The current state of pornography on the internet

  • There is no reliable way for a website to be sure that they are not delivering content to someone to whom it is illegal to send it. Simply saying "you must be over 18 to access this site" is in no way a form of control like requiring people to show photo ID to purchase pornography at a store.
  • People who do not want to view pornographic sites sometimes stumble across them accidentally.
  • Companies cannot effectively block their employees from using company resources to view pornography.
  • Parents cannot effectively block their children from viewing pornography.

A technological/regulatory proposal for controlling pornography on the internet

  1. Create two new top level domains: .sex and .erotica (or .eros)
    • .sex is for pornography
    • .erotica is for "erotic art"
  2. Require any content meeting certain objective standards to be on those two domians
    • require anything "hardcore" to be on .sex
    • "erotica" can be on either
    • Use both ICANN rules and laws in localities to require this
      • there is a precedent for limiting what content can be hosted on certain domains: .edu and .gov
  3. Require all emails advertising for these domains or such subject matter to have a "From" or other such header (specify a list) with a ".sex" or ".erotica" email address
  4. Require banner ads advertising for these domains or such subject matter to be hosted from these domains, even if the site they advertise on is not
  5. Require all hyperlinks into these domains to use domain names to specify the server address--do not allow the use of IP addresses in these hyperlinks
  6. Set up DNS servers which respond to requests for these domains by saying they don't exist.

Benefits

  • Companies and ISPs could create effective firewalls by having only DNS servers that block either or both of the new domains, and by blocking DNS requests going to external servers (except for requests forwarded from their own DNS servers).
    • It wouldn't matter whether the DNS servers that requests were forwarded to blocked these domains or not. As long as the blocking server was cofigured to think it was the authority for those domains, requests to those domains would never get forwarded.
  • ISPs which have "blocking" DNS servers could, if they wish, also provide non-blocking DNS servers or allow people to use external DNS servers if they want access to these domains.
  • Parents who don't mind their children viewing pornography could use ISPs that don't block it.
  • Individuals could filter out email promoting pornography by checking the From or other headers.
    • This could be done either by the individuals' email client software, if it supports filtering, or by the email server software at the ISP or company.

This will enable people to voluntarily block pornography without taking away the free speech rights of those trafficing pornography and "erotic art".

Challenges

  • Convince enough people that pornography is destructive to society to make a difference
  • Develop clear objective standards for what could appear on what domains
  • Develop standards that could be agreed on by various cultures
  • Do this in a way that don't automatically call anyone who builds or visits such websites bad I personally think it's "bad", but some people don't. We need to create a system that they can support because it doesn't stigmatize them. If they can see that such a system would provide others with something that is important to others without hurting them, they may be willing to support it. This would also be very helpful in getting people of different cultures to agree on objective standards.
  • Convince governing bodies like ICANN and governments to support the system with rules and laws
  • Ensure that enforcement happens
  • Get countries to work together on enforcement

If you support this idea, please pass it along: link to it from your site, or email it to others.