Mural on old truck in front of WELL offices
policy.218: Cultural Remedies to Content Conflicts Thu 8 Feb 96 20:25 I've had a bunch of discussions today with media folks, wellperns and fellow WELL staffers about remedies to the problem the telecom bill addresses which would not involve the legal system. I've posted a bit about this before, so I apologize if this seems repetitive, but assuming the appeal goes through, what could we do, on the WELL inparticular and on the net in general, to address the problem of kids and explicit or harassing online materials and behaviors. This cultural conflict looked inevitable and unsurmountable to me. Over the past few years I've read and viewed Mass Media renderings of "cyberspace" and gotten the following information: There is X-rated content. There are criminal hackers. There are stalkers and abductors and harassers. The phone and computer companies keep showing me children talking to NASA, and a Little Girl on the beach with a utopian feel for the net, and images of kids and the future. Absent any other info, that Little Girl is our future, and obviously the bad stuff should be Cleaned Up for her. That is somewhat shocking, but I think it's about the extent of the information a great deal of the public has, and I think it may well be where the votes and political will genuinely lay. So how can issues of kids and content be addressed without creating new and chilling laws?Skipping ahead to another post of mine:
Thu 8 Feb 96 20:33 There are several models that might come together to work well enough so that the public could feel regular legislation protected them. 1. Surfwatch and related parental tools. The software approach is like the v-chip for the computer. Parents could decide if and when they wanted to screen content. 2. Labeling. Voluntary labeling [by us content-producers] is what would make surfwatch or related sites work. Other industries have avoided regulation by labeling; the video game industry has been cited as having pulled this off before congress dealt with the level of violence in their games. 3. Peer pressure. OK, this assumes a strong net culture, ready to gently instruct, tease, prod, insist, emailbomb and otherwise enforce sanctions on people who don't comply. This would entail being aware of the cultural situation, and being willing to enforce the standards of the larger culture by labeling areas and objects in cyberspace. It's distasteful, but it could be the strongest, smartest thing we could do. Could these kinds of approaches work on the web? In USENET? On the WELL?[full discussion including all responses by others available in the WELL Policy Conference]
Fri 9 Feb 96 10:37 No reason to design a perfect remedy. Just a socially acceptable remedy that could have most people satisfied. Like the Surfwatch or rating scheme. It's not foolproof, but that probably doesn't matter. Once a kid is "sneaking" the info, it's a lot like reading the pile of Playboys under the parental bed. Lily's suggestion that certain sites be kid-certified and everything else be open is interesting. It could be a good but essentially risky business opportunity. (I can think of a lot of fine well-adjusted junior high aged kids who use four letter words and harass one another verbally all the time) It's costly to supervise that kind of environment, and the politcal myth and dream we are forging here is to wire all the schools, get all the kids doing *something* educational online. This would be a lot like having the WELL deal with this situation by expelling all minors, which would be unfortunate. If this law can be tossed out, a parental consent model and a self-labeling scheme might be workable. I think truely valuing family choice would mean letting parents decide how mature a given kid is, and I also know a lot of adults who don't want to deal with certain kinds of material (most commonly violent fiction, not a big thing on the WELL, but that's just my friends.) What could we do to give better clues? Am I in a day care center or a bar right now? A classroom or a truckstop? A be-in or a flea market? These things might solve the problems that people have perceived with the medium, if there was a consensus to honor them socially. And educate one another as newcomers arrive. I'm just riffing... but there has to be a way.[And from another topic in the WELL media and parenting conferences...]
media.1140 Parents For Free Speech Wed 3 Jan 96 17:46 The controversy over violence in the media brings up another elephant in the living room. A lot of parents want kids to learn something about sex... perhaps something "appropriate" to the family culture; be it non-homophobic or pro-chastity or whatever. And those same parents may have other materials they specifically do not want their kids to see, as part of their own parenting, in good faith. Sexually charged violence, whether offered in a spirit or consensual fun or hostility, is going to raise a lot of warning flags for a lot of parents. And it's easier to find online than in a library, that's for sure. Oh, these easy search tools. What *could* we do as an online community to satisfy the needs of adults to exchange unfettered fantasies and of kids or others who are alarmed by graphic and especially brutal images to avoid accidental contact? Does it take a nasty little law to get people to create the virtual equivalents of places that are clearly for adults, and private? Say the nasty little law goes away. The issues of "decent" material will not go away. Every year hundreds, maybe thousands of parents try to get local schools and libraries to ban widely acclaimed books. Hard to fathom, but true. Given that "everybody" is coming online, and that concerns about content, be it sexually explicit or violent or or politically offensive or whatever, are not likely to decrease, what's the cultural solution that obviates the need for laws? Could we create our own voluntary self-labeling system for content, enforced by spamming and the usual array of net tricks? I have this deep feeling that this is preventable if we get our heads out of the sand and stop denying that for many parents, and also for many adults on their own behalf, "offensive" content really is an issue, and the standards of the nearly abolute free-speech culture we hold dear are about as familiar as that of fundamentalist martians. ... There must be some metaphors we could use consensually to help each other navigate and avoid, as the case may be. Where is the proactive initiative to deal with the actual fears and desires of our culture, from prudes to perverts and with contradictory parental impulses all along the spectrum?
Wed 14 Feb 96 10:56 I see this cultural conflict as mainly over whether the net should be wild... let the whole of the map say "There be Tygers and Dragons!" And businesses can spring up offering guide services of various types, and regulated oases of understood 'safety' (You can tell this model makes sense to me, and all of us who have lived and embraced it *appreciate* those Tygers, be they harassers, erotic artists, porn merchants, unstable people (whee!*##@!) or commercial spammers, depending on our own sense of decency. Heh.) However, the law that was just passes presumes it the net as a place should be 'tame' with a few guarded doorways labeled "Tygers and Dragons" with long warning labels and sanctions. Now, since the inside and the outside are all simply constructs here, and this place is about perception, agreed conduct, navigation and little bits of info, there should be ways to socially and technically suit both desires, and let people self-select. What if we assume the best case: the current law is scrapped, but the forces that enacted it are real. How can we make a space that corresponds to both sets of desires?
