Criticism
ICPA cannot be enforced internationally. As is problematic with other Internet legislation, the US does not have extraterritorial rights to force compliance among entities outside its borders.
It also assumes that the most important attribute of all material content distributed on the Internet is whether or not it is "adult" or pornographic (presumably matching some criteria in the minds of the proposers). These are the only forms of content that could be censored by the US Government consistent with the US Constitution. However, many find depictions of violence, intolerance, extremist views, sexist messages or racist content more problematic. The ICPA as a government mandate cannot provide a practical mechanism whereby a myriad of other attributes of material could be assessed and categorised for suitability. This is contrasted with the voluntary Platform for Internet Content Selection which fully enables individuals to voluntarily screen content consistent with their personal world-views.
The current proposal, concentrating as it does on "pornography", does not address any of these aspects, or the presumable requirement to address different combinations of unsuitable materials, dependent on local, cultural, or individual preferences or views. In the absence of any common view as to what attributes of content, if any, require regulation, the most pragmatic approach would appear to be eschew censorial categorisation of any form, and allow individuals to filter their own access.
The ICPA seeks to criminalize obscenity sent over "community ports". Obscenity is already illegal pursuant to 18 U.S.C. §§ 1460-1466 to 47 U.S.C. § 223(a) & (b). Certainly no publisher of content would have an incentive to label their content "obscene" for purposes of not being put on "community ports" where such an announcement would subject them to criminal liability.
Critics have also likened the proposal to the "evil bit" of RFC 3514 due to problems of defining what types of content qualify.
Read more about this topic: Internet Community Ports Act
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“I consider criticism merely a preliminary excitement, a statement of things a writer has to clear up in his own head sometime or other, probably antecedent to writing; of no value unless it come to fruit in the created work later.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but a spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the play, it may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was concerned.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Homoeopathy is insignificant as an art of healing, but of great value as criticism on the hygeia or medical practice of the time.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)