Censorship

The Benevolent Dictatorship of Baja LasVegastan censors official secrets, so as to advance the interests of the officials included in the current government. In this respect it is no different from any other nation.

However, the Benevolent Dictator considers it unwise to expend over-many resources in suppressing information when the publication thereof will harm only persons other than officials included in the current government. These resources are better spent elsewhere, and it is unwise to be tempted to spend them in censorship.

An "official secret" is information which (originally, at least) is in the hands only of government officials. It is kept secret only for as long as secrecy advances the interests of the officials included in the current government. When these officials change their minds (or the officials are changed), the information becomes available on request, and may even be actively announced.

Unofficial information -- information which was developed or gathered other than by government officials -- falls into six classes, depending on who becomes offended if the information gets published:

1. no one ("The Wizard of Oz", long out of copyright, gets uploaded on the Internet);

2. government officials (sedition);

3. private persons who may reasonably be said to own the information (copyrighted material, trademarks, intimate videos, trade secrets), and who therefore ought to have the power to decide how (or even whether) the information is to be published;

4. private persons who may reasonably be said to be damaged by lies published by another (libel, slander, unfair competition);

5. guardians of public morality, acting on behalf of each recipient of the information, who is considered to be damaged by the receipt of the information even though he appears to be affirmatively requesting such receipt (obscenity, blasphemy, pornography, vulgarity, indecency, profanity, and so on); and

6. the recipients themselves.

This article of the Constitution of Baja LasVegastan addresses the fifth and sixth classes.

Public Morality

The fifth class -- publication of information which is at least potentially contrary to public morals -- may be addressed summarily. Information may not be suppressed if it falls only into the fifth class. Resources devoted to suppressing information in the fifth class must be diverted to instead suppress official secrets, and to instead suppress unofficial information in the other five classes.

Offensive to the Recipient

The sixth class -- information offensive to the recipient -- naturally divides into two subclasses:

• offensive to recipients in general; and

• offensive to particular recipients.

Offensive to Recipients in General

The law in Baja LasVegastan is brief and to the point with respect to the first subclass -- information which is offensive to recipients in general:

• No one may openly depict a potentially-offensive act, that is, an act which would be a crime if done in a public place but would be legal if done in a private place.

• A depiction is "open" if a viewer or listener, in a public place (including a private place which the viewer/listener has the right to occupy), could see or hear the depiction without first:

  • being warned that taking some affirmative action (entering a theater, clicking on an Internet link, opening a newspaper or magazine, and so forth) might cause a potentially-offensive act to be depicted to him; and

  • taking that affirmative action anyway.

Nudity, masturbation, touching of the breasts/anus/genitals, copulation, urination, and defecation are the current items on the conventional list of "potentially-offensive acts". They -- and only they -- can therefore not be openly depicted in the media, at least currently. If this not-to-be-openly-depicted-in-the media list is to be changed, then it must be changed indirectly: The list of things which may not occur within view/hearing of a public place -- without any media -- must itself first be changed.

Offensive to Particular Recipients

Dealing with the second subclass is more complex. The broad warning "Clicking on this link may produce depictions of potentially-offensive acts" is not very informative. A rating system is therefore necessary. However, a government-mandated rating system quickly degenerates into censorship, and the consequent over-allocation of resources into this relatively unimportant are.

Fortunately, there are likewise plenty of groups which will rate various publications (both electronic and otherwise) for obscenity, profanity, and everything in between. However, the raters themselves have their own agendas. Consequently, a lack of self-interested bias is difficult -- if not impossible -- to attain. This is particularly a problem on the Internet.

Google ran into the problem of "agendas and a lack of self-interested bias" when developing a system for rank-ordering the relative importance of the gazillion web-pages out there which address some topic. Folks will only skim the first 10 web-pages -- the first 20, max -- and move on. This is a great opportunity for agenda/bias-based shenanigans.

Google solved the problem by having the World Wide Web itself do the rank-ordering. Of all the web-pages discussing, say, both "iraq war" and "brazil", which of these pages has the most links to it? Add a point for each link. Display the pages in their point score order.

Add some improvements. If a linked-from page itself has a lot of points, then add more points for that link. If the linked-from page mentions either "iraq war" or "brazil", then add more points further. Add yet more points if it mentions both. Add additional tweaks. In relatively short order, we have a system that works nicely on <"iraq war" brazil> -- and also on <"san diego" "furniture store">.

What Google has done for importance can also be done for MPAA-style ratings. ("MPAA" -- that's "Motion Picture Association of America".)

Suppose that a webmaster -- when linking to a web-page, whether on his own website or otherwise -- were to include his own, personal, rating(s) of the linked-to webpage. Have each webmaster decide, "If that web-page were a movie, then I'd expect:

• the rating organization named [here insert the URL of the rating organization(s) which the webmaster considers to be important], such as:

  • the Motion Picture Association of America ("MPAA");

  • Focus On The Family ("FOTF");

  • the Free Speech Coalition ("FSC" -- formerly known as the "Adult Film Association of America"); and

  • every other rating organization;

• to rate that web-page as [rating]."

Google could then combine these webmaster ratings of each linked-to web-page into a fairly accurate prediction of what rating would be given to that webpage by each rating organization.

Keep in mind that each rating organization has its own website, with:

• links to web-pages,

  • both on its own and other websites; and

  • perhaps including "Here are some good examples of what we're talking about, for each rating" web-pages; and

• its actual rating (encoded within these links) of each of these web-pages.

Google will no doubt give special consideration to such links.

Why would webmasters take the trouble to include, in each link, a rating (or several) of each linked-to web-page? And why would Google want to pay any attention to such ratings? There are several reasons.

Here are the answers, in reverse order.

Why Google would want to pay attention to such ratings

Google makes money by having folks use Google's search engine and then click through to sponsored links (a/k/a advertisers). Many people are not going to click through to anything -- paid or unpaid -- if they are worried that they will come across offensive content when they do.

Web-surfers will prefer to use Google's search engine -- as distinct from, say, Yahoo's -- if they are confident that Google will filter out offensive content (based on what the web-surfer himself described as "offensive") better than Yahoo does. And it's not that expensive for Google to fold in "This is what the customer considers to be inoffensive" when it's deciding "This is what the customer wants".

Why webmasters would take the trouble to include, in each link, a rating (or several) of the linked-to web-page

Webmasters get points when web-surfers visit their websites. Many such web-surfers prefer not to view offensive content.

The webmaster's website is likely to rise higher in Google's rankings (and in the rankings on Yahoo, and the other search engines) for such more-easily-offended web-surfers when the website's own out-going links include ratings. "Ah," says Google. "This is a website which takes ratings seriously. We should give greater credence to the ratings given by other websites for this website than we would to ratings for a website whose own out-going links do not include ratings."

The Government

If a rating system works well, then there's no need for the government to step in. Browsers can easily be configured to not follow a link if -- after first checking with Google, and briefly displaying an ad (to fund the system) -- the linked-to site has the wrong rating.

But what if a rating system doesn't work well? What if it can't muster any significant support -- not from the webmasters, nor from the search engine companies?

Question: Well, whose fault is that?

Answer: a rating system that attempts to pander to a very small minority of web-surfers, and therefore can't attain critical mass.

"Very Small Minority". As in, "Politically Unimportant". The government (looking anxiously at the mood of the proles) should not expend scarce political capital on this issue, when the mood of the proles could be so much better addressed on some other issue. At the top of the list of "some other issue" is, "Official Secrets, the discovery of which would be detrimental to the officials included in the current government".

Hmmm. Do yourself a favor, Mr. Third-Assistant Deputy Vice Sub-Under-Flunky (for Administration). Focus 100% of your efforts on securing Official Secrets. Not doing so will threaten the job of the Second-Assistant Deputy Vice Sub-Under-Flunky (for Administration) -- and the Second-Assistant (etc.) is quite prepared to listen to complaints from people that you've been paying too much attention to already-established-as-being-Politically-Unimportant people. And the First-Assistant (etc.) is quite prepared to listen to complaints about his Second-Assistants -- and to grant immunity to the complainants.

Nah, Let the search engines do their own thing. It's a career-enhancing move, eh?

Media Other Than the Web

What can be done for the World Wide Web can be done for other media, too. Every medium worthy of the name has a Web presence which reflects its non-Web operations. It's quite straightforward to require each non-Web medium to list the top three ratings-using search engines which are used to get to its website, and to list the ratings from the top three ratings systems used by that search engine. Baja LasVegastani law requires every non-Web medium operating within its borders to do just that.

No such engines/ratings exist? OK. Then there aren't any requirements on that non-Web medium. Apparently this is an issue only for the politically unimportant people.

"Politically unimportant people". That is, "Can be safely disregarded; and, resources which otherwise would be use to mollify them should instead be used to protect Official Secrets, the discovery of which would be  detrimental to the officials included in the current government".

Please see above discussion of what happens to Assistants who don't focus 100% of their efforts on securing Official Secrets.