Applying movie ratings to Web sites is a dumb idea

The British secretary of state for culture, media, and sports, Andy Burnham, told The Daily Telegraph recently that he thinks "cinema-style ratings" should be placed on all Web sites to grade them based on their content and decency.

According to Burnham, the Web is "a dangerous place" and we need to do a better job of ensuring children don't make their way to the wrong sites. He believes that by using the ratings system already imposed on films, it could do the world a great deal of good.

He's kidding, right? How can anyone expect a "cinema-style" ratings system to work in an environment where individuality and "user-owned" content are coveted above all else? Oh, and what about the whole enforcement of such an idea? Should we hire pimple-faced teenagers to check IDs before your 13-year-old decides to surf to HowardStern.com like they do at movie theaters?

The idea that anyone would want to place ratings on Web sites strikes me as, well, one of the dumbest Ideas I've heard in a long time. It's not that I'm against keeping kids away from questionable content. I simply don't know how a ratings system could do any good.

Age verification on the Web is disastrous. How many times have you been to a site that requires age verification, left the month and day alone, and changed the year to something like 1950 to get in? I'm willing to bet 90 percent of all the people on the Web were born on January 1.

Realizing that, what makes anyone believe a ratings system would work? If it doesn't stop young teenagers from sneaking into a rated-R movie, what makes anyone think it will keep them out when they're in the privacy of their home surfing the Web?

I know, I know: this ratings system is for parents! Right. I'm sure there are a slew of parents out there who would look at ratings each time their children surf the Web and I would commend them for that. But I'm also willing to bet that there are some parents that would either see these ratings for what they are--a waste of time--or ignore them altogether.

Think about it--how is it possible to rate any Web site? If you had to take a guess, what would you rate CNET.com? PG? PG-13? R? I'm sure anyone can make the case for any rating. But for our purposes, let's just say that the ratings board chose PG. In other words, children can go to CNET.com based on the content we create on the site.

But what about the comments? What about some of the hate-filled, vituperation readers place on different stories across the site? Sure, the article itself is fine for children, but calling others names, cursing, or using other generally unaccepted language probably isn't rated PG, right? Realizing that, maybe we should rate the content PG, but the comments R. But then again, not all the comments are bad and many are educational. Should we then start rating individual comments? If so, who will be given that menial task?

Rating a movie is one thing, but trying to place those ratings onto a Web site is ridiculous. There are too many people providing too much content on too many sites for it to make any sense. In other words, the Web, unlike film, is not a controlled environment.

I'm all for protecting kids from dangers in the world, and the Internet has plenty of it. But trying to apply generic ratings to the multi-faceted Web is ridiculous.

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[jhvipond]

I am one of the many creators at a popular webcomic site, and I, too, am concerned for children and sensitive adults. If Web sites must be rated, I would vastly prefer a rating system based objectively on site content rather than subjectively on age appropriateness.

[Penguinisto]

Actually, you can do that now (and you've been able to do it for years now). The ICRA, formerly the RCSA, is a voluntary system that's been out since the 1990's. It involves putting a few meta-tags on your site so that kid-censoring software can pick it up.

They're still around: http://www.fosi.org/icra/

[SamIam81]

The movie system rating doesn't work now. There are plenty of people who allow their children to watch PG and think it's completely fine. When there is something they feel is inappropriate they get upset that it was a PG rating. PG stands for Parental Guidance, parents should monitor what their children see, not the government.

Here's a crazy thought. Have a separate User account for your children without the ability to go onto the internet. When there is a parent/guardian home to monitor content, the parent can log the child onto another User Account. locked by a password.

[plbyrd]

It's called Parent Controls, and it's in Vista as a standard feature.

[Penguinisto]

@plbyrd:

OSX and everyone else has had that for years now ;)

[ZetaZeta_]

@Penguinisto:
What's your point? You could do it in Windows NT 4 (1996) and higher by being a little creative with permissions (restrict access to iexplore.exe to certain users, for instance). My parents used various third party applications that ran under Windows 95.

[russkeller]

The only problem is that often Kids know there way around computers better than their parents. What's the point of parental controls when the person trying to use them has less knowledge on the subject than those they're trying to keep out? In principle I'm for the idea but in practice I recognize it's a bad idea. It's not like the Malware or Porn sites we'd like to ban or give harsh ratings are going to comply, they make it their job to find ways around it. Still dosn't mean it shouldn't find a way. At least it's starting a discussion about it maybe that was the whole point. Hell Google figured out how to get the porn sites out of their search results, finding out how they pulled that off would be helpful and the guys who did it should be included in that discussion. Hopefully it'll lead to something meaningful and realistic that'll actually work.

[Penguinisto]

@ZetaZeta: The point is simple: it's been around awhile as part of the OS (though Vista was the first Windows version to have it built-in). As for NT? Hell, you could do it in ancient SysV UNIX with a shell script if you really wanted to... so yep - it's been around for awhile. Third-party? Google for the phrase "Net Nanny" or "Cybersitter".

So, with all of that, why is it suddenly necessary to enforce a top-down (as in - web-based) solution?

[plbyrd]

@russkeller and Penquinisto

The point is that with Vista it's extremely effective and extremely easy. Kids cannot subvert Parental Control in Vista without an administrator password. You should check out the parental controls in Vista before off-handedly dismissing it as been-there, done-that.

[Dalkorian]

by plbyrd December 29, 2008 7:44 PM PST
@russkeller and Penquinisto

The point is that with Vista it's extremely effective and extremely easy. Kids cannot subvert Parental Control in Vista without an administrator password. You should check out the parental controls in Vista before off-handedly dismissing it as been-there, done-that.

=====================================================================

Maybe you should take a look at a real OS before mouthing off about how great this "feature" is in fista. Hint: fista is *very* late to the party on this front, as well as every other front except one - keeping the slaves under control with draconian DRM schemes. It will be obvious to even you once you remove your lips from M$'s seat.

[plbyrd]

The ratings system would be used by software such as the Parental Controls in Vista (which absolutely rocks). As for cursing in the comments, the comments need to be better moderated on this site. Also, the ratings system should have flags such as "unmoderated content" that would allow the software to be set to allow or deny such sites. Additionally, sites can be proactive by using meta tags in the HTML that would list the names of DIVs that could potentially contain unmoderated content and then the filter software could prevent the DIV from displaying or showing up in the source of the page.

Just because you don't like the concept doesn't mean it's not something that is both workable and would be a great benefit to parents everywhere.

[Oleg Simkin]

You know what would be of great benefit to parents everywhere... is that the PARENTS watch their kids instead of relying on others, including the government, to watch the kids for them!

[plbyrd]

@Oleg

Are you going to sit over the shoulder of your children every day and watch every page and every keystroke they type? That's like following them outside, sitting 5 fee away from them and listening to every word they say to their friends. That level of micromanagement of a child is unhealthy for everyone involved.

[Penguinisto]

@plbyrd: That's what a mini proxy server and keyloggers are for ;)

[jgiannakas]

Well, a better idea would be to better educate your children, as developing sound judgement is the best protection they can get.

[plbyrd]

You're right on the money with teenagers, but completely out in left field with a 5-year-old boy. My 7-year-old daughter now types in the URLs from commercials on TV. The parental controls in Vista do a fine job of filtering sites and I can view reports on her activities any time I want to. It's not fair to deprive a child of the massive benefit of the Internet because of a few bad apples. If you can identify the bad apples and block them then you can give your child more freedom to explore and learn.

[FireyIce01]

plbyrd: It is my opinion that a 5 year old boy shouldn't be allowed to use the internet unsupervised.

Teaching your children responsibility and judgment IS the answer to this "problem" of a dangerous internet... because the internet isn't dangerous. People with poor judgment are dangerous, and not just on the web, in the real world.

I keep seeing all these new controls to protect the children... all it does is help promote the idea of lazy parenting. Sure, I could teach my kid to be intelligent. Or I could get a computer program to keep them from doing anything wrong. Which is going to work better? Well, honestly, it seems to me that most people will attempt to circumvent anything that prevents them from doing what they want to do - whereas an intelligent person that knows they aren't supposed to do something, and at times more importantly, WHY they aren't supposed to do it, is more likely to not do that thing.

[plbyrd]

My son doesn't use the Internet all willy-nilly. His computer is using a deny-first setting in Vista's Parental Control settings where I specifically state which sites he may browse to. I also have complete control over what executables he can run. If he wants me to add a new site he simply asks and I check it out and if I'm comfortable I add that site to the allow list.

[pablouk1]

As you can see this Rubbish Government of England has nothing better to do than to try and turn this once great country ?England? into Russia of old, China of new. They are constantly attempting to tell us how we should live, eat, drink, have fun and even fart in only the ways they deem fit. (Hitler wasn?t this bad).
By the comments of Andy Burnham you can clearly see they do not live on the same planet as the rest of us.
It?s no matter that the economy of England is dying but they still have time to come up with this rubbish. Not only do they wish to censor the Internet in the UK and punish anyone who ?they feel? are copyright infringers, which is not their job but the job of whoever makes the films DVDs Games etc and not an elected body, a body that is meant only to look after the country and its people?s welfare.
So at least the rest of the world can now see what a useless bunch they really are.

[plbyrd]

They are not trying to control what you read, simply inform you that a site contains content of a certain level of maturity. How is that taking away any rights?

[Frank Mlinar]

Web site ratings are definitely a good idea. This is not a Big Brother idea but a big Parent idea. You have to give parents the tools to help their children. The web is so wide open that ratings are needed.

[Dalkorian]

Why can't people understand this? What's so difficult about it?

Think of it this way, are there any streets in town you wouldn't let your child walk down unsupervised after dark? How do you know about these streets, are they "rated R"? Clearly labeled at every block - "this street contains adult situations, language and violence, therefore they are rated R and only approved for adults over the age of 18"?

No? Why not? What's the difference here?

Rating systems like this are just to placate absentee parents. They do nothing to increase anyone's safety in any way. What would stop me from forging a "rated G" website that included hard core sex images, or even videos?

[BlackKingX]

Firefox has a plug-in that pretty much does this. Says how child-friendly a site is, how reliable the site is, how safe it is, etc..

Of course I don't think it actually blocks sites that aren't suitable for children, but it still has a rating for nearly every site and you can sometimes read comments from other people about what they think of that site. The plug-in is pretty good if you're visiting a site you've never been to before too.

[Hunnter2k3]

I agree with this, it is such a bad idea.

tl;dr
Overprotection and censorship is bad.
Better Education > > > > > poo > this idea.

There are already 3rd apps out there that take care of this.
I do NOT want a filter just because THEY want one.
I was exposed to adult themes long before i was supposed to, i am perfectly fine, i'm not some weird sex fiend, i don't kill people, i don't have any obscene fetishes.

The whole "protect the children!!!" thing is really taking the biscuit these days.
Kids are being over protected these days, YES, i said it, over protection is a terrible thing and will lead to a future society of zombies if it were enforced.
Do kids need to know about death? YES, they do, if they are hidden from this, it can lead to psychos, murderers and so on, because they have no idea what death really is.
Do kids need to know about sex? YES, they do, if they are hidden from this, it can lead to unprotected sex at young ages.
And so on, and so on.

Wait a minute, we already live in that twisted society where kids know absolutely none of these things.
Sexual education is terrible, and "pedo" this and "pedo that" is really becoming a bore now. Paranoia is the reason. Solution: background checks on Sex Ed teachers, SIMPLE.
Education on oneself, life and death is terribly lacking, this should be brought up every year, they need to be reminded that Bob is not a toy and breaking / attacking / killing Bob is a bad thing. (if you want it so simple)
Hell, even education on how to actually live in society was quite bad when i was in school, no, scratch that, really bad.
I had no idea about credit, debit, banks, housing, and any other financial stuff, other than what money is, how to use it, how to get more, how to change it from one currency to another, the simple stuff...
The education system should be fixed, stop with all the censoring crap, kids aren't stupid and they don't need to be protected from every single tiny teeny weeny little thing in existence.

/rant

[jabelar]

Parenting is about putting your children in safe learning environments, not about watching over everything they do. It's like researching the daycare you put your kids in -- you won't know everything that goes on there, but it is useful to find out as much as you can before placing your children there. So it makes sense that defining some safe areas on the internet would be useful (and not just a lazy) parenting tool. Of course government/police won't be able to practically enforce rating systems, but self-rating systems still have a lot of potential. Also there are all sorts of possibilities where people can share information on inappropriate content (viewer tagged). Lastly industry-policed systems similar to organic food production can be made into rating services where people wanting to be certified at a certain kid-friendliness level can pay for membership and if there are complaints about non-compliance then their certification can be revoked. Web browsers and OSes already have technology to hook into this. It's a good idea, and can be workable.

[FireyIce01]

That's the point. The ideas you have suggested are all available already.

[Zamoreta]

agreed. rating every website would just not work. If website owners want to take it upon themselves to make warning pages, thats good. But if not, its the parents job to either check the sites their kids are going to.

MPAA ratings on the WWW: not happening.

[drpr]

A rating system would be nice if it were actually usable, but it really isn't if it's borrowed from the movie industry. Any site rated "G" for its content would probably attract dimwitted people who will want to turn it into an X-rated site by hacking the server or leaving nasty comments.

The rating of sites is entirely different from attempts to control access to them, though. You can have a rating system without the gateway. I would advocate not worrying about the gateway and just informing people about the site content. I like knowing that I'm going to see graphic violence, for example. I can choose to not visit the site.

[vamman]

There is virtually no fool proof system. In terms of parental guidance, there really isn't much you can do after your child finds that little red wagon website only to be greeted by dongs and dills. Then you as a parent are responsible. Keep track of your children and what they are doing. Talk to them and teach them morals and values.

[jacksoncapper]

Yeah the web and censorship is real problem noone has totally solved yet. Because of the uncontrolled nature of the web, perhaps the web should be an adults only domain altogether. I don't know. The only thing that makes sense is just to have parents there to check what they are looking at. It's the simplest full-proof way (that I can think of).

[pablouk1]

TAKEN FROM THE BBC

As the world and his dog have already said, this has nothing to do with protecting children ? that's just an excuse for Labour to introduce legislation that will enable it to censor the internet of criticism of itself. Just as it used terrorism as an excuse to introduce legislation that it now uses to persecute practically everyone except terrorists. Parliament should throw this legislation out ? it will be used to restrict free speech and further undermine democracy.


ENOUGH SAID

[plbyrd]

Is that really a direct copy-paste quote from the BBC? If so, how could you possibly put any stock into any of that poorly written and punctuated gibberish?

[ceebee23]

And what do we do when the government decides all sites rated R or above should be blocked to protect the children .... I can hear them saying it ..wait they are ..here in Australia that is the plan!

Ratiings are more than dumb they are the first step in controlling the net for all sorts of groups hate the freedom of the net... big media... politicians..religious groups... and when they come togther to save our children you know you are in serious danger.

So beware of "dumb" ideas.... they are the first steps towards the full out censorship of the internet.

[yangpu6]

Impossible to rate pages.

"top-down" "bottom -up".....technology. male-femal coaxials

ambiguity and spelling mistakes

"boot-up" "booty-up"

hahahaha

But

I think a pretty little webrate dancing logo would be a nice addition to a webpage.
Good business opp.
I think a logo display of an internet buisness license would be fine, so we can all type the logo number in to a database and check its validity

Here are some suggested ratings:

ER (Eye Roller)
WOT (Waste of Time)
PW (Please Wait)
DNL (Does Not Load)
DNLANH (Does Not Load And Never Has)
TW (Time Waster)
S (Stuck).
F (Frozen)
NBR (No Brain Required)
SW (So What?)
OPCBL (Opening Page, Come Back Later)
DA (Don't Ask)
EBTG :-)

[NeonLemmyKoopa]

It would be a waste of time, and a waste of money (if any be involved). Honestly I don't think a rating that shows up in Google search results for an Adult Only website would turn a child away. Lord knows that child will go "Sweet, adults only" and open the link, say they were born in 1900 or something and get in. If people REALLY want to keep kids out of nasty content, they should invest more in software and special routers.

Web ratings is gonna do no good, and honestly it would be a waste of time to try to rate every web page. Think about it. There are probably more web sites than there are people in the world. And to rate every individual one based on content, to me, is not going to do any good.

[nicmart]

We could ask Jean Charles de Menezes which, between the web and the British government, is more dangerous, but the government blew his brains out at point-blank range before we had a chance. What "cinema-style rating" does the government get for that?

[odedy]

The only answer to the problem raised in this article is by using online age verification systems such as the biometric age verification online, in real-time, provided by VerificAge (www.verificage.com):
- It establishes full segregation between adults and children online
- Does not use any kind of data base. Eliminating risks involved in storing and maintaining data.
- It does not identify the user personally but rather his/her age group category; therefore, the user?s privacy cannot be jeopardized.
- The system is based on a ?one time? biometric measurement that can distinguish a child from an adult with a very high accuracy rate.
- It can assert a user?s age every time he wishes to access a website, content, or while interacting with others
It seems that VerificAge?s solution is going to change the surfing culture on the Net and increase dramatically children?s safety online.

[kyastic]

This could be good for not only parents but for all internet users. Rating your website would have to be voluntary but I believe that website owners would be encouraged to rate their website if say, Google adds a rating filter to their search engine. Parents could set their browsers to G or PG (browser ad-on or parental control software) and their children would only have access to G or PG sites. Adults can filter out G or filter in PG, PG-13, R, or XXX. I am sure both Disney and the porn industry would be fine with that.

A rating system could aid current parental control software to filter out unwanted site and a browser add-on could come in handy for searches/search engines. This rating system should not be compared to the laughable age verification or the movie ratings. Yeah a kid can easily fake his age and sneak into a website or movie but he can't easily fake software into letting him into a R rated site.

Rating your website would be for the good of the internet. Yes there would be a lot of morons rating their obvious "R" site a "G" site just because. But the majority of the sites would be accurate.