(Almost) no one wants censorship. In the US, we take pride in fighting censorship in the name of free speech. But like any freedom or right, there is always a balance required between that freedom and other rights or goals of society. In the case of free speech, there is a nice article in the
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy that points out some of the limits. I am not well enough read to be able to judge how balanced this article is, but it is at least well formatted and addresses topics like harm, offense and pornography.
At any rate, we have ratings systems for movies and for video games, which are probably both enforced to some extent in the U.S. I believe that some music has "adults only" type ratings. I don't know if adult magazines are still sold in stores, but they used to not be available to minors. Certain books are not considered appropriate for school libraries, classes and even bookstores.
Movie ratings are actually somewhat helpful in determining a viewers interest at times. Again in the U.S., a "G" rating is a revenue killer unless the movie is directly targeted at children. Anything worse than an "R" will also kill revenues, will not be welcome in most theaters and will be interpreted as porn or warped. I'd be interested to hear how this all works in other parts of the world.
But now Reuters is
reporting that in the U.K.
Quote:
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The kind of ratings used for films could be applied to Web sites in a bid to better police the Internet and protect children from harmful and offensive material, Britain's minister for culture has said.
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What about books and e-books? Would you like to see a rating system? What would be the benefit and how would the ratings be determined? Or is such an effort just a waste of time? How about those of you with children - do you feel differently?