website ratings-A good idea?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Here are the relevant quotes from the article today on BBC News: (UK Culture Secretary Andy Burnham)

Obligatory statement:

And one more: (John Carr, secretary of the UK Children’s Charities’ Coalition for Internet Safety)

I figured that when Amazon starting sell sex toys this issue would be dredged up and plastered all over the news. This is years later than I expected and it’s still a little weak. Since it’s in news I figured a little discussion could be interesting.

Ignoring porn and war violence for now…IF something were to happen this time around regarding government encouraged rating as opposed the current self-regulation(‘click here’ warnings etc.), I can see ratings being applied to popular and .com sites. Since, politicians have no imagination it will probably follow the other rating systems in place. The movie rating system, which the video game ratings are somewhat based on, are good to give you some idea of the content but some rules are silly. For instance, saying “fuck” once gets a ‘PG-13’ rating, more than once gets you an ‘R’ rating. Even though it’s voluntary, to get you movie into theaters or game on shelves it pretty much has to have a rating.

The web, however, is more like cable TV in that it comes into your house in unrestricted amounts (assuming cable & web access and you have a TV and computer or equivalent). There are ratings on most shows (for V-chip purposes) but there is a difference to what is allowed on broadcast and basic cable compared to premium cable which the FCC allows to have just about any content. Most non e-commerce web sites rely on advertising to be profitable just like broadcast and cable TV channels which, outside FCC regulations, is the only reason they comply with such measures.

I am most worried about general web access being restricted to just what is ‘family friendly’ akin to broadcast/cable and paying extra for anything that might be less than appropriate for a thirteen year old. I can see a lot of good entertainment websites ending up just watered down piles of tripe (like sit-coms and most drama) due to advertiser’s pressure to meet ratings requirements and remove controversial content so that any questionable (good) content would have to be paid extra for, like premium cable (picture paying for access to half of the youTube’s machinima content). Premium cable channel’s revenue doesn’t come from advertisers so they are only accountable to their customers thus generally better content*. I really don’t watch any drama (House being the exception) on broadcast/cable and only a few comedies (Simpsons, Southpark, Daily Show). The only reason I have cable is for History, Discover and Science channels (approx. equivalent to .org, .edu or sciencedaily type sites) and so I can get Showtime and HBO.

I don’t necessarily have a problem with ratings on websites but it is coming whether it’s now or ten years from now. I am just concerned that any ratings will end up superficial like current rating systems and result in limiting content to complete blandness.

Anyone have thoughts on the plausibility of a ratings system for the web or the results of it?
*Obviously highly subjective on my part

If this has been done recently, kindly link me to it, nothing came up on search.

2

I would be ok with it provided the ratings were used in conjunction with ‘nanny’ software, so that parents could block what they wanted to. Parents, imo, have a right to censor what their children see.

A big ‘fuck that!’ if they want to censor in any way what I, as an adult, see though.

3

Don’t those nanny programs already do this? The only reason to get the government involved would be to censor things for adults, in which case the only appropriate response is a hearty “fuck you” to Mr Burnham.

4

Not exactly, I believe they still they use “go - no go” lists set by the parents and filtering of certain words and certain tags. You can set it up so it blocks everything except what sites you want your kid to have access to.

However, how many times have seen parents pass the buck and demand government intervention?

5

It is probably one of the worst 10 ideas in the past 100 years just after WWII but there is one way to make it work to a limited extent. Web sites could volunteer to be rated and then only those sites that are rated would be accessed through certain software like kid-friendly browsers.That is the way that it already works in other media like movies.

6

I think something like web site ratings would be a great idea if it was implemented properly. I already use WOT – Web Of Trust which, along with other features such as trustworthiness and privacy ratings, provides some degree of parental control, all of which are pretty helpful. In fact, I wouldn’t want to do without it.

The thing about WOT is that there’s no authority involved whatsoever. The ratings come from ordinary individual users who visit the site and effectively “vote” on what WOT rating it deserves. Everyone (with the exception, I think, of kids not beeing able to visit sites blocked by parents) is still free to visit any site, but the WOT color gives you a heads up as to what to expect. Also, one’s own personal rating of a site is retained in a cookie or something so that if you disagree with the other users’ ratings, you can override them with your own rating.

WOT would need to be revised to handle this additional task, but even then I don’t think anyone would find it intrusive.

7

You already can give your website a rating which programs like netnanny will read and filter if they see it in the meta tag

It won’t work because most people refuse to design website correctly anyway. People use things like flash which work differently from HTML and finally the people that WANT you to see porn won’t use the volunteer devices anyway.

So you need to make it mandatory and enforceable. What if today I put in a code, then at 12 noon I take it out. Then I put it back, then take it out. How is anyone to say once a site is certified it stays that way.

What if I decide to put a site in a country that won’t enforce standards? Do we say no one can look at a site unless it’s preapproved? If we do this and one slips in, does this make the people who are responsible for preapproving it accountable? If they aren’t accountable they get sloppy, because they have no incentive to.

The easiest way I found to deal with the kids is to get an old comuter with WIN95 on it and hook it up to dial up and not install flash. Sure you get a lot, but a huge number of applications won’t work, pics load WAY too slow, MySpace is pretty much unusable. You’re kids can still read text for homework and such.

Of course that doesn’t stop things like hate speech.

8

The more one tries to control something, the more out-of-control it will get.

I wish they’d let the internet be what ever it will be. If parents do their job right, then kids will be able to make informed judgement calls on what they see and do online.

9

IMO, this is the only way that website ratings could ever be a good idea.

Yes, with no authority, there’s little one can do about “bad, evil, shouldn’t be seen” content…which is exactly the point. The OP mentions “I am most worried about general web access being restricted to just what is ‘family friendly’…”. I’d point out that the only reason to give any entity authority powers is to restrict access.

10

This whole notion of ratings or top-level filtering or censorship is ridiculous.

If you want to see something really awful, check out what Australia is contemplating, and some of the criticisms:

On the technological side, the better these things work, the more they fuck things up for internet users. According to the critics:

So, the better these things work, the worse the internet works. Just when we arrive at a time when a considerable proportion of people in western societies can afford high-speed internet, we implement filtering technology that will drop everyone back down to dial-up speeds.

Even a ratings system that assigned grades to websites would, in my opinion, be problematic. Who’s going to assign the ratings? The same bunch of anonymous prudes who assign ratings to American movies? (see the documentary This Film is Not Yet Rated) And would sites that fail to get a rating then be blocked from access?

This is all stupid. There are already laws in place to deal with actual illegal material (child porn, direct death threats, etc., etc.), and if the content isn’t illegal, then it should be available for viewing. I support the right of parents to censor what their kids’ watch, but doing that is their responsibility, and the mechanisms for doing this shouldn’t slow or restrict or censor the internet for other adult users.

11

It is a stupid unworkable idea on anything other than a volunteer basis, when you consider how international the web is.

That means that filters would have to block almost all websites, or every webmaster in the would have to be up for it.

Worryingly, the large companies and sites will probably be really up for this as the costs of getting your rating would probably be restrictive, leaving smaller sites subject to filtering, and thus leaving the larger with the monopoly they want.

Either way, it could only be brought in as an optional program for concerned parents. Otherwise, we may as well go the route of China…

12

Absolutely not! Where did you get that idea?

Again, that’s nonsense. If you would have read my post just above yours, you would have seen how handily a WOT-like system resolves all the difficulties.

Bullshit. All of that nonsense is totally unnecessary. What you’re saying seems to me like a straw man argument or the fallacy of the false dichotomy. No one has to choose between a burdensome system or no system at all. There is a third alternative which effectively eliminates the problems you and others have protested against. A WOT-like system solves those problems handily.

Digital Stimulus clearly understands that the idea I’m proposing would work fine and have none of the problems you described. I agree with DS that a WOT-like system is probably the only type of system that would work, but work it would!

13

I strongly disagree. The the solution I outlined in my earlier post involves no top-level filtering and no censorship!

EVERYONE! In the scheme I described above, there would be no authority whatsoever. Please read my post (#6) again. I repeat:

No, no, a thousand times no. Enough with the straw men bullshit, okay? A WOT-like system would have none of those problems.

14

This is a shockingly terrible idea. I also don’t see what problem it could solve.

As an adult who does not want to see beheadings on the internet I have found it remarkably easy to avoid seeing beheadings on the internet. I haven’t actually seen a “click here to view a beheading” link personally, but should I see one I am confident that I will have the ability to not click on it - and all this without ANY government protection whatsoever!

If this is yet another “we much protect the children” thing then it is just as ridiculous. Parents should control their children’s access to the internet, either through blocking utilities or through restricting access altogether.

Given the arbitrariness of the movie rating system as it currently exists, it is terrifying to consider the implications of a rating system for the internet as a whole.

15

I agree, sort of. It’s just that life is never so simple as that. It’s impossible for parents to provide a framework that anticipates every possibility. It’s very, very hard to even provide one that’s adequate.

And kids just don’t reliably exercise judgment, no matter how diligently they are informed.

That’s not to say that I think the internet itself should be censored - I think it would be an utterly pointless effort - pissing into the wind.

16

I was talking specifically about any system that would not allow users to opt out, and that includes any ratings system that is universally applied. Those are the types of systems i’m talking about.

If your WOT system is not compulsory, and i don’t have to have a single thing to do with it, then that is not what i was talking about, and you are free to assign all the ratings you want to websites. As long as it has absolutely zero effect on people who choose to opt out of the system, it’s fine.

Also, in case you hadn’t noticed, i wasn’t responding directly to you, and wasn’t talking about your system, so piss off with your “straw man” accusations.

17

It seems to me that if a child sees one or two things online that they shouldn’t have, either accidentally or deliberately, it’s not going to traumatise them. We all dealth with such things as a child once or twice, I’m sure.

When they get caught up in a whole world of weird shit, that’s the real danger. Good parenting ought to be enough to combat that level of risk.

I am not a parent

18

That’s why in my WOT-like idea no one would have any power or authority! It is perfectly democratic.

well, I wish people would read the thread more carefully.

19

I am a parent. Life just can’t be described in simple terms of what ought and ought not to work. Not every time, at least.

Fortunately for me, my kids are reasonably close to some kind of normal, but not every mess is anybody’s fault or failure, and not every mess, once recognised, can be simply fixed.

20

Dude a meta tag has content and rating tags, that programs can use. Everything you want involves adding things on to systems, completely ignoring the fact all one has to do is download a browser without extras or a previous version of a browser

I design websites and they are all XHTML compiant by my instistance.

Your plan is unworkable, because no matter how much WEB OF TRUST you use, people will still change content at will.