[LINK] Re: classification of online content

[Danny Yee]

Glen Turner wrote:
> The most likely thing to cause an R rating, but not a
> RC rating, is coarse language.  Give Carlin's Seven
> Filthy Words a run.
 
Hmmm... 
	http://www.anatomy.usyd.edu.au/danny/freedom/cases/Eat_Me.html
got away with a MA rating (I assume it was MA-rated, anyway, it could
have been M or PG or G, maybe an FOI will find out).  Admittedly the
language in that is all analogical, though :-).

Another reference point is
	http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=439901078
Which has lots of bad language.  This is "not prohibited", as the ABA puts
it, but it's overseas so it could still be R-rated and hence prohibited
if hosted in Australia.  (Anyone want to mirror it locally and find out?
The ABA is now telling me that complaints about content on my own server
are "not in good faith".)

The previous result was obtained as part of my "Celeste project" --
I'm working on a correlation analysis ( :-) between OFLC classifications
and ratings by online reviewers, for textual erotica (sex stories).  See
	http://www.anatomy.usyd.edu.au/danny/freedom/celeste/

> For example, this from the "R" rating for videos (applies
> to electronic texts)
> 
>   Sex: ...Verbal references may be more detailed than
>        depictions.
> 
> is just bizaare when applied to a textual work.  Rewrorking
> a text from the first- to the third-person could change the
> rating :-)

That's one I hadn't thought of!

> Also, the Internet has differing rules for "submittable
> publications".  

There's any notion of a submittable publication in the BSA, fortunately!
But if the states pass censorship legislation, it may yet become a
criminal offence to publish something that is or _would be_ classified
R...

> The most worrying aspect of this is that
> it appears to my reading that bona-fide harm reduction
> material published by non-government bodies could have a
> takedown notice upheld if placed on the web.
 
Indeed.  Though I suspect the ABA and the OFLC will bend over backwards
to avoid censoring anything like that, fearing the backlash.  And as the
chess master Lasker wrote, the threat is mightier than its execution:
the Damoclean sword hanging over ISPs' heads is more of a menace while
no one knows how sharp it is.

Danny.