.[/li]
[/list]
Then, of course, there needs to be software that watches for the above… software that kids can’t uninstall…. maybe at an OS level.
Labelling porn is a great idea. It’ll be a lot easier to find sites worth looking at that way.
ME >>Labelling porn is a great idea. It’ll be a lot easier to find sites worth looking at that way.
That’s why I support porno labelling… it’s truth in advertising. Let consenting adult easily find it and let parents and schools easily block REAL porno while not accidentally blocking things like breast cancer, aids information, or art sites.
Maybe I’m naive but I think that most porno sites would voluntarily label their stuff if it gave them some legal cover. .. and it might draw them some new customers like you!
Did you also notice the expansion of the definition of sexually explicit to include closeups of fully clothed genitals? What’s that going to do to Sears, Penneys and everyone else that sells swimwear and shorts?