Visit the Web site of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and you’ll find a listing for "Klan News." There, in a white-hooded nutshell, is proof that a proposed Net rating system – one that would exempt news sites with an N rating from filters and browser blockers – is riddled with holes. Nevertheless, high-powered journalists from the likes of The Wall Street Journal and MSNBC are marching straight toward this particular pitfall in the belief that if the online industry self-regulates with a news/ not-news system, Congress will find some other tree to pee on.
"Let’s not get into the business of censoring ourselves," pleads Walter Isaacson, managing editor of Time and opponent of the N ratings. "How are we as a group supposed to decide whether Playboy or a Scientology newsletter is news or not? We shouldn’t regulate free speech." Instead, he argues, let individuals decide which news sources are to be trusted. Radical idea, that.
This article originally appeared in the October issue of Wired magazine.
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