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.