Rated “A” for Ambiguous

In an attempt to control pornography on the Internet, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales proposed a rating system. This idea is good in theory: take all of the information available online and rate it for sexual explicitness. Wielding such an idea will prove to be more than difficult.

I think that Australian government officials were on the right track in suggesting a mandatory self-rating system. The way I forsee such a legislation being put into practice is as follows:

The government sets a graduated rating, on a scale similar to the way movies, TV shows, and video games are rated. A website registers with the government (including information for the author of the website), proferring a rating they deem most suitable based on the rating scale. The rating is approved (or amended), and the website can then be accessible. Every year, the site is reviewed to make sure the content has not changed, and that the site is not in need of a new rating. Sites that provide news (which could include rapes) would rate a particular story, and not the whole site. Sites that are sexually educative would have a separate rating scale, along with an indication of whether the information is merely verbal, or if it includes images as well. For the sake of convenience (as this task is already daunting), the images would not be separate from the site as a whole. Sites that feature bestiality or child pornography are illegal, and would not be able to register, and hence would remain inaccessible.

I do not see the proposed act as a violation of the First Amendment: information is not being completely censored, it is being categorized so that it is not available to those who should not see it (like children).

What I do find problematic are the insinuations that images of people in underwear or bathing suits might be regarded as unwholesome – I do not see the purpose of this, as any child who frequents the beach (or walks out of his or her house in the middle of August) will get up-close and personal with people who are scantily clad, and “protecting” children from these images is useless.

I also find the name of the law (Child Pornography and Obscenity Prevention Amendments of 2006) to be overreaching. This law does not protect anyone from, nor outwardly prevent, child pornography from being placed on the internet, however it could potentially protect children from pornography. (My proposition would not allow for sites that propogate child pornography to be allowed on the internet, but that does not mean that there would be a complete elimination of child pornography – I could theoretically still maintain a “private” collection; child pornography in relation to Gonzales’ proposed law is not addressed in this article.) I believe a more appropriate title would be something akin to, “Child Protection from Pornography and Obscenity Amendment”.

Overall, I think Gonzalez has a noble idea. The inherent problem is trying to “control” the mass of information available on the internet. However, I can also see why some, such as Marv Johnson of the ACLU, would see this as problematic: if you can control how much is available about sexually explicit material than it can certainly be done in regards to political views, scientific discoveries, etc. It’s a fine line that must be trod with caution.