ipernity workshop: content rating and filtering system / Discussions

Who decides what falls into these categories? Is a picture of somebody smoking already the encouragement of using tobacco? Most of the lists I find quite exhaustive, but the potential harmful-list is quite fuzzy and gives room for interpretation.

(And a small suggestion: childish pornography and child pornography are two things, a lot of pornography is childish without involving underaged persons...)



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i think this is just a translation problem here! (childish, child...)
concerning child porn or anything that comes near this i would make no compromise.
there's too much shit going on already there.

Depiction of use of tocacco is not encouragement.
I've replaced "childish" by "child", thank you.

Contents that goes against French law I assume will get banned anyway, yes? As goes for nudity / sexual material - I see no problem with either categories as long as the actions depicted stay within said laws. Same goes with the rest - I assume a picture of a rape would be seen as against French law anyways?

The .. erm .. language... Oh well. I do swear.

On sexual content and nudity, the difference between what is explicit or obscure is sometimes ... explicit, and sometimes obscure. I am afraid that, by fear, the most radical censorship will prevail in the interpretation.
In most of artistic context, in Greek art for exemple, or in old painting, complete nudity is normal and must be categorized as green.
The criterium must be at least what everybody, children and adults, can see in museum. Or in the streets of Firenze (David's Michel-Angelo is complete nudity)
Restriction on langage is for me complete nonsense.
Describe "profanity" or swearing as a offense is an insanity. I think it is the worse here.
On the potential harmful, I agree with Nils.

About nudity, we try to make difference according to sexual/non sexual context. Nudity in Greek art is not sexual oriented.

"Obscure" must be understandood as "in the half-light", where details are not visible.

"language" section may be not relevant. The question is open. We were inspired by the "parental advisory" system applied for music.

About nudity: for sexual/non sexual difference, ok: it will depend the way you understand that, because it is not always obvious, but it is the best we can have.
But you make also a difference between partial/complete nudity, wich is for me no relevant. Once again, think about museum.

I think "parental advisory" is a hypocrisy: rating something " red" will attract the youngest you want to protect. And the danger is to link it too closely to filtering.

i use the word "fuck" a lot of times, will my words and movies be restricted then, well ok. i think i must use nicer words then, that's okay... :)

Bon ouais, j´en suis ouf: Whereas I don´t know if "fuck" is now "Profanity", "Abusive" or "none of the above". Hmmm... None of the above? Or against french laws? It is english!!!

Does that mean I have to use "nicer" words on your site?!?! FUCK!!! Ooops...I mean Shit....uhhh ohhh Damnit! Hmmm do I know any words that aren't cuss words?! ;)) Kidding of course.

Consider this rating guidelines as a basis of thinking. We assume we must adapt them according to all the comments and opinions we'll collect from you.

But we believe we need clear and detailed guidelines to prevent conflicts as far as possible.

Another point: content on ipernity is photo but also video, audio, blog entry... We added a "Language" section, thinking about the "parental advisory" system applied to music...

I understand your intention about detailed guidelines. But with such subjective matters: obscure/explicit, or artistic/non-artistic, glamorisation, vulgarity and so on, too precise guidelines is not appropriate. It will not prevent any conflict, it could even create some, because everything will be an object of discussion.
On that matter, I prefer the most limited guidelines, the most limited rating/filtering and the possibility of discuss it when there is a problem.
We have to rely on your subjectivy, and you have to be open to ours, there is no way out.
On this matter, discussion will prevent more conflicts than guidelines, I think.

In fact we must separate rating and filtering:
So I propose:
Filtering: [because of the importance of subjectivity as said above],
- just two categories: red and green (wich includes orange - and "artistic" red (see the discussion with Serge) (black is out of discussion of course)
Rating
- we can stay with something next to what you propose: it will just be then an indication without direct implication on filtering.

YouTube was banned by Thailand, because somebody put up something offending the Thai monarchy, and the ban was not lifted until they had no choice but to remove the contents, which by itself did not violate any YouTube regulations ...

"Rating guidelines" it's ok for me
but for exemple
Encouragement of the use of tobacco / alcohol,only,but not for same toxics product on curent life,
Ever strange for me

Tout cela est illégal et c'est bien pour cela que l'Iperniteam le classe en noir, à savoir interdit sur IP et susceptible d'etre supprimé.... :)


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Serge, il ne s'agit pas ici de refaire une loi, mais d'y 'coller' avec des règles de filtrage qui éviterait de devoir censurer des contenus pornographique ou violents... :)

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Je me colle à la traduction petit à petit, Serge, mais rassure toi, il ne s'agit pas de censure, il s'agit d'un système pour que chacun puisse choisir quel niveau de 'filtre' il veut appliquer à sa navigation sur Ipernity.

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J'ai fait la trad Sophie, pas la peine de t'y pencher : www.ipernity.com/blog/team/37779
Merci tout de même ! CC

Trop tard ;) Mais on dit "Mieux vaut 2 fois qu'une", non ?

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Serge, try using "google language tools" (translate.google.com)

Serge, essayez d'utiliser "google outils linguistiques" (translate.google.com)

Illégal / illicite
Pédophilie, la pornographie impliquant des enfants
La violation des droits d'auteur
Incitation ou de la représentation de la discrimination ou de porter préjudice à l'encontre de toute personne ou un groupe fondée sur le sexe, l'orientation sexuelle, ethnique, religieuse ou nationale d'identité
Révisionnisme, le négationnisme, les nazis expositions
De l'incitation aux crimes et délits
Apologie de l'utilisation de drogues illégales
Invasion de la vie privée

[NDLT : L'Equipe, je peux pas mettre facilement en couleurs...]

Illégal / illicite
Pédophilie, pornographie impliquant des enfants
La violation des droits d'auteur
Incitation ou représentation de discrimination ou pouvant porter préjudice à l'encontre de toute personne ou un groupe fondée sur le sexe, l'orientation sexuelle, ethnique, religieuse ou nationale d'identité
Révisionnisme, négationnisme, les expositions nazis
Incitation aux crimes et délits
Apologie de l'utilisation de drogues illégales
Invasion de la vie privée
Tous les contenus contre la loi française


Nudité
Visible organes génitaux
Représentation de la nudité partielleà connotation sexuelle ou contexte explicite (organes génitaux non visibles, mais seins féminins ou fesses nues et / ou poils pubien)
Représentation de la nudité partielle dans un contexte NON sexuel (organes génitaux non exposés mais seins, fesses nues et / ou poils pubien). Par exemple: femme donnant le sein, personne topless sur la plage, sculptures ...
Aucune de ces réponses

Contenu sexuel
Erections / actes sexuels explicites
Attouchements sexuels visibles
Langage sexuellement explicites
Actes sexuels implicites ou obscurs
Erotique
Baiser passionné
Aucune de ces réponses


Violence
Agression / viol
Torture ou Meurtre d'êtres humains / animaux
Sang et démembrement, êtres humains / animaux
Blessures infligées à des êtres humains / animaux
Torture ou Meurtre d'être imaginaires
Sang et démembrement d'êtres imaginaires
Blessure infligées à des êtres imaginaires
Aucune de ces réponses

Langage
Grossièretés ou jurons
Termes injurieux ou vulgaire
Très familier (???)
Aucune de ces réponses

Activités potentiellement choquante
Apologie de la criminalité
Représentation de l'utilisation de drogues illégales
Encouragement à l'usage du tabac et de l'alcool
Description détaillée des techniques utilisées dans les infractions pénales
Incitation à des jeux d'argent
Contenu qui crée un sentiment de peur, d'intimidation, d'horreur ou de terreur psychologique
Contenu préjudiciable pour les jeunes enfants: qui enseigne ou encourage les enfants à accomplir des actes préjudiciables ou à imiter un comportement dangereux
Aucune de ces réponses

La traduction complète en français est ici : www.ipernity.com/blog/team/37779

I personally think positive about content classification and filtering as long as one is free to choose what oneself want to see. And there are definitely things here (or on flickr) I don't want see as for example pictures of ugly housewives having sex with often even more ugly men taken with a cheap point &shot camera. So put this stuff in a certain category and my eyes are no longer hurt by this.

So please go with this.

And I think the first ideas are rather good as far as read up to now. Especially that you try to find some explicit descriptions what belongs in which categories. I hate this "uncle bob" criteria on flickr.

As for sure, one will never find a solution everyone will be happy with. So you always have to make some compromise. But, hey, that's life and the internet makes no exception from this. The most fair thing you can do, is to inform the members in advance and to discuss the with them. And that you're doing already.

I'm not sure if this already discussed (most of discussion seems to be about age verification and the formulation of the rules), but I think one key point is how to enforce a correct classification of the pictures. Flickr has a very strict system what has to be classified as inappropriate, but while flickr staff is not actively looking for inappropriate pictures it's still pretty easy to find unrestricted hardcore porn pictures over there. On the other hand a lot of erotic art is classified as unsafe cause the rules are not very clear and many people are afraid of being punished and therefor censor their pictures by themselves.

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what just came to my mind...
what i was most angry about at flickr when they implemented the restriction for germans was that i was not able to see my good friend Sarahs' pictures anymore (i.e.). a lot of them were nude self-portraits but in an aesthetic and artistic way, not porn or so. she was a compagnion in the 365days project .... what i wished for was that the two of us ( author and viewer) would have been able to decide if i can see these pictures or not. you know what i mean?
i mean we are both adults, both friends, and i should be up to us to decide who can view the pictures.
this is just an example of course. i had dozens of friends and contacts whose pictures i couldnt see anymore. :( so if this will happen here. ... oh my, i dont want to think about that.

Hello,
That is indeed what IP team wants to do. Let people decide weither they want to see some pictures or not.
There is no point of censuring anything, they just want us to classify our content so a person who does not want to see 'porn' or 'erotic' content can choose to see only "green" content, and an adult who wants to see 'adult' pics is able to.
Don't panic :)

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I disagree with

Depiction of partial nudity in a sexual innuendo or explicit context (no visible genitals but exposed female breasts, bare buttocks and/or pubic hairs)
&
Explicit sexual language
Obscured or implied sexual acts
Erotica
Passionate kissing
None of the above

Female breasts are not chocking even for children and should be classified in green.

What is "Explicit sexual language", "Obscured or implied sexual acts", "Erotica" ?? Not too clear in my humble opinion.

Passionate kissing ?? With or without tongue ? :)) (not explicit sexual language in this case ?)

My 2 cents participation :)



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There we are: Europeans see breasts as a natural thing, in other countries this would already blow people from the seat as almost porn. That's why I suggested a dynamic rating - see my post
www.ipernity.com/group/36490/discuss/13582

(edit : typing)

Female breasts are not chocking even for children and should be classified in green.


I totally disagree. I don't think it is "shocking" but definitely not the norm here and in "my opinion" not something to just be looked at by child. And yes, maybe it is because as Tide Surfer below states we live and were brought up in different countries? I don't know, but I don't think it really matters WHAT we believe but that we have the choice if we want to view it or not. Or to have our children view it or not. With the guidelines, you as an adult member will STILL have the option to view this if you'd like. That, I think is the point.

but ... should content really be classified according to what some think is not suitable for children? Is this not an adult site? Personally I think children take no harm in viewing art with nudes. You see them in museums etc anyway ... Damn, I bet children see more so-called harmful content viewing mtv or whatever...

Yes, we all have different values and level of tolerance but surely ... who's guidelines should we follow? Porn is one thing, and it should not be confused with other expressions.

And yes...this is why my children(oldest being 13)are not allowed in my house to watch MTV. I think the point is still there that I make...It gives us a "choice" to view whatever we like. If someone thinks their children can view it, then allow them to, I have no problem with that. But to make it "green" where some of us conservative people do not think it is appropriate, gives us no choice. You see? And to tell the truth...I think Ipernity is just trying to stay on the "safe" side and bottom line is we will ALL follow whatever guidelines Ipernity puts out there if we like it or not. It doesn't mean it is right in my eyes or yours, but it's their site...their rules.

I do understand your point of view. And I respect it, think no less.

But my concern (among many) is that photographers that take nudes or "violent" pictures or whatever, are swiftly put into the same category as clearly illegal stuff. The filtering system gives the viewer a choice but not the serious artist. Its not right...

Illegal? Well, I don't see it as illegal at all. I don't see any true artist that would fit in that category. I thought we were speaking of orange or red? That is my misunderstanding. I do understand your point of view as well and actually didn't think of it that way. Maybe new true artists or viewers need to view the ratings before they look for things, a group started for this, or a disclaimer pointing them in the right direction. I don't have a solution. But like with many things, people are going to disagree and all I wanted was to state my opinion. I will abide by Ipernity's rules whatever choice they make and if I just can't stand it, then we all know what I can do and that is leave. :)

Why "an adult site" ? Is there a warning or something on the homepage mentioning Ipernity is not allowed under 18 ? ;)
You all see Ipernity as an "artistic" plateform, but for a lot of users, it's only a way to share pics and other stuff with friends and family. And "family" means adults AND children...

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No, it is no warning. And yes, I do see ipernity as an artistic site too. Can I not?

For me, that's where a lot collide here... For me this site has been immensely important for understanding how one can express oneself in photographs. I do understand however, that many use this site for, well, just photo sharing. No harm in that. But why should one group interest prevail over the other?

Your children never saw a museum, nerver walk on the street or never read the advertising of a magazine... ? How do you do to make them blind ?

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This is not about my parenting style or anyone elses. Of course they have let's not get ridiculous here, okay. But that is what happens if I want to take them to these places and I understand that. Just as if I were to take them to a nude beach...guess what we'd see...nude people! Obviously you are offended by what I say and are not trying to see my point but only attacking my point of view and the way I parent. I have nothing further to say to you but to say I still disagree and you or no one else will change that.

lol ok, openminded I stay :))

NB : My 9 years old daughter loved Picasso, David, Michel Ange, Rubens, Delacroix, Manthorpe, Sieff, etc... AND my photos, I feel honoured :))



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I moved from flickr when they started censoring. So i chose a french site, because of the more "free" spirit :)

I have a general problem with:

Illegal / illicit content
....Nazis exhibitions

I think that it is very important that nobody ever tries to silent the information of what these people do (and more important what they did!) - not only in photography, but in literature, in the press.
It also goes for any dictatorship in the world. If its illegal to post about nazi's, Is it also illegal to post pictures from the Yugoslavian war )? or what about sadam hussain's slaying of the kurdish people ? They all had (more or less) to do with some sort of etnic killing.

If it will be illegal to post such pictures, i will once again have to move - and i really like it here. BUT my money cannot (and never will be, if i have a saying), used to enforce censorship of such crimes.

Keep up the good work and best wishes to you all.

I think this Nazi issue is not so difficult when it comes to DOCUMENTING it, but for newly shot photos there is this thin red line in Germany and other countries: displaying the swastica is simply not allowed here by law but when it happens during a Nazi-demo it will of course be in the news - unglorified!

I think under "Potentially harmful activities" there should be added
"Politically sensitive issues to certain countries"

As far as i remember it is allowed to show the swastica in Germany. The German law deals with "symbols of one of the parties or organizations.." and when used as "propaganda".
That's why the media can still show it.

I think if french law allows it. It should be allowed. Just my two cents.

You are right. But in fact just since this year. The law forbids "any" reproduction of the swastika in Germany, which results in the ridiculous fact that even a modified one, e.g. modified with a red ring and red bar for a anti nazi sticker results in big problems for those selling this. This was corrected this year. But every reproduction can be tested if it is pro-propagandic. So if you publish pictures with swastika and a judge will decide this is pro, then your publication is illegal.

Nazis exhibitions are forbidden in France (French law, Code pénal, art. R 645 - 1) and we cannot bypass that point. All the categories we put in the "illegal/illicit" section refer to the French law, not to ipernity policy.

@Iljuschin: Thanks for clearing that up ;) Not a good situation.
This is why(one of the reasons) we(contries) so be very careful with censorship and always challenge it. The freedom of speech and expression should be very dear to us all.

@Team Ipernity: How does french law describe "Nazis exhibitions" ? Is it a exhibition of nazi symbols ? Gatherings ? Is it anything that shows pictures of nazi's and/or their symbols ? Or is it a more general term ? Im a bit confused about the words "Nazis exhibitions" - its very broad.

The French law says: excepting for the needs of movies, shows, exhibitions including an historical reminder, it's forbidden to wear or exhibit publicly an uniform, a badge or an emblem recalling uniforms, badges or emblems weared or exhibited either by members of criminal organization, or by a person convicted of crime(s) against humanity by a French or international court.

The original text:
"Est puni de l'amende prévue pour les contraventions de la 5e classe le fait, sauf pour les besoins d'un film, d'un spectacle ou d'une exposition comportant une évocation historique, de porter ou d'exhiber en public un uniforme, un insigne ou un emblème rappelant les uniformes, les insignes ou les emblèmes qui ont été portés ou exhibés soit par les membres d'une organisation déclarée criminelle en application de l'article 9 du statut du tribunal militaire international annexé à l'accord de Londres du 8 août 1945, soit par une personne reconnue coupable par une juridiction française ou internationale d'un ou plusieurs crimes contre l'humanité prévus par les articles 211-1 à 212-3 ou mentionnés par la loi n° 64-1326 du 26 décembre 1964.

I apparently missed that when going over French law, before joining this community. Thanks for the information.

We haven't taken any decision and are listening to everyone's point of view. We'll answer in a couple of days with a new proposal which will be discussed again. Thanks to all for participating!

You Tubes approach seems to work, I still see porn all the time on flickr even with my safe filter on, but somehow youtube keeps the violence and porn away by use of their flag as inappropiate, treemo does the same, of course it does mean you need a team to look at this 24 hours a day.

Legally Ipernity just has to have a system for protecting people, I think complicated classification wont work, and with different languages its made even more difficult.

I think Ipernity has to have a team to look at content regardless so why not just have the flag as innappropiate button and the item once checked by IP can be hidden and a mail stating why to the user.

Its good you are giving people the chance to have their say, there will be noway to please everybody of course.

Or how about having two levels of IP like second life does, one for adults and one for teens the two dont mix.

There is some point that seems not to be mentioned yet: the red/yellow/green approach is quite simple, but might create a lot of crossovers.
Lets assume I'd like to see erotica but no porn. Then I'd have to set my filtering levels from green to yellow. But this brings me pictures of violence on the screen, as "Injury to human beings / animals" and "Content that creates feelings of fear, intimidation, horror, or psychological terror" are yellow, too.

So the question is: What is the granularity of the planned filtering system? Or in other words: If you choose a too fine adjustment, you'll lose simplicity (and the users have to set 20 category specific setings for every picture he uploads). If you choose a too coarse meshed filter, you'll lose structure and crossovers will emerge.

What about WAR?

I think the "Torture or killing of human beings" filter is not exhaustive. War encouragement or depiction should be filtered for me even if not assuming/not talking about "Torture or killing of human beings".

I think - better, I do believe - that my minor brother could be seriously harmed from war apology a LOOOOOOOOT more than from a "woman breast", and maybe also more than "erotic topics" or "explicit nudes". (It's obvious that I consider also these filters very useful for these situations.)

I hope it's clear that I DON'T want the war topic banned for everybody. But if a filter should be done for protecting children and sensitive people well I don't see the point in filtering eros and not war. Please consider that, even if it's not in the French law... it's importan for me.

Yeah, that's also my point of view. The filter should be adjustable up to some degree.

Just a stupid thought... I left flickr when they rated a photo like as not suitable for public viewing and started the "censorship" with their start in Germany.

Without a doubt there is a cultural gap between the USA and Europe. Recently ABC had to pay 1,4 Million € for showing a nude female breast in a crime series before 10 pm. Take a European magazine and look at the adds. ;)

Now recently I returned with a new account to flickr and my impression is that you find there more porn then ever. Even for public viewing. So the effect of all that filtering is to find more porn!

When you say there is filtered content - everyone knows there is "something" more to see. And everyone will look for this more. In the case of flickr - it's easy to go areound that filtering. Even my daughter knows how. And I don't wonder why she has a yahoo.co.uk email. She is 15 - and knows about from her classmates.

Now what's the sense of a filtering system with different stage. In my opinion there should be only one level - suitable for all in public areas (groups etc.)! Like a magazine that's sold on the street. Don't know if there is in France something like "Bravo". But there you will see pictures which are marked above red (Visible genitals). This magazine is for teenagers ;)

The filtering will never work as good as a good community. If someone wants to present porn, he won't take care and do it. The ipernity-Team will have to kick him. He opens a new account... they kick him... You will never win this fight. With or without filtering. With or without rating. What happens if someone rates wrong?
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>The filtering will never work as good as a good community.
That's the point! The comunity is part of the filtering process. When you think a picture is rated wrongly, you could just hit the "check this rating/picture" button. This would be a possible approach to the problem you mentioned.

What in fact is the problem. If the small iper team is all day long looking at rating request from a german being pissed of a nazi symbol, a bavarian is pissed about a blasphemy, an iranian do not want to see a girl without türban, and a us guy is pissed about a female breast, puh: I think then we will have a problem with the nice support of them programming new stuff into this site! Let´s understand this rating system as a thing for being save against french law and as long we can switch off the filter never mind ´bout the filter. I asked 10 times the iper team: they assured the filter setting "off " affects all views, search and startpage when logged in. So I do not care.

We will end up where "mass" will dictate what is safe. All this is to me nothing more than censorship.
Freedom of speech and freedom of expression should never be compromised.

Is content rating compromising them?

We've just published a new proposal: www.ipernity.com/group/36490/discuss/13963
The current discussion is closed and redirected to this new post.