From: thad@hammerhead.com (Thaddeus J. Beier)
Date: Sat, 7 Dec 1996 21:13:35 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: PICS is not censorship
Message-ID: <199612080515.VAA01745@hammerhead.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


tcmay@got.net ("Timothy C. May") sez
> This is why I fear PICS. Democracy has run amok in the Western world, and
> the various "herds" will vote to constrain the freedoms of other members of
> the herd.
> 
> My Prediction: If PICS is used voluntarily by more than 80% of Net users to
> label their Web pages and their writings, etc., then less than 3 years
> later PICS will be mandated in the United States and other such countries.

PICS, or something like it, is the absolutely right response to calls
for true Internet censorship.  People agreeing to a language, a way
of communicating, is a good thing.

Did you object to HTML?  TCP/IP?  Other agreements that limited the way
that people communicate?

I don't think that PICS will be mandated any more than those two standards
are mandated, perhaps I'm naive, but I think that the social conventions
will work in this case.

I suppose the a better solution would have been to have many competing
private rating services, but PICS will work well, not put much load on
the net, and is transparent and simple.  I like it.

thad
-- Thaddeus Beier                     thad@hammerhead.com
   Visual Effects Supervisor                408) 287-6770
   Hammerhead Productions  http://www.got.net/people/thad