Nude & Natural Magazine Naturism is the Way. |
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Nude & Natural Magazine Naturism is the Way. |
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CONFRONTED BY THE likelihood that the U.S. Supreme Court will once again throw out attempts by the federal government to censor the Internet, the Bush Administration has set in motion something it believes it can control nonetheless.
Once again taking the moral high ground of child protection, President Bush signed into law the existence of a new Internet domain with the unique suffix “.kids.us.” The objective is to create a kid-safe haven on the Internet.
As child safety advocates and a few children looked on during the signing ceremony, Bush noted, “We must give our nation’s children every opportunity to grow in knowledge without undermining their character.”
The law came into being in part because of the murder of Christina Long, a sixth grader from Danbury, Conn., whom police say was strangled by a man she met in a chat room. While relatives of the girl believe the legislation is a step in the right direction, they don’t believe that it does enough.
For some time the administration has tried to establish a worldwide Internet suffix limited to content deemed appropriate for children. But INTERNIC, the international body that governs Internet naming conventions, refused to create it, claiming that no one country should be allowed to establish content-based suffixes. So by establishing “.kids.us”, the administration basically registered its own unique domain within the existing “.us” hierarchy (“.us” is a little-used suffix that suggests Web sites bearing it emanate from within the United States).
At the signing, Bush explained to the press that the domain will “function much like the children’s section of the library.” The plan will see the establishment of a federally appointed contractor who will oversee the new domain and monitor content to assure that it is free of pornography or any material deemed unsuitable for children under 13. The plan will further prohibit member sites from linking to outside Internet sites. To protect against Internet predators, instant messaging and chat rooms will be banned unless certified as safe. Using existing Web browser filter settings, or with the installation of additional filtering software programs, parents will be able to restrict their child’s computer so it can only visit “.kids.us” addresses.
Of course, this raises questions about what the current administration deems “appropriate” for children, given that an appointed advisory board will establish the specific criteria.
Current commercial Web filtering programs, themselves overseen by internal advisory boards, are known to limit or refuse access to most or all naturist content simply due to the word “naturist,” “nudist,” or “nude.” This word-based filtering is due largely to the misuse of those terms by pornographers. Unfortunately, such primitive filtering programs have also been shown to censor health-related and even religious sites.
Sometimes filtering teams block material solely because they believe it would be of no interest to a specific age group. I learned of this when I made a presentation on naturism to the Micro Systems Corp., makers of Cyberpatrol, a well-established Web filtering program. Micro Systems was at the time the main consultant on acceptable content to online companies such as America Online and CompuServe. During the meeting I learned that the folks at Micro Systems saw Cyberpatrol not as a censor, but as a “virtual babysitter”—an interesting perspective. Despite arguments in favor of naturist content made during the presentation, company representatives said Cyberpatrol would continue to filter all nudity.
The legislation currently defines “child-harming” as any content which depicts sex or nudity, is clearly sexual in nature, or “lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value for minors.” A site’s participation in “kids.us” will be voluntary in an attempt to avoid charges of censorship. But critics, including some civil liberties groups, question the government’s ability to make decisions on what is safe, and say the age range is too broad to be effective.
Further, serious constitutional questions arise regarding whether the federal government can or should spend public funds and set criteria that will limit free speech and freedom of the press.
Indeed, will a naturist Web site with text-only content be welcome, or deemed “inappropriate” for this new Internet domain? Recent federal appeals court rulings suggest that naturist text as well as images may fall into the category of protected political speech. We can only speculate at this writing, as the government system is not yet up and running.
Yahoo, a service used by numerous naturist clubs and individuals who communicate through its “Yahoo Groups” message board service, recently pulled the plug on several naturist groups for apparent violations of its terms of service. It seems that Yahoo now maintains a policy of not allowing any images of nude minors within its service, even if the image is clearly non-sexual or one depicting a naturist family at a naturist beach or resort.
In deleting the groups in question, Yahoo also deleted the user ID of the group’s owner/moderator and any user IDs that had been appointed as assistant or guest moderators. In doing so, numerous naturists found themselves unable to access their own content on the Yahoo system.
Yahoo’s negative attitude toward nudity closely followed a barrage of negative press releases at the hands of the American Family Association, a known nemesis of organized naturism.
While many are now seeking alternative communications venues, Yahoo’s free service is still attractive to many, as is its ability to offer communications either by e-mail or as a Web-based message board.
Only time will tell whether Yahoo will grasp the good family-values message of naturism and modify its terms of service, or whether it will continue to be swayed by a vociferous and narrow-minded minority that clearly does not speak for the American public. While many naturist discussion groups remain at Yahoo, Yahoo’s search engine does not turn up those that were originally and voluntarily placed by moderators in their “naturist & nudist” directory. In those instances, Web pages external to Yahoo allow naturist users to locate the message boards.
Web Reviews
Mooncrow’s Naturist Pages
“Mooncrow’s Naturist Pages,” known for its coverage of naturism in the Pacific Northwest, has recently moved to a new residence at cheef.com. The site has long been recognized as one of the highest quality sources of naturist information on the Web, and is one of the earliest known sites (online since 1994). The movement of the pages also signifies the stepping-down of Carl “Mooncrow” Evans from active daily operation of the site, but assures its continued availability under cheef.com.
Nudist Volleyball
When I first reviewed this site in N 21.4, I noted that it was mostly graphics, making it hard for users to save the information offline. I am pleased to note that the site’s Webmaster has done a major overhaul, and the revised site will now allow users to save the text contents. More importantly, the features have been expanded. Not only are major naturist volleyball tournaments listed; it’s now possible to submit information on your club’s availability of volleyball, level of play, planned tournaments and more. Additional features at the site are still under construction, but the present site is colorful and useful to those who heed the call to “Volleyball!”
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Once upon a time in a land far away and decades ago, Dennis Kirkpatrick's boss sat him in front of a computer terminal, created a safe directory where he could do no harm, and told him to "play." And so he did - and got paid for it. The rest, as they say, is history.
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