CS 1590

Excerpts from ACLU site  http://www.aclu.org/Cyber-Liberties/Cyber-Liberties.cfm?ID=9997&c=55

Executive Summary


The White House meeting was clearly the first step away from the principle that protection of the electronic word is analogous to protection of the printed word. Despite the Supreme Court's strong rejection of a broadcast analogy for the Internet, government and industry leaders alike are now inching toward the dangerous and incorrect position that the Internet is like television, and should be rated and censored accordingly.

Is Cyberspace burning? Not yet, perhaps. But where there's smoke, there's fire.


"Any content-based regulation of the Internet, no matter how benign the purpose, could burn the global village to roast the pig."
­ U.S. Supreme Court majority decision, Reno v. ACLU (June 26, 1997)


Is Cyberspace Burning?

The ashes of the CDA were barely smoldering when the White House called a summit meeting to encourage Internet users to self-rate their speech and to urge industry leaders to develop and deploy the tools for blocking "inappropriate" speech. The meeting was "voluntary," of course: the White House claimed it wasn't holding anyone's feet to the fire.


But it was not any one proposal or announcement that caused our alarm; rather, it was the failure to examine the longer-term implications for the Internet of rating and blocking schemes.

What may be the result? The Internet will become bland and homogenized. The major commercial sites will still be readily available they will have the resources and inclination to self-rate, and third-party rating services will be inclined to give them acceptable ratings. People who disseminate quirky and idiosyncratic speech, create individual home pages, or post to controversial news groups, will be among the first Internet users blocked by filters and made invisible by the search engines. Controversial speech will still exist, but will only be visible to those with the tools and know-how to penetrate the dense smokescreen of industry "self-regulation."

It is a scenario which in some respects has already been set in motion:

First, the use of PICS becomes universal; providing a uniform method for content rating.
Next, one or two rating systems dominate the market and become the de facto standard for the Internet.
PICS and the dominant rating(s) system are built into Internet software as an automatic default.
Unrated speech on the Internet is effectively blocked by these defaults.
Search engines refuse to report on the existence of unrated or "unacceptably" rated sites.
Governments frustrated by "indecency" still on the Internet make self-rating mandatory and mis-rating a crime.
The scenario is, for now, theoretical ­ but inevitable. It is clear that any scheme that allows access to unrated speech will fall afoul of the government-coerced push for a "family friendly" Internet. We are moving inexorably toward a system that blocks speech simply because it is unrated and makes criminals of those who mis-rate.

Free Speech Online: A Victory Under Siege


The ACLU argued, and the Supreme Court agreed, that the CDA was unconstitutional because, although aimed at protecting minors, it effectively banned speech among adults. Similarly, many of the rating and blocking proposals, though designed to limit minors' access, will inevitably restrict the ability of adults to communicate on the Internet. In addition, such proposals will restrict the rights of older minors to gain access to material that clearly has value for them.


To open the door to a meaningful discussion, we offer the following recommendations and principles:

Recommendations and Principles
Internet users know best. The primary responsibility for determining what speech to access should remain with the individual Internet user; parents should take primary responsibility for determining what their children should access.
Default setting on free speech. Industry should not develop products that require speakers to rate their own speech or be blocked by default.
Buyers beware. The producers of user-based software programs should make their lists of blocked speech available to consumers. The industry should develop products that provide maximum user control.
No government coercion or censorship. The First Amendment prevents the government from imposing, or from coercing industry into imposing, a mandatory Internet ratings scheme.
Libraries are free speech zones. The First Amendment prevents the government, including public libraries, from mandating the use of user-based blocking software.

Six Reasons Why Self-Rating Schemes Are Wrong for the Internet

To begin with, the notion that citizens should "self-rate" their speech is contrary to the entire history of free speech in America.

In order to illustrate the very practical consequences of these schemes, consider the following six reasons, and their accompanying examples, illustrating why the ACLU is against self-rating:

Reason #1: Self-Rating Schemes Will Cause Controversial Speech To Be Censored.
Kiyoshi Kuromiya, founder and sole operator of Critical Path Aids Project, has a web site that includes safer sex information written in street language with explicit diagrams, in order to reach the widest possible audience. Kuromiya doesn't want to apply the rating "crude" or "explicit" to his speech, but if he doesn't, his site will be blocked as an unrated site. If he does rate, his speech will be lumped in with "pornography" and blocked from view. Under either choice, Kuromiya has been effectively blocked from reaching a large portion of his intended audience ­ teenage Internet users ­ as well as adults.

Reason #2: Self-Rating Is Burdensome, Unwieldy, and Costly.
 

Reason #3: Conversation Can't Be Rated.
You are in a chat room or a discussion group ­ one of the thousands of conversational areas of the Net. A victim of sexual abuse has posted a plea for help, and you want to respond. You've heard about a variety of ratings systems, but you've never used one. You read the RSACi web page, but you can't figure out how to rate the discussion of sex and violence in your response. Aware of the penalties for mis-labeling, you decide not to send your message after all.
The burdens of self-rating really hit home when applied to the vibrant, conversational areas of the Internet.

A rating requirement for these areas of the Internet would be analogous to requiring all of us to rate our telephone or street corner or dinner party or water cooler conversations.

Reason #4: Self-Rating Will Create "Fortress America" on the Internet.
 One of the most dangerous aspects of ratings systems is their potential to build borders around American- and foreign-created speech. It is important to remember that today, nearly half of all Internet speech originates from outside the United States.

Reason #5: Self-Ratings Will Only Encourage, Not Prevent, Government Regulation.
The webmaster for Betty's Smut Shack, a web site that sells sexually explicit photos, learns that many people won't get to his site if he either rates his site "sexually explicit" or fails to rate at all. He rates his entire web site "okay for minors." A powerful Congressman from the Midwest learns that the site is now available to minors. He is outraged, and quickly introduces a bill imposing criminal penalties for mis-rated sites.

Without a penalty system for mis-rating, the entire concept of a self-ratings system breaks down.

Reason #6: Self-Ratings Schemes Will Turn the Internet into a Homogenized Medium Dominated by Commercial Speakers.


There is no question that there may be some speakers on the Internet for whom the ratings systems will impose only minimal burdens: the large, powerful corporate speakers with the money to hire legal counsel and staff to apply the necessary ratings. The commercial side of the Net continues to grow, but so far the democratic nature of the Internet has put commercial speakers on equal footing with all of the other non-commercial and individual speakers.

Today, it is just as easy to find the Critical Path AIDS web site as it is to find the Disney site. Both speakers are able to reach a worldwide audience. But mandatory Internet self-rating could easily turn the most participatory communications medium the world has yet seen into a bland, homogenized, medium dominated by powerful American corporate speakers.

Is Third-Party Rating the Answer?

But third party ratings systems still pose serious free speech concerns.

First, a multiplicity of ratings systems has not yet emerged on the market, probably due to the difficulty of any one company or organization trying to rate over a million web sites, with hundreds of new sites ­ not to mention discussion groups and chat rooms ­ springing up daily.

Second, under third-party rating systems, unrated sites still may be blocked.

The fewer the third-party ratings products available, the greater the potential for arbitrary censorship.

Pro-censorship groups have argued that a third-party rating system for the Internet is no different from the voluntary Motion Picture Association of America ratings for movies that we've all lived with for years. But there is an important distinction: only a finite number of movies are produced in a given year. In contrast, the amount of content on the Internet is infinite. Movies are a static, definable product created by a small number of producers; speech on the Internet is seamless, interactive, and conversational. MPAA ratings also don't come with automatic blocking mechanisms.

Why Blocking Software Should Not Be Used by Public Libraries

In a recent announcement stating its policy, the ALA said:

Libraries are places of inclusion rather than exclusion. Current blocking/filtering software prevents not only access to what some may consider "objectionable" material, but also blocks information protected by the First Amendment. The result is that legal and useful material will inevitably be blocked.

By installing inaccurate and unreliable blocking programs on library Internet terminals, public libraries ­ which are almost always governmental entities­ would inevitably censor speech that patrons are constitutionally entitled to access.

 As the ALA noted, "(F)ilters can impose the producer's viewpoint on the community."