UK's block on internet pron: what do you think?

[Serioli]

How exactly does he hope to police this?

Could I watch a film of 50 shades of Gray*? An artsy play of it? Could I search for tickets for that play, read the book, search for the book, buy the book via a shopping site, search for a summary to see what all the fuss is about, mention it in a forum?

*Used as it's well known, not aiming to derail the thread into a discussion of the title in question.

Also copy-pasta

"Jokes on you Cameron, censorship is my 'thing'

Yeah....block those images...Mmmmm....across all the ISP's....Niiiiiiice....."

 

[IKWerewolf]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23401076
I'm guessing most people on here will be internet libertarians and therefore against regulation from the outset, but then again we may also have some concerned parents or individuals who have the safety of young-uns at heart.

I myself can't really make up my mind - hence this topic. That minors are having their expectations of and attitudes towards sex warped by the ubiquity of internet pornography is pretty well documented, if not completely established (or at least, from what I have read, maybe you guys have something else to offer?). However, I think that asking ISPs to sort it out is tantamount to placing the blame on them, and I'm not sure that's fair either.

OK perspective from the UK.

We in the UK REACT not ACT, well at least the politicians do at least.

Right now in the UK the current party is in trouble with a very uncomfortable position in the polls due to the economy and the public's anger towards being in the European Union which we were never asked about when we joined.

This is easy point scoring from them, nothing more nothing less.

Now the who should be responsible part! This is actually a two part proposal from the UK government. The first part is concerning child abuse images and in this case the ISPs should step up to the mark to try and stop this including torrent sites who should step up as well. Even so, the public also need to step up, if they feel a child is being abused, flag it up we as the public fail to ACT when we have concerns.

As for the blocking, I believe this is more complex, but the term sledgehammer to crack a nut comes to mind. Don't get me wrong we need this debate, but that's exactly what we need A DEBATE not hypocritical politicians deciding.

First point, the first mother I hear using that infamous line "SOMEONE PLEASE THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN!" will now be met with the reply, "Yeah! You! Go home and take care of your child!". The parents are responsible for talking to their child and explaining why they shouldn't be looking at porn, explain what it is and allow the child to be treated like a human being, say no to a child and they will rebel, say why to a child they understand.

The internet companies are NOT getting away scot-free on this one, the truth is if those creating the internet had stopped and asked, "OK what will the unexpected consequences of this wonder?" then they probably would have spotted this and placed their own countermeasures in places. Imagine if early on it was decided that all websites had a hidden coding in it that concealed an age code that would immediately stop the website showing if the person using it was underage.

There's a general rule, the larger something becomes the harder it is to act in a logical way. Look at media and copyright, the internet has become a threat to the music industry that they have been forced to REACT and in a Draconian way on both sides of the Atlantic.

 

[VonKlaw]

Oh, and it won't fucking work anyway. Everyone knows you can still get on to Pirate Bay, and anyone with half a brain-cell would have worked out that child abuse networks aren't a freaking Google search away.

Which, and it makes me feel awful, I can't help but find somewhat hillarious - this retarded idea people who have no idea how the internet works have that peadophiles are all just searching "kiddie porn" on Google. In the same way that bank robbers don't go waving guns around all the time, most peadophiles are clever enough to hide what they're doing.

 

[Woodsey]

Oh, and it won't fucking work anyway. Everyone knows you can still get on to Pirate Bay, and anyone with half a brain-cell would have worked out that child abuse networks aren't a freaking Google search away.

Which, and it makes me feel awful, I can't help but find somewhat hillarious - this retarded idea people who have no idea how the internet works have that peadophiles are all just searching "kiddie porn" on Google. In the same way that bank robbers don't go waving guns around all the time, most peadophiles are clever enough to hide what they're doing.

You always hear talk of them "putting pressure on Google" and shit like that. To do what? Hide results that don't exist anyway?

 

[dando300]

Dear David Cameron,
Are you F***ing insane you gigantic c**t,
you would have better luck banning children from the internet altogether, and it would be just as effective.
Stop sh**ing on logic itself.
Kind regards, a concerned voter.

 

[elvor0]

This is all good if it happens but Cameron is a light-weight who has backed down from everything he said he would do. He can't even put someone in prison who was caught red handed hacking into a murdered teenagers cell phone so he will fail at this.

Anyway an opt out system is great because that makes it easier to find the child abusers. I do wish they stop saying porn, because porn implies consent and payment. It is not child porn it is rape. And everyone who might say rubbish about rights to privacy do sod off. You are winging about your right to masturbate. And no-one's going to blackmail you for wanking over Debbie Does Dallas.

Err how exactly? It's piss easy to get pass for a start: Proxy Filter. Which I'm sure most peados or watchers of child abuse are going to be using regardless of this block rather than phoning up out of fear of getting caught.

If parents don't want their children looking at porn, get a fucking filter, parent your own children, it's the governments job to maintain welfare of the state to a point, not look after your children. It's not the fact that I can't look at porn, it's the fact that I as a 21 year old have to phone up and ask permission to look at breasts because of an incompetent police force and cyber division that can't catch criminals and lazy ass parents. This in no way helps catch nonces, it's not like they're saying they're putting down some sort of surveillance (which would be a whole other kettle of fish). All it does is put an unnecessary filter down that treats adults like children and absconds further responsibility away from crummy parents who can't be asked to take a hand in their childrens upbringing. It's about the precedent, not the content being blocked. I've been allowed to have sex since I was 16 (porn at 18 mind, cos why the hell not) yet I have to ask permission to be allowed to see other people getting it on? Spin on it it was what I have to say to that.

Even monitoring the IP address of people attempting to access restricted sites is useless because of dynamic IP addresses. You might catch the occasional guy accessing the stuff from his PC, but it's not going to cut out the route of the problem: the guys running the show. Oh a popup telling you it's wrong to watch this shit? Oh yeah real effective, because none of us said "yeah I'm 18" when faced with an age gate. That and it's not like you can just type "child pr0ns" into google and get faced with pages of sites. That stuffs fucking WELL hidden. I'd be surprised if this filter even catches em in the first place.

Tangentially: Dear god who am I going to vote for this election? The tories and lib-dems can do one and Milliband has even less of a spine than Clegg that we'll have no chance. I can see the headlines now "X Party overturns porn filter, enabling kiddie fiddlers and directly funding nonce rings!" Fuck sake Cameron. Well fucking done. What does that leave me with? The Nazi party or...the slightly less Nazi party. Fucking great. C'mooon Monster Raving Looney party, we'll be stuffed, but at least socks will come in threes.

 

[Mister Chippy]

Anyone who thinks this could possibly work is a moron. Even if you totally ignore the fact that the filters simply won't work, or that things like TOR exist and are without a doubt more harmful than pronhub, or that every time something like this has been tried before it's been an abysmal failure, it still wouldn't stop kids getting their hands on this stuff because kids were able to get their hands on this kind of stuff before the internet was a thing.

Also, this would be totally shitty for hotels if it happened, because then they'd basically have to choose to either lose most lone (they don't even have to be single, just traveling by themselves) male travelers or families. Personally I like staying at hotels that cater to families even when traveling alone because the other option normally makes me worry I'll catch something just from using their sheets, but I probably wouldn't want to stay at any place with internet filters in place.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Obviously, England has not heard of VPN's. More to the point, this is a sad day for my fellow surfers in the UK. Here's hoping a more level-headed PM will come out and reverse this in the near future.

Next election is in 2015.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH

Also, this porn filter thing is absolute bullshit; it is never the government's responsibility to take care of the children, it is their designated guardians, THE FUCKING PARENT'S RESPONSIBILITY TO MONITOR AND BLOCK WHAT MEDIA THEY OBSERVE.

 

[cikame]

I associate blocking things on the free and open internet to something which a communist state would do so from that perspective i'm actively against it.
I'm not a psychologist so i don't know if a pedophile is more likely to abduct a child if they can't get what they need from pictures, that being said i can't abide by allowing someone like that to take or look at said pictures, that's a very awkward decision to make, i'd be inclined to crack down on pedophile users if that's the case but general pornography? I don't know about that move.

I realize this is just a removable block, but pornography was a huge part of my life growing up (on my parents internet) and i wouldn't deny other people that option, but i'm more against this move for the moral reasons i stated at the beginning.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Everybody quick then, start harvesting porn if you're not doing it already.

 

[TrulyBritish]

Having come into this thread, basically everyone has already said what should be said on this topic: It frankly just will not work.
Just once, just for one mother Samuel L Jackson F*cking moment I want a politician to actually have a firm stance on a topic actually f*cking important. We have so many issues to deal with of varying degrees of importance and his big idea is "I want to stop children watching porn?", I mean seriously?
Here's a big idea Cameron how about we let the parents deal with their grotty offspring, it's not that hard to do and it's their own bleeding responsibility while the Government stops faffing about and actually focus on doing their own bleeding jobs. *growls in frustration*
This *starts waving arms about angrily* is a complete non issue and a complete waste of time and money, time and money better spent on any number of services the Government is supposed to be keeping track of.
NB: Emotion and anger due to this being my "flip out" day.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

I don't think Mr Cameron is looking at the long term political ramifications of blocking porn. Namely countries like The Netherlands drastically tightening their immigration policy as they struggle to cope with the mass increase of porn seeking British immigrants

Being serious for a moment. This move is just a transparent attempt to curry favour with the various vocal moral guardians, which will have possibly some limited success but by and large will be useless at solving anything long term.

 

[Dangit2019]

Pornography is no loss in my opinion.

The argument isn't over how much people lose with porn, it's the principle of the government being able to inflict a nationwide block on something that its own people should handle themselves.

 

[omega 616]

The whole "warping the idea of sex" is weird to me, we have people like Victoria Beckham who is constantly commented on for being a stick insect ... then there are magazines with air brushed models all warping the minds of little girls into thinking they are fat and/or unattractive and that's ok but a naked girl with a giant rack, moaning like hypochondriac with splinter is getting shafted by a guy with telephone pole is warping the image of sex?

The whole think of the children thing is a little bollocks as well, now I don't think a 6 year old should be looking up hardcore BDSM but 16 year olds are having sex education and science classes have dicks and vagina's in text books. Then there is the fucked up age restrictions .... I can have sex, a baby and live on my own at 16 but I can't watch porn till 18? So I can do the deed but not watch the sex tape I just made? Can I at least look down during the act?

Lastly, why do I have to opt into porn? Shouldn't parents opt out of it?

 

[Galletea]

I think it is bullshit to make stupid parents vote for him.

It won't stop anything and it is a stupid waste of money and resources that could be better spent on, I don't know, maybe getting our economy moving or helping the NHS. If people actually thought about it, they could use the existence of porn to better educate their kids on the difference between what they see and what people are really like instead of getting all up in arms about it. Making it forbidden is only going to increase its interest.

More importantly there will be a whole heap of ways around it, and the reason some parents welcome this is because they don't know how to use the technology. I'm sure there will be plenty of youths that can opt-in without their parents knowing.

More importantly still, it is censorship, and censorship is something to which a free nation is supposed to be opposed. Once you start saying X is not all right for people to see, what next?

 

[Adam Locking]

Tangentially: Dear god who am I going to vote for this election? The tories and lib-dems can do one and Milliband has even less of a spine than Clegg that we'll have no chance. I can see the headlines now "X Party overturns porn filter, enabling kiddie fiddlers and directly funding nonce rings!" Fuck sake Cameron. Well fucking done. What does that leave me with? The Nazi party or...the slightly less Nazi party. Fucking great. C'mooon Monster Raving Looney party, we'll be stuffed, but at least socks will come in threes.

Well, there's always the Pirate Party UK, which campaigns for online (and offline) freedoms. If they aren't standing in your area, then yes I'd recommend the MRLP. While they'll never win, I still await the day they obtain that coveted 5% of the vote that means they get treated as a "serious" party (the highest any of them polled was 4.5% I think?)

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Well, let's just put aside all the obvious bullshit this brings, and focus solely on the so called "young-uns". Everyone reaches that age when girls/boys suddenly aren't icky and have cooties, but can be genuinely attractive. Once that age is reached, sexuality begins taking effect. One of the ways to relieve any sexual tension during the teenage years is, indeed, pornography. Take that away, and suddenly you have a nation full of sexually annoyed/frustrated teenagers who may turn to getting laid themselves (which could bring its own plethora of problems, teen pregnancy chief among them) or even, heaven fucking forbid, sexual offence. Banning porn would only bring far more problems than solve any. That kind of regulation should be kept to the parents, and no one else. All this will do, by my reckoning, is piss everyone off and cause above mentioned problems occur. I think it's time people accepted the fact that, yes, pornography does have valid uses in our world. No, it is not evil.

exactly this. i know having a good wank can make the days much less stressful, and not having me thinking about boobs and ass every 20 seconds, and i see no reason why providing material to help with that completely natural bodily function should be filtered/blocked.

(granted i'm not in the UK, but i still think it is bullshit and feel for everyone in the UK who can't fap/schlick with the pleasing material of their desire.)

 

[Proco123]

UK citizen here.

Personally, having it blocked by default isn't that bad. The block can always be lifted. The annoyance will come from a poor system that blocks perfectly safe websites. But overall, I'm fairly indifferent on the topic

What bugs me is when Cameron says Internet porn is damaging to our children.

Has he ever seen a television advert, magazine cover, billboard etc. and the worst of it all is the songs and music videos in the charts ( Nicki Minaj and Rihanna are prime examples). These are all far more damaging to kids in my opinion. All of these things are shoved into children's faces. They have no choice but to witness all this sexed-up media.

Which just makes this all look like population control in disguise, which is never good. Not that I'm some conspiracy theorist.