The workshop, “Self-Labeling: It’s Here,” will commence on Saturday, Aug. 5, at 10 a.m. in the Westin Diplomat’s north tower, room 307. The topics that will be discussed include adult site labeling options, as well as pending legislation relating to mandatory site labeling.
ASACP Executive Director Joan Irvine will moderate the workshop and discuss the group’s self-labeling project.
“There are now at least three bills in Congress that would make self-labeling by adult sites mandatory, so we have to act,” Irvine told XBIZ. “The workshop at Internext Summer 2006 is meant to help online adult companies understand the present situation, and what ASACP and other groups are doing about it. We want people to know their options.”
Panelists include attorneys Lawrence Walters and Greg Piccionelli, ASACP technical consultant Brandon Shalton of Cydata Services, Mo Botero of SafeLabeling.org, and Justin Mattina of the Website Rating and Advisory Council (WRAAC).
Panelists will address self-labeling from legal, technological, free speech, political and marketing perspectives.
Many in the adult industry say that self-labeling is a proactive step the industry needs to implement to potentially head off onerous government legislation.
“The concept [of self-labeling] will protect the adult industry and will help take away the argument from the government that the adult industry is doing nothing, and therefore it will make it harder to justify pending legislation,” Walters said at the XBIZ Summer ’06 Forum seminar on self-labeling. “There is a big public bang for the buck if we do it voluntarily.”
ASACP recently conducted an online “town hall” on the issue, and plans to offer a standard adult industry label to better enable parental filtering, and to demonstrate the industry’s commitment to preventing children from viewing adult content.