The Platform for Internet Content Selection

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how, in an Internet=based world, PICS (Platform for Internet Content Selection) uses software that is put as a filter between the individual receiving the information and the online information provider. It describes how PICS is an incredibly flexible and potentially effective mechanism for content control on the Internet. It also discusses how it just might be too flexible and effective, since it creates an infrastructure that can be easily adopted to enforce a tight censorship net. It also shows how PICS can be manipulated by a government as a censorship tool because it can be installed to function as a censorship net, catching or filtering out whatever the government wants excluded.

From the Paper:

"As mentioned above, PICS software recognizes a universal format of labels, but the content itself is not evaluated and labeled according to any one, universal standard. Providers of information either label their own content according to their own standard or leave the task to independent organizations. Each individual user can select the labeling standard that most conforms to their own standard. But this flexibility comes at a high cost. A new and separate market was created for organizations, each with a separate set of values, that create rating services that provide labels. Rating, however, is a very labor-intensive process."

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