Protecting the minors

[McKenzie Wark]

It is important to separate issues of classification
from the notion of censorship. Classification provides
information about the likely contents of a film or tv
show. That's just good consumer information. Censorship
is a separate issue. 

Incidentally, classification *does* apply to printed
matter in Australia, but only when people lodge complaints
with the Office of Film and Literature Classification.
The Brett Easton Ellis novel _American Psycho_ was given
a restricted classification under this system.

I'm resistant to the net community's gung-ho attitude
to freedom of information where children are concerned. 
Arguments in favour of freedom of information have to
rest on the assertion of a community that is able to
make up its own mind about what it sees/hears/reads.
Children are almost be definition trainee aspirants to
such a community, not actual members of it. Its part
of the responsibility of parents and educators to train
children in the interpretive skills and and arts. If 
the net is to be a tool in that process it has to be
something that parents, children and educators can
use together, and where adults can set an agenda and
create curriculum. Which is not to say totally control 
the access of children, but monitor it and shape it.

Frankly, one can either meet this need with useful tools
or concede the whole ground to ratbags who want to censor
and control. 



___________________________________________________
McKenzie Wark             mwark@laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au
lecturer in communications      ph: +61-(0)2-850-8786
Macquarie University 2109      fax: +61-(0)2-850-8240
"We no longer have roots we have aerials"__________