Sounding Boards: Embrace Self-Regulation
by Danny Collins
From Adult Webmaster Gold to YNOT Masters, the call to action is unmistakable... but who will heed the call?
A feeling of change is in the air. It's subtle, but if you pay close enough attention, you can feel it. Webmasters are becoming far more concerned with their futures. Many of our industry's get-rich-quickers have moved on to new scams, and the under-dedicated have been weeded out. Part-timers still exist, but in smaller, less vocal numbers. Most of the dishonest and unethical webmasters have been outed and eliminated. That leaves us with a growing percentage of the people in our industry who are full-time, serious, honest career webmasters. We're regular people, with rent to pay and families to feed. We take our jobs seriously, and are just as concerned with our futures as we are with the profits of the present.
Why is this important? Well, obviously, the company concerned only with today's profits will handle business much differently than the company concerned with tomorrow's job security. This shift has been signaled dramatically by the change in tone on the webmaster message boards. Debates today no longer focus solely on the better converting niche. Instead, they now debate whether they will still be able to profit from certain niches in the future - in the face of changing rules enacted and enforced by credit card companies, and impending prosecutorial actions by the Justice Department. They are discussing whether extreme content should be contained, so as not to cause a public and legal backlash against our industry as a whole. Thinking and critical discussion has grown broader, both in terms of breadth of topics and in terms of time.
And- why not? In an intellectual society, no issue should be taboo. Every concern should be brought to the debate table, and no person should pass judgment on another for his or her concerns. For an industry so devoted to the ideal of free speech, we have, in the past, been very critical of anyone who brings an unpopular argument into the mix - especially when that argument could cost us money in the short-term. I remember someone mentioning once that bestiality is cruel to animals, and that our industry should take measures to put an end to it. Bestiality profiteers, who stood to lose money from such a proposition, lambasted him. I don't remember any legitimate counter-arguments concerning the long-term welfare of the industry, of course. Instead, the rebuttals included insightful nuggets like, "You're a moron!" The primary concern was simply that webmasters benefiting from bestiality content would lose short-term profits. Of course, if I were to suggest to a child porn profiteer that he begin using legal models, he could easily make the same argument, and he would be absolutely correct - though entirely unjustified. Still, the ill effects on the industry as a whole have not been addressed. Well, perhaps now is the time to revisit these topics, as well as many others that we may not be comfortable facing.
It is this shift, and this opening of formerly taboo topics, that has raised the issue of self-regulation. Most industries in the U.S., when the government begins to turn a critical eye toward their content or their business practices, step up to the plate and initiate measures of their own to address the areas promoting the scrutiny, and adapt to clean things up a bit. The movie industry did it with the MPAA, the recording industry did it with the RIAA, and it's very possible for us to do something similar. It really is a win-win situation. The government loves it because it saves them time, energy, money, and manpower. The industry loves it because it keeps the government out of its business. At this critical time, when impending prosecutorial action looms over our masses, it is vital that we take some action of our own.
There are a few things, in particular, that we must do if we're ever to fend off legal and public relations attacks. We have to ensure that we're taking every step possible to prevent minors from accessing our sites. We have to use the rating systems that are already in place (such as the ICRA). We have to be much more careful to prevent non-adult keywords from leading children to our content from search engines. If we want to continue blaming the parents (as most people in our industry love to do), then we must give them the tools they need to do their jobs as parents.
Faethor (from www.necron-net.com) said, "First, it is the parents' job to decide what is right or wrong for their children to view. HOWEVER, anyone using that as an argument to validate why they have above R-rated material on the public front cover of their site needs to get real. Just because it's a parental job to determine and control what your children sees, does not make it okay to just put up anything in the public view- for anyone to access at anytime. That is simply irresponsible and the ONLY reason used to justify it is money."
More important than the impending legal battle, perhaps, is the public relations battle we are not bothering to fight. Frontline did a special on the adult entertainment business, and featured Lizzy Borden, who, when asked to justify the simulation of rape and murder in her movies, could only answer that it made her feel better about being abused as a child. This obviously does not reflect positively on our industry. Bill O'Reilly recently did a special on the corruption of our youth. He had a female guest on his show to talk about adult entertainment on the 'Net, and she claimed that people in our business use "software, called keywords" to target children, in order to hook them while they're young. To illustrate, she told the story of an eight-year-old boy who is being treated for "Internet porn addiction."
Did she do much public relations damage? Who knows? But, the important thing is that her logic was not only flawed, but ridiculous - and there was no one there to rebut. As Jim (from www.adultlegal.com) put it, "The only industry without a counterpoint was the adult Internet. They had ICP on for music, Linda McMahon for the WWF, and Opie & Anthony for radio, making counterpoints, but no adult Internet representatives!"
Connor Young (from www.theadultwebmaster.com) went on to add, "That's why the adult industry is in trouble, there's never anyone present at these "debates" or "discussions" to present our side. If given the chance, I could have ripped that anti-porn witch a new asshole, and so could many of the people on this board. Were we invited? Nope. Why? Because- we don't organize. We're an assortment of divided egos, and that makes us easy pickings." There's no denying Connor's insightfulness on this issue. It's an absolute fact that our industry needs public relations representatives to counter these assaults.
Finally, I'd like to end with a quote from LAJ (from www.ynotnews.com), which I think summarizes things nicely. "There has been talk for years to organize a trade union, but it still isn't happening. A trade union would be an awesome thing for our industry. We could hold elections to fill like 10-20 seats or something. There would be people on it to ensure that webmasters and companies aren't getting ripped off, that people are being ethical, and also to speak on behalf of the industry for public debates, etc. We could institute a nominal fee for dues for everyone. It would be a great way to unify all of us and protect us.
Talk about egos... if SAG (the Screen Actors guild) can get organized... like it has been for several decades... not sure what the membership is up to, but my guess is it's beyond 100K... then surely our industry (which I would also guess has considerably under 100K people who are active in one form or another) can get it together, if we really wanted to."
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