5 ms·

The page having a simple rating assumes there can be one mapping from content to rating for the whole world. I doubt we can even have one for North America and

by lokar 5mo ago

The page having a simple rating assumes there can be one mapping from content to rating for the whole world. I doubt we can even have one for North America and Europe.

deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
californical 5mo ago
Come up with a few categories and let the browser/OS decide. Websites by default are ‘true’ for every category, unless they specify. Categories are, for example of some: nudity, sexual, violence, etc. It doesn’t have to be perfect but sites will have to err on the side of caution. We could even create an html tag <restricted type=violence> for example, and the browser can simply not render that portion of the page of the user has that type disabled. And we could give companies a pass for best-effort categorization using tech to assess user-generated content, along with allowing users to flag their own content as “safe”
- lokar 5mo ago
  A header is probably better than a tag. The goal should be to satisfy most reasonable governments. A neutral technical standard and an international organization to maintain the the ontology for content descriptors
  - californical 5mo ago
    Ah I was proposing the tag as another option - maybe a news article is fine for kids but the comment section is unmoderated. That way they could still read the article but not the comments
    - tardedmeme 5mo ago
      Better idea is just tell the server if you want to hide restricted content. Then it can make any changes necessary. Yes it's a fingerprinting bit. Not a new one, because they could already detect whether the restricted tag was rendering or not, anyway.
  - 1718627440 5mo ago
    But a HTML document could contain a listing of things, that might or might not fall in to these categorize (a search result). A better option would be to just have it as an attribute to elements, like the "lang=..." attribute. That way an UA could even have a policy of show text tagged, but not images. Or images only when clicked per images. Websites wouldn't need to implement spoilers or blurs then, this could be implemented in the UA.
l72 5mo ago
Every app submitted to the App or Play store already has to do this. If parental controls are on, then users cannot download those apps. The only hard part for the web is that a site could lie since there is no gatekeeper, but some black lists can help with bad actors.
- lokar 5mo ago
  Do the app stores have per-country rules to decide a rating?
- Ajedi32 5mo ago
  Maybe certain headers could be cryptographically signed. So like if your movie is rated PG by the MPA the MPA itself could sign a statement to that effect. Or a government could issue a social media company a license they could use to sign their pages as complying with some regulation and revoke their license if they don't comply.
fc417fc802 5mo ago
That's a sorry attempt at an excuse. Companies are expected to collect ID and have related business logic that respects local laws but can't figure out how to tag their content? That's an utterly nonsensical position. There's no reason a simple, standardized header can't be used to communicate any number of classifications simultaneously. Edit: It occurs to me that if you oppose all age related measures then my above response isn't entirely fair to you. I still think it's an absurd objection but the comparison I made no longer applies.
- lokar 5mo ago
  My point was they shouldn’t give an age rating, but instead a list of standardized content descriptors
  - fc417fc802 5mo ago
    Well fair enough. In that case we are actually in agreement. Let the end user (or network admin) sort out what is and isn't acceptable in a given context. What we need regulation to provide (IMO) is a reliable way of doing that.
    - SoftTalker 5mo ago
      We don't need regulation, we need cooperation, analogous to movie ratings. A site could attest that they provide content ratings, and that attestation signed by an authority (MPAA). If they are found to have been dishonest about that, the signature is revoked (or probably easier, it's fairly short-lived and just won't be renewed). Browser makers (theatres) cooperate by only loading sites with a valid, signed attestation when the device's parental controls are enabled. Sites can choose to have unrated content (adult movies) and those are only available on devices without an enabled parental control option (adult-only theaters).
      - fc417fc802 5mo ago
        But we already have that and it doesn't work. Sites don't bother to classify themselves. Whitelists are spotty and out of date. Almost nothing interoperates properly. My expectation given the scenario you describe is that business continues as usual with the vast majority of the internet thus being inaccessible when in "child" mode. As a result no one uses child mode and the vicious cycle perpetuates. A solution would be browsers refusing to load any site that didn't provide such metadata, not just in child mode but in any mode. I suppose either Apple or Google would likely be capable of unilaterally imposing such a requirement as things currently stand. However I also think that's unlikely to happen on its own for various reasons. Thus legally mandating certain basic content classification categories in addition to an extensible standard protocol for communicating such metadata would (I expect) end the cycle. And rather than the government going after individuals the legislation could be structured to place the onus on mainstream browsers, OSes, and other client software to enforce compliance on their behalf.
Terr_ 5mo ago
It's a hard problem but the key is that it needs to be on the client rather than on the server, because that's what can have any information on jurisdictions, local regulations, religions, or general parental preference. For example, it would be insane if every website and blog in the world to had to run logic to detect and prevent Elbonian males under 16 lunar years from seeing ankles except on Thursdays.

by lokar 5mo ago

The page having a simple rating assumes there can be one mapping from content to rating for the whole world. I doubt we can even have one for North America and Europe.

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

californical 5mo ago

Come up with a few categories and let the browser/OS decide. Websites by default are ‘true’ for every category, unless they specify. Categories are, for example of some: nudity, sexual, violence, etc. It doesn’t have to be perfect but sites will have to err on the side of caution. We could even create an html tag <restricted type=violence> for example, and the browser can simply not render that portion of the page of the user has that type disabled. And we could give companies a pass for best-effort categorization using tech to assess user-generated content, along with allowing users to flag their own content as “safe”

lokar 5mo ago
A header is probably better than a tag. The goal should be to satisfy most reasonable governments. A neutral technical standard and an international organization to maintain the the ontology for content descriptors
- californical 5mo ago
  Ah I was proposing the tag as another option - maybe a news article is fine for kids but the comment section is unmoderated. That way they could still read the article but not the comments
  - tardedmeme 5mo ago
    Better idea is just tell the server if you want to hide restricted content. Then it can make any changes necessary. Yes it's a fingerprinting bit. Not a new one, because they could already detect whether the restricted tag was rendering or not, anyway.
- 1718627440 5mo ago
  But a HTML document could contain a listing of things, that might or might not fall in to these categorize (a search result). A better option would be to just have it as an attribute to elements, like the "lang=..." attribute. That way an UA could even have a policy of show text tagged, but not images. Or images only when clicked per images. Websites wouldn't need to implement spoilers or blurs then, this could be implemented in the UA.

l72 5mo ago

Every app submitted to the App or Play store already has to do this. If parental controls are on, then users cannot download those apps. The only hard part for the web is that a site could lie since there is no gatekeeper, but some black lists can help with bad actors.

lokar 5mo ago
Do the app stores have per-country rules to decide a rating?
Ajedi32 5mo ago
Maybe certain headers could be cryptographically signed. So like if your movie is rated PG by the MPA the MPA itself could sign a statement to that effect. Or a government could issue a social media company a license they could use to sign their pages as complying with some regulation and revoke their license if they don't comply.

fc417fc802 5mo ago

That's a sorry attempt at an excuse. Companies are expected to collect ID and have related business logic that respects local laws but can't figure out how to tag their content? That's an utterly nonsensical position. There's no reason a simple, standardized header can't be used to communicate any number of classifications simultaneously. Edit: It occurs to me that if you oppose all age related measures then my above response isn't entirely fair to you. I still think it's an absurd objection but the comparison I made no longer applies.

lokar 5mo ago
My point was they shouldn’t give an age rating, but instead a list of standardized content descriptors
- fc417fc802 5mo ago
  Well fair enough. In that case we are actually in agreement. Let the end user (or network admin) sort out what is and isn't acceptable in a given context. What we need regulation to provide (IMO) is a reliable way of doing that.
  - SoftTalker 5mo ago
    We don't need regulation, we need cooperation, analogous to movie ratings. A site could attest that they provide content ratings, and that attestation signed by an authority (MPAA). If they are found to have been dishonest about that, the signature is revoked (or probably easier, it's fairly short-lived and just won't be renewed). Browser makers (theatres) cooperate by only loading sites with a valid, signed attestation when the device's parental controls are enabled. Sites can choose to have unrated content (adult movies) and those are only available on devices without an enabled parental control option (adult-only theaters).
    - fc417fc802 5mo ago
      But we already have that and it doesn't work. Sites don't bother to classify themselves. Whitelists are spotty and out of date. Almost nothing interoperates properly. My expectation given the scenario you describe is that business continues as usual with the vast majority of the internet thus being inaccessible when in "child" mode. As a result no one uses child mode and the vicious cycle perpetuates. A solution would be browsers refusing to load any site that didn't provide such metadata, not just in child mode but in any mode. I suppose either Apple or Google would likely be capable of unilaterally imposing such a requirement as things currently stand. However I also think that's unlikely to happen on its own for various reasons. Thus legally mandating certain basic content classification categories in addition to an extensible standard protocol for communicating such metadata would (I expect) end the cycle. And rather than the government going after individuals the legislation could be structured to place the onus on mainstream browsers, OSes, and other client software to enforce compliance on their behalf.

Terr_ 5mo ago

It's a hard problem but the key is that it needs to be on the client rather than on the server, because that's what can have any information on jurisdictions, local regulations, religions, or general parental preference. For example, it would be insane if every website and blog in the world to had to run logic to detect and prevent Elbonian males under 16 lunar years from seeing ankles except on Thursdays.