By Jaron Lanier
We've never before had ratings for general literature. But PICS, which would
embed multiple ratings schemes into net-based media, goes even further,
conducting a dangerous experiment in the prefragmentation of expression.
If PICS becomes part of the standard, it'll be used in unpredictable ways.
For example, an overlapping "AND" combination of many different
PICS-supported ratings might be used by internet service providers, not
just individuals. This could make the net bland like broadcast TV for a
great many users, but that's far from the worst possibility.
PICS has the potential to amplify the efficacy of censors by giving them
a worldwide collaborative infrastructure for the first time. While rating
the vast Internet would be unfeasible for a single restrictive service,
this becomes conceivable if it's possible to easily "AND" together
the efforts of a hundred such services. Would Fundamentalist ISPs block
access to atheist sites? What about repressive nations using PICS to make
threatening ideas invisible to their citizens?
PICS could undercut the spirit of the First Amendment in the USA as well;
when that amendment was written, you at least had to hear the slightest
bit of what some fool was saying on the soapbox before you tuned him out.
With PICS, you'd never even know he existed.
Ironically, PICS might also make the stuff we don't want children to see
more accessible because it would clearly identify such material. Having
a delineated red-light district makes it easier to push porn, not harder.
Single-purpose filter programs under parental control, like NetNanny, are
ultimately safer than an untamable mesh of dubious universal barriers. Without
ratings, the Internet forces humanity to see itself as a whole, warts and
all. With ratings, it could encourage an unprecedentedly detailed balkanization
of ideas and images.