The CWA is Wrong about XXX
Rare is the occasion when I agree with John C. Dvorak, columnist for PC Magazine and contributor to TWIT podcasts. Usually I disagree with him because he bashes Mac products.
However, the rare occasion has arisen - and a surprising one at that. As a conservative evangelical Christian, I am familiar with the Concerned Women for America. They would be the conservative counter women’s organization to NOW.
Using his partisan biting wit, Dvorak argues that the CWA is wrong for opposing the creation of an .xxx top-level domain to the Internet. He argues that
“The idea behind the .xxx domain is to make it brain-dead easy to keep porn out of the American family home. That’s the reason it was proposed. So why do these people oppose it? The argument against the .xxx proposal seems to indicate either an incredible naïveté regarding the workings of networks and computers or an extreme distrust of computer users themselves. Perhaps it’s a combination of both. Concerned Women for America claims that the .xxx domain will increase porn by giving the pornographers a “new platform.”
On the other hand, the CWA argues
“Creating a .xxx domain exclusively for pornographers would just be giving them a new platform to spread their smut,†said Jan LaRue, CWA’s Chief Counsel, who met with top officials at the Department of Commerce to block the domain. “Not only would smut-peddlers retain their current pornographic Web sites on all other domains, they would have been granted their own exclusive one.
“Porn site operators are the only ones who stand to gain from having a .xxx domain. Families across America realize that this outrageous scheme would only provide children with more opportunities to view hard-core porn images, and help legitimize an illegitimate industry,†LaRue concluded. “
I have to say, I agree with Dvorak on this one. What better way to oversee and manage Internet content than to force pornographers to register their domain in the .xxx level? I liken this to having pay-per-view pornographic television channels versus letting random pornographic shows populate traditional terrestrial television airwaves.
The CWA are leaning a bit too far right on this one.
Tags: [Dvorak, TWIT, PCMagazine, Internet, regulation, ICANN, CWA, values, porn, pornography, xxx, family]
4 Comments so far
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Seems like at the least it would allow for more parental controls to be put in place. And people like me, with no children in the home, can still eliminate them from our own computers. As can employers.
It is not as if pornographers will not find as many ways as possible to distribute their product.
By shadwomom1 on 12.22.05 7:47 am
I have to agree. I am not quite sure what the CWA think the ’sky is falling’ regarding this issue.
By ninepoundhammer on 12.22.05 3:43 pm
I think the problem is that it would be virtually impossible to force pornographers over to a .xxx domain. And what, exactly, constitutes such pornography? Playboy is certainly porn, but it’s also nowhere near xxx level. Further, you’re almost guaranteed to have disputes over legitimate artistic use of nudity and attempts by the more prudish to classify that as pornography, too.
To me, the .xxx idea is one of those ideas that looks good on paper, but would be difficult to implement in practice.
By tgirsch on 01.09.06 4:08 pm
You bring up a good point about regulation - who will police this and make final decisions?
Also, why the focus on pornography and not sites with graphic violence or language? It could become a slippery slope.
However, I believe there could be benefits for all parties if there was an .xxx domain. First, even though there are millions of porn sites, it doesn’t seem like a big deal to police them and force them to move to an .xxx domain.
Although there will be disagreement, perhaps the line in the sand would be to take any pornographic material that is already regulated by age restrictions and move it to these .xxx domains. That way it would remove the art argument and classify Playboy as pornography.
Would it really hurt HH to have Playboy move to playboy.xxx ? The ‘xxx’ needn’t refer to hardcore pornography - that’s just the fashion of using a tradional 3 character domain extension.
By Wacko! on 01.10.06 10:11 am
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