Texas law requiring book ratings

This is a follow-up to the pol note about the Texas law that requires bookstores to determine the proper rating for each book it may sell to a school or has sold to a school.

Some people have wondered why this is harder to implement than movie ratings. Here are some pertinent differences:

• A cinemas does not have a role in determining the rating for a movie. Instead, each movie is rated by a national board before the cinema gets it.
• Most cinemas show around 100 movies a year, A bookstore may sell thousands of titles and may get dozens or hundreds of new titles each month, The staff cannot possibly read that many books.
• If the system of ratings specifies criteria for each possible rating, rating a book correctly according to those criteria is not as simple as reading it for pleasure. You would have to study the criteria, then practice on many books before you could get it right.

That is why bookstores say the requirement would be unfeasible. Now let's consider whether it is unjust.

A rating is just a label, and a label in itself does not censor; but systems of ratings typically use them to control censorship. For instance, movie ratings control who is allowed to watch the movie. I expect that the legislators that demanded a rating for each books will add censorship to the system before long.

The US and the EU are considering laws to require online platforms to carry out censorship or access to "adult" material. Users who want to be treated as adults would have to identify themselves to prove their age — all for the sake of censorship. Having identified themselves, they will be tracked.

Right-wing fanatics will have influence in designing the censorship system, and they will not limit it to what one might call "porn". They will demand it restrict access to fiction about sexual/romantic relationships or queer characters, as well as to sex education and advice.