In an earlier post, I mentioned an important new online child safety task force report that has just been released from the “Point Smart. Click Safe.” Blue Ribbon Working Group. It’s a great report and I encourage you to read the whole thing. It was my great pleasure to serve on this task force, and as we started finalizing our conclusions and recommendations, I started thinking about how much of what we were finding and recommending was consistent with what past online safety task forces had also concluded.

By way of background, over the past decade, five major online safety task forces or blue ribbon commissions have been convened to study online safety issues. Two of these task forces were convened in the United States and issued reports in 2000 (“COPA Commission”) and 2002 (“Thornburgh Commission“). Another was commissioned by the British government in 2007 and issued in a major report in March 2008 (“Byron Review“). Finally, two additional online safety task forces were formed in the U.S. in 2008 and concluded their work, respectively, in January (“Internet Safety Technical Task Force“) and July (“Point Smart. Click Safe.“) of 2009. [And yet another task force — the Online Safety Technology Working Group — was recently formed and has now gotten underway.]

In a new PFF white paper, ” Five Online Safety Task Forces Agree: Education, Empowerment & Self-Regulation Are the Answer,” I walk through a chronological summary of each of these past task forces [click on covers of each report below to read them in their entirety] and highlight some of the similar themes and recommendations from them.

Altogether, these five task forces heard from hundreds of experts and produced thousands of pages of testimony and reports on a wide variety of issues related to online child safety. While each of these task forces had different origins and unique membership, what is striking about them is the general unanimity of their conclusions. Among the common themes or recommendations of these five task forces:

• Education is the primary solution to most online child safety concerns. These task forces consistently stressed the importance of media literacy, awareness-building efforts, public service announcements, targeted intervention techniques, and better mentoring and parenting strategies.
• There is no single “silver-bullet” solution or technological “quick-fix” to child safety concerns. That is especially the case in light of the rapid pace of change in the digital world.
• Empowering parents and guardians with a diverse array of tools, however, can help families, caretakers, and schools to exercise more control over online content and communications.
• Technological tools and parental controls are most effective as part of a “layered” approach to child safety that views them as one of many strategies or solutions.
• The best technical control measures are those that work in tandem with educational strategies and approaches to better guide and mentor children to make wise choices. Thus, technical solutions can supplement, but can never supplant, the educational and mentoring role.
• Industry should formulate best practices and self-regulatory systems to empower users with more information and tools so they can make appropriate decisions for themselves and their families. And those best practices, which often take the form of an industry code of conduct or default control settings, should constantly be refined to take into account new social concerns, cultural norms, and technological developments.
• Government should avoid inflexible, top-down technological mandates. Instead, policymakers should focus on encouraging collaborative, multifaceted, multi-stakeholder initiatives and approaches to enhance online safety. Additional resources for education and awareness-building efforts are also crucial. Finally, governments should ensure appropriate penalties are in place to punish serious crimes against children and also make sure law enforcement agencies have adequate resources to police crimes and punish wrong-doers.

The consistency of these findings from those five previous task forces is important and it should guide future discussions among policymakers, the press, and the general public regarding online child safety.  As I note in the paper, the findings are particularly relevant today since Congress and the Obama Administration — including 3 federal agencies (NTIA, FCC, & FTC) are actively studying these issues. So, in light of all that, I hope this short paper can shed some light on the collective wisdom of the past task forces. While more study of online child safety issues is always welcome — including additional task forces or working groups if policymakers deem them necessary — thanks to the work of these five task forces, we now have better vision of what is needed to address online safety concerns.

Five Online Safety Task Forces Agree [PFF – Adam Thierer] http://d.scribd.com/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=17181137&access_key=key-z6cxfgrjkqaqtxbix&page=1&version=1&viewMode=

Yesterday, the Senate passed S. 602, “The Child Safe Viewing Act of 2007,” which was introduced by Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) in February 2007. The bill requires the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to study the market for “advance blocking technologies” (i.e., parental controls and rating systems) that parents can use to protect their kids from inappropriate content from various sources and platforms. On the surface, the measure seems harmless enough, but in practice, it could have some troubling long-term free speech implications if it leads to more government meddling with parental controls and ratings systems.

The measure requires the FCC to initiate a notice of inquiry to consider measures to examine:

1. the existence and availability of advanced blocking technologies that are compatible with various communications devices or platforms;
2. methods of encouraging the development, deployment, and use of such technology by parents that do not affect the packaging or pricing of a content provider’s offering; and
3. the existence, availability, and use of parental empowerment tools and initiatives already in the market.

That all sounds harmless enough. Indeed, such a study could produce some useful information about the state of the parental controls marketplace.  (Of course, I could save them some taxpayer dollars and just send copies of my big Parental Controls & Online Child Safety report to all FCC officials!)

But it’s what comes next in the bill that causes me some heartburn. As part of the review mandated by the bill, S. 602 commands the FCC to “consider advanced blocking technologies that”:

1. may be appropriate across a wide variety of distribution platforms, including wired, wireless, and Internet platforms;
2. may be appropriate across a wide variety of devices capable of transmitting or receiving video or audio programming, including television sets, DVD players, VCRs, cable set top boxes, satellite receivers, and wireless devices;
3. can filter language based upon information in closed captioning;
4. operate independently of ratings pre-assigned by the creator of such video or audio programming; and;
5. may be effective in enhancing the ability of a parent to protect his or her child from indecent or objectionable programming, as determined by such parent.

I have highlighted the two provisions that are cause for concern since they raise the specter of what I referred to as “convergence-era content regulation” in a PFF paper about the bill last year.  Let me explain.

Regarding that first provision, here’s how I stated my concern in my old paper:

In demanding that regulators investigate and consider requiring blocking technologies for “wired, wireless, and Internet platforms,” the measure potentially opens the door to the beginning of convergence-era content regulation at the FCC. The agency currently has no authority to regulate content (or parental control technologies or rating systems) on most media or communications platforms outside of broadcasting, and its authority over broadcasting is limited. But S. 602 would potentially give regulators the ability to begin expanding the horizons of federal content regulation. One wonders what sort of resources the FCC would need to carry out this task. After all, we’re talking about numerous platforms and a potentially enormous volume of content. The FCC would likely need a small army of regulators to ensure that all “wired, wireless, and Internet platforms” were in compliance with the law. Will there be a specific team of FCC officials devoted to monitoring advanced blocking mechanisms for the official websites of major media operators? What about YouTube.com, MySpace.com and other major websites that host both user-generated content and professional media content? What about the new media platforms and content that mobile operators are offering? Many advanced blocking tools already exist to screen or filter online content, but whether other types of regulation could be required under S. 602 remains unclear. Moreover, the global reach of many of these online platforms raises other enforcement issues.

Second, regarding the second provision I highlighted above (about “independent ratings”), here again is how I stated my concern in my paper:

in specifying that these new advanced content blocking technologies should “operate independently of ratings pre-assigned by the creator of such video or audio programming,” S. 602 seems to imply that existing voluntary rating and labeling systems cannot be trusted. That is a dangerous presumption. Existing rating and labeling systems, while not perfect, are well-established and comprehensive. It is simply unrealistic to expect that all new advanced content blocking technologies will operate independent of existing rating and labeling systems, such as the television rating system, the MPAA movie rating systems, and the video game industry’s ESRB rating system. It is important to realize that these systems rate and label almost all the entertainment content produced in their respective fields. While third-party rating systems can supplement these official industry rating schemes, it is unlikely those independent schemes will ever be as comprehensive as the official industry systems. More importantly, existing blocking tools on the market today, such as the V-Chip and cable and satellite set-top boxes, rely on those official rating and labeling systems, which most Americans are already familiar with. It is unrealistic to expect all new consumer media devices to employ alternative blocking schemes or be able to read independent rating systems. Thus, it remains unclear what that sponsors of S. 602 are hoping to accomplish by specifying that new blocking systems “operate independently of ratings pre-assigned by the creator.” Regardless, the real danger here is that that language could fuel a push for “universal” media ratings that would be imposed by the government or a third-party which has the government’s blessing. It goes without saying that such a proposal would raise serious First Amendment concerns. But, even setting aside the clear First Amendment concerns, there is no practical reason to believe that the government could actually do a better job of assigning ratings or creating parental control tools. If the government were responsible for assigning content ratings or labels, for example, five unelected bureaucrats at the FCC or some other regulatory agency would simply substitute their own values for those of the voluntary rating boards or other labeling organizations in existence today.

Importantly, however, the version of S. 602 that the Senate passed was amended before being voted out of the Senate Commerce Committee on August 2, 2007. The amended version made a few important wording changes to the original version of the bill. Specifically, the Senate Commerce Committee struck the phrase that specified the FCC would have the power ” to encourage or require” the use of advanced blocking technologies.  Needless to say, that’s a very important deletion since it means that S. 602 hasn’t granted the FCC sweeping new powers to require the creation of content controls or ratings systems.  It’s one thing for the FCC to study the marketplace of existing controls and ratings systems. It’s quite another for the agency to get actively involved in the business of mandating or regulating those controls or rating systems.

Sen. Pryor and his Senate colleagues are to be commended for avoiding direct content regulation and instead focusing on empowering families to make media consumption decisions on their own. Nonetheless, in an attempt to empower parents it is important that Congress not empower regulators instead.  S. 602 opens the door to an expansion of the FCC’s authority over media content on multiple platforms and threatens to undermine private, voluntary rating systems in the process.  There are better ways to help parents and protect kids.

Further reading / sources:

• The Senate-passed version of S. 602
• press release from Sen. Mark Pryor about Senate passage
• article by Ted Hearn of Multichannel News about Senate passage
• my PFF white paper on the earlier version of the bill: “Convergence-Era Content Regulation? S. 602, The Child Safe Viewing Act of 2007“.