| Why We Use ICRA Ratings | |
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Our pages are
rated using the standard rating system provided by the Internet
Content Rating Association. We rate our pages using this method because
it is compatible with the content filter in Internet Explorer and is the
best way we can help parents to keep their children from accessing content
that we intend to be viewed only by adults. For more information on children and the Internet, see our Protect Your Kids on the Internet article.
While we believe it is the responsible thing to do to use this rating system, we don’t like it. We object to any self-rating system that makes it easier for censors to go after sexual content. While there is a lot of talk of protecting children, some people have an agenda that involves removing not just children’s, but also adult’s, access to sexually explicit content. We don’t want to make it any easier for them. For example, there were advocates
of a new domain extension, like .com and .org, that would be for sexual
content. This new .sex extension was rejected by the standards board, and
we strongly supported their rejection. How would you determine what sexual
content would be relegated to this domain? Explicit porn? Softcore? Sex
education? Birth control advice? It would also make it very easy for an
ISP to simply block all .sex sites, providing a powerful censorship tool.
We own many adult sites, but we would never consider moving them to a sex
domain.
We are concerned that the government will try to enforce a ratings system that will make it easier
to censor adult sexual content from everyone. That is why, in general,
we would prefer a system that is different from the ICRA standard, where
you must explicitly include what types of content you have. For example,
our self-rating includes Erections or female genitals in detail, Male genitals,
Female genitals, Female breasts, Bare buttocks, Explicit sexual acts, Obscured
or implied sexual acts, Visible sexual touching, and Passionate kissing.
Yes, you get it all here!
The rating system we would
prefer is very simple. A browser would have two settings, one for adults,
and one for children. With the child setting active, pages would be filtered
based on only three options. One rating would be All, which means the page
is uncontroversial and has material of a general nature. These pages would
not include violence, hate speech, drugs/alcohol/tobacco, sexuality, or
other elements commonly considered objectionable to children. The next
rating would be AdultAdvisory. This would be for pages that might be appropriate
for children depending upon the age and maturity of each individual child
as determined by their parents. When a child accesses these pages, a parental
permission window pops up, allowing a parent to preview the page and determine
if they wish their child to view it. The final rating would be AdultOnly,
used for any page or site that did not want children visiting, whether it is a
porn site or an online store that simply does not want to waste bandwidth
on children who would not be purchasers of their products. There
would be no stigma attached to the AdultOnly rating, since it could be
used by anyone who did not want children on their site for any reason.
These sites would be completely blocked when the browser is in the child
setting, with no option for adult override. All unrated sites would be
blocked, but if it were a universal standard, Webmasters would rate their
sites.
This system would put power both in the parent’s hands and in the Web owner’s hands to determine what
children should see, and it could still be compatible with more sophisticated
filtering software. Most importantly, it protects free speech by allowing
Webmasters with content intended only for adults to protect themselves.
Anyone allowing their children to access an AdultOnly site would be violating
the User Agreement for that site, putting the responsibility on the parent
where it belongs.
In the meantime, the next
best thing is the proposed system from Cybersitter that uses four hidden
tags: <!--XXXRATED-->, <!--MUSTBE18-->, <!--MUSTBE21-->, <!--ADULTSONLY-->.
With three tags without any specific reference to sex, it comes closer
to what we’d like to see. Unfortunately, it is not universally accepted
and has not been built-in to browsers, so it is of limited use for Webmasters.
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