TV, Net content ratings
coming to a screen near you

Published: Feb. 29, 1996, by Janet Rae-Dupree - Mercury News Staff Writer

Parents will have control over what their children can see and hear on both television and the Internet because of separate ratings system in the works for both forms of communication.

After months of vocal opposition, a delegation of the country's leading media moguls were preparing today to tell President Clinton that they have changed their minds and will adopt a ratings system to rank television programs for sex and violence content.

And on Wednesday, a non-profit Internet industry group announced it will begin implementing a detailed voluntary ratings system on April 1 that would let computer users filter out varying degrees of sex, violence, nudity and foul language.

''It's a new world,'' said Stephen Balkam, executive director of the Recreational Software Advisory Council, or RSAC, which is developing the Internet ratings system. ''We're looking for new ways to . . . regulate it without the government coming in and doing it for us.''

That, evidently, is also what television executives are trying to avoid.

The four leading broadcast networks and all major TV producers have signed a statement in favor of a voluntary ratings system that will be read to Clinton at a meeting today. Among those expected at the White House and an earlier meeting with House Speaker Newt Gingrich are Walt Disney Co. President Michael Ovitz; cable magnate Ted Turner; Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp., the parent company of Fox; and the heads of CBS, ABC and NBC. Most cable networks also appear likely to participate in the ratings system.

The system reportedly would be similar to one used by the Motion Picture Association of America. MPAA chief Jack Valenti, who instituted the movie ratings system in 1968, has been asked to head an industry group to develop the television system.

Meanwhile, the broadcast executives are expected to issue a two-page statement binding them to a self-rating system similar to the MPAA's use of letters to classify movies from ''G'' to ''NC-17.'' Viewers will begin seeing the ratings next January.

The ''Statement by All Segments of the Television Industry'' reads in part: ''All elements of the TV industry will rise to this challenge, ready to participate in a national voluntary enterprise which we believe will be useful and valuable to the parents of America.''

The Internet community has been working for more than a year to develop its own ratings system, which Balkam of the group RSAC said will be much like a system already used for computer games.

In that system, three categories -- violence, nudity/sex and language -- are assigned to one of five levels of concern. A rating of ''zero'' in all three areas means the game contains nothing to worry parents while a rating of four in all three areas would mean the game includes extreme violence, explicit sexual activity and exceptionally crude language.

A shoot-'em-up game like ''Doom'' -- one of the most popular games ever sold -- carries a Level 3 violence rating and a description of ''blood and gore'' as well as a Level 1 language rating followed by the words ''mild expletives.''

RSAC will provide Internet ratings in four categories -- nudity and sex will be ranked separately -- and the descriptions will be modified to filter out such things as ''hate speech,'' but allow non-profane or art-oriented nudity, such as medical photographs or Michelangelo's ''David.''

The Microsoft Network is the first on-line provider to embrace RSAC's ratings system, although Prodigy reportedly has agreed to endorse it and discussions are under way with America Online and CompuServe. Other Internet ratings systems also are in the works.

''We've always felt there must be a viable alternative to the restrictive legislation that Congress just passed,'' Ann Duvall, president of SurfWatch Software in Los Altos, said of the recently enacted telecommunications reform bill. ''What you want to block your kid from seeing is different from what I want to block from my kids.''

Once the ratings system is in place, software like ''SurfWatch'' and Microsoft's ''Content Advisor'' -- which help screen out violent and profane World Wide Web sites and Internet news groups -- can be modified to let parents decide what their children can and cannot see.

With such a detailed ratings system, different children can be allowed access to different things on the same computer, Duvall said. Parents who might not mind their 16-year-old hearing vulgar language or seeing blood and gore images can still block their 9-year-old's access to such things.

Parents also will be able to choose whether they wish to block all unrated Internet sites.

Balkam said the ratings system will be as automated as soon as possible. Starting April 1, Internet site administrators will be able to sign on to RSAC's Web page and submit answers to a detailed questionnaire about their site. A ranking would be assigned automatically based on the answers.

RSAC plans to establish a watchdog network of Internet companies and users to report if a site tries to give itself a fake rating or fails to tell RSAC about explicit material in an attempt to earn a more lenient rating.