Will .xxx work?
The .xxx argument for the internet is a pretty old one. Should their be a specific domain for those who wish to proliferate pornography and other adult-material? Those in favor believe that a new .xxx name (which is all but approved) would help to protect those who are offended by pornography, but there is also opposition.
Some religious groups believe that creating a “red light” district for the internet will actually cause the already pornography bloated internet to swell to even larger numbers of pornography sites. Those in the pornography industry don’t wish to be regulated and feel that this course of action will inevitably lead to a third party deciding what they can and cannot provide to the masses. Who is right?
I’d like to mention that I would love it if pornography simply vanished from the internet. I don’t want to view it and I don’t want my (future) children to view it. I realize, however, that there isn’t much I can do about that. Pornography is here to stay, whether we like it or not. So for people like me, is a new domain for pornography a good thing or a bad thing? Truthfully, I don’t know.
If I ran things the new .xxx domain would be the only possible place to obtain pornographic images. Any pornography found on a .com, .net, .biz, .us, .anythingelse domain would be blocked on all United States ISPs—that’ll never happen. There’s too many people that believe that such action is against the first amendment. What these people fail to recognize that we who do not wish to view it also have our rights to protect ourselves from it. Yes, I can use (and do) use filters like that found on OpenDNS to block inappropriate images and OpenDNS is pretty good, but no curtain used to block out inappropriate content is perfect, there are always holes.
So, the fact that the internet isn’t going to stop proliferating this filthy content on the web as a whole (on all domains) and will have an added sanction in the .xxx domain could very well cause more pornography to be found on the internet, albeit, some of which will be easily blocked by all who do not wish to view it, and other parts hit-n-miss (but mostly hit) like it is already.
I honestly don’t know.
What would be your solution? Is the .xxx domain a good idea, or will it just lead to more problems?