Does The Adult Industry 'Police Itself' Well Enough?

Was just having a conversation with someone and we started talking about how the adult industry in general doesnt seem to do enough to deter cheats, scammers, criminals etc etc.

Do you think that as an industry, we do enough to police ourselves?

We all know that the government has been breathing down our necks for the last few years and to some extent, i can certainly see why this would be the case but, do you think that if, as an industry, we took a more 'proactive' approach to stopping scammers, cheaters and those webmasters promoting illegal sites with content such as child pornography and *********** content the governement would ease off on us overall?

To my knowledge there is an established charitably company, ASACP which watches out for child porn in the industry overall but, what about the other types of illegal activites that go on? Who watches out for that?

So i guess my question to you is this, would having a non-profit organization looking out for the interests of EVERYONE in the adult industry work and, more importantly, why hasnt such an organization already been set up?

Your thoughts?

Regards,

Lee

I think the adult industry is more on top of things than mainstream actually on everything.

The problem with getting an organization to police it (I think) - who will police them and who will actually be the ones to say it is "OK". There is the normal / status quo scammer, cheat etc but some tend to get carried away.

I think what you have is an interesting idea - but to get everyone on board is entirely different. (no offense) If you start it and everyone from here jumps on, then it will be a "gay" thing I think.

Maybe it is the day I have day or the glass of wine :)

I really think that it is a good thing to police the adult business over all. I do agree with Cory that getting everyone on board would be hard to do. It could be done I’m sure, but would be a bumpy start.

Greetings:

Personally, I don't think a policing body to say is what's needed. What IS needed, is a body that develops "Best Practices" standards. I'm thinking of a TRUSTe type organization for the adult world, that sites can align themselves with. By becoming a member, you sign a contract stating that you'll follow their best practices, and that you make your organization available to inspection. Have a logo for sites that shows users that they're a member, and at least to some degree, can be trusted.

no other industry with many business owners involved polices itself. i don't believe that one organization or group can make thousands and thousands of webmasters in all states and countries do what is neccesary to make their sites compliant, and every country has different legal requirements - as do many states - so we don't even have the same guidelines to follow.

Interesting thread Lee, I'm actually from a Quality Assurance background and have experienced first hand the stringent guidelines that have been applied to the food industry here in Australia.

The companies that I have worked for had to comply not only with this however but also standards implemented on a industry-wide basis, whilst it is not compulsory to be a member of the organisation or have the standards implemented, it is expected that even the smallest companies have it or generally speaking the supplier is cut off.

It really isn't all that difficult to comply once the system is in place, so long as the target standard isn't changed too regularly and whilst the audits are somewhat annoying that are undertaken it could operate on different basis in this case - it would be a simple matter of random unannounced audits in relation to sites.

I'd be all for a body that certifies compliance to an international standard for adult entertainment sites.

I also believe that often if you can demonstrate that as an industry you are moving towards self-regulation often you will be left alone or not interfered with as much. Imagine the positive PR you could spin the next time the media and the politicians come out and say adult sites are bad. The organisation could respond with a statement commending the "x" number of sites that are now compliant with the standard and the "x" number of sites that are working towards the standard.

It would take some administration but I think it could be done quite simply.

Cheers,

Allan

This is my personal view.

There are hundreds of boringly bland porn sites (straight and gay) being created every day.

The hammer will soon fall in many countries, and those like me with a paysite in USA will be affected when VISA will eventually exit adult.

Perhaps the dot xxx would work.

Who's going to police who?

The extent of any policing that will take place is already taking place - webmasters choosing to avoid working with people who engage in illegal or highly unethical practices, shunning involvement in questionable behavior, not supporting or sending traffic to programs that do illegitimate things, and openly sharing information amongst one another about who to look out for.

That's the most policing we can expect, and really the most that should exist from within the industry.

There will always be those bad apples in any industry that make the whole look bad and that operate outside of accepted standards of practice. But short of some draconian, extreme methods, what can the rest of us do about it that we're not already doing?

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Originally Posted by BDBionic

Who's going to police who?

The extent of any policing that will take place is already taking place - webmasters choosing to avoid working with people who engage in illegal or highly unethical practices, shunning involvement in questionable behavior, not supporting or sending traffic to programs that do illegitimate things, and openly sharing information amongst one another about who to look out for.

That's the most policing we can expect, and really the most that should exist from within the industry.

There will always be those bad apples in any industry that make the whole look bad and that operate outside of accepted standards of practice. But short of some draconian, extreme methods, what can the rest of us do about it that we're not already doing?

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Agreed B.D.

There isn't much that can be done that isn't already being done. And it's been my experience that those bad apples that do obviously pop up all the time EVENTUALLY (some sooner than others) get hammered.

I think with increasing knowledge of the net by surfers combined with the increasingly integrated world of the webmasters, the "virutal world" will also help keep the "worms of the world" away from the good fruit..no pun intended. ;-)

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Originally Posted by JustMe

Greetings:

Personally, I don't think a policing body to say is what's needed. What IS needed, is a body that develops "Best Practices" standards. I'm thinking of a TRUSTe type organization for the adult world, that sites can align themselves with. By becoming a member, you sign a contract stating that you'll follow their best practices, and that you make your organization available to inspection. Have a logo for sites that shows users that they're a member, and at least to some degree, can be trusted.

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I totally agre with the above stated. There's enough of stupid American laws that are making porn into something extremly awful, and almost illegal .... now to take action as a webmaster of gay sites and go after illegal webmasters or those that run *********, *********** sites.... hellloooo??!

It's enough that I as a webmaster am suddenly responsible that someone who is under 18 years old does not enter my sites (and not the parents!!!) should I now run around and acting as a policemen? As a dog watcher?

It's nice you opened this thread but It really pissed me off... while on the other hand what JustMe is suggesting is much much much more NORMAL approach and its wonder there is no such "organization" already... it would definatly put more positive light on all Adult industry.

My two cents.

Lee you are totally right, there has to be a way for everyone to police the adult webmasters. I do feel that the if the adult industry took care of this a few years ago the government wouldn’t be breathing down out backs as hard now.
I feel that if some one started a association that you had to become a member of to get lets say a number, where you could only buy content if you belong. That would mean bringing all the content brokers into it. Maybe that would give the brokers more teeth to go after the sites that steal content.
Also I do spend some time going out and surfing seeing what’s out there, and on some sites there is still a lot of hard core pictures on there shell.
I still get tons of spam from web sites that has to stop to. My day boss was bitching about it, his 10-year-old son got some xxx e-mail and he was pissed off.

‘It's enough that I as a webmaster am suddenly responsible that someone who is under 18 years old does not enter my sites (and not the parents!!!) should I now run around and acting as a policemen? As a dog watcher?’

That’s a great point, we shouldn’t have to be the parents, but we have to try our best to stop kids from seeing what they wouldn’t see at a family beach.

“No other industry with many business owners involved polices itself.”
We are going to have to, we really don’t have much chose now. It’s us or the federal government. I would rather it be us, then some bible thumbing person.
You know it’s not so much the sites that are really trying to make a living at this, but the guy that has tons of stolen content from e-mail groups and news groups that are the big problem.

1. First of all, rules under 18 is totally stupid, mainly becaus you can have sex when you are 16 in my country at the age of 14, so basically that is extremly extremly dumb, as someon who's 17 has probably seen more hardcore than I can put on all my sites.

2. Hunting for sites that consist of illegal material (be it content or specific illegal niche) will not make US goverment look at the mainstream porn any different. So, sucking up to their butts is not going to change the way they view adult porn, not alone gay porn....

3. I don't consider myself responsible for someone that puts *********** sites or underaged teen sites... yes, they do make us all look kinda nasty but I will not be changing anything if suddenly I start acting as a police dog.

Ok, whatever, I'm just trying to say that even if the adult industry becomes (even) more organized, more friendly towards those neoconservatives or liberals also, you will not get bonus points.

But ... as I said in previous post (maybe I did misunderstood Lee) some organization that you have to be part of in order to buy content, make AVS sites etc, is a gooood idea.

Sorry if I'm bit off.

Dalimili
You are right, most people start having sex at a very early age. The problem to is, ever country is different. I can’t speak for a site that is in Russia, Spain, or the UK.
But I was only talking about the sites in the usa. We have a government that’s trying to put us out of business.
We need to stand up and do something before it’s to late.

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Originally Posted by ponyboy

Dalimili
You are right, most people start having sex at a very early age. The problem to is, ever country is different. I can’t speak for a site that is in Russia, Spain, or the UK.
But I was only talking about the sites in the usa. We have a government that’s trying to put us out of business.
We need to stand up and do something before it’s to late.

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Yeah I agree.... I just think that whatever YOU guys do won't have any significant affect on the way they will or are treating adult porn...... I wish it did... but you are dealing with a large mass, large population where sex is still taboo while violence is not...

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Originally Posted by dalimili

2. Hunting for sites that consist of illegal material (be it content or specific illegal niche) will not make US goverment look at the mainstream porn any different. So, sucking up to their butts is not going to change the way they view adult porn, not alone gay porn....

3. I don't consider myself responsible for someone that puts *********** sites or underaged teen sites... yes, they do make us all look kinda nasty but I will not be changing anything if suddenly I start acting as a police dog...

...But ... as I said in previous post (maybe I did misunderstood Lee) some organization that you have to be part of in order to buy content, make AVS sites etc, is a gooood idea.

Sorry if I'm bit off.

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Dalimilli

I think what is being suggested here is an organisation that has written standards that provide "industry guidelines" to help establish the reputable companies as exactly that - reputable and the dodgy companies as unwilling to cooperate.

Policing of use of underage content, bestiality and any other illegal content will still always be the domain of regulators like the police, FBI, government agencies and the like, the system that is being proposed would merely show that the industry and hopefully the major players are trying to do the right thing.

Cheers,

Allan