XXX TLD is a dumb idea!

It appears that the xxx tld case is the first time I have to actually agree with out miserable failure of a president (yea, I'm contributing to the googlebombing - sue me). Bush is apparently objecting the creation of the xxx tld. I do too! I always said this is a really dumb idea. But, I think it is stupid for completely opposite reasons.

You see, pushing all pr0n to xxx tld does not create a red light district. It creates a red bullseye target for the prude asshats like Hilary and Douche Doucheman and their lot. First they will want to push all pr0n to the xxx tld. Then all erotic but not pornographic materials will be pushed there, using some far fetched interpretations of obscenity laws.

Have you ever looked at fan fiction sites? For some reason slash fiction is insanely popular among horny fans of various shows. I used to run a fanfiction site once, and I got all kinds of nasty submissions. I usually rejected slash fiction but not all people do. For example message boards I frequented, did not mind them at all. As soon as you get one of these stories on your site, you can be forced to xxx. Who cares that 99% of your content is non pornographic - you hosted one story that might be considered erotic, and you get labeled as porn peddler.

How about celeb gossip sites that post nip-slip and paparazzi pictures? Will these have to go to xxx tld as well? You can bet they will! I can clearly see this thing escalating to the point when saying "fuck" on a website will be enough to classify it as obscene and take away your docom address.

Mark my words. As soon as pr0n sites will be legally forced to use xxx tld all kinds of shit will hit the fan. Bible beating rednecks will whip up an anti-porn campaign like you have never seen before. Just wait.

I will bet money that at some point someone will come up with some genius legislation that will force search engines to remove .xxx context from their indexes, or use some sort of intricate age verification scheme (not just a search filter - a full blown gimme yer credit card # crap). This is the next logical step after pushing all the smut into it's own tld.

To tell you the truth - I have no clue why Bush opposes the xxx tld. After all, he is a bible beating prude redneck himself. This should be like early Christmas for him! But then again, I don't really care what his reasons are. I hope he will succeed, and be able to derail this thing in time.

Update:

One of the commenters here, Adrian Lopez from Dark Authority mentions something interesting:

The xxx TLD could become a mechanism for the regulation of pornographic websites hosted on xxx domains. According to ZDNet, a "nonprofit organization called the International Foundation For Online Responsibility will be in charge of setting the rules for .xxx. It's intended to have a seven-person board of directors, including a child advocacy advocate, a free-expression aficionado and someone from the adult entertainment industry." What are the rules being set, and why do we need a "child advocacy advocate" to make decisions about adult-oriented domains? Would they require use of AVS (age-verification systems) by websites that use the xxx TLD?

Thanks for that link! Very good point. Why do we need a child advocacy person supervising the xxx tld? The only reason for this I can think of, is as a backup weapon. If they wouldn't be able to police a website into xxx tld using the obscenity rules, they could always fall upon even more vague rules concerning "content innapropriate for minors". Something that's not obscene, pornographic or even erotic, may still not be appropriate for children - hence it must be stripped of the .com address.

He also points out this. We knew this was a bad idea right from the start, but they went through with it anyway.

Tags: xxx, tld, xxx tld, miserable failure, top level domain, bush opposes xxx tld