ICRA Vocabulary 2008
The FOSI board has approved the latest revision of the ICRA vocabulary, due to be introduced during 2008. The vocabulary is revised every 2 - 3 years to ensure that it remains relevant as Web content and Internet services evolve. As always, the feedback we have received from content providers who have labelled their material has been highly influential. This is particularly so of content providers in our ICRAchecked scheme.
The main changes since the previous (2005) vocabulary are:
- Context is now applied section by section, rather than across the whole label. The original (2000) vocabulary had context modifiers for just two sections, now it will apply to 6.
- Two new context modifiers have been introduced: artistic literature and religion. The latter is very much a trial as it has the potential to cause a great deal of disagreement over what constitutes 'a religion.' However, owners of websites that discuss or describe events recorded in various holy scriptures are reluctant to use some of the descriptors, particularly in the violence section, without this modifier. We will be monitoring feedback on this very carefully.
- The potentially harmful or offensive material section has been split in two and a new descriptor added that covers material that cannot be accurately described using other vocabulary terms but that does assume an adult audience.
- A new descriptor has been added to the User Generated Content section to cover sites, such as social network sites, that facilitate contact between users.
- A new section covering data collection and advertising has been added. This new section includes "Contains advertising suitable for children in" that will not be either true or false as the others are, but that will relate to a particular country. This reflects the growing amount of legislation being passed in different countries seeking to regulate advertising that is aimed at children. Websites that adhere to such regulations are typically working to a given country's legislation and this term in the vocabulary allows this to be expressed.
- Other, more minor, changes have been made to clarify the interpretation of some of the descriptors.
If you have comment to make on this new vocabulary we'd be pleased to hear from you.
For developers: The new vocabulary will be introduced when we begin implementing the Protocol for Web Description
Resources (POWDER). The namespace will be http://www.icra.org/rdfs/vocabulary2008.
The vocabulary is already available in RDF from that URI.
The Vocabulary
Nudity [Help]
- Exposed breasts
- Bare buttocks
- Visible genitals
- No nudity
Sexual material [Help]
- Passionate kissing
- Obscured or implied sexual acts
- Visible sexual touching
- Explicit sexual language
- Erections/explicit sexual acts
- Bondage/SM
- Erotica
- No sexual material
Violence [Help]
Potentially offensive language [Help]
- Abusive or vulgar terms
- Profanity or swearing
- Mild expletives
- No potentially offensive language
Potentially harmful activities [Help]
- Depiction of tobacco or its use
- Depiction of alcohol or its use
- Depiction of recreational drugs or their use
- Depiction of weapons or their use
- Gambling
- No potentially harmful activities
Potentially disturbing material [Help]
- Content that sets a bad example for young children: that teaches or encourages children to perform harmful acts or imitate dangerous behaviour
- Content that creates feelings of fear, intimidation, horror, or psychological terror
- Incitement or depiction of discrimination or harm against any individual or group based on gender, sexual orientation, ethnic, religious or national identity
- Content that is not covered by any of the other descriptors in the vocabulary but that may refer to facts, ideas and issues in a way that assumes an adult audience
- No potentially disturbing material
User-generated content [Help]
It is assumed that user-generated content will be in line with the rest of the website and therefore described by the label as a whole. Remember that it is possible to label sections or pages of a website separately if necessary.
- User-generated content such as chat rooms and message boards (moderated)
- User-generated content such as chat rooms and message boards (unmoderated)
- Content that facilitates contact between users, e.g. instant messaging, email contact, etc.
- No user-generated content
Promotion and Data Protection [Help]
- Contains advertising
- Contains advertising suitable for children in (2 character country codes)
- Collects personal data, e.g. e-mail addresses, etc.
- No advertising or personal data collection
ICRA Descriptors
First published in 2000, the original ICRA descriptors were determined through a process of international consultation to establish a content labelling system that gives reasonable consistency across different cultures and languages. Whilst every effort was made to create objective descriptors, some subjectivity is inevitable. Furthermore, some ambiguities may arise through translation. For these reasons additional definitions and explanations are provided to support some descriptors.
In consultation with its Advisory Council, the vocabulary was revised in 2005 and again in 2008. The 2 - 3 year revision cycle is designed to strengthen the vocabulary by building on the experience gained to date, and to ensure that the system remains applicable across a wide range of digital media, not just traditional websites.
General comments
"...images, portrayals or descriptions..."
Any presentation including, but not limited to, pictures, no matter how crudely drawn or depicted, written descriptions, oral recitations, and or audio sounds.
Please remember that it is possible to label sections or individual pages on a website separately. You can create as many different labels as you need to describe content.
If in doubt...
... please try to see the material as you think it would be perceived by someone without cultural, religious or
other bias, when he or she decides what material is appropriate for young children. Describe content in a way
that you feel honestly does not mislead cautious parents.
The Shortcut Buttons
Shortcut buttons provide a quick and easy way to label some types of content. Each one simply checks a number of descriptors in the main questionnaire. The label produced is exactly the same as would be produced by filling in the questionnaire by hand.
Nudity
The nudity descriptors stand alone and do not of themselves imply any sexual context.
Sexual material
The term Erotica is included in the vocabulary to cover material that is sex-related but does not show sexual activity. Examples include sexually provocative clothing, provocative sex poses and sex toys.
If content requiring a Bondage/SM label also depicts the 'harming' of others (even in role-playing), the 'injury to a human being' label from the Violence category should also be applied. If the site portrays persons cowering in seeming terror, then it should also be labelled with the 'Content that creates feelings of fear, intimidation, horror, or psychological terror' label from the 'Potentially disturbing material' category. It cannot be expected for a child to understand the concept of 'sexual pleasure though pain,' which is a very adult theme.
The same guidelines apply to sites portraying 'consensual rapes.' What is portrayed is a rape, whether it is play-acting or not, and should be labelled as such.
Violence
It is believed that no further explanation is required to support the descriptors in this section.
Language
No further definition is given since, by its very nature, language and the perception of language is always changing.
Potentially harmful activities
It is believed that no further explanation is required to support the descriptors in this section.
Potentially disturbing material
It is believed that no further explanation is required to support the descriptors in this section except the 'Content that is not covered...' descriptor, which is covered separately.
User-generated content
If the site includes a chatroom, message board, forum, is an online classified-ads site, or provides any other method by which users can directly post content, you should check one or other of the descriptors in this section.
"Moderated" means that user-supplied content is reviewed before it is posted to the web and that the content is thefore in line with the site label.
The same applies for "Unmoderated" user-generated content. The content should still be in line with the whole-site label. As the content will change with postings, you could therefore use the labels suggested for News Sites (see Shortcut buttons) for just that section of the site.
Please remember that it is possible to label sections or pages of a website separately.
(Guestbooks which do not have hyperlinks to the poster's address and which are simply snippets published by the webmaster do not count as user-generated material. The same applies to testimonials.)
If the content includes any method for the user to contact others, through clickable email addresses or links to instant messaging, etc., this should be declared in the label.
Promotion and Data Protection
Some countries have quite specific laws pertaining to advertising to children. This descriptor allows you to declare that the advertising present meets such country-specific regulations.
At least one descriptor per section
A valid ICRA label will always include at least one descriptor from each section of the vocabulary (except the context modifiers, which are not content descriptors and are for use only in specific circumstances). If no descriptors are checked within a given section, the label generator will insert a label that declares that material described in that section may be, but is not necessarily, present.
Context
The context modifiers are not site descriptors; rather, they are for use in very specific circumstances to modify a description that may otherwise suggest that the content may not be acceptable to parents.
The underlying philosophy behind the use of these modifiers is 'how a parent would view this material as presented to their child.' Label creators should bear this in mind before using any of the modifiers which, in our experience, are rarely applicable.
Classic cases where context modifiers do apply are sites providing information about the damaging effects of recreational drugs, sites offering sex education and contraception advice or sites offering reviews of third-party sites that contain discriminatory 'hate speech' etc.
One area where the context modifiers often cause confusion is gambling. If a website offers gambling on sporting activities, that does not mean that it is gambling in a sports context, it's just gambling.
Content that cannot be described by the ICRA Vocabulary
There is no limit, of course, to the range of subjects covered on the Web. There is however a limit to the number of terms in the ICRA vocabulary. Therefore it is accepted that not all content can be fully described using the ICRA vocabulary. If none of the terms describe a site's content, then it is correct to say 'none of the above' in each section.
If you feel that, despite there being no directly applicable descriptor, you want to 'label it somehow' as being inappropriate for children, then you might consider labelling as 'Content that is not covered by any of the other descriptors in the vocabulary but that may refer to facts, ideas and issues in a way that assumes an adult audience', found in the 'Potentially disturbing material' section of the label generator.
FOSI reviews the ICRA vocabulary periodically, typically every two years. If you feel that a new descriptor should be included, your suggestion will be welcome.
