NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Yahoo Pushing Porn
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Yahoo Pushing Porn
Greg Bulmash (greg_at_bulmash.com)
Wed, 22 Oct 1997 23:26:23 -0800
On 22 Oct 97 at 21:01, Kristine Loosley <kris_at_concentric.net> said:
> I'm not suggesting that all the key word choices are appropriate for
> sale, but the reality is that key word sales is a viable online ad
> model for Yahoo and for the other search engines.
[snip]
> You vote with your clicks on this one, Greg. If you don't like Yahoo's
> ad acceptance policy, use a different search engine.
I'm not disagreeing with their selling of keywords to adult sites, what
I am concerned about is the lack of responsibility or oversight with
which it has been done. Also, notice the fact that very few people
even knew about it until I brought it up. You can't truly "vote with
your clicks" if you don't know what you're voting for or against. So I
thought I'd bring the issue to the fore, both for discussion and
examination.
Of particular note is the ad with the fake error message to trick you
into clicking. Quite clever, but the page it leads to--the "warning"
page--has full-frontal female nudity on it, no PICS rating, and no
adult verification system. And it's linked from an innocuous word like
"butt."
Don't think I'm a prude or endorse enforced censorship. I personally
enjoy adult entertainment and, as a writer, I'm a First Amendment
maniac. I understand that if you want to ensure your own freedom, you
have to let the Nazis march through Skokie. In the words of Voltaire,
"I may not agree with what you have to say, but I'll fight to the death
for your right to say it." On the other hand, freedom without
responsibility is anarchy, and if you stand on a street corner shouting
"f*ck" just because you can, I'm going to ask you to stop. As Budd
Friedman (owner of the Improv chain of comedy clubs) once told a class
I was in (and I'm paraphrasing here, because it was so long ago), "when
Richard Pryor says 'f*ck', he uses it in such a manner and so well that
it can be considered artistic. When most other comics say it, it's
just pointless and crude."
I was caught up in the moment and in my own sense of shock when I wrote
my previous post, but I believe Mark Welch made some very good points,
and combined with my own thoughts, I synthesized them into a simple set
of guidelines I would hope Yahoo would follow.
1: Yahoo should regulate the creative so that deceptive ads such as
the fake error message are considered unacceptable. Advertising
porn is fine. Deceiving people into clicking over to it, isn't.
2: Yahoo should require that the "warning pages" that the ads lead to
are _properly_ PICS rated according to RSACi standards and do not
contain nudity.
3: If they want to be really responsible, they should require that
the "warning" pages use AdultCheck or some other age verification
system as an additional block against kids viewing the material.
None of these suggestions prevent them from running the ads or prevent
their advertisers from putting adult material up on the net or prevent
consenting adults from finding it or accessing it. In fact, a really
dedicated teenager could get around the protections anyway. But at
least make the dang gesture. Let's not just throw all caution to the
wind.
One of the problems I see that isn't being addressed is that this ease
of access to adult materials is exactly what those who want government
censorship of the net can cite as an example that self-regulation does
not work. If we, as the people who produce much of the net's content
and/or direct others to it, do not adhere to a certain level of
responsibility on our own accord, the government will continue to try
to force more restrictive regulations upon us. We need to police
ourselves, or some government agency is going to try to police us.
You can't rid the net of porn, and honestly I wouldn't want to. But
people, let's take some responsibility here.
-Greg
------------------------------------------------------------------
|Q: How do you make hiccups go away? |
|A: Tell them you love them. |
------------------------------------------------------------------
|BULMASH.COM: Home of The WASHED-UPdate - "Where are they now?" |
|Recommended by Newsweek, People, and Wired in August '97 alone |
------------------------------------------------------------------
