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Libertine · 05-02-2006, 02:46 PM

What this industry needs more than anything is to start working on its public image. Right now, most people still see us as sleazy lowlives. Because of that, many social moderates who might sympathize with our rights otherwise don't give a flying fuck about what governments do to harm our business.

Why don't a bunch of programs and people in this business team up to do something about this? Improving our public image among those not fundamentally opposed to porn would not be all that hard at all.

Two ideas:

# Starting up a porn-supported charity fund. Many people here give to charity, why not do good and support our cause at the same time? Many charities might not want to accept small gifts from porn-related businesses, but if the gifts are big enough, some prominent ones might be more flexible. With the right PR, something like that could cause some real improvement in the public perception of porn.

# Setting up a foundation or something like that to monitor basic ethical guidelines for the porn business. These could be quite simple, and would not have to change the way honest programs and individuals already do business. Simple concepts, like "no underage content", "no unsolicited spam", "guarding customers' privacy", etc., could look quite well if we subscribed to them in a very public, obvious way.
Aside from that, it would also make it possible to work on "online child protection" on our own terms, rather than on those of ambitious politicians. Like it or not, sooner or later we will have to start worrying about how to prevent children from watching adult content. Now, this can either go the hard way - .xxx or something similiar shoved down our throats by governments - or the easy way - setting up something reasonably effective ourselves. For example, a simple "adult" metatag (rather than the complicated ICRA one) could become widespread quite easily if just a few of the bigger programs demanded their affiliates to use it.
Releasing a free, effective piece of software to block sites containing this would be both cheap and easy, and it would greatly help our argument that we can police ourselves and thus don't need government interference.

Just some random thoughts...

05-02-2006, 02:46 PM
Libertine sex dwarf Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 17,860	What this industry needs more than anything... What this industry needs more than anything is to start working on its public image. Right now, most people still see us as sleazy lowlives. Because of that, many social moderates who might sympathize with our rights otherwise don't give a flying fuck about what governments do to harm our business. Why don't a bunch of programs and people in this business team up to do something about this? Improving our public image among those not fundamentally opposed to porn would not be all that hard at all. Two ideas: # Starting up a porn-supported charity fund. Many people here give to charity, why not do good and support our cause at the same time? Many charities might not want to accept small gifts from porn-related businesses, but if the gifts are big enough, some prominent ones might be more flexible. With the right PR, something like that could cause some real improvement in the public perception of porn. # Setting up a foundation or something like that to monitor basic ethical guidelines for the porn business. These could be quite simple, and would not have to change the way honest programs and individuals already do business. Simple concepts, like "no underage content", "no unsolicited spam", "guarding customers' privacy", etc., could look quite well if we subscribed to them in a very public, obvious way. Aside from that, it would also make it possible to work on "online child protection" on our own terms, rather than on those of ambitious politicians. Like it or not, sooner or later we will have to start worrying about how to prevent children from watching adult content. Now, this can either go the hard way - .xxx or something similiar shoved down our throats by governments - or the easy way - setting up something reasonably effective ourselves. For example, a simple "adult" metatag (rather than the complicated ICRA one) could become widespread quite easily if just a few of the bigger programs demanded their affiliates to use it. Releasing a free, effective piece of software to block sites containing this would be both cheap and easy, and it would greatly help our argument that we can police ourselves and thus don't need government interference. Just some random thoughts... __________________ /(bb\|[^b]{2})/