What is wrong with Internet Rating Systems
and Filtering Software

Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties (UK) is a non-profit civil liberties organisation founded in 1997.It is founded by the author who is currently a PhD student at the CyberLaw Research Unit of the Centre for Criminal Justice Studies, University of Leeds. Its main purpose is to promote free speech and privacy on the Internet and raise public awareness of these important issues. Therefore, the organisation deals with such issues as the regulation of pornography and child pornography on the Internet and the use of strong encryption tools to establish private communications over the Internet.

In the summer of 1997, Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties (UK) criticised the attempts of the Nottinghamshire County Council to suppress the availability of the JET Report on the Internet. The group organised a successful mirror campaign to beat the attempted suppression of the availability of the JET Report on the Internet by the Nottinghamshire County Council.

In November 1997, Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties (UK) launched a new report entitled, Who Watches the Watchmen, on the implications of the use and development of rating systems and filtering tools for the Internet content. The report insists that the debates on regulation of Internet-content should take place openly and with the involvement of public at large rather than at the hands of a few industry based private bodies. Internet rating systems and filtering software is the subject matter of this article and now the article will move into describing what these systems are and what they do before discussing the serious implications that they carry for the exclusion of Internet content.

Rating and Filtering Systems
Platform for Internet Content Selections ("PICS") is a rating system for the Internet and is similar to the V-chip technology for filtering out violence or pornography on television systems. PICS is widely supported by various governments and industry based organisations such as the Internet Watch Foundation in the UK. PICS works by embedding electronic labels in the text or image documents to vet their content before the computer displays them or passes them on to another computer. The vetting system could include political, religious, advertising or commercial topics. These can be added by the publisher of the material, by the company providing access to the Internet, or by an independent vetting body.

Currently, there are three PICS related rating systems that are being widely used or promoted and RSACi is the most well known of these kind of systems. It was developed by the United States based Recreational Software Advisory Council on the Internet ('RSACi'), originally a scheme for rating computer games. It rates material according to the degree of sex, violence, nudity, and bad language depicted. It is usually this PICS/RSACi screening combination that people have in mind when they refer to PICS.

RSACi rely on self-rating of Internet sites by web publishers. While apparently being voluntary and fair, this kind of system is likely to end up being a serious burden on content providers. First, the only way to deal with incorrect ratings is to prosecute content providers. That would be very dangerous and an infringement on free speech. Secondly, ISPs and search engines will simply block any unrated sites, so that content providers will feel it necessary to rate their sites even if they oppose such systems.

Filtering Software
Most filtering software available is designed for the home market. These are intended to respond to the preferences of parents making decisions for their own children. There are currently 15 blocking and filtering products and these are mainly US based (see http://www.netparents.org/software/) and do not represent the cultural differences in a global environment such as the Internet. It has been reported many times that, this kind of software is over-inclusive and limits access to or censors inconvenient web sites, or filters potentially educational materials regarding AIDS and drug abuse prevention. Therefore, "censorware" enters homes despite the hype over 'parental control' as an alternative to government censorship. The companies creating this kind of software also provide no appeal system to content providers who are "banned," thereby "subverting the self-regulating exchange of information that has been a hallmark of the Internet community." (see CPSR letter dated 18 December 1996 sent to Solid Oak, the makers of CyberSitter at http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/)

Defective systems suppress speech on the Internet
In August 1997, the American Civil Liberties Union was alarmed because of the failure to examine the longer term implications for the Internet of rating and blocking schemes. The ACLU published a white paper in August 1997 entitled Fahrenheit 451.2: Is Cyberspace Burning? How Rating and Blocking Proposals May Torch Free Speech on the Internet (see http://www.aclu.org/issues/cyber/burning.html). The ACLU paper warned that government-coerced, industry efforts to rate content on the Internet could torch free speech online. The ACLU paper stated that "in the physical world, people censor the printed word by burning books. But in the virtual world, you can just as easily censor controversial speech by banishing it to the farthest corners of cyberspace with blocking and rating schemes." According to the ACLU, third-party ratings systems pose free speech problems and with few third-party rating products currently available, the potential for arbitrary censorship increases.

In December 1997, the Electronic Privacy Information Center ("EPIC") released "Faulty Filters: How Content Filters Block Access to Kid-Friendly Information on the Internet," to determine the impact of software filters on the open exchange of information on the Internet. EPIC conducted 100 searches using a traditional search engine (AltaVista search engine at http://altavista.digital.com) and then conducted the same 100 searches using a new search engine that is advertised as the "world's first family-friendly Internet search site" (see Net Shepherd Family Search at http://family.netshepherd.com). In every case in EPIC's sample searches, EPIC officials found that the family-friendly search engine prevented them from obtaining access to almost 90 percent of the materials on the Internet containing the relevant search terms. For example, a search term including National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People resulted with 4076 hits with the AltaVista search engine while the same search term resulted with 15 hits with the Net Shepherd Family Search which means that 99.6 per cent of the materials were filtered out. In a similar search involving United Jewish Appeal, AltaVista search engine gave 3024 hits, while there was only one single hit with the family oriented Net Shepherd search engine with a 99.9 per cent filtering rate.

Filters can be hostile
The EPIC study shows that the would be family friendly technologies can be very hostile and result with censorship of socially acceptable and legal content.

The Wisdom Fund (http://www.twf.org) which promotes social justice and interfaith understanding by disseminating The Truth About Islam, and by providing concise statements of Islamic values, beliefs, news, commentary, and resources for concerned Muslims, citizens, and activists was for example blocked by I-Gear, a filtering software (I-Gear is used in many schools in the US, particularly in Virginia where its manufacturer, Unified Research Laboratories, is based.) in a test conducted by Peacefire (http://www.peacefire.org/censorware/I-Gear). I-Gear also blocked Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties (UK) pages for a while and put it under the "adult category" although the web pages have no adult content. SmartFilter, blocked such web sites as Understanding Islam and the Muslims (http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~kbatarfi/islam.html) and Welcome to Saudi Arabia: The Land of Islam pages (http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~kbatarfi/saudi.html) under the "cult category". The Jewish Bulletin (http://www.jewish.com), used to be blocked by Cyber Patrol and Shamash, the "Jewish Internet Consortium" (http://shamash.nysernet.org/), was blocked by X-Stop when Peacefire tested it according to Bennett Haselton of Peacefire, a teen run organisation which is against censorship of youth on the Internet.

It is well known that these filtering tools are also used to exclude speech related to sexual minority groups. These kind of filtering software normally include informational sites serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in the same categories as sexually explicit sites. According to the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation ("GLAAD") report "Access Denied: The Impact of Internet Filtering Software on the Lesbian and Gay Community," there are an estimated six to thirteen million children of lesbian and gay parents in the United States alone and these children would not be able to reach important information which is not illegal or harmful.

UK confirmation
In February 1998, the Internet Watch Foundation, a self-regulatory body supported by the UK government, announced its consultation paper for the development of rating systems at a national level. According to an IWF press release, rating systems would "meet parents' concerns about Internet content that is unsuitable for children." The so called consultation document by the IWF does not discuss whether these systems are suitable for Britain or whether they are needed at all. A decision has already been taken by the UK organisation to develop these systems and the consultation paper addresses how to develop these systems and has a set of recommendations which suggest that the decision is already made - rating systems are good and should be developed for use in this country.

This article has sought to demonstrate that these systems are defective and in most cases they are used for the exclusion of socially useful web sites and information. The general excuse remains as the protection of children from harmful content and also the duty of the industry to give more choices to the consumers. Filtering software and rating systems will be used to exclude minority views and gripe sites rather than protecting children from anything.

The Internet remains a wonderful resource for online users including children and it should be their parents' responsibility what they access or not and therefore the parents should be educated on the benefits of the Internet rather than creating a "moral panic" for the Internet content.

Any regulatory action intended to protect a certain group of people, such as children, should not take the form of an unconditional prohibition of using the Internet to distribute content that is freely available to adults in other media. The US Supreme Court recently stated in Reno v. ACLU, 117 S. Ct. 2329 (1997) that "the Internet is not as 'invasive' as radio or television and confirmed the finding of the US Court of Appeal that "communications over the Internet do not 'invade' an individual's home or appear on one's computer screen unbidden."

Educate your children rather than placing your trust in technology or in an industry that believes it can do a better job of protecting children than parents. The message is to be responsible parents not censors.

Further Internet Links related to the above story:
Akdeniz, Yaman "Governance of Pornography and Child Pornography on the Global Internet: A Multi-Layered Approach," in Edwards, L and Waelde, C eds, Law and the Internet: Regulating Cyberspace, Hart Publishing, 1997, pp 223-241. See http://www.leeds.ac.uk/law/pgs/yaman/governan.htm

American Civil Liberties Union, Fahrenheit 451.2: Is Cyberspace Burning? How Rating and Blocking Proposals May Torch Free Speech on the Internet, August 1997 http://www.aclu.org/issues/cyber/burning.html

Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties (UK) http://www.leeds.ac.uk/law/pgs/yaman/yaman.htm

A CR&CL(UK) press release, Internet Watch Foundation launches a consultation paper on "Rating and Filtering Internet Content - A United Kingdom Perspective" March 03, 1998, at http://www.leeds.ac.uk/law/pgs/yaman/watch-iwf.html

Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility Question Internet Filtering Agreement, July 18, 1997, at http://www.cpsr.org/dox/issues/filters.html

Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties (UK) Report, 'Who Watches the Watchmen: Internet Content Rating Systems, and Privatised Censorship,' which was launched in November 1997, is available at http://www.leeds.ac.uk/law/pgs/yaman/watchmen.htm

Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties (UK) has a section dealing with the regulation of child pornography on the Internet. It includes information about all UK cases involving child pornography. See http://www.leeds.ac.uk/law/pgs/yaman/child.htm

EPIC Censorware pages at http://www.epic.org/free_speech/censorware/

Electronic Privacy Information Center, "Faulty Filters: How Content Filters Block Access to Kid-Friendly Information on the Internet," Washington, December 1997, http://www2.epic.org/reports/filter-report.html

Filtering Facts, a web site which supports the idea of filtering on the Internet, http://www.filteringfacts.org/index.htm

Finkelstein, Seth, The Truth Isn't Out There, http://www.spectacle.org/cs/seth.html

Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation report, "Access Denied: The Impact of Internet Filtering Software on the Lesbian and Gay Community," New York, December 1997, at http://www.glaad.org/glaad/access_denied/index.html

Global Internet Liberty Campaign, Rating and Filtering pages, at http://www.gilc.org/speech/ratings/

Graham, Irene, The Net Labelling Delusion, http://rene.efa.org.au/liberty/label.html

Internet Watch Foundation consultation document - "Rating and Filtering Internet Content - A United Kingdom Perspective," is available at (http://www.internetwatch.org.uk/rating.html). A press release on this document is available at http://www.internetwatch.org.uk/p030398.html

Lessig, Lawrence , Tyranny in the Infrastructure: The CDA was bad - but PICS may be worse, Wired, Issue 5.07, July 1997, available at http://wwww.wired.com/wired/5.07/cyber_rights.html

Peacefire, a US organisation which opposes blocking software, http://www.peacefire.org/info/blocking_software.shtml

Wallace, Jonathan, et al, The Censorware Project at http://www.spectacle.org/cwp/

(lawya@leeds.ac.uk)
Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties (UK)
Copyright Yaman Akdeniz (c) 1998