CDA

[Mr. Edward Spodick]

> any harm.  Porn on the other hand will, they never have to "do" any of it,
> but, viewing the stuff will harm them.  Maybe not one or two pictures, but
> if they form a habit of viewing it, harm has been done.

I find the aparent truth of this statement to say more about the repressed
state of sex education and discussion in some countries (including the US)
than about human nature.


> future.  Every web site will rate themselves based on a rating system, and
> your web browser will allow you to select which of those ratings you wish
> to allow or disallow.  The browser can also be set to not allow access to
> any site that has not rated itself.
> 
> I believe this function is already there (I'd have to double check that),
> all that would be needed is to somehow force all web sites to rate themselves.

You are correct - there is at least one such system supported by some
browsers - called PICS.  There are also other, competing standards.


> The ONLY problem I can see with this is those people who rate thier sites
> as being "ok" (for the sake of arguement) when it actually is something
> most people would want blocked.  There should probably be some non-biased
> organization who would check into complaints about a particular site, and
> some how force them to properly rate themselves.

Actually, there is a much bigger problem - your complete focus on a
single-country environment.  The Internet is GLOBAL.  If you wish to
implement such a scheme, it must be something which is glabally workable,
multilingual (well - not really, if the codes are standardized), and
flexible.  There would need to be a setting for government censorship
(yes, that *is* the word used here in Hong Kong), which could be enforced
on any and all sites within that country (a governmental seal of approval,
perhaps).  And any sites outside their political control would have to
submit to review in order to be accessible by 95% of their citizens.  No
Taiwan independence sites for Chinese citizens (already implemented to
some degree); no pro-militia sites for U.S. Citizens perhaps; approval
required from Canadian customs office for bookstore site content for
Canadian citizens (Canadian customs has a history of intercepting
materials which cross their border which are perfectly fine if published
locally); no anti-government sites in Singapore (already implemented,
although not using anything like PICS); no pro-gay sites in Malaysia; etc.

-Edward Spodick, HK Univ of Science & Technology Library

I speak only for myself - no one else would want to approve my words.  :)