The Other Porn Panic: .XXX Gets Approved By ICANN...A Breakthrough In Protecting Children, Or Just Another Bustout??

Like I said...plenty to talk about today.

Alongside the potential shoe drop of the condom mandate, the other shoe threatening to drop on the porn industry actually did so this weekend.

The .XXX level domain, so loved by those wanting to screen adult content into its own ghetto to be exploited for their own profits, so hated by both sides of the porn debate (it's something when Morality in Media AND the Free Speech Coalition are on the same side on an issue); and so despised by many Internet geeks....was cleared for takeoff by the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the board that supervises and approves top level domain (TLD) suffixes like [dot]com, [dot]net, and others.

Never mind that both pro- and antiporn organizations had virulently opposed adding the domain, for their own reasons. (The FSC, backed by many of porn's biggest honchos, due to the implied threat of regulation forcing adult websites into the .XXX ghetto and the costs of acquiring a .XXX domain name; the antiporn groups because it would "legitimize" content that they would much rather wipe out via obscenity laws.)

Never mind that even the ACLU had gone on record against .XXX, citing the potential abuse by cybersquatters seeking to blackmail legitimate owners of .COM and .NET sites, not to mention the windfall for illegal "tube" sites wanting to use .XXX as a license to steal.

And, never mind the fact that the proposal had been reccommended for rejection by ICANN's own Government Advisory Committee, made up of representatives from several companies, and that a similar effort in 2007 was handily defeated.

What was the difference this time around? Well, the .XXX proponents sold the proposal this time around as a means of protecting both the adult content from censorship AND as a means of protecting children from unwanted access by herding all adult content into the .XXX domain and making it easier for censorware and filters to block access to such material.

Mostly, however, they simply flooded the board with lots of money.

Because a .XXX domain will cost plenty more compared to a .COM or a .NET ($70 for a year sub as compared to $10 for other domains), the process of forcing adult websites into .XXX will produce a virtual money forest for ICM Registry, the group which owns the .XXX domain.  According to ICM head Stuart Lawley, he's already secured enough presubscriptions from scared adult webmasters fearing piracy or censorship to rake in nearly $26 million...and that was before it was even passed.  Lawley has even boasted that the potential killing from .XXX could reach as high as $200 million...not too bad in a recession.

Of course, all this means nothing unless current adult webmasters are forced into .XXX...which brings me to the one political force that may be open to imposing .XXX: Third Way Democrats and "Moderate" Republicans.

Already, US Senator Max Baucus (he of the Big Insura Forced Mandate/Bailout, aka "Health Care Reform") has introduced legislation forcing ISP's to require sites to move all adult content into the .XXX domain or face criminal penalties; and I'm sure that others will follow suit. Though most on the Right (especially the TeaPublicans) tend to be closer to the "just ban 'em" position of MiM and Porn Harms, they might be persuaded to support ghettoizing adult sites into .XXX as a stopgap measure to hold them out until they get enough power for outright censorship. As for the Left...well, suffice it to say that their stance has been somewhat incoherent, but I'd say that the 'protect children while maintaining a space for adult sites" logic will probably prevail over them enough to get their support as well.

Unfortunately, merely slapping a .XXX domain on a site brings forth some real issues.

Like....what about blogs like this one (or The Sexademic, or Julie Meadows, or Tiny Nibbles) who are not necessarily sexually explicit in imagery, but who report on issues regarding porn and include linkage to actual sites??  Would Blogger or WordPress be forced to impose a .XXX domain on popular porn blogs, or sex-education sites, or even sex bloggers?? Or..would they simply relent and just purge adult content from their platforms like Facebook and MySpace have already done?? And...would antiporn activist sites like StopPornCulture.com get exemptions based on their ideology alone??

And...who would be the arbeteurs of what constitutes "sexually explict" and whether a site would meet the criteria of being forced into the .XXX domain and enriching the back pockets of ICM?? The Miller Standards?? A local censor board??  Congress??

Remember, Lawley and ICM can't make their killing if current sites can continue to remain in .COM or .NET and pay the much less yearly sub fees for renewing their current domains. But..if such a law was passed, couldn't the case be made that it constituted content-based discrimination to force legal adult websites to pay more simply to exist for the benefit of a private organization??

Oh, who the hell am I kidding....this is Max Baucus I'm talking about!! Same Max Baucus known for taking corporate money under the table from the health care companies...so why wouldn't he do the same with ICM and ICANN??

Either way, the issue is far from resolved, even if ICANN and ICM is already accelerating the process for .XXX domain applications. The FSC has promised full action to review and repeal the decision, and I'm guessing that the antiporn folks are already blasting the ears of their reps in Congress to stop this.

We'll see soon if this really does become a bustout...or simply a bust.

Violet Blue (of Tiny Nibbles) has an excellent overview of the entire sitch over at the ZDNet site...feel free to go there and read up.  Also...see Julie Meadows.

"The Devil And Shelley Lubben" (A Whiteacre/Lee Production): The Definitive Takedown Of A Fanatical Lunatic (Updated)

[Updated....scroll to bottom.]

Well....what was once potential is now officially real and visible.

The previous post had promised an expose/documentary of Shelley Lubben....and today, Michael Whiteacre and Lydia Lee (aka Julie Meadows) have delivered on thei promise with the first two episodes of their documentary.

Needless to say, "The Devil and Shelley Lubben" packs the full punch.

Episode 1 gives us the background of the method behind Ministeress Lubben's madness regarding her views on porn and her history as a sex worker turned fundamentalist antiporn activist in denial of her own responsibility for her own actions and words.

Episode 2 goes into Lubben's pet theories about how porn inevitably leads to abuse and disease and rape, using testimony from active and former performers (including Nina Hartley and Lydia Lee/Julie Meadows herself) to directly and forcefully repudiate all of the memes she has sprouted and promoted. It also includes one of the co-stars of one of Lubben's videos refuting forcefully her claim of being "raped" in the shooting of said video.

You can find the episodes both at Mike Whiteacre's YouTube channel and at Julie Meadows' blog....but in the interest of full exposure, I will also post the vids here after the jump.  They are THAT damn powerful.

Just listen in and pass your own judgment.

 

Update (2-16-11):

The virus -- or, should I say, the antivirus -- seems to be spreading far and wide. Here's a sampling of the blogs/sites which have either reposted or commented on the Lubben documentary so far:

Julie Meadows' Blog (appropriate, since she co-produced the damn thang)

Michael Whiteacre (via his YouTube channel -- see above)

Dr. Chantelle Tibbals (Porn Valley Vantage - PVV)

Danny Wylde (Trve West Coast Fiction)

Monica Foster (via her blog)

Luke Is Back 

ZZ Insider (Brazzers) 

Tiny Nibbles (Violet Blue) 

Vicky Vette (via her VickyatHome Blog) 

A special shoutout goes to Mark Kernes Tom Hymes over at AVN, who just posted a very detailed summary/synopsis of the first two episodes.

 Bonus: A website has now been set up where you can see the entire collection of the documentary, as well as the preparatory trailer.

TheDevilAndShelleyLubben.com

One additional note: Jessi Fischer over at The Sexademic, whom also posted the vids at her site as well, is scheduled to debate Ministeress Lubben this weekend over at Cambridge University in London. Good luck, Jessi..and break her legs.  Figuratively speaking, of course.

As more sites/blogs post the series, or when the next set of vids comes out, they will be acknowledged here.

Update #2 (2-20-11):

Well..it seems that Shelley's peeps aren't too happy to have people outing her..because they complained loud enough to YouTube enough to have them pull Episode 2 from view.

Interesting that they focused more of their ire on the second episode, which was much less personal, than the first one??  Maybe it was because they didn't like the competition from folks like Nina Hartley, Melissa Monet, Lydia Lee, and Kayden Kross??

But, never fear, Clones...Mike and Lydia weren't born yesterday....they had a backup plan.

If the video doesn't appear, you can still find it here:

The Devil And Shelley Lubben" Episode 1 (Blip.tv)

The Devil And Shelley Lubben" Episode 2 (Blip.tv)