Jnyusa, sorry to hear about your computer problems. I’d be very interested to see the sites you have found, when you have a chance to post the links.
I’m not a practising lawyer, IS – it’s probably more accurate to say that I work with law enforcement in the administration of the relevant laws in Australia.
This includes the classification of material on the Net (as well as in other media), by the way. I would offer to give an assessment, however, (1) I’m probably just as ‘tainted’ as Voronwe, (2) the rules I apply are particular to the Australian regulatory context and wouldn’t necessarily apply to overseas jurisdictions, and (3) (given that the majority of the work I do relates to child protection matters,) I have chosen not to ask for access to ToE for similar reasons to Idylle. Not very helpful, I know, but, even so, I thought I should chip in here because I thought the question of access to ToE had been pretty much debated to death when Article 6 went up for ratification, so I presume there has been more recent discussion that I’ve been oblivious of. Which wouldn’t be hard because, you know, I’m mostly in that state…
As far as I understand it, the issue is whether the nature of the content on the ToE forum actually warrants exclusion of those members under the age of 18 years.
Estel has also expressed concern that without access (some) people are forming the view that the content in ToE is more detailed than it actually is, and thus are forming ‘strong opinions about what restrictions there should and shouldn’t be’. I can’t comment on that, only that I had understood the ToE discussion to be ‘frank’ and ‘open’ rather than prurient or obscene (however defined.) It’s quite possible that the measures already put in place on B77 (the notice on the front page, and the provisions of Article 6 of the charter) are more than are necessary, strictly speaking . However, this seems to be all a question of reducing risk: First, risk to younger B77ers, and second, risk of legal action being taken against the site owner, ie Lidless, (I presume).
For peace of mind it probably would be a good idea to obtain an independent assessment of the content of ToE, but I’d stress that you need to be very clear about which bar you are measuring it against. And the evolving nature of this site and ToE should also be taken into account. It is impossible to give an unconditional guarantee that no legal action would ever be taken.
Most jurisdictions require that access to ‘adult’ material (this term broadly used to include
explicit discussion or descriptions of sexual matters; the unifying principle being that it is ‘unsuitable for children’ and may cause ‘harm’) is limited to those over the age of 18.
In most jurisdictions 18 is also the age of majority. It should be noted that ‘
age of consent’ and ‘age of majority’ do not necessarily line up. A number of posters have mentioned the disparity between these two things, including the fact that 14 year olds (in some countries) can have sex, but there may be laws restricting their access to books/films/Internet material. . Yep, there’s certainly a paradox there.
Web site operators can reduce their liability (either voluntarily or because they are required to by law) through (amongst other things) use of disclaimers, certification (‘are you over 18? Click Yes to continue’) or by requiring registration for membership and nominating an appropriate birthdate.
In general terms, the legal obligations which rest on a web site operator are those of the country in which the site is hosted. The B77 board is currently hosted on a phpbber server, located in the US. However, I understand that it’s proposed that the site move from this environment to a separate hosting environment at some point in the future. This may or may not be located in the US.
I should note that laws restricting access by minors to high end material also exist in other jurisdictions, including the UK. While the Internet itself is not ‘regulated’ per se in the UK, I’ve read that consideration is being given to applying offline laws to the online environment.
I’d also like point out that the term ‘pornography’ has a thousand different interpretations around the world. Not all explicit sexual discussion is pornography, not all erotica is pornography. Not all pornography is good or bad. Most court decisions/law/regulations are not necessarily framed in terms of ‘pornography’: they tend to focus on concepts of ‘offensiveness’, ‘obscenity’ and ‘indecency’. (I’m wildly generalizing here, in an effort to accommodate the way different countries approach the issue of restricting minors’ access to such material, if they don’t actually make it out and out illegal.) I am unable to confirm whether not the content of ToE reaches these levels, although my strong impression is that it does not.
The fact that some sites provide easy access to material with explicit sexual content doesn’t mean there are no rules against it. It just means they’re getting away with it. It may be that they’re hosted in a jurisdiction where it doesn’t matter. It may be that they consider the risk of any action being taken against them is low. That is their call.
I would be interested to hear where the posters in ToE think the age should be set. If it’s not 18, then 17? 16? Younger? It may be easier to retain the current limitations, or consider set them at a lower age, to satisfy the site’s duty of care to its members, if you consider that one is implied.