Websites Could Get Movie-Style Ratings

[exfileme]

The UK is trying to protect children from harmful websites on the Internet, and one theory is to use movie-style ratings.

Websites Could Get Movie-Style Ratings : Read more

 

[Guest]

Hands of the internetz! NO TO CENZORSHIP!

 

[Pei-chen]

They should hire China to run the filter for them. According to liberal media, China runs the world most advanced filtering system.

 

[Blessedman]

Well what they should do instead of a stupid thing asking me what my bday is... Why not make all ID's in most countries a GUID and then have a single non profit organization that does a simple true or false query of age on GUID. Is GUID 392299sh2872ah223 > 18 if true then allow access. At least you will require someone of age with very little morals to get children onto bad sites. The organization would not have any personal info except age and sex, no name attached to GUID.

 

[blackened144]

Blessedman, I have an even better idea. How about parents monitor the internet usage of their own children. This way, if their kids find something they shouldnt, the parents are the ones held responsible. Imagine having a policy of personal responsibility, instead of a multibillion dollar multinational organization.

 

[IncinX]

The website query for 392299sh2872ah223 would return ERROR! (Invalid GUID)

 

[w3iner]

If you had this GUID but it had no personal information attached, Anyone could just post theirs online, which defeats the entire purpose.

I believe that Blackened is right on the money. The goverment does not need to regulate the flow of information in the free world, and what exactly is this guy so afraid of his kids seeing? Not like if kids see people having sex it will scar them for life.

But back to blackened, what happens to personal responsibility? If people know they should not be viewing such material they should not do it.

 

[WheelsOfConfusion]

Ratings by themselves don't seem to be too much of a problem, and it would probably make the process of blacklisting certain sites for schools or parental control programs easier. Mandating that such filtering be offered by ISPs might not be a horrible idea, so long as services that use or disuse the filtering have no cost difference to the consumer, and that both types are available.
I also think that implementing the dot triple-X Top Level Domain is at least as good an idea, since the issues it raises are already coming up in this "ratings system" debate anyway.

So far these proposals sound pretty measured, unlike Australia's. Let's all just keep in mind the reasons why "the people who created the internet ... talked very deliberately about creating a space that Governments couldn’t reach," as Burnham put it.

As to the removal of material, I can't speak for social networking sites like Facebook but places like Photobucket, Imageshack, and Youtube can be pretty prompt in removing sexually explicitly material from the site of their own volition. I'm not sure what benefit there is to a legally-imposed deadline for removal, in broad terms. What does this do for sites that already try to enforce their ToS in that regard?

 

[frozenlead]

I don't know when people will get that attempting to censor something like the internet is a waste of time. There are far too many websites and far too many ways to circumvent protection and blocks. It just can't be done. Even the filters of China and such aren't foolproof and have thousands, perhaps millions, of holes.

I agree with blackened144. The best protection for any given kid of all the badness of the world is a parent who cares and is responsible.

 

[kamkal]

what a load of sh!t

these fear mongers are pathetic

oh noes little timmy saw a b0ob, whatever will we do??!

how bout watch what your kid is doing, try being a parent, what a novel idea!

 

[Zomby]

I've been using such content-rating techniques by RSACi (now ICRA) since the 90's but it never really catched on. Basically it means adding a rating to to the pages of your website and it's up to the browsers to allow or disallow the viewing of the page depending on this rating. On Internet Explorer it can be managed through the "Content Advisor" settings. AFAIK it's the only browser that does supports this rating system as no other company is concerned with the issue of children safety.