David Cameron cracks down on online pornography(guardian.co.uk)
guardian.co.uk
David Cameron cracks down on online pornography
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jul/22/david-cameron-crackdown-internet-pornography
368 comments
> > The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) is to draw up a blacklist of "abhorrent" internet search terms to identify and prevent paedophiles searching for illegal material.
> A single search can now land you on a government list of accused pedophiles.
Also, I foresee a sudden rise in rickrolling along the line of:
> A single search can now land you on a government list of accused pedophiles.
Also, I foresee a sudden rise in rickrolling along the line of:
<a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=kiddy+porn">Funny Cat Video!</a>And the inevitable google-bombing and re-definition of various words.
Anyone googled "santorum" recently? The Wikipedia article has a nice rundown on how a US Senator's name ended up thus: 'The word santorum, as defined, has been characterized as "obscene", "unfit to print", or "vulgar".'
I eagerly await the day a Google image search for "David Cameron" starts returning furry-rape-sex pictures, and "Conservative Party" some even more "abhorrent" & "illegal material".
Anyone googled "santorum" recently? The Wikipedia article has a nice rundown on how a US Senator's name ended up thus: 'The word santorum, as defined, has been characterized as "obscene", "unfit to print", or "vulgar".'
I eagerly await the day a Google image search for "David Cameron" starts returning furry-rape-sex pictures, and "Conservative Party" some even more "abhorrent" & "illegal material".
Beyond redefinitions, it turns out people are really good at creating codes. The french Argot was such a code, designed by thieves and criminals. It created a whole new wealth of dangerous words. Instead of Internet search tracking, they feared eavesdropping.
That law is pointless. You're supposed to use Internet searches as bait as long as it works, not force criminals to create a new language immediately! There were paedophiles before the Internet! And I question the idea that porn makes children go paedophiles to begin with, which I understand this "Think of the children" argument builds on.
That law is pointless. You're supposed to use Internet searches as bait as long as it works, not force criminals to create a new language immediately! There were paedophiles before the Internet! And I question the idea that porn makes children go paedophiles to begin with, which I understand this "Think of the children" argument builds on.
This reminds me of the last days of Napster when they started filtering on lists of artists' names and you had to iterate over various misspellings to find the "consensus" on how to "properly misspell" names.
Perhaps 4chan will come to the rescue! I'm sure "Cameroning" will take on a new meaning soon :)
As someone with the first name of Cameron, I really, really hope not. (Although I could be convinced on the furry-rape-sex.)
Or 0x0 iframes injected into well trafficked of sites/forums.
Play nice! Only inject the IFRAME when you detect a visit from a government IP address.
Good plan. Perhaps it's time we started blacklisting government addresses?
Best idea I've heard since PRISM broke.
we can use this list:
http://www.peerblock.com/
Dragnet as a Service? Sounds like it has potential.
I call this sort of thing a "singing frog".
<a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=%6b%69%64%64%79%20%70%6f%72%6e">Funny Cat Video!</a>
Is it still called rickrolling when the "surprise" is agents at your door?
It'll be a new variation of swatting: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Swatting
Might be a good countermeasure. If people are bold enough in numbers, everybody put the evil words into Google search, rendering the data useless. Though it'd have to be done on a regular basis, which is not going to work out.
That's how I think we should combat things like PRISM. If there was a mass protest every week, by millions of individuals, all searching/texting/emailing "kill president" "home made bomb" "chemical explosion", that data would become really really heavy. They might have to cut back on drag-netting everything and focus on specific targets.
while they claim that such data is used for "fighting terrorism", i really doubt that's actually the case - its more data retention, and availability when required for intelligence operations against targets that benefit the administration. So such polluting wouldn't really help imho.
Meh. I'm sure it's fairly easy to turn off their indexer for a specific period of time, say, the 3 hours the protest is going on.
Not only that, the real problem isn't being noticed today. The real problem is how much shit they have on you when they do eventually notice you. After they pull the string on a US Attorney's back and point her in your direction, she will use every scrap of data available to make as ridiculously overblown case a case against you as she can. Which problem these sorts of protests seem to make worse.
Coming up with some statistical filtering beyond `grep' shouldn't be too hard..
[deleted]
> A single search can now land you on a government list of accused pedophiles.
The other day I used Google to find info about a movie called "How to Make Money Selling Drugs"[1]. As I typed the words, I thought to myself "I hope that doesn't get me on a government list." I can't imagine having to think twice before Googling "Lolita"[2].
[1]: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1276962/reference [2]: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056193/reference
The other day I used Google to find info about a movie called "How to Make Money Selling Drugs"[1]. As I typed the words, I thought to myself "I hope that doesn't get me on a government list." I can't imagine having to think twice before Googling "Lolita"[2].
[1]: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1276962/reference [2]: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056193/reference
I now do searches like this using Tor Browser. Just in case.
That probably doubles your chances of making it onto some list.
Now see, that's why everybody should use Tor now and then! :) That way this unique characteristic will become common enough for a generic filter on Tor users to become ineffective (by their measures). If you don't want to be seen connecting to Tor directory authorities and to relays directly, use a Tor bridge. Better yet, run one yourself! If you are using obfuscated bridges, you can (as of now) fool even pretty sophisticated DPI boxes which won't be able to fingerprint your traffic. (cf. continued Tor developers' battles with China's intense DPI infrastructure)
https://cloud.torproject.org/
https://www.torproject.org/docs/bridges#RunningABridge
Honestly though, "Tor user" will probably remain an interesting / valuable (by their standards) enough heuristic for a long time to come.
https://cloud.torproject.org/
https://www.torproject.org/docs/bridges#RunningABridge
Honestly though, "Tor user" will probably remain an interesting / valuable (by their standards) enough heuristic for a long time to come.
Can I suggest next time you have a perfectly normal and mundane need to access any government website - you fire up TOR Browser first? Go look up your local representative's name, or the garbage collection days for your suburb, but do it over TOR, and leave the trails in their logfiles.
As if Britain didn't have real problems to deal with:
- Long term unemployment is at a 17 year high.
- Government debt is at 90 percent of GDP.
- Violent crimes is worst in EU.
For years Britain has feared loosing sovereignty to the European Union. To me it seems like they should maybe worry more about American influence with all the wars they fight, the spying on their citizens and now the neo puritanism.
- Long term unemployment is at a 17 year high.
- Government debt is at 90 percent of GDP.
- Violent crimes is worst in EU.
For years Britain has feared loosing sovereignty to the European Union. To me it seems like they should maybe worry more about American influence with all the wars they fight, the spying on their citizens and now the neo puritanism.
What do you think is easier for Cameron:
To fix the above, or to push through moralistic laws that will keep the media busy and get positive treatment in papers like Daily Mail to draw attention away from the problems?
To fix the above, or to push through moralistic laws that will keep the media busy and get positive treatment in papers like Daily Mail to draw attention away from the problems?
He will do the latter and prevent larger problems (protests, growing opposition) with his new censorship infrastructure. Which, in my opinion, is his main motivation.
I have no doubt he'll do the latter. But I don't think he'll dare use it to prevent protest - if he does, he will face much larger opposition. Heck, I'll take to the streets if that happens, and the only demonstration I've taken part in in the last 15 years or so was a single anti-Iraq war demonstration that happened to take place across the street from me...
If we get that far, I'll also throw 10k towards darknet infrastructure if someone comes up with a viable project.
If we get that far, I'll also throw 10k towards darknet infrastructure if someone comes up with a viable project.
For some perspective:
Rates of murder and violent crime have fallen more rapidly in the UK in the past decade than many other countries in Western Europe http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22275280
Homicide rate is less than loads of EU countries (and Canada!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...
Rates of murder and violent crime have fallen more rapidly in the UK in the past decade than many other countries in Western Europe http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22275280
Homicide rate is less than loads of EU countries (and Canada!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...
Murder rate is one of the best proxies for comparing violent crimes in different countries because it's usually defined more similarly than other violent crimes.
At 1.2 the UK still has higher murder rate than most of its neighboring countries: Germany (0.8), Denmark (0.9), Norway (0.6), the Netherlands (1.1), France (1.1). In that end of Europe, only Belgium (1.7) and Ireland (1.2) is doing worse or equally bad.
The "loads of" EU countries doing worse are mainly some of the new member states from Eastern European, which are much poorer than the UK. Only Belgium and Finland seem like countries the UK would like to compare themselves to that are actually doing worse.
At 1.2 the UK still has higher murder rate than most of its neighboring countries: Germany (0.8), Denmark (0.9), Norway (0.6), the Netherlands (1.1), France (1.1). In that end of Europe, only Belgium (1.7) and Ireland (1.2) is doing worse or equally bad.
The "loads of" EU countries doing worse are mainly some of the new member states from Eastern European, which are much poorer than the UK. Only Belgium and Finland seem like countries the UK would like to compare themselves to that are actually doing worse.
Your original comment was "Violent crimes is worst in EU." This is clearly not true.
If you'd like to reword your comment to "UK violent crime is worst in an ad-hoc collection of countries I've decided on" I'll withdraw my comment.
If you'd like to reword your comment to "UK violent crime is worst in an ad-hoc collection of countries I've decided on" I'll withdraw my comment.
I think it's quite interesting how uniform are the murder rates across western europe.
> "- Government debt is at 90 percent of GDP."
Describing debt as percentage of GDP is a subjective anti-debt framing of the issue. Here's why:
Units of debt: $ (here pounds). Units of GDP: $/year. So, units of debt/GDP: years, not percent.
Since "100%" sounds like a high number, this way of framing the numbers is useful for scaring people. Putting it mathematically correct "11 months" sounds much less scary.
Describing debt as percentage of GDP is a subjective anti-debt framing of the issue. Here's why:
Units of debt: $ (here pounds). Units of GDP: $/year. So, units of debt/GDP: years, not percent.
Since "100%" sounds like a high number, this way of framing the numbers is useful for scaring people. Putting it mathematically correct "11 months" sounds much less scary.
GDP is a measure of the size of the economy to allow comparison between different years and different countries. Putting things in fractions of GDP allows the same comparison to be made meaningfully.
> Putting it mathematically correct "11 months" sounds much less scary.
Yes, and for exactly this reason it's dishonest: It implies that you could, if you wanted, repay the debt in 11 months - which is impossible.
Anyway, 90% debt is only scary if we decide that there is a threshold below 90% that is un-scary. If the threshold was 150%, then Greece is scary but UK isn't. If it's 10% then everywhere is scary.
Personally, I'm more scared and/or outraged by the way the money is wasted than by the exact size of the debt.
> Putting it mathematically correct "11 months" sounds much less scary.
Yes, and for exactly this reason it's dishonest: It implies that you could, if you wanted, repay the debt in 11 months - which is impossible.
Anyway, 90% debt is only scary if we decide that there is a threshold below 90% that is un-scary. If the threshold was 150%, then Greece is scary but UK isn't. If it's 10% then everywhere is scary.
Personally, I'm more scared and/or outraged by the way the money is wasted than by the exact size of the debt.
100% agree with your last sentence.
Now, I'm not really replying to you as such, but I don't quite understand the alarmism over, say, a debt of 100% of GDP.
UK tax revenues are 39% of GDP (so, very naïvely, the government's "income") and with a debt of 90% of GDP, that's 2.3x income. Or a typical £25k earner having a long term debt, like a mortgage, of £57.5k.
I confess this is an extremely naïve analysis since personal and government budgets are chalk and cheese, but it doesn't strike me, as a taxpayer, as being a number to get alarmed over. Or am I totally missing something?
Now, I'm not really replying to you as such, but I don't quite understand the alarmism over, say, a debt of 100% of GDP.
UK tax revenues are 39% of GDP (so, very naïvely, the government's "income") and with a debt of 90% of GDP, that's 2.3x income. Or a typical £25k earner having a long term debt, like a mortgage, of £57.5k.
I confess this is an extremely naïve analysis since personal and government budgets are chalk and cheese, but it doesn't strike me, as a taxpayer, as being a number to get alarmed over. Or am I totally missing something?
What you're missing is the fact that having a mortgage implies having an asset (a house) worth something more than the mortgage principal. The government does spend on investment, but the vast majority of the budget in sunk into running costs. Then, the more appropriate comparison would be a £25k earner with £57k in credit card debts, which is obviously a lot more scary - but again not completely comparable as the guy would be paying 20-30% interest while the government pays close to 0%, mostly because they have the power to raise their income on demand if they need to in order to service their debts.
> Yes, and for exactly this reason it's dishonest: It implies that you could, if you wanted, repay the debt in 11 months - which is impossible.
It does not imply that. It's simply the mathematical truth of the units. I'm arguing that using percent is factually _false_, with as aim scaring people. I prefer truthful facts with explanation. Feel free to use a different thing than debt/GDP, but don't use something that's equivalent to claiming that 1+1=3.
It does not imply that. It's simply the mathematical truth of the units. I'm arguing that using percent is factually _false_, with as aim scaring people. I prefer truthful facts with explanation. Feel free to use a different thing than debt/GDP, but don't use something that's equivalent to claiming that 1+1=3.
while i understand the unit, what does 11 months _mean_?
When you put debt as a percentage of GDP, it is understood to mean the "size" of the debt, with the implied "size" of 100% being bad (whether this is true or not, i m not sure).
When you put debt as a percentage of GDP, it is understood to mean the "size" of the debt, with the implied "size" of 100% being bad (whether this is true or not, i m not sure).
Yes, though of course, the numbers should get their scare value from something more objective. I.e. some kind of study about how much debt is actually harmful (or not?).
The problem with that is that it's very hard to get a substantial body of empirical evidence in which you can isolate the variable. There was incredibly high debt during and after WW2, and the UK survived that, but then there's the elephant in the room of the uniquely united nation having just fought off a very real and direct existential threat. We don't exactly have that level of common sense of purpose today.
... because the government is one person, unable of accomplishing multiple tasks at the same time?
> - Violent crimes is worst in EU.
Why would that be Britain's problem ?
Why would that be Britain's problem ?
I think what OP meant was that Britan has the highest rate of violent crimes in the EU. This was all over the news a few years ago, and it's still fairly high, but it's important to note that the UK is very lax in what it considers "violent crime". Whether that's a good thing or not is another matter.
I think you read that wrong. That Britain has the worst violent crimes in the EU is definitively Britain's problem.
Indeed, I read "worse" instead of "worst". My bad.
You should parse that sentence as "Britain has the highest occurrence of violent crime in the EU," which is very much our problem.
He means that Britain has the worst level of violent crimes of any country in the EU.
Worst != Worse
> > The possession of "extreme pornography", which includes scenes of simulated rape, is to be outlawed.
> Video footage of two consenting adults, acting out a scene, will be illegal to own. With this on the books, it seems a short hop to outlaw videos of simulated murder.
Even without such an extension, aren't there plenty of Hollywood movies which include "scenes of simulated rape"?
> Video footage of two consenting adults, acting out a scene, will be illegal to own. With this on the books, it seems a short hop to outlaw videos of simulated murder.
Even without such an extension, aren't there plenty of Hollywood movies which include "scenes of simulated rape"?
I can't speak to Hollywood, but this presumably means it will be illegal to watch "Irreversable" online.
Still, it's a handy way to tar anyone complaining about online survellience as a rape-loving pedophile.
Still, it's a handy way to tar anyone complaining about online survellience as a rape-loving pedophile.
I'd forgotten all about Irreversable - I purchased the DVD, then later on sold it on eBay... does this now mean I'm a 'user' and distributor?
We'll have to see for sure, but it seems to suggest that the legislation only applies to videos that couldn't even get R18 (sex-shop only) rated - but I would have thought possession of those was illegal anyway.
There are a ton of films, legally classified as 18 in the UK, that have scenes that graphically depict simulated rape, torture, murder, and so on.
We'll have to see for sure, but it seems to suggest that the legislation only applies to videos that couldn't even get R18 (sex-shop only) rated - but I would have thought possession of those was illegal anyway.
There are a ton of films, legally classified as 18 in the UK, that have scenes that graphically depict simulated rape, torture, murder, and so on.
i always maintain that the classification is merely suggestions. I would propose that anything not classified should not be illegal to sell - just illegal to sell to minors (ie., same as the 18+ classification).
Forget "modern" cinema, they should go all the way back to banning stories coming from Ancient Greece:
> Leda and the Swan is a story and subject in art from Greek mythology in which the god Zeus, in the form of a swan, seduces, or rapes, Leda. According to later Greek mythology, Leda bore Helen and Polydeuces, children of Zeus, while at the same time bearing Castor and Clytemnestra, children of her husband Tyndareus, the King of Sparta.
From here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leda_and_the_Swan
> Leda and the Swan is a story and subject in art from Greek mythology in which the god Zeus, in the form of a swan, seduces, or rapes, Leda. According to later Greek mythology, Leda bore Helen and Polydeuces, children of Zeus, while at the same time bearing Castor and Clytemnestra, children of her husband Tyndareus, the King of Sparta.
From here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leda_and_the_Swan
Might as well ban the Bible while they're at it for stories of rape, incest and sodomy.
I'll have to dig out and destroy my copy of Death Wish.
[deleted]
IIRC, the UK's existing pornography laws make a distinction between, for example, partial nakedness (page 3 of the sun - not regulated) and sexual nakedness (what you think it is - regulated, restrictions on who can buy, what a licensed shop is, etc). There is also a separate rating above 12, 15, 18, which classifies films as subject to pornography controls or not. Internet sites are completely unregulated compared to video tapes/DVDs, under these laws, which is why they're updating them.
I suspect that films (girl with the dragon tattoo springs to mind) would not be subject to it because they aren't presenting the rape as sexual; it is seen as a crime in the film, which isn't primarily a film about rape/sex (obviously I can't speak for all films.)
The grey area and line drawing are a problem with laws like this, though, as several people have pointed out - I am sure there are films (horrible ones that I haven't seen) that come close to glorifying rape, or depicting it as desirable/sexual - whether those would be part of the law would be up to either parliament to specify, or up to the courts to decide later in case law.
I suspect that films (girl with the dragon tattoo springs to mind) would not be subject to it because they aren't presenting the rape as sexual; it is seen as a crime in the film, which isn't primarily a film about rape/sex (obviously I can't speak for all films.)
The grey area and line drawing are a problem with laws like this, though, as several people have pointed out - I am sure there are films (horrible ones that I haven't seen) that come close to glorifying rape, or depicting it as desirable/sexual - whether those would be part of the law would be up to either parliament to specify, or up to the courts to decide later in case law.
A Clockwork Orange springs to mind.
Most folks I know who have actually watched it think it's horrific (at least in parts). It was banned for a long time due (IIRC) to the fact that you could watch it 'straight' and see it as glorifying all sorts of stuff. Especially when you take into account that the second half of the film is about government conditioning and then un-conditioning our anti-hero, so that by the end he's once again able to commit atrocities.
Most folks I know who have actually watched it think it's horrific (at least in parts). It was banned for a long time due (IIRC) to the fact that you could watch it 'straight' and see it as glorifying all sorts of stuff. Especially when you take into account that the second half of the film is about government conditioning and then un-conditioning our anti-hero, so that by the end he's once again able to commit atrocities.
This is a large category.
There are tricky cases of defensible portrayals of sex involving children, e.g. Schlöndorff's adaptation of The Tin Drum (which was banned in Canada as child pornography), and narratives that document the child sex industry, but they are rare by comparison. With artistically and morally defensible portrayals of rape, the range is huge. sspiff mentions A Clockwork Orange; even Jeffrey Archer (former senior Tory politician) wrote a novel with a rape scene. I also recall that when Virginia Bottomley (another former senior Tory politician) was asked to name her favourite film, she named Hitchcock's Rear Window, which is quite voyeuristic, and Hitchcock has filmed what I would class as morally indefensible rape scenes. The idea that moral guardians go about forbidding various classes of transgressive art forms that they themselves admit to enjoying is quite ironic.
For the sake of having some sort of a list: Bandit Queen, Deliverance, and Leaving Las Vegas all have hard-to-watch, defensible, and narratively necessary rape scenes. The victim in Bandit Queen I think was supposed to be prepubescent. And didn't Slumdog Millionaire have a child rape scene?
There are tricky cases of defensible portrayals of sex involving children, e.g. Schlöndorff's adaptation of The Tin Drum (which was banned in Canada as child pornography), and narratives that document the child sex industry, but they are rare by comparison. With artistically and morally defensible portrayals of rape, the range is huge. sspiff mentions A Clockwork Orange; even Jeffrey Archer (former senior Tory politician) wrote a novel with a rape scene. I also recall that when Virginia Bottomley (another former senior Tory politician) was asked to name her favourite film, she named Hitchcock's Rear Window, which is quite voyeuristic, and Hitchcock has filmed what I would class as morally indefensible rape scenes. The idea that moral guardians go about forbidding various classes of transgressive art forms that they themselves admit to enjoying is quite ironic.
For the sake of having some sort of a list: Bandit Queen, Deliverance, and Leaving Las Vegas all have hard-to-watch, defensible, and narratively necessary rape scenes. The victim in Bandit Queen I think was supposed to be prepubescent. And didn't Slumdog Millionaire have a child rape scene?
The solution to this problem is DRM! The article says it will be illegal to own such scenes. With DRM, you don't own anything. </sarcasm>
In Bollywood (the Hindi equivalent of Hollywood in India) pretty much any mainstream commercial movie used to have at least one rape scene [1]. The formula had variations : villain tries to rape heroine and hero saves heroine, villain rapes hero's sister and hero takes revenge etc.
[1] http://health.india.com/diseases-conditions/international-wo...
[1] http://health.india.com/diseases-conditions/international-wo...
The BBC's censored cut of The White Queen includes a scene that would pretty obviously fit the bill, and while it's not explicit it's based on history and she would be classified as a child too.
The Sopranos come to mind.
I wish he would have at least nodded his head to the idea that creating censorship infrastructure today, even for the right reasons, might lead to problems tomorrow. Also I wish whatever reporter wrote the story had asked his take on that.
What do you think his intention is, to do the right thing?
He knows what he's doing and there's no reason to expect him to acknowledge the "side-effects" of an evil regulation.
And the reporter is not responsible for realizing this; you are.
He knows what he's doing and there's no reason to expect him to acknowledge the "side-effects" of an evil regulation.
And the reporter is not responsible for realizing this; you are.
So the reporter has no responsibility to uphold journalistic ideals? Good to know.
There's a whole seperate article in the opinion section on why the law doesn't make sense http://m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/21/david-came...
The 'quality' UK papers generally try to seperate opinions from factual reporting. Maybe the NYT WSJ etc do this as well?
There are plenty of criticisms of this law that are perfectly factual, like "Cameron doesn't have a God damn idea how the Internet works," or "No censorship scheme on the Internet has ever remained effective against the dedicated for more than a few minutes," or "Cameron has entirely failed to describe what he means by 'violent pornography' in a way that is specific enough to be legally actionable or differentiable from pornography/the Web in general." Not including any such facts in the main article is dishonest.
I'm glad I was able to educate you without either of us resorting to sarcasm.
The problem with this thread is that it's entirely possible to read it as both my post and your reply are sarcastic, or they both aren't.
If you really require me to be explicit, I can spell it out for you:
* Each person has an individual responsibility to realize such things for their self via critical thinking.
* A reporter has no legal responsibility to uphold journalistic principals.
* A reporter should have an ethical responsibility to uphold journalistic principals.
This, to me, is the equivalent of victim-blaming:
If you really require me to be explicit, I can spell it out for you:
* Each person has an individual responsibility to realize such things for their self via critical thinking.
* A reporter has no legal responsibility to uphold journalistic principals.
* A reporter should have an ethical responsibility to uphold journalistic principals.
This, to me, is the equivalent of victim-blaming:
You walk past a dark alley and see someone being
assaulted. You are under no legal obligation to
help the person, therefore you do not help the
person. The person has no right to be angry at
you because they should have been responsible
for *their own* safety and shouldn't rely on
anyone else. The person being assaulted is the
person that is *really* at fault because they
failed to protect their own personal safety.If you wanted to have a serious conversation about journalistic integrity, you would not begin with sarcasm and continue with condescension. That's why you didn't deserve a serious reply, and still don't. The entire thread you started is also off-topic and as worthwhile as your thoughts in it.
In your original post, you stated that it was the reader's responsibility to do the critical thinking necessary to realize that the censorship controls could be used for 'evil.' This view implies that people without the requisite critical thinking skills are irresponsible, and therefore deserve what they get[1].
[1] Couldn't think of a better way of putting it. I'm not saying that you're stating that sentiment directly.
[1] Couldn't think of a better way of putting it. I'm not saying that you're stating that sentiment directly.
His view also fails to acknowledge the fact that press is not either cheap propaganda / sensationalism, versus well written and researched articles. There are also well written and researched manipulative articles that even a reader with good enough critical thinking skills might be mislead by.
It's easy to blame the reader when what you read is "too good to be true" or "so obvious that it's not", but when a fabrication makes its way into a rather respected journal, or when a more or less respected author gets something unusually wrong (which you're not clever enough to spot because it's not your expertise), then one can't be blamed to have believed it in the first place.
It's easy to blame the reader when what you read is "too good to be true" or "so obvious that it's not", but when a fabrication makes its way into a rather respected journal, or when a more or less respected author gets something unusually wrong (which you're not clever enough to spot because it's not your expertise), then one can't be blamed to have believed it in the first place.
You started the conversation with statement that arguably defends shoddy journalism. Instead of backing it up, you claim the response to your comment is off-topic and proclaim offense at sarcasm and condescension (both useful devices for eliciting emotional responses in debate...).
How about taking the high road?
What do you think his intention is, to do the right thing?
Win votes. That's the definition of success in politics.
Win votes. That's the definition of success in politics.
Hilarious. In which fantasy land is every outcome of a law predictable before it gets issued.
The land which the politicians don't want.
They're not ignorant to the outcome here - it's exactly what they want and has been planned that way.
This is a serious fucking power grab.
They're not ignorant to the outcome here - it's exactly what they want and has been planned that way.
This is a serious fucking power grab.
> This is a serious fucking power grab.
* They realize it could be used for bad in the future, but they have delusions of, "bad things couldn't happen here." [ Sort of like the idea in America that, "Fascism could never happen here." ]
* They are more comfortable with creating said power because they are currently in control of it, and are short-sighted enough to not realize that this won't always be the case (i.e. the 'government' will control it, but they aren't guaranteed to be a part of the government).
I don't think they're that stupid. They know the endgame is censorship and control.
The next step will be court sanctioned page blocks against the terrorists followed by the usual propaganda in the shite rags...
The next step will be court sanctioned page blocks against the terrorists followed by the usual propaganda in the shite rags...
Another possibility, avoiding Hanlon's razor: They honestly have trouble understanding how or why someone could in good conscience disagree. They don't want control or censorship in the abstract; they just want to legislate morality on this one issue because their position is so "obviously" right. Using laws like this to censor things that don't harm kids would be unthinkable, but harming kids is clearly bad, so this law neither is nor opens up the door for censorship. They don't see the slope because the motives look completely different.
They honestly have trouble understanding how or why someone could in good conscience disagree.
That should instantly disqualify them from a career in politics!
That should instantly disqualify them from a career in politics!
>Hilarious. In which fantasy land is every outcome of a law predictable before it gets issued.
Probably in the same fantasy land where the parent described "every outcome" of the law, instead of just a few. If you wanna employ "hilarious" and "snark" better first get what the other guy said right.
I'm not even sure what your snark is supposed to be based on.
For one, nobody above claimed they can predict "every outcome" of a law.
Second, of course we can we can predict SOME outcomes of a law before it gets issued. Often times, we can even tell that a law is good or bad before it gets issued.
Predicting the outcome of laws is what the legislation process itself is based on: in the idea that the legislators draft laws in the way that they _predict_ will bring upon a possitive outcome. They don't draft random statements and see what sticks.
Now, because a lot of stuff can hamper the legislators (e.g private interests, appeal to get votes, ideology and partisan politics, fad moral opinions etc), a lot of times the public can tell a law is crap even before it gets issued.
Probably in the same fantasy land where the parent described "every outcome" of the law, instead of just a few. If you wanna employ "hilarious" and "snark" better first get what the other guy said right.
I'm not even sure what your snark is supposed to be based on.
For one, nobody above claimed they can predict "every outcome" of a law.
Second, of course we can we can predict SOME outcomes of a law before it gets issued. Often times, we can even tell that a law is good or bad before it gets issued.
Predicting the outcome of laws is what the legislation process itself is based on: in the idea that the legislators draft laws in the way that they _predict_ will bring upon a possitive outcome. They don't draft random statements and see what sticks.
Now, because a lot of stuff can hamper the legislators (e.g private interests, appeal to get votes, ideology and partisan politics, fad moral opinions etc), a lot of times the public can tell a law is crap even before it gets issued.
> These declarations will only be used to shame public figures once the list is leaked.
LOL. On my Twitter account I have a public list for porn. It used to be a private list but most of those girls are pretty cool so there's no reason to be ashamed.
I'm not a public figure of course but I think this shame toward sexuality is a generational thing. It's only taboo for older people.
LOL. On my Twitter account I have a public list for porn. It used to be a private list but most of those girls are pretty cool so there's no reason to be ashamed.
I'm not a public figure of course but I think this shame toward sexuality is a generational thing. It's only taboo for older people.
And on top of this, they want to create a database of all of child porn. ( What could possibly go wrong?)
American ISPs have such a shared database through NCMEC.
It's not widely advertised because they'd like to claim such a thing is impossible, to avoid the music industry.
It's not widely advertised because they'd like to claim such a thing is impossible, to avoid the music industry.
We already have that in the UK.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanfeed_(content_blocking_sys...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanfeed_(content_blocking_sys...
If I understand the link correctly, Cleanfeed operates at the http level, while the proposed new system would work on the content level. ( Granted this is speculation based on a non technical article, which reports a speech of a politician.)
If the database just contains hashes of offending images, I don't see the harm. Similar databases exist for copyrighted movies, television shows, and music.
Edit: The harm is combining such a database with broad internet surveillance. Also, since the database is only hashes, false positives are likely. YouTube, who probably has the best content matching algorithms, can't even get it right all the time.
Edit: The harm is combining such a database with broad internet surveillance. Also, since the database is only hashes, false positives are likely. YouTube, who probably has the best content matching algorithms, can't even get it right all the time.
There are several harm factors which are hidden from plain view.
Commonly used hash algorithms are too rigid. A detection system shouldn't be bypassed just when a single bit gets flipped in a large file. The algorithm need to be fault tolerant, give few hash collision, and be proven by the passage of time. This of course a contradiction in terms.
It also need to be maintained and safe guarded against abuse. Who will watch the watchers, and how do we control what gets defined as offending images if there is no public reviews?
How is legal rights handled? How should appeals be handled, and peoples right to face ones accuser.
How do we control scope creep so "unwanted" political competition don't get suppressed under anti-propaganda laws? How is the slippery slope argument handled?
And last... but far from least, is the classical argument of 20th century political environment: Practicality. What does the cost-benefit analyses say about such filters and databases. Is the maintenance that those databases require cost more than they provide to society? What other options has been thought of, and how does the databases compare in efficiency and cost?
So if we think about it, maybe the harms are not that well hidden.
Commonly used hash algorithms are too rigid. A detection system shouldn't be bypassed just when a single bit gets flipped in a large file. The algorithm need to be fault tolerant, give few hash collision, and be proven by the passage of time. This of course a contradiction in terms.
It also need to be maintained and safe guarded against abuse. Who will watch the watchers, and how do we control what gets defined as offending images if there is no public reviews?
How is legal rights handled? How should appeals be handled, and peoples right to face ones accuser.
How do we control scope creep so "unwanted" political competition don't get suppressed under anti-propaganda laws? How is the slippery slope argument handled?
And last... but far from least, is the classical argument of 20th century political environment: Practicality. What does the cost-benefit analyses say about such filters and databases. Is the maintenance that those databases require cost more than they provide to society? What other options has been thought of, and how does the databases compare in efficiency and cost?
So if we think about it, maybe the harms are not that well hidden.
The problem is, that they have then equipment to monitor web traffic at the content level. And it is nowhere clear, if the hashes are actually offending images, either maliciously or because the database is just on a similar quality level as the various databases for copyright violations. [1]
[1]https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120806/11053019945/curio...
[1]https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120806/11053019945/curio...
Actually child porn images are probably much easier to detect than YouTube blocking videos. One aspect of copyright infringement that makes content detection hard is that there is fair use. There is absolutely no fair use for child porn.
And that database never has false positives?
Most law enforcement agencies have something of that sort. From what I understand, what they distribute is a database of hashes to identify files. I don't know if the original material is preserved.
It's weird how pornography is "corroding" but the endless streams of horrific behaviours shown in reality shows is A-OK with the Daily Mail and Cameron.
> The possession of "extreme pornography", which includes scenes of simulated rape, is to be outlawed.
Can we expect films such as "I Spit On Your Grave" and "Once Upon a Time in America" to become illegal also?
Can we expect films such as "I Spit On Your Grave" and "Once Upon a Time in America" to become illegal also?
Video footage of two consenting adults, acting out a scene, will be illegal to own. With this on the books, it seems a short hop to outlaw videos of simulated murder.
I'm no lawyer, but it already is, if they're in a pornographic "context": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_63_of_the_Criminal_Just...
This 2008 act outlaws possessing or publishing explicit and realistic imagery of acts that threaten life, would cause serious injury to certain genitals, etc.
So fisting, simulated murder, or simulated necrophilia.. already illegal. Rape, borderline allowable, although if I were a lawyer testing this act in court, I'd say that rape is quite clearly an act that is "likely to result" in "serious injury to a person's anus, breasts or genitals".
I'm no lawyer, but it already is, if they're in a pornographic "context": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_63_of_the_Criminal_Just...
This 2008 act outlaws possessing or publishing explicit and realistic imagery of acts that threaten life, would cause serious injury to certain genitals, etc.
So fisting, simulated murder, or simulated necrophilia.. already illegal. Rape, borderline allowable, although if I were a lawyer testing this act in court, I'd say that rape is quite clearly an act that is "likely to result" in "serious injury to a person's anus, breasts or genitals".
> So fisting ... already illegal.
Actually there was a case in 2012 of someone tried under this law for having fisting videos. They weren't convicted. This is strong evidence (and precedent) that fisting per se would not fall under this law.
Actually there was a case in 2012 of someone tried under this law for having fisting videos. They weren't convicted. This is strong evidence (and precedent) that fisting per se would not fall under this law.
I read a story like that and it seems to be the usual British approach of actual convictions coming down heavily on judges and juries' sense of what's wrong and right rather than what the law says or suggests. (A good thing IMHO!) :-)
That it even made it to court meant there was a case to answer but the actual outcomes seem to be more sane and based on the context than the law itself.
That it even made it to court meant there was a case to answer but the actual outcomes seem to be more sane and based on the context than the law itself.
Well that law, like lots of laws, is open to interpretation by judges/the legal system/etc. That's how laws and judges and trials are mostly supposed to work. The judges/jury didn't ignore the law, they merely had to interpret the law and see if the facts of the case fit it or not.
I believe the crux was that the law said it was illegal to have porn that showed damage to the anus, so does fisting fall into that category or not? The outcome was no, fisting doesn't count as damage to the anus. The "stupid law" wasn't ignored, it wasn't a case of "people using their own moral compasses", it was a jury & judge interpreting a law, like normal.
That it even made it to court meant there was a case to answer
The cynic is me notices that the accused was a lawyer who helped prosecute corrupt police officers.
I believe the crux was that the law said it was illegal to have porn that showed damage to the anus, so does fisting fall into that category or not? The outcome was no, fisting doesn't count as damage to the anus. The "stupid law" wasn't ignored, it wasn't a case of "people using their own moral compasses", it was a jury & judge interpreting a law, like normal.
That it even made it to court meant there was a case to answer
The cynic is me notices that the accused was a lawyer who helped prosecute corrupt police officers.
> it seems a short hop to outlaw videos of simulated murder.
Which includes pretty much every action movie these days. Maybe the irony will be that Hollywood will step up with a campaign to fight this, because they see it as an eventual threat to their bottom line.
Which includes pretty much every action movie these days. Maybe the irony will be that Hollywood will step up with a campaign to fight this, because they see it as an eventual threat to their bottom line.
> These declarations will only be used to shame public figures once the list is leaked.
Actually it's the common person I'm more worried about. Applying to work as a teacher? They might ask you (or the Government body with the details) if you watch porn. "We can't let someone who watches porn teach 5 year olds!" will be the excuse.
> Video footage of two consenting adults, acting out a scene, will be illegal to own.
This is already the case in the UK, with violent and extreme pornography, a new law that (I don't think) has any convictions yet.
> it seems a short hop to outlaw videos of simulated murder.
Again, other way around. They made porn of that technically illegal a few years ago AFAIR,
Actually it's the common person I'm more worried about. Applying to work as a teacher? They might ask you (or the Government body with the details) if you watch porn. "We can't let someone who watches porn teach 5 year olds!" will be the excuse.
> Video footage of two consenting adults, acting out a scene, will be illegal to own.
This is already the case in the UK, with violent and extreme pornography, a new law that (I don't think) has any convictions yet.
> it seems a short hop to outlaw videos of simulated murder.
Again, other way around. They made porn of that technically illegal a few years ago AFAIR,
I take it noone will get raped on eastenders then.
Well Eastenders gets away with it by putting a helpline number at the end of the program with the text "If you've been affected by the issues in this program, contact 0845...".
Perhaps they could do that with blue movies :)
"If you've been fucked in the eyesocket"...
Perhaps they could do that with blue movies :)
"If you've been fucked in the eyesocket"...
I think they have taken a good step in the right direction.
Kids are exposed to too much crap these days. Kids growing up with involved parents and teachers turn out alright, but there are a whole lot of kids who aren't that lucky.
These laws will not help. Outlawing content will not make it suddenly disappear, it will just be a bit harder to find. Any attempt to filter content will be circumvented. Australia's attempt failed miserably back in 2007[1]. I agree that children are exposed to too much "crap" today, but using children as an excuse to censor material is a political move.
[1]: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/08/australian_por...
[1]: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/08/australian_por...
I grew up in a country with mandatory web filtering. ("For pornography", but naturally, dissent forums always end up in that list.) Virtually every kid I knew was comfortable using Tor, Bittorrent, or a plain old web proxy (in the early days) to get around it.
These filters are just an inconvenience, and if your child is too stupid to work around them then you've got worse problems.
These filters are just an inconvenience, and if your child is too stupid to work around them then you've got worse problems.
That's not a government issue. You're welcome to control your own children's internet use, but it is not your right to control how any other family deals with these situations.
Edit: You're free to cite examples of children who "aren't that lucky" and had their upbringing maliciously altered by viewing internet pornography.
Edit: You're free to cite examples of children who "aren't that lucky" and had their upbringing maliciously altered by viewing internet pornography.
Posting the same reply 3 times got your replies dead. On e would've been fair. Before I had kids I kind of thought: anything goes. Now? Pretty much the same. The worst crap that kids are exposed to is situations where people treat each other like crap, so the worst influence is almost always going to be the commercial news. I seriously doubt the asshole that held those women captive in Ohio was a product of the depravity of the internet or media in general. Sometimes, people are just assholes.
And people seem to think kids can't separate fantasy and reality, which amazes me given that everyone after all have been children themselves, and many of them do have their own.
My son is four. He watches a lot of stuff I was never allowed to as a child. He acts out scenes of decapitations with swords, for example, while playing. When his mom and I occasionally gasp or ask him to tone it down because we think it's going a bit far he goes "it's only pretend" with a condescending voice, as if we must be the stupidest people around to not realise that these things are just fantasy.
But if we as much as raise our voices to each other, he gets upset, tells us off and demands an explanation and wants to know who is angry at whom and why. Once we had an argument before his bedtime, and I left the room. The following night he wanted assurances from me that we were not going to argue again before I was allowed to sit down by his bed. He also understands well enough that so much as raising a hand at someone is unacceptable to the extent that when he is really upset, he has experimented with using the threat of it to try to get a reaction out of us (e.g. sitting on the sofa and calmly saying "I am going to hit you"). None of the stuff he's seeing in movies or his cartoons etc. has ever "crossed over" to non-play/fantasy situations.
I don't worry about movies. I worry about advertising. He can tell movies are fantasy because of how it is portrayed, but advertising makes claims intended to be believed, and from what I see it's effect is far stronger. Thankfully he's learned to detest advertising, and now get upset if we watch live TV because he wants to fast forward past it...
My son is four. He watches a lot of stuff I was never allowed to as a child. He acts out scenes of decapitations with swords, for example, while playing. When his mom and I occasionally gasp or ask him to tone it down because we think it's going a bit far he goes "it's only pretend" with a condescending voice, as if we must be the stupidest people around to not realise that these things are just fantasy.
But if we as much as raise our voices to each other, he gets upset, tells us off and demands an explanation and wants to know who is angry at whom and why. Once we had an argument before his bedtime, and I left the room. The following night he wanted assurances from me that we were not going to argue again before I was allowed to sit down by his bed. He also understands well enough that so much as raising a hand at someone is unacceptable to the extent that when he is really upset, he has experimented with using the threat of it to try to get a reaction out of us (e.g. sitting on the sofa and calmly saying "I am going to hit you"). None of the stuff he's seeing in movies or his cartoons etc. has ever "crossed over" to non-play/fantasy situations.
I don't worry about movies. I worry about advertising. He can tell movies are fantasy because of how it is portrayed, but advertising makes claims intended to be believed, and from what I see it's effect is far stronger. Thankfully he's learned to detest advertising, and now get upset if we watch live TV because he wants to fast forward past it...
> Do you have kids?
As a parent, I'm far more concerned about the crap kids are exposed to on mainstream TV over and over again, than the stuff they might accidentally stumble across a handful of times as they grow up, decide is gross and move on.
If governments want to protect poorly parented kids from obscenity (which is not an ignoble cause in itself), there are ways of doing it without building lists of everyone who wants uncrippled access to the Internet.
Can I just point out, there's some irony here. HN users are attempting to censor this comment by making it difficult to read because they don't agree with the opinion.
HN filtering is not about "censorship". It's about elevating interesting material and hiding braindead crap. Which is what it's doing in this case. "Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children!" Really?
Are you out of your mind?
`The government today has made a significant step forward in preventing rapists using rape pornography to legitimise and strategise their crimes and, more broadly, in challenging the eroticisation of violence against women and girls`
What? In what world would 90% of ANY porn be legitimate?! I want rapists using strategies found in the fake garbage you can find online, at least then they will be less effective than they could be.
`And, in a really big step forward, all the ISPs have rewired their technology so that once your filters are installed, they will cover any device connected to your home internet account. No more hassle of downloading filters for every device, just one-click protection. One click to protect your whole home and keep your children safe.`
That's fucking censorship and I THOUGHT WE ALL AGREED THAT IS A SIGN OF FASCISM. Seriously, how many bloody times can someone use `FOR THE CHILDREN` as an a valid excuse? I hope this fellow gets put out of office with no pension. He is committing widespread censorship of an entire nation. And the people appreciate that. People also appreciated that Hitler brought Austria and Germany together in anschluss as well as the fact that he returned them from 40% unemployment. Funny how short sighted the people are.
`You're the people who have worked out how to map almost every inch of the Earth from space; who have developed algorithms that make sense of vast quantities of information. Set your greatest brains to work on this. You are not separate from our society, you are part of our society, and you must play a responsible role in it`
I see, you want the people who have been working for their entire lives to better the human race to take their valued time and put that towards your endeavors of censoring anything that could potentially offend the parents of children? I'm sorry, you are what's wrong with the world.
I say we should build systems designed specifically to undermine these authoritarian measures.
What? In what world would 90% of ANY porn be legitimate?! I want rapists using strategies found in the fake garbage you can find online, at least then they will be less effective than they could be.
`And, in a really big step forward, all the ISPs have rewired their technology so that once your filters are installed, they will cover any device connected to your home internet account. No more hassle of downloading filters for every device, just one-click protection. One click to protect your whole home and keep your children safe.`
That's fucking censorship and I THOUGHT WE ALL AGREED THAT IS A SIGN OF FASCISM. Seriously, how many bloody times can someone use `FOR THE CHILDREN` as an a valid excuse? I hope this fellow gets put out of office with no pension. He is committing widespread censorship of an entire nation. And the people appreciate that. People also appreciated that Hitler brought Austria and Germany together in anschluss as well as the fact that he returned them from 40% unemployment. Funny how short sighted the people are.
`You're the people who have worked out how to map almost every inch of the Earth from space; who have developed algorithms that make sense of vast quantities of information. Set your greatest brains to work on this. You are not separate from our society, you are part of our society, and you must play a responsible role in it`
I see, you want the people who have been working for their entire lives to better the human race to take their valued time and put that towards your endeavors of censoring anything that could potentially offend the parents of children? I'm sorry, you are what's wrong with the world.
I say we should build systems designed specifically to undermine these authoritarian measures.
In one way we got what we asked for. Whenever the argument was made that Google, British Telecom, et al, had a "moral duty" to censor pornography, we were able to simply say that this was an empty argument and that the only duty the companies had was to follow the law of the land.
Now, by changing the law, the companies have a legal duty.
That is what I and others have wanted, censorship is something we are able to attack through established channels. The politicians are of the view that this wins votes, now we find out whether they are right or wrong.
Now, by changing the law, the companies have a legal duty.
That is what I and others have wanted, censorship is something we are able to attack through established channels. The politicians are of the view that this wins votes, now we find out whether they are right or wrong.
Now it's the duty of the people to pressure their government from making these absurd tools for Fascism.
The people will truly be able to be trusted with the ability to do their democratic duty....
You know, when 20% of the population of Canada elects a Majority government that can do whatever it wants for 4 years because of voter apathy, I'm wary of the trust that should be placed in the people. But where the hell is it supposed to go?!
You know, when 20% of the population of Canada elects a Majority government that can do whatever it wants for 4 years because of voter apathy, I'm wary of the trust that should be placed in the people. But where the hell is it supposed to go?!
That's fucking censorship and I THOUGHT WE ALL AGREED THAT IS A SIGN OF FASCISM
In America, all this type of stuff was completely illegal until relatively recent decades (yes I know that the internet did not exist yet but what difference does that make?). Showing "pink shots" in a magazine was completely illegal until 1978 (See Larry Flynt).
Wow, what a bunch of Fascists we had running the country for the first couple of centuries. This country had no freedom at all man...
He is committing widespread censorship of an entire nation.
Is optional censorship really censorship? I know what you will say in response though - it is only optional for now right?
In America, all this type of stuff was completely illegal until relatively recent decades (yes I know that the internet did not exist yet but what difference does that make?). Showing "pink shots" in a magazine was completely illegal until 1978 (See Larry Flynt).
Wow, what a bunch of Fascists we had running the country for the first couple of centuries. This country had no freedom at all man...
He is committing widespread censorship of an entire nation.
Is optional censorship really censorship? I know what you will say in response though - it is only optional for now right?
>I know what you will say in response though - it is only optional for now right?
No! It's de facto censorship. As the game goes the "smart" choice will become agreeing to the censorship while keeping a vpn or something to route about it for fear of having your record requested during divorce proceedings or some thing like that. Maybe for fear the list would be leaked . It wouldn't look good for a teacher to be on the wrong list.
Making it illegal would be one thing but it sounds like this would damage the internet itself in the UK.
No! It's de facto censorship. As the game goes the "smart" choice will become agreeing to the censorship while keeping a vpn or something to route about it for fear of having your record requested during divorce proceedings or some thing like that. Maybe for fear the list would be leaked . It wouldn't look good for a teacher to be on the wrong list.
Making it illegal would be one thing but it sounds like this would damage the internet itself in the UK.
for fear of having your record requested during divorce proceedings or some thing like that. Maybe for fear the list would be leaked . It wouldn't look good for a teacher to be on the wrong list.
Interesting point. People want to look at porn, yet keep it a secret. Why? If there is nothing wrong with it then why should someone care?
Are teachers not allowed to look at porn? Why not? Can porn use be used against a husband in a divorce case? How?
You are making is sound like porn can be something unhealthy or negative? If it was not unhealthy and nothing negative was caused by it - then why these examples?
It almost sounds like you are making a case of why people should have a tool to keep it out of their homes. Why should people have to hide the fact that they want to look at porn?
Everyone of course already knows the answer. Porn can and does have negative consequences (of varying degrees) for most. Therefore, it is taboo in society. Everyone knows that the porn industry exploits women. It uses and abuses them. It is derogatory toward them. You see things like "barely legal" posted all over porn ads. So many men view porn, and they all try to come up with reasons that it is good and healthy - but everyone knows deep down that it is not. The pathetic industry will fight tooth and nail against any kind of legislation opposing it. They will cite freedom of speech and every other possible interpretation of anything they can get their hands on but these losers really just are all about money. They don't care about the lives they ruin. Men are still in power and ultimately give the industry the nod - not because they are doing the right thing, but because they are hooked and guilty themselves so they allow the false justifications to continue.
Porn is a devil - Everyone knows it at some level.
Interesting point. People want to look at porn, yet keep it a secret. Why? If there is nothing wrong with it then why should someone care?
Are teachers not allowed to look at porn? Why not? Can porn use be used against a husband in a divorce case? How?
You are making is sound like porn can be something unhealthy or negative? If it was not unhealthy and nothing negative was caused by it - then why these examples?
It almost sounds like you are making a case of why people should have a tool to keep it out of their homes. Why should people have to hide the fact that they want to look at porn?
Everyone of course already knows the answer. Porn can and does have negative consequences (of varying degrees) for most. Therefore, it is taboo in society. Everyone knows that the porn industry exploits women. It uses and abuses them. It is derogatory toward them. You see things like "barely legal" posted all over porn ads. So many men view porn, and they all try to come up with reasons that it is good and healthy - but everyone knows deep down that it is not. The pathetic industry will fight tooth and nail against any kind of legislation opposing it. They will cite freedom of speech and every other possible interpretation of anything they can get their hands on but these losers really just are all about money. They don't care about the lives they ruin. Men are still in power and ultimately give the industry the nod - not because they are doing the right thing, but because they are hooked and guilty themselves so they allow the false justifications to continue.
Porn is a devil - Everyone knows it at some level.
I didn't see this. Sorry.
I mostly agree with your penultimate paragraph. But in answer to the why people should want to hide their porn habits: it is enough that other people would judge a person for porn, or any other habit, to discourage open sharing. For instance, I smoke weed very infrequently and think this is okay but it's not something I would be okay being open about.
I mostly agree with your penultimate paragraph. But in answer to the why people should want to hide their porn habits: it is enough that other people would judge a person for porn, or any other habit, to discourage open sharing. For instance, I smoke weed very infrequently and think this is okay but it's not something I would be okay being open about.
Meh.
I doubt the Tories have a clean house in this regard. Every time some politician or other 'moral leader' starts pontificating about moral panic, I get suspicious that they're just trying to ban their vice. Clearly if they're so vocally opposed to it, they mustn't be partaking, right?
I doubt the Tories have a clean house in this regard. Every time some politician or other 'moral leader' starts pontificating about moral panic, I get suspicious that they're just trying to ban their vice. Clearly if they're so vocally opposed to it, they mustn't be partaking, right?
Glenn Loury and cocaine.
Mark Foley and the exploitation of children.
Eliot Spitzer and prostitution.
John Ensign and 'family values'.
Larry Craig, Ted Haggard, countless others and homosexuality.
The Conservative Party and Back to Basics.A 2011 survey found that 80% of 18-24 males in the UK had watched porn online[1]. I'm comfortable assuming that a significant percentage of Tories have or do watch it as well.
[1]: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/12918531
[1]: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/12918531
Spitzer was a dem who became a target of banks and credit institutions afraid of his cracking down on their anti-consumer business practices. He was Elizabeth Warren before Elizabeth Warren, and deserves more respect than to be pigeonholed as a politician with his pigeon in a hole.
From Wikipedia: "Spitzer used this authority in his civil actions against corporations and criminal prosecutions against their officers." Damn shame.
From Wikipedia: "Spitzer used this authority in his civil actions against corporations and criminal prosecutions against their officers." Damn shame.
Spitzer prosecuted people for both prostitution and the same kind of 'structuring' of large cash transactions that he himself did. He deserves his place on the above 'moral crusaders who turned out to be hypocrites' list, even if you happen to like some of his other crusades.
Fair points, but on the flip side, it's one thing to prosecute because it's your job, and another to persecute simply because it's your political ideology or fundamental belief. For all we know, Spitzer felt like prostitution laws were stupid, which really wouldn't make him a hypocrite at all.
Yeah sure, doing evil because it's your job to do evil is very normal, very human. The practice still merits criticism.
I worked for a company that Spitzer went after while he was attorney general, and he seemed more like he was running a political campaign than trying to uphold the law. He very effectively spread FUD through a willing media in order to coerce a settlement (and headlines). To this day, people in my home state are convinced that company did all sorts of things that they were never actually accused of. He was no prince.
Hypocrisy isn't a partisan issue. Sure, I feel some schadenfreude when the other guy screws up, but it's intellectually dishonest to give someone a free pass because you share their politics.
Spitzer was going after human trafficking and prostitution as AG and Governor while he was committing Mann Act Violations on the side. I want the folks on 'my team' to have integrity so their agendas don't get derailed.
Spitzer was going after human trafficking and prostitution as AG and Governor while he was committing Mann Act Violations on the side. I want the folks on 'my team' to have integrity so their agendas don't get derailed.
One previous Labour MP tried to expense her husband watching adult movies on her cable account.
Perhaps we should get together and pay for signage to be made up promoting this?
After all, that's what they want for us.
After all, that's what they want for us.
It's amazing how politicians keep conflating these 4 things:
(a) Voluntary acts between adults
(b) Fantasy
(c) Preventing the use of porn by adolescents
(d) Protecting children (and others) from horrific crimes
In my view, the reason for that "mix up" is simply old fashioned prudery and religious fanaticism. (d) is the only thing that governments should care about.
(a) Voluntary acts between adults
(b) Fantasy
(c) Preventing the use of porn by adolescents
(d) Protecting children (and others) from horrific crimes
In my view, the reason for that "mix up" is simply old fashioned prudery and religious fanaticism. (d) is the only thing that governments should care about.
Meh, they don't confuse these things. I suppose this is only a bullshit proposal to distract from something else. Online spying on their citizens, crappy economy or whatever.
For as long as there's politicians "protect the children" will always be B.S.. As if Cameron cared..
For as long as there's politicians "protect the children" will always be B.S.. As if Cameron cared..
Are there any real studies on the "corrosive influence" of porn on children? I'm pretty sure every young teen boy has seen porn these days. The only actual studies I'm aware of say that porn reduces actually violent sex crimes. It acts as a substitute.
> In one study surveying 471 Dutch teens ages 13 to 18, the researchers found that the more often young people sought out online porn, the more likely they were to have a "recreational" attitude toward sex--specifically, to view sex as a purely physical function like eating or drinking.
> [T]he team also found a relationship between porn use and the feeling that it wasn't necessary to have affection for people to have sex with them.
However,
> [R]esearchers can't say for sure whether access to Internet porn causes certain attitudes and behaviors.
http://www.apa.org/monitor/nov07/webporn.aspx
> [T]he team also found a relationship between porn use and the feeling that it wasn't necessary to have affection for people to have sex with them.
However,
> [R]esearchers can't say for sure whether access to Internet porn causes certain attitudes and behaviors.
http://www.apa.org/monitor/nov07/webporn.aspx
Also, I know it's outside the scope of this research, but it's yet to be demonstrated that a recreational attitude toward sex leads to lower well-being.
Don't know why this was downvoted, I couldn't have put my thoughts into better words than this. But to to the narrow-minded, let me put it another way: We have contraceptives, we can have sex whenever we damn choose to, with whoever we fancy.
Teen pregnancy is also way down: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db89.pdf
I would contraceptive usage would play a much larger part then internet porn.
It's extremely difficult to quantify negative impacts or get people to accurately recall what they may or may not have seen. It's almost as difficult to approve studies on children.
This study:
http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cpb.2005.8.473
Showed a correlation between children who seek out porn on the internet and delinquency. However, there's no indication of causation.
This study:
http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cpb.2005.8.473
Showed a correlation between children who seek out porn on the internet and delinquency. However, there's no indication of causation.
Citation, please? Everything I've seen suggests that porn is pretty socially debilitating, especially for the current generation which has grown up with almost ubiquitous access to it (see for example http://www.internetsafety101.org/upload/file/Social%20Costs%...). And that's not even the really nasty stuff.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-sunny-s...
> For most people, pornography use has no negative effects—and it may even deter sexual violence
> For most people, pornography use has no negative effects—and it may even deter sexual violence
The report you linked to was produced by the Hoover Institution and the Witherspoon Institute. Do you have any reports that weren't produced by gay-hating Christianist organizations? Thanks.
Considering my mobile ISP (GiffGaff) thinks that the ThinkPad wiki is pornographic, I genuinely can say all this is going to do is break the internet.
The last thing we need is a broken Internet here. The economy is fucked enough already.
Add to that the whole is censorship right debate (it's not unless it's opt-in), the pre-crime list this generates and we're right into blatant fascism.
Where do we even start at fixing all this? I think we're helpless.
The last thing we need is a broken Internet here. The economy is fucked enough already.
Add to that the whole is censorship right debate (it's not unless it's opt-in), the pre-crime list this generates and we're right into blatant fascism.
Where do we even start at fixing all this? I think we're helpless.
Come on. We all know the ThinkPad wiki is full of Pornographic terms: http://xkcd.com/243/
To be fair, anyone that finds ThinkPads attractive is pretty twisted.
You can turn off the mobile filtering. IIRC you have to give them some form of ID that demonstrates that you're over 18. My memory says driving license number, but it could be wrong.
Yes, the mobile filtering in the UK is completely useless and blocks many, many sites that having nothing whatsoever to do with porn in any form, and probably fails to block the majority of the porn on the internet but that's where we are.
Yes, the mobile filtering in the UK is completely useless and blocks many, many sites that having nothing whatsoever to do with porn in any form, and probably fails to block the majority of the porn on the internet but that's where we are.
yes I know. I have turned it off. It requires either a driving license number or credit card number.
It didn't however happen for nearly a month after I made the selection so perhaps I'm now logged as a potential sex offender somewhere...
It didn't however happen for nearly a month after I made the selection so perhaps I'm now logged as a potential sex offender somewhere...
> The possession of "extreme pornography", which includes scenes of simulated rape, is to be outlawed.
Certain scenes in Game of Thrones might trip this rule. More interestingly, the show is partly filmed in the UK.
I guess Martin, Benioff, and Weiss are all a bunch of criminals. But all those scenes of people stabbing, slashing, and killing each other with all kinds of blades are not a major THREAT TO CHILDREN in a country with a knife-crime problem.
Certain scenes in Game of Thrones might trip this rule. More interestingly, the show is partly filmed in the UK.
I guess Martin, Benioff, and Weiss are all a bunch of criminals. But all those scenes of people stabbing, slashing, and killing each other with all kinds of blades are not a major THREAT TO CHILDREN in a country with a knife-crime problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children
can't believe that people still fall for this shtick
can't believe that people still fall for this shtick
In Russia we have a special commission that bans every internet page containing anything relevant to suicide and drugs. For example, famous australian ad "Dumb ways to die" is banned in Russia. Yeah, seriously, these guys have zero sense of humor. Apparently, it's to protect children from killing themselves.
Suicide related materials actually makes some sense, depending on how extreme the censorship is. There's research (I don't have the reference handy, but it's described in Cialdini's "Influence") that estimates that in the US, each well published suicide results in an additional 48 deaths through suicides and murder-suicides, as people who are suicidal at the time appears to be more likely to go through with it in those conditions.
So if you are to censor something, suicide descriptions would be far more morally defensible to censor than porn, as to my knowledge there's little to no evidence that increased access to porn leads to increases in harm to other people.
So if you are to censor something, suicide descriptions would be far more morally defensible to censor than porn, as to my knowledge there's little to no evidence that increased access to porn leads to increases in harm to other people.
Do you have kids?
I have a young daughter and I live in the UK. I think this legislation is bloody stupid.
Yes, some people might reasonably not want their children to run across pornographic material on the internet. Here are some other things some people might reasonably not want their children to run across on the internet: Anti-religious material. Religious material. Depictions of violence. Any mention of prejudice against racial minorities, women, etc. Websites offering do-my-homework-for-me services. News about upsetting things like tens of thousands of children starving to death every day in poor parts of Africa.
I hope it's clear that the internet would not be improved by having opt-out filters for all those things. I think it's clear, in fact, that the internet would not be improved by having opt-out filters for any of those things.
Yes, I hope my daughter will learn about sex in better ways than by stumbling across porn on the internet. And I hope she'll learn about those other things in better ways than by stumbling across them on the internet, too. It is not the government's, or my ISP's, job to make that happen by making things harder to find online; it probably won't work, and it will probably break other things (as such filters always have in the past), and it's the wrong way to solve the "problem" anyway.
And I also hope that if in the fullness of time our daughter wants to find porn on the internet, she will be able to, and she won't be (or feel) obliged to disclose the fact to her parents, and doing so without telling us won't require her to seek out dubious illegal channels which are likely to be full of stuff much "worse" than she'd easily have found without all the censorship.
Yes, some people might reasonably not want their children to run across pornographic material on the internet. Here are some other things some people might reasonably not want their children to run across on the internet: Anti-religious material. Religious material. Depictions of violence. Any mention of prejudice against racial minorities, women, etc. Websites offering do-my-homework-for-me services. News about upsetting things like tens of thousands of children starving to death every day in poor parts of Africa.
I hope it's clear that the internet would not be improved by having opt-out filters for all those things. I think it's clear, in fact, that the internet would not be improved by having opt-out filters for any of those things.
Yes, I hope my daughter will learn about sex in better ways than by stumbling across porn on the internet. And I hope she'll learn about those other things in better ways than by stumbling across them on the internet, too. It is not the government's, or my ISP's, job to make that happen by making things harder to find online; it probably won't work, and it will probably break other things (as such filters always have in the past), and it's the wrong way to solve the "problem" anyway.
And I also hope that if in the fullness of time our daughter wants to find porn on the internet, she will be able to, and she won't be (or feel) obliged to disclose the fact to her parents, and doing so without telling us won't require her to seek out dubious illegal channels which are likely to be full of stuff much "worse" than she'd easily have found without all the censorship.
Great comment.
> won't require her to seek out dubious illegal channels which are likely to be full of stuff much "worse" than she'd easily have found without all the censorship.
This is one of my biggest fears.
As an analogy (and a true story); they banned selling knives on ebay[1]. Now I have to go to specialist knife-selling websites to buy my knives (I am a collector). Those websites have a much better range and promote knives much better than ebay did.
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7879701.stm
> won't require her to seek out dubious illegal channels which are likely to be full of stuff much "worse" than she'd easily have found without all the censorship.
This is one of my biggest fears.
As an analogy (and a true story); they banned selling knives on ebay[1]. Now I have to go to specialist knife-selling websites to buy my knives (I am a collector). Those websites have a much better range and promote knives much better than ebay did.
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7879701.stm
"Hardcore" porn (anything with penetration or erect penises) was illegal in Norway when I was a child. As a result my generations source of porn was illegal imports sold in shady shops which, because they were already breaking the law, had few reasons to avoid selling anything that was available from their sources.
So if you wanted just "mainstream" porn, you'd get that from places with prominent displays of all kinds of fetishes many of us would never have even heard of otherwise.
Then came the BBS's, and the same was the case - normal mainstream stuff in between every fetish imaginable.
Now I don't necessarily see that as a problem, but it does mean that by adding these kind of restrictions, they are effectively losing all control. They are also likely to massively hasten the move towards technologies to better anonymous, encrypted browsing.
If anything drives "darknets" and systems like Tor to the next level, it will be more extensive porn filtering even more so than piracy, especially because of the amount of money in porn that is legally manufactured and distributed, but that is or may become illegal in large potential markets.
So if you wanted just "mainstream" porn, you'd get that from places with prominent displays of all kinds of fetishes many of us would never have even heard of otherwise.
Then came the BBS's, and the same was the case - normal mainstream stuff in between every fetish imaginable.
Now I don't necessarily see that as a problem, but it does mean that by adding these kind of restrictions, they are effectively losing all control. They are also likely to massively hasten the move towards technologies to better anonymous, encrypted browsing.
If anything drives "darknets" and systems like Tor to the next level, it will be more extensive porn filtering even more so than piracy, especially because of the amount of money in porn that is legally manufactured and distributed, but that is or may become illegal in large potential markets.
Having kids is no excuse to let your brain check out when someone tells you they're in vague, amorphous danger. When those kids grow up, they'll be inheriting a world where civil liberties can be (and have been) eroded by cynical lawmakers playing on their parents' fears of children seeing things that they consider inappropriate.
It's like how more Americans are killed by police than by terrorists, but we "need" PRISM and more SWAT teams instead of better police training. Children are in far more danger of living in a nanny state than having their lives ruined by online pornography.
That's a fallacy question!
Having NO kids puts you in a better position to judge, because you are not emotionally attached. You should however impact the effect things have on your children.
And the only way to do that is to expose them to it ... You are not a bad parent are you?(Fallacy: Attacking the man).
The only ones remotely able to say 'think of the kids' are shrink that deals with children with issues/research.
Having NO kids puts you in a better position to judge, because you are not emotionally attached. You should however impact the effect things have on your children.
And the only way to do that is to expose them to it ... You are not a bad parent are you?(Fallacy: Attacking the man).
The only ones remotely able to say 'think of the kids' are shrink that deals with children with issues/research.
I have kids, and I was a kid. My parents let me run quite unchecked, and at 12, a friend and I ran a BBS. This helped me learn about interactions and technology.
My daughters, since they've been a couple years old, have had unrestricted access to the Internet via tablets and laptops. Quite frankly, I'm far more worried about the impact of shitty cartoons and crap Disney productions than I am them watching porn. Indeed, if I discovered my daughters were viewing such materials, I'd take it as an opportunity to discuss and find out what's going on.
My daughters, since they've been a couple years old, have had unrestricted access to the Internet via tablets and laptops. Quite frankly, I'm far more worried about the impact of shitty cartoons and crap Disney productions than I am them watching porn. Indeed, if I discovered my daughters were viewing such materials, I'd take it as an opportunity to discuss and find out what's going on.
There are a lot of assumptions here.
(1) You know (or can tell) what content your kids are exposed to on the internet. Most kids I know are quite adept at keeping what they are upto hidden from their parents and that isnt unique to the current generation.
(2) Parents have a much better sense of content, kids are exposed to on TV (where content is regulated and rated for the most part) than on the internet.
(3)Even if you are an involved parent with the ability to discuss things with your daughter, you both arent living in isolation from society. There are easily more parents and kids that don't have such a relationship than the number that do. So if boys as young as 8-10, growing up in highly unsupervised environments, are constantly exposed to extreme porn, what do you think their expectations of women are going to be?
(4)Addiction. Everyone has weaknesses. And porn sites are getting better and better at keeping people hooked. Kids are the most susceptible.
Freedom has always come at a cost. And the main cost is equality. If all kids are born equal and all families are created equal sure give them all the freedoms they want. But that is unfortunately not the world we live in today nor is it getting any more equal any time soon.
(1) You know (or can tell) what content your kids are exposed to on the internet. Most kids I know are quite adept at keeping what they are upto hidden from their parents and that isnt unique to the current generation.
(2) Parents have a much better sense of content, kids are exposed to on TV (where content is regulated and rated for the most part) than on the internet.
(3)Even if you are an involved parent with the ability to discuss things with your daughter, you both arent living in isolation from society. There are easily more parents and kids that don't have such a relationship than the number that do. So if boys as young as 8-10, growing up in highly unsupervised environments, are constantly exposed to extreme porn, what do you think their expectations of women are going to be?
(4)Addiction. Everyone has weaknesses. And porn sites are getting better and better at keeping people hooked. Kids are the most susceptible.
Freedom has always come at a cost. And the main cost is equality. If all kids are born equal and all families are created equal sure give them all the freedoms they want. But that is unfortunately not the world we live in today nor is it getting any more equal any time soon.
Kids aren't exposed to anything on the internet. It is not a push medium. I have used the internet for 20 years now and I don't think I have ever involuntarily encountered a porn site.
Really? You've never seen a pornographic pop-up advert? I'm not supporting this proposal, I just find your statement hard to believe.
Where should I have seen it (searching for what)? I also use an ad blocker - but afaik most ad networks don't allow porn ads (Google Ads certainly don't).
Of course I have seen such ads - when I was searching for porn.
One place where the internet turns into a push medium might be specific services, like online chats. That is of course a valid concern, but porn filters wouldn't help with that.
Of course I have seen such ads - when I was searching for porn.
One place where the internet turns into a push medium might be specific services, like online chats. That is of course a valid concern, but porn filters wouldn't help with that.
4) Citation? I know quite a few people working in adult industries, and I've yet to hear a single conversation about how to "addict" people.
Now, people working in the games industry are a different story... (Note: I'm not anti-games. But the games industry does consider addiction.)
Now, people working in the games industry are a different story... (Note: I'm not anti-games. But the games industry does consider addiction.)
Hi, kid here. A world where I don't worry about the swat busting into my house at 3AM to arrest me for my playboy collection[0] is preferable to the one where I see pop up ads with double penetration in them when I'm 8. (Which I did, I'm fine.)
[0]: Or the government censors whatever they like with their filtering infrastructure.
[0]: Or the government censors whatever they like with their filtering infrastructure.
>Which I did, I'm fine.
While I agree with the rest of your comment, this is a frustrating attitude to take to any studies which may have been done. Anecdotal evidence isn't evidence!
While I agree with the rest of your comment, this is a frustrating attitude to take to any studies which may have been done. Anecdotal evidence isn't evidence!
Are there any studies at all on the dangers of child exposure to porn?
I remember an article posted here on HN a while back about how researchers tried to conduct such a study but could not find a control group of people who hadn't been exposed.
Citation please? I want a good laugh to the irony.
I couldn't find the HN entry, but a quick stroll around the web brought me this: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-12/uom-ate120109...
I have 4 children.
I fear a world where my children cannot express themselves freely FAR more I do a world where I have to explain to my children that some people are just kind of weird...
Censorship of the internet is NOT ok.
I fear a world where my children cannot express themselves freely FAR more I do a world where I have to explain to my children that some people are just kind of weird...
Censorship of the internet is NOT ok.
answered here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6082643
I never said this before on any occasion, but I really hope you get banned for this and the other things you have done in this thread.
Furthermore, you posted this exceedingly stupid "Do you have kids?" one-liner at least four times in this thread, simultaneously managing to portray yourself as accusatory, lazy, superior, and spammy at the same time.
This thread has degraded in quality due to your participation, both in form as well as in content. You mastered the invoking of the infamous "won't someone think of the children" rationale and somehow topped it by assuming only people with children should have a voice in these censorship discussions and this voice would somehow automatically be bound to agree with you. While I find your opinion personally disagreeable it's really your (to use the term broadly) discussion style and tactics that are offensive in the extreme.
> answered here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6082643
Furthermore, you posted this exceedingly stupid "Do you have kids?" one-liner at least four times in this thread, simultaneously managing to portray yourself as accusatory, lazy, superior, and spammy at the same time.
This thread has degraded in quality due to your participation, both in form as well as in content. You mastered the invoking of the infamous "won't someone think of the children" rationale and somehow topped it by assuming only people with children should have a voice in these censorship discussions and this voice would somehow automatically be bound to agree with you. While I find your opinion personally disagreeable it's really your (to use the term broadly) discussion style and tactics that are offensive in the extreme.
Do you have kids?
If it offends your sensibilities censorship is always an option :)
If it offends your sensibilities censorship is always an option :)
Saying this is about offended sensibilities constitutes a gross and cheap misrepresentation of my argument, but it's also interesting that you're pro censorship when the government does it for dubious reasons, and at the same time you cry foul when someone complains about your methods on a private forum. Again, this is not necessarily about the opinions you're expressing, it's about your "commenting" style. Filtering such content out is not censorship, it's quality control.
Surely you can see the irony is your expression of the hope that the user is banned.
Tell me why people like Sven7 get away with pretty much any lazy rhetoric, including literally repeating the same senseless 4 word question several times in lieu of writing a real post? How is it that when he complained about my desire to "censor" him for spamming the thread nobody reminded him of the irony of being a staunch supporter of government censorship? Honestly, tell me how this works.
Look at his behavior in this thread and tell me it's perfectly fine. I mean this seriously, you're a user with gigantic amounts of karma, certainly more than I'll ever have. If you think it's OK, I'll cede that I clearly had the wrong idea about how this place should work, and I'll apologize for overstepping.
Look at his behavior in this thread and tell me it's perfectly fine. I mean this seriously, you're a user with gigantic amounts of karma, certainly more than I'll ever have. If you think it's OK, I'll cede that I clearly had the wrong idea about how this place should work, and I'll apologize for overstepping.
It's not fine, that's why his repeated cheap shots about 'do you have kids' were removed. On the other hand, two wrongs don't make a right - the notion of permanently banning him from participating doesn't make a lot of sense either.
Two wrongs? You're really asserting that stating my opinion was at least as bad as his behavior? Granted, it's probably a good thing I don't have the power to actually ban someone, but I think I did a reasonable job of at trying to explain the rationale behind my wish. And why doesn't the notion of banning make sense in this case? People have certainly been hellbanned for less.
Stop taking it so personally. All I did was point out that your request was somewhat ironic, now you're projecting your anger at him onto me.
I do and I am definitely not ok with censorship of any kind.
I find it really weird that this is so often an argument. If anything, not having kids and hence not having a vested interest in the matter makes a person's opinion more objective, not less.
I wonder where my kid is supposed to get his porn once he get's older. Did anybody think of that?
I had to scrounge through forests worth of magazines and shopping catalogs to collect my measly pile of cut-outs of barely risqué pictures.
In the snow! Both ways!
Darn kids these days have it easy... (grumble grumble)
In the snow! Both ways!
Darn kids these days have it easy... (grumble grumble)
Do you need to in order to have an opinion on this? (The answer is "no", by the way.)
None that I'm aware of :-), why do you ask?
Why? Is this law drafted to only affect parents?
There is an awful lot of populist policies coming out of the UK for the last couple of years. Is the current state of the economy really that bad?
Usually that's when politicians concentrate on less demanding, more emotional issues.
Also, nice power-grab right there - cause you never know!
"Sorry Angela, I can't open that WikiLeaks link you told me about." "Nigel, could it be that you forgot to let your porn filter be lifted?"
This is bad and as always not only for UK citizens because politicians like to look at other countries for inspiration and validation. Clearly in Austria some pundits will applaud this.
Usually that's when politicians concentrate on less demanding, more emotional issues.
Also, nice power-grab right there - cause you never know!
"Sorry Angela, I can't open that WikiLeaks link you told me about." "Nigel, could it be that you forgot to let your porn filter be lifted?"
This is bad and as always not only for UK citizens because politicians like to look at other countries for inspiration and validation. Clearly in Austria some pundits will applaud this.
The UK economy is in abysmal shape, in large part due to the failure of Cameron's austerity measures. But there can be no admission of error, just deflection: hey look, porn!
More info: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/magazine/god-save-the-brit...
More info: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/magazine/god-save-the-brit...
Same tactics everywhere,
Mandatory internet Filters on every ISP as a precaution against pornography or child pornography. Same crippled laws as Turkey. Nobody is prevented reaching porn. But most of the time filters are used against so called "piracy", "extremist" political or "regional" views and these kinds of political agendas. Currently websites pro-evolution are struggling censorship.
Mandatory internet Filters on every ISP as a precaution against pornography or child pornography. Same crippled laws as Turkey. Nobody is prevented reaching porn. But most of the time filters are used against so called "piracy", "extremist" political or "regional" views and these kinds of political agendas. Currently websites pro-evolution are struggling censorship.
Nobody is prevented reaching porn
I think we need to stop thinking of censorship as an on off switch. Total prevention of information transfer to motivated parties is not possible in this day and age. What is possible is making content more marginal, less likely to be stumbled onto, etc.. That doesn't mean it's not powerful though. It's a different type of power. You will not prevent hardcore political dissidents from learning relevant news through internet censorship. You can however influence mainstream views. You can increase the publics exposures to one view and decrease exposure to another view. You can make certain positions feel safe, mainstream. This works particularly well within the context of a "tribe" you identify with.
Censorship's influence on political opinions is similar to its influence on sexual morality. The influence is strongest near the mainstream, weakest at the extreme. If you have to call up and request access to porn, use special software, etc., it will feel like you are doing something slightly abnormal. Like walking into an adult cinema in the 70s.
I think we need to stop thinking of censorship as an on off switch. Total prevention of information transfer to motivated parties is not possible in this day and age. What is possible is making content more marginal, less likely to be stumbled onto, etc.. That doesn't mean it's not powerful though. It's a different type of power. You will not prevent hardcore political dissidents from learning relevant news through internet censorship. You can however influence mainstream views. You can increase the publics exposures to one view and decrease exposure to another view. You can make certain positions feel safe, mainstream. This works particularly well within the context of a "tribe" you identify with.
Censorship's influence on political opinions is similar to its influence on sexual morality. The influence is strongest near the mainstream, weakest at the extreme. If you have to call up and request access to porn, use special software, etc., it will feel like you are doing something slightly abnormal. Like walking into an adult cinema in the 70s.
Yep. Any time a politician talks about child porn or terrorism, you want to ask yourself, "what are they really trying to achieve here?"
My guess is that the film lobby is trying to get the government to push the cost of preventing piracy onto Internet firmshere. The end user will pay for it and have a more restricted Internet.
My guess is that the film lobby is trying to get the government to push the cost of preventing piracy onto Internet firmshere. The end user will pay for it and have a more restricted Internet.
opps big typo, religional not regional :)
Why are people so afraid of pornography? A healthy society is one that promotes sex. Not one that censors its citizens for 'the children.'
Don't get me wrong: People that look at children and the like should be caught and prosecuted. But really, the way to go about that isn't to ban ALL of pornography. Are we to ban butter knifes incase someone goes on a rampage with one? No, we identify the issues that cause someone to do that and go after them.
I don't see the point in spending millions of pounds blocking search engines when those millions could be spent on the core issue. If someone wants to look at illegal illicit images, I can guarantee you the majority aren't going to search for it on google using their home internet connection.
Don't get me wrong: People that look at children and the like should be caught and prosecuted. But really, the way to go about that isn't to ban ALL of pornography. Are we to ban butter knifes incase someone goes on a rampage with one? No, we identify the issues that cause someone to do that and go after them.
I don't see the point in spending millions of pounds blocking search engines when those millions could be spent on the core issue. If someone wants to look at illegal illicit images, I can guarantee you the majority aren't going to search for it on google using their home internet connection.
There are people who don't like sex. They don't think it's right for people to like sex, they think sex should only be used for procreation. I call them sex-orexics, like anarexics, they have a similar attitude towards sex that anarexics have towards food. It's just not healthy.
Indeed it's not. You often find that the people that have their sex life suppressed and made to feel disgusting are the ones with the weirdest bedroom habits.
> You often find that the people that have their sex life suppressed and made to feel disgusting are the ones with the weirdest bedroom habits.
Now let's imagine Britain in 18 years time when today's babies are adults who've had their sexuality suppressed by this censorship.
Now let's imagine Britain in 18 years time when today's babies are adults who've had their sexuality suppressed by this censorship.
Well, yes there is some hypocracy with some ardent (say) anti-gay politicians who are caught with a rent boy. However there are some people who are anti-sex publicly and privately.
> Why are people so afraid of pornography? A healthy society is one that promotes sex
I think it's because there's still a generational divide between people who grew up with easy access to Internet (and to porn, obviously) and people who didn't (those at 40+, including our politicians).
I think it's because there's still a generational divide between people who grew up with easy access to Internet (and to porn, obviously) and people who didn't (those at 40+, including our politicians).
This is a move to shame those who watch pornography, that you have to ring someone up and say "Yeah, I'm trying to jack off here but for some reason pornhub won't load... Yeah... Uh... I'd like you to remove the porn filter please?"
No, this is just a demonstration that it's really the Daily Mail that runs the UK.
I would not have a problem with this, I pay for the pipe so it's their job to deliver that service. It sucks not to have full Internet access. The proposed legislation is hard to swallow but I'll openly resist it, no biggie.
> "I have a very clear message for Google, Bing, Yahoo and the rest. You have a duty to act on this – and it is a moral duty. If there are technical obstacles to acting on [search engines], don't just stand by and say nothing can be done; use your great brains to help overcome them.
>"You're the people who have worked out how to map almost every inch of the Earth from space; who have developed algorithms that make sense of vast quantities of information. Set your greatest brains to work on this. You are not separate from our society, you are part of our society, and you must play a responsible role in it."
Yeah, come on clever technical people. Get it sorted. We've decided you need to uninvent nuclear weapons as well please. Immediately.
What embarrassing ignorance from a major public figure.
>"You're the people who have worked out how to map almost every inch of the Earth from space; who have developed algorithms that make sense of vast quantities of information. Set your greatest brains to work on this. You are not separate from our society, you are part of our society, and you must play a responsible role in it."
Yeah, come on clever technical people. Get it sorted. We've decided you need to uninvent nuclear weapons as well please. Immediately.
What embarrassing ignorance from a major public figure.
Not only that but to have a politician lecture others on morality and duty. Such a hypocrit.
If the MPAA wants software to protect its outdated business model, it ought to pay for it itself, not lobby the gov to threaten tech firms.
This is about developing filters to prevent piracy. You'll see.
This is about developing filters to prevent piracy. You'll see.
It's like he's a child asking Mummy and Daddy to bring his dead hamster back to life.
If you want to try and do something about this, donate to the UK equivalent to the EFF, the Open Rights Group[1]. See their rather sane and well thought out views on this here[2]
[1] - http://www.openrightsgroup.org/
[2] - https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2013/cameron-demands-ac...
[1] - http://www.openrightsgroup.org/
[2] - https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2013/cameron-demands-ac...
Personally speaking I would be glad to have this filter, but I wouldn't want to force it on other people. So if people got a choice about enabling the filter I would be okay with it, i.e. if it was opt-in. In that case it's providing a service to people who need a human barrier to help them stop looking at porn if they have a problem. Any preventative mechanism that you set up for your own sake is pointless when you have root.
Are there any arguments against an opt-in filter? The legislation is for an opt-out filter.
Are there any arguments against an opt-in filter? The legislation is for an opt-out filter.
Even a opt-in filter on an infrastructure level would imply DPI, and therefore would enable the ability for traffic analysis. And besides it creates a national 'watches porn' list.
If the filter is opt-in, it's a "doesn't want to watch porn" list :)
In a free market economy, you could provide filtering as a service to those who want it. You get to use whatever setup of proxies and packet sniffers you please, so as long as they don't overstep the users mandate. Routing your other customers past these intermediaries would be a good idea, you can provide each customer the service they want.
That works as long as the ISP faithfully reports the routing rules they use for each user, which is rather hard to verify. ( And it would probably illegal for the ISP to tell their customers, if the government wants to use the DPI equipment.)
Most ISPs already do DPI, albeit lightly. That's how they do 'traffic shaping' against bit torrent, etc.
The arguments against an opt-in seem to focus on giving all kids an equal opportunity to use the internet without exposure to adult content, even when the engagement of their parents may differ (i.e; the kids of parents who don't take as much interest in their development as they perhaps should can still benefit).
However, one of arguments for an opt-in model suggests that removing the necessity for parents to make this 'active choice' about what material their kids could be subject to online, just ignores the problem and, if anything, makes it worse because parents don't ever need to think about it. (Should I talk to my kids about the dangers of the internet/world? Oh, I don't care about that now, because the Government has decided for me)
Personally, I agree with you, I think it's a good idea to have an extra layer of filtering like this (not every parent is tech savvy enough to install and manage local filtering) but it has to be Opt-In. How hard is it to ask the question when you sign up with an ISP? (Sir, if you have young children in the household we suggest you choose our network level filtering)
However, one of arguments for an opt-in model suggests that removing the necessity for parents to make this 'active choice' about what material their kids could be subject to online, just ignores the problem and, if anything, makes it worse because parents don't ever need to think about it. (Should I talk to my kids about the dangers of the internet/world? Oh, I don't care about that now, because the Government has decided for me)
Personally, I agree with you, I think it's a good idea to have an extra layer of filtering like this (not every parent is tech savvy enough to install and manage local filtering) but it has to be Opt-In. How hard is it to ask the question when you sign up with an ISP? (Sir, if you have young children in the household we suggest you choose our network level filtering)
There would be a list of people who want to be able to watch porn (which could be used for black mail). It would also require a lot of infrastructure to be set up for this kind of censorship. That infrastructure could easily be used to start blocking other content.
Besides if you want to opt-out of porn you can already install filters on your computer or your router if you want to.
Besides if you want to opt-out of porn you can already install filters on your computer or your router if you want to.
I think you reversed the meaning. Opt-in filtering means you choose to turn on the filter in the first place, opt-out filtering means you choose to turn off the filter.
> Are there any arguments against an opt-in filter? The legislation is for an opt-out filter.
The govt has no business telling Google/Bing/Yahoo what their development targets are.
If you want an opt-in filter just search for it.
The govt has no business telling Google/Bing/Yahoo what their development targets are.
If you want an opt-in filter just search for it.
I'm okay with paying taxes to give people a free opt-in filter that they have to speak to a human to opt out of again. I have no idea where to find such a thing right now, even for money. But then again, it sounds like the current opt-out laws don't require human conversation either.
Are there any arguments against an opt-in filter?
You'd have to ensure that we don't ask people what the state of their filter is. If it becomes routine for (say) politicians, teachers, nurses to be asked at job interviews/elections what the state of their filter is ("Have you opted in to the filter? No? So you watch porn then.") then you're going to be forcing lots of people to be anti-sex and anti-porn.
You'd have to ensure that we don't ask people what the state of their filter is. If it becomes routine for (say) politicians, teachers, nurses to be asked at job interviews/elections what the state of their filter is ("Have you opted in to the filter? No? So you watch porn then.") then you're going to be forcing lots of people to be anti-sex and anti-porn.
[deleted]
> challenging the eroticisation of violence against women and girls
I wonder what the legal tests for that are here? Non-consensual fantasies are very popular among women who don't actually want to be victims of crimes. Will they ban romance novels?
Then next they could go after the female fandoms for Loki from the Avengers movie, yandere characters, and those girls who write love letters to serial killers. Okay, maybe the last ones could use some help.
I wonder what the legal tests for that are here? Non-consensual fantasies are very popular among women who don't actually want to be victims of crimes. Will they ban romance novels?
Then next they could go after the female fandoms for Loki from the Avengers movie, yandere characters, and those girls who write love letters to serial killers. Okay, maybe the last ones could use some help.
First off, I hate it how they always try to frame new laws as trying to "protect" people. The same with airline searches and the whole PRISM deal.
Also, I read somewhere on the subject of child pornography that allowing those people to look at images cuts down on the act because they seem to "get their fix." I can't remember where I read this so I can't provide a source, but it seems to make sense.
Also, I read somewhere on the subject of child pornography that allowing those people to look at images cuts down on the act because they seem to "get their fix." I can't remember where I read this so I can't provide a source, but it seems to make sense.
Yep. Or it's for "national security purposes". One of many beautiful euphemisms they employ.
This is completely absurd. Do people believe in a free and open Internet, or do they not? Government asking us to make "declarations" over the content we want access to or what we may or may not search for is an absurdly dangerous precedent.
IMO, imposing morality typically tends to make whatever problem worse.
> Do people believe in a free and open Internet, or do they not?
Not really. They want a special kind of freedom where censorship is not allowed... unless the stuff that's getting censored is the kind of stuff that they don't like. Lots of people would enthusiastically support their moral standards being written into law.
Not really. They want a special kind of freedom where censorship is not allowed... unless the stuff that's getting censored is the kind of stuff that they don't like. Lots of people would enthusiastically support their moral standards being written into law.
This particular law is hurting people far more than it's protecting them, but in general, laws are framed as trying to protect people because the purpose of laws in general is to protect people.
It works, that's why they do it.
I do wonder how many people will accept to this out of shame.
I do wonder how many people will accept to this out of shame.
Submited title was: "Every household in England obliged to declare whether they want to access porn".
[deleted]
But it was corrected to actual article title. Might be better to submit with comment than wrong title.
Article title or not, "David Cameron cracks down on online pornography" is not news to me. I know this. But the submitted title was big news. That's why I clicked over and that's why I read the article. Otherwise I would have skipped it entirely.
[deleted]
The submitted title appears more or less verbatim in the lede of the article, and is the more significant news. I don't know if I'd call it wrong.
This stinks. I don't want a great firewall of Britain filtering my access to the net China-style, site by site. We let this trend advance and they'll be whitelisting in no time. And when you complain about the extreme surveillance you will be branded a paedophile and a rapist.
The news here is not the moral sentiments of the legislators. Porn (and sex generally) has been banned or restricted in pretty much every time and place. Think of TV. Different countries have different standards of what is allowable but the internet's median porn sites' contents would not be allowed anywhere near television.
The news here is more subtle. What the internet is, was, how it works and how its changing. It no longer feels like an anarchy that no one can control. We can argue about the why and how but I don't think we can dispute that the internet is no longer unregulatable, anonymous anarchy. That is the news here.
Governments, large corporations and other traditional power sources feel they can exercise influence and control over the internet. It's within their jurisdiction and physical capabilities.
The news here is more subtle. What the internet is, was, how it works and how its changing. It no longer feels like an anarchy that no one can control. We can argue about the why and how but I don't think we can dispute that the internet is no longer unregulatable, anonymous anarchy. That is the news here.
Governments, large corporations and other traditional power sources feel they can exercise influence and control over the internet. It's within their jurisdiction and physical capabilities.
TL;DR - "Yea I guess, but..."
Personally I don't have huge a problem with the default filtering; most households (with or without kids) don't have the knowledge to effectively enable filtering for all their devices - giving them 'protection' by default, and allowing the option to have full access is currently what most - maybe all - mobile phone operators do in the UK anyway in 3G/GSM connections.
However, its important that the opt-out is incredibly straight forward - an online form for example (ideally during signup with a new provider) - no need for 'humiliating' phone calls where you have to explain why you want to see Super Army of Boob 2, for example.
I do wonder what this will mean when accessing sites like The Pirate Bay - which often have boobs-a-plenty in the sidebar ads. Does it mean that people who visit sites that happen to have 'pornographic' ads ALSO need the filtering off.
My bigger concern here is that these measures will very likely do nothing to stem child pornography (and I would hazard a guess sexual abuse in general); my reasoning is that I don't imagine your average paedophile just opens their vanilla browser in the morning and Googles for '[child related sex terms]' - surely this kind of activity hides behind systems such as Tor?
One other thing that springs to mind; presumably, unless there is explicit legislation against this, ISPs can now sell your filter preferences for marketing purposes; perhaps putting you in some 'boxes' you wouldn't want to be in.
Personally I don't have huge a problem with the default filtering; most households (with or without kids) don't have the knowledge to effectively enable filtering for all their devices - giving them 'protection' by default, and allowing the option to have full access is currently what most - maybe all - mobile phone operators do in the UK anyway in 3G/GSM connections.
However, its important that the opt-out is incredibly straight forward - an online form for example (ideally during signup with a new provider) - no need for 'humiliating' phone calls where you have to explain why you want to see Super Army of Boob 2, for example.
I do wonder what this will mean when accessing sites like The Pirate Bay - which often have boobs-a-plenty in the sidebar ads. Does it mean that people who visit sites that happen to have 'pornographic' ads ALSO need the filtering off.
My bigger concern here is that these measures will very likely do nothing to stem child pornography (and I would hazard a guess sexual abuse in general); my reasoning is that I don't imagine your average paedophile just opens their vanilla browser in the morning and Googles for '[child related sex terms]' - surely this kind of activity hides behind systems such as Tor?
One other thing that springs to mind; presumably, unless there is explicit legislation against this, ISPs can now sell your filter preferences for marketing purposes; perhaps putting you in some 'boxes' you wouldn't want to be in.
>I do wonder what this will mean when accessing sites like The Pirate Bay
Don't worry about the pirate bay, it's blocked in uk
First torrent site, then pornography, then what? arbitrary political movements?
That's a really slippery slope here once the tools are in place, it's hard not to use them.
Personally I'm not against some filtering but IMHO it had to be an opt in plus made at the router level with an "offline" list that you can review and modify yourself. A list made at the ISP level is just too totalitarian
Don't worry about the pirate bay, it's blocked in uk
First torrent site, then pornography, then what? arbitrary political movements?
That's a really slippery slope here once the tools are in place, it's hard not to use them.
Personally I'm not against some filtering but IMHO it had to be an opt in plus made at the router level with an "offline" list that you can review and modify yourself. A list made at the ISP level is just too totalitarian
Targeted ads would be the least of my worries. What concerns me is fascist governments deciding they get to filter whatever they're contempt with. Such censorship doesn't fit well with civil liberties, we know this from other countries which already have nation-wide filtering.
This is why I believe the 'opt-in/out' switching should be as seemless and accessible as possible - if it is, then to my mind this is no closer to censorship than the film classification system.
"By default the state assumes you don't want to see sexual content; if you do - thats fine by us"
Note that I'm saying this is how I see it balancing with civil liberties - there is of course the chance that it DOESN'T work out like this in practice.
"By default the state assumes you don't want to see sexual content; if you do - thats fine by us"
Note that I'm saying this is how I see it balancing with civil liberties - there is of course the chance that it DOESN'T work out like this in practice.
I'm not sure this is as simple as an opt in/out switch for the user. It will also require the construction of a way of rating sites as in or out, which will lead to the government being able to choose sites to fall one side of the filter or the other.
It begins with porn, of course, but it's essentially creating the apparatus to censor at will.
It begins with porn, of course, but it's essentially creating the apparatus to censor at will.
Accessing the Pirate Bay?! We can't allow that... if only there was a compulsory National filter where we could block access to these corrupt sites.
Actually I think they started with th Pirate Bay and then pornography.
A quick google search: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-ways-bypass-uk-pirate-bay-blo...
(screenshot of the blocking page)
I believe protection against pornography has to do with education, it's more the problem of the parents than the problem of the government. "Childs" will always find a way to view some adult content, they just need to be educated about it
A quick google search: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-ways-bypass-uk-pirate-bay-blo...
(screenshot of the blocking page)
I believe protection against pornography has to do with education, it's more the problem of the parents than the problem of the government. "Childs" will always find a way to view some adult content, they just need to be educated about it
They started with paedophilia, then piracy, and now pornography.
I'm consistently astounded at England's ability in the last couple of decades to move towards the fictional UK societies we see in 1984 and V for Vendetta. It's almost like the people have come to the exact opposite conclusion that the authors were trying to impress upon their audiences.
> "Wow, censorship, totalitarianism and mass surveillance are great ideas. We really should implement them."
Secondly, it is impossible to filter information within a society that doesn't have North Korea like tendencies. As soon as this filter goes up, people will just rent servers overseas, and get their internet via encrypted lines that aren't subject to censorship.
Banning porn is like trying ban alcohol. Everyone knows that it's a vice, everyone still does it (isn't 20% of global internet bandwidth porn?), and banning it just puts money into the hands of organized crime.
Thirdly, won't a bunch of mainstream award-winning films that come out every single year become illegal under this act? Games too for that matter. Say good bye to crime shows and violent film in the UK.
Finally, this is just one step away the Great Firewall of China. The argument that we need to protect children from the "corrosive" aspects of society might expand to other political parties, or ideas that aren't in the interests of those already in power.
The thing with censorship is that as soon as a you do a little, it's funny how quickly that becomes a lot. You just have to think of the children now then don't you?
> "Wow, censorship, totalitarianism and mass surveillance are great ideas. We really should implement them."
Secondly, it is impossible to filter information within a society that doesn't have North Korea like tendencies. As soon as this filter goes up, people will just rent servers overseas, and get their internet via encrypted lines that aren't subject to censorship.
Banning porn is like trying ban alcohol. Everyone knows that it's a vice, everyone still does it (isn't 20% of global internet bandwidth porn?), and banning it just puts money into the hands of organized crime.
Thirdly, won't a bunch of mainstream award-winning films that come out every single year become illegal under this act? Games too for that matter. Say good bye to crime shows and violent film in the UK.
Finally, this is just one step away the Great Firewall of China. The argument that we need to protect children from the "corrosive" aspects of society might expand to other political parties, or ideas that aren't in the interests of those already in power.
The thing with censorship is that as soon as a you do a little, it's funny how quickly that becomes a lot. You just have to think of the children now then don't you?
> Banning porn is like trying ban alcohol. Everyone knows that it's a vice,
Really? That's just an undisputed fact?
Really? That's just an undisputed fact?
Some people don't know that it's a vice, because they're in denial. Have fun guessing about the tone of this message.
OK, so I guess it's a vice then. Good that some random person on the Internet was able to set that straight for me by just asserting it with nothing to back it up.
Glad that you totally got the tone of my message totally right. Maybe I didn't need to include the hint!
How the hell am I supposed to guess the sarcasm or lack thereof behind written form? Your 'good luck trying to guess the tone of this message' could be interpreted as the former sentence being sarcastic, or be interpreted as pure condescension for me "not knowing better" or being coy.
Yeah, I set a bit of a trap for you. That was kind of mean. Rest assured that if we were having this conversation in person everybody would be laughing.
As a kid, my parents tried using parental control software on my computer to block porn and other inappropriate content. This turned out to be helpful because it motivated me to learn how to exploit the software.
I applaud Mr. Cameron's inadvertent efforts to enhance the computer skills of his nation's youth.
In other news, VPN usage in the UK skyrockets. Strict measures to be taken to reduce sexcrime.
Rule 34 David Cameron.
I think you are more right here than you realize. A porn is whatever a person gets his boner with.
By his descriptions of pornography seem a lot of the internet stuff arouses Mr. Cameron ... the really edgy stuff.
By his descriptions of pornography seem a lot of the internet stuff arouses Mr. Cameron ... the really edgy stuff.
My Israeli ISP has a default porn filter. I had to call and cancel it because the proxy broke svn. No, honestly, it did.
Subversion... I was working for Essex county council years ago and their filter managed to break access to their own website for some users (Essex has the word sex in it). Power and control, carry on.
The fact that they're bringing it up now, while half the country is on holiday and the land is in the grips of the best weather for almost a decade, is worrying. It means they might actually be serious about it.
And serious they might be indeed, considering they need some cheap win after years of economic mismanagement. The economy keeps stalling and the 2015 General Election is getting closer; considering bureaucratic timescales, if you want anything to actually be done by then, you need to start now.
Sigh. I guess it'll be a win for Swedish VPN providers.
And serious they might be indeed, considering they need some cheap win after years of economic mismanagement. The economy keeps stalling and the 2015 General Election is getting closer; considering bureaucratic timescales, if you want anything to actually be done by then, you need to start now.
Sigh. I guess it'll be a win for Swedish VPN providers.
> All police forces will work with a single secure database of illegal images of children to help "close the net on paedophiles".
Let me guess, David Cameron is going to appoint himself to head some special committee to dole out who gets to access to said database…
This is going go down well in history…
Let me guess, David Cameron is going to appoint himself to head some special committee to dole out who gets to access to said database…
This is going go down well in history…
I doubt this will have much effect on English youth as they also have the earliest self reported loss of virginity in the civilized world!
See http://www.nuigalway.ie/hbsc/documents/godeau_2008_contracep...
See http://www.nuigalway.ie/hbsc/documents/godeau_2008_contracep...
Should crack down on Facebook instead. Here in Australia at least, I have read of more people being murdered by someone they met via Facebook that through a pornography site.
This is because it's very difficult to argue with "think of the children".
However, when we were kids, we traded pornography on floppy disks, so this solves nothing.
However, when we were kids, we traded pornography on floppy disks, so this solves nothing.
Sweet, list of people interested in pornography. And that information will be stored inside government infrastructure. Leaks are coming, public shaming is coming.
Idea : Create a 'pictures of cats' site, and voluntarily put it on the ISPs' 'must be blocked' list.
Then, people that want uncensored internet access can simply state that they liked to get to the innocuous cat pictures site - and that porn access wasn't part of their opt-in reasoning. Minimal-plausible deniability...
Of course, if someone is attacking this plausible deniability thing, then the question is "What do you gain from knowing I dislike censorship?".
Then, people that want uncensored internet access can simply state that they liked to get to the innocuous cat pictures site - and that porn access wasn't part of their opt-in reasoning. Minimal-plausible deniability...
Of course, if someone is attacking this plausible deniability thing, then the question is "What do you gain from knowing I dislike censorship?".
Great another excuse to ban millions of sites under the disguise of protecting children from porn or catching child rapists.
Let's talk about what this really is. It's just the governments way of telling us what porn we should watch and banning anything they think is "not normal".
And if some legitimate sites get mixed up in this this filter we're suppose to believe it's an honest mistake right?
Stay away from my porn Cameron or I'll fuck you up.
Let's talk about what this really is. It's just the governments way of telling us what porn we should watch and banning anything they think is "not normal".
And if some legitimate sites get mixed up in this this filter we're suppose to believe it's an honest mistake right?
Stay away from my porn Cameron or I'll fuck you up.
Isn't this policy electoral suicide? Sure, there's a vocal minority who want to 'think of the children' and are backing Cameron's plan. But I'd imagine the vast majority of the population want to view pornography without putting their name on a smut-list. These people aren't going to form campaign groups but will be happy to express their view in the anonymous confines of a polling booth.
Its going to be against the rules to look up offensive terms like, say, "child abuse imagery".
Which presumably means that the legislation will have to use the term "child abuse imagery". Which means that it will be impossible to look up the legislation using a search engine. One has to wonder how we are expected to know whether or not we are complying with it given that we shan't be legally allowed to search for it.
Which presumably means that the legislation will have to use the term "child abuse imagery". Which means that it will be impossible to look up the legislation using a search engine. One has to wonder how we are expected to know whether or not we are complying with it given that we shan't be legally allowed to search for it.
How are they enacting the filter? Would switching DNS from the cable company bypass it?
We should all applaud David Cameron for supporting small businesses. Escort services have been in the dump lately due to the proliferation of free/cheap filth; this will finally give much needed boost to the local economy.
/sarc
I'm wondering if a sizable number of the public is brave enough to get their names into the opt-in as a virtual "I am Spartacus" and two fingers to Cameron.
/sarc
I'm wondering if a sizable number of the public is brave enough to get their names into the opt-in as a virtual "I am Spartacus" and two fingers to Cameron.
> The possession of "extreme pornography", which includes scenes of simulated rape, is to be outlawed.
Irreversible?
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo?
Once Upon a Time in the West?
A Clockwork Orange?
Titus Andronicus?
Remember when RIPA was only supposed to be for terrorism?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/7341179.stm
Irreversible?
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo?
Once Upon a Time in the West?
A Clockwork Orange?
Titus Andronicus?
Remember when RIPA was only supposed to be for terrorism?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/7341179.stm
I think society as a whole is a bit too hard on pedophiles. Even rapists have an outlet to relieve their sexual frustration and can go to counseling without still being called a monster.
Pedophilia is just like any other sexual orientation. It is not something you just turn off, pedophiles need counseling and ways to relieve their sexual frustration. Things like CG porn and Lolicon for example should be legal. It is just not realistic to tell pedophiles to just stop and then put them in prison for the rest of their lives when they act on their desires, they will most likely be stabbed because even among criminals pedophilia is the worst of the worst and you are more likely to be stabbed if you raped a 15 year old than a 16 year old.
And this whole argument that watching fake rape porn will turn you into a rapist is bullshit. It is just like the argument that violent video games turn you into a violent person.
Pedophilia is just like any other sexual orientation. It is not something you just turn off, pedophiles need counseling and ways to relieve their sexual frustration. Things like CG porn and Lolicon for example should be legal. It is just not realistic to tell pedophiles to just stop and then put them in prison for the rest of their lives when they act on their desires, they will most likely be stabbed because even among criminals pedophilia is the worst of the worst and you are more likely to be stabbed if you raped a 15 year old than a 16 year old.
And this whole argument that watching fake rape porn will turn you into a rapist is bullshit. It is just like the argument that violent video games turn you into a violent person.
Mr Cameron tells us that he's terrified of what his children can access online. You'd think with access to some of the UK's most intelligent brains he'd be able to master parental guidance of internet usage without legislating it.
Isn't this just telling parents that the internet will suddenly be safe, a government sanctioned message to that effect is quite a bit stronger than your ISPs salesperson. Of course, the filter will either resemble China or have holes so assuming the latter any responsible parent will still want to monitor their children's usage.
The effect of this law seems to be constrained to making David Cameron (and other not-very-technically-knowledgeable parents) feel that he's a responsible parent, but to be honest I'd rather taxpayers pay for a nanny for him than for this ridiculous law - cheaper and much more effective.
Isn't this just telling parents that the internet will suddenly be safe, a government sanctioned message to that effect is quite a bit stronger than your ISPs salesperson. Of course, the filter will either resemble China or have holes so assuming the latter any responsible parent will still want to monitor their children's usage.
The effect of this law seems to be constrained to making David Cameron (and other not-very-technically-knowledgeable parents) feel that he's a responsible parent, but to be honest I'd rather taxpayers pay for a nanny for him than for this ridiculous law - cheaper and much more effective.
How about he does something productive and bans 50 shades of grey.
How is this going to work if people https to sites outside the UK?
When you connect to an HTTPS site, your browser send the domain (hostname) unencrypted, so that the server can select the right certificate. If it doesn't/didn't, the server could only have one site per IP, so you could identify the site by doing a reverse DNS query.
In any case, blocking access to an HTTPS site is not a significant technical problem.
In any case, blocking access to an HTTPS site is not a significant technical problem.
Sure - blocking access to https://www.google.com is not a significant tech problem.
I somehow don't think they're planning on that though.
Blocking access to https://www.google.com/?q=nasty+goat+sex while not blocking access to https://www.google.com/?q=how+to+vote+conservative+in+the+UK requires some technical chops that while not impossible, would put the UK right up there with enlightened democracies such as China, Iran, and Egypt in terms of interfering with their citizens internet use.
I eagerly await the spectacular demonstration of incompetence and misunderstanding of basic internet operation that'll be the fallout of this - perhaps it'll make my local government's own similar mistakes seem less obvious and stupid: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/how-asics-a...
I somehow don't think they're planning on that though.
Blocking access to https://www.google.com/?q=nasty+goat+sex while not blocking access to https://www.google.com/?q=how+to+vote+conservative+in+the+UK requires some technical chops that while not impossible, would put the UK right up there with enlightened democracies such as China, Iran, and Egypt in terms of interfering with their citizens internet use.
I eagerly await the spectacular demonstration of incompetence and misunderstanding of basic internet operation that'll be the fallout of this - perhaps it'll make my local government's own similar mistakes seem less obvious and stupid: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/how-asics-a...
It is not possible for anyone to block access to https://www.google.com/?q=specific+thing over a long period of time without either custom modifications to every affected client or help from Google itself.
Google's long rocky experience with China proves exactly that.
Google's long rocky experience with China proves exactly that.
Not at a 100% level, but we know the Chinese government (and I suspect the UK government) are capable of deploying faked google.com SSL certs which'll pass unnoticed by just about anyone who's not using a certificate-pinning version of Chrome. And China(/Iran/Egypt) clearly has national-border level firewalls capable of using such faked SSL certs to MITM and deep packet inspect entire countries worth of internet traffic on the fly.
Yes, but they are not capable of getting away with it for any length of time.
And like usual, we'll find the public figures responsible for pushing such regulations on morality will be those most likely to be the biggest offenders.
But this isn't about "protecting the children" from porn, is it?
I'm on the wrong side of 40, and I've been online for 28 years. Professionally involved in the software and bitplumbing of "the web" for all of my adult life. I saw jwz's camo cube and montulli's fish tank with my own eyes, and years before that, wrote software alongside visionaries guided by the promise of building online communities and the freedom of information.
It wasn't supposed to turn out like this.
The people making these rules are incapable of building the surveillance apparatus without our involvement. Take this opportunity to look hard at what you're creating, and examine the motives of the people you're building it for.
But this isn't about "protecting the children" from porn, is it?
I'm on the wrong side of 40, and I've been online for 28 years. Professionally involved in the software and bitplumbing of "the web" for all of my adult life. I saw jwz's camo cube and montulli's fish tank with my own eyes, and years before that, wrote software alongside visionaries guided by the promise of building online communities and the freedom of information.
It wasn't supposed to turn out like this.
The people making these rules are incapable of building the surveillance apparatus without our involvement. Take this opportunity to look hard at what you're creating, and examine the motives of the people you're building it for.
Trying to garner popularity because:
a) This is something most people hate, and he is taking a stance they will sympathize with
b) He singles out Google as needing to do more. Google has received a lot of bad press recently due to tax avoidance. Therefore, criticizing Google will go down well with a lot of people.
b) He singles out Google as needing to do more. Google has received a lot of bad press recently due to tax avoidance. Therefore, criticizing Google will go down well with a lot of people.
>> If there are technical obstacles to acting on [search engines], don't just stand by and say nothing can be done; use your great brains to help overcome them.
>> "You're the people who have worked out how to map almost every inch of the Earth from space; who have developed algorithms that make sense of vast quantities of information. Set your greatest brains to work on this. You are not separate from our society, you are part of our society, and you must play a responsible role in it."
Do I read this right? So they don't care how expensive or hard the problem is to solve they just demand it to be solved. And even if the solution is bad or expensive, both customers and taxpayers must still pay to have it implemented. Got it.
>> "You're the people who have worked out how to map almost every inch of the Earth from space; who have developed algorithms that make sense of vast quantities of information. Set your greatest brains to work on this. You are not separate from our society, you are part of our society, and you must play a responsible role in it."
Do I read this right? So they don't care how expensive or hard the problem is to solve they just demand it to be solved. And even if the solution is bad or expensive, both customers and taxpayers must still pay to have it implemented. Got it.
This is, stupidly, in direct opposition to the trend towards a popular understanding of "power exchange" relationships.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/books/fifty-shades-of-grey... (not even a new idea)
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/493829.SM_101
Dear Mr. Cameron, you just saw how the gay marriage issue went and you where quick to jump on board. You really want to be on the wrong side of this issue?
Beware the Red Menace--er I mean child pornography (insert fear of the moment mongering here).
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/books/fifty-shades-of-grey... (not even a new idea)
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/493829.SM_101
Dear Mr. Cameron, you just saw how the gay marriage issue went and you where quick to jump on board. You really want to be on the wrong side of this issue?
Beware the Red Menace--er I mean child pornography (insert fear of the moment mongering here).
This honestly makes more sense as an opt out for parents to utilize for their children...
A comment today on Nicky Cambell's bbc phone in:
> I'm a social worker, and once this goes into force, I will know that any household where the kids have access to porn has come from a parent making a conscious choice to let it happen.
> I'm a social worker, and once this goes into force, I will know that any household where the kids have access to porn has come from a parent making a conscious choice to let it happen.
If they also buy the sun, or stuff like the technology wank-mag T3 ( https://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&so... ), presumably they are also equally complicit.
I guess we would live in a wonderful world if there was no children and terrorists.
We've had similar attempts in several countries before, mostly argued for with the fight against child pornography. This has nothing to do with pornography, Cameron wants a censorship infrastructure so he can prevent access to sensitive "leaks" and other content that his regime might find dangerous.
Just don't get dragged into a for/against pornography discussion, it's pointless in this context. Even if you're naive enough to believe Cameron is actually trying to censor pornography, ask yourself whether such an infrastructure can and consequently will be abused.
Just don't get dragged into a for/against pornography discussion, it's pointless in this context. Even if you're naive enough to believe Cameron is actually trying to censor pornography, ask yourself whether such an infrastructure can and consequently will be abused.
According to the guardian's article at [1] it appears the system will actually be opt-in. From a leaked letter sent from the Department of Education to the ISPs:
"Without changing what you will be offering (ie active-choice +), the prime minister would like to be able to refer to your solutions [as] 'default-on'"
active-choice+ is a set of filters that may be enabled on request.
[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/21/david-ca...
"Without changing what you will be offering (ie active-choice +), the prime minister would like to be able to refer to your solutions [as] 'default-on'"
active-choice+ is a set of filters that may be enabled on request.
[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/21/david-ca...
I think that it is a online system where the box is ticked by default. This is his version of opt-in to porn.
I think it is great that David Cameron is trying to protect his country.
But, I think the implementation of anything that restricts the internet before content gets to the client will take things down a bad road, which is why similar efforts keep getting struck down in the U.S. When you give the power of restricting communication to the government or even to a contractor for the government, how will that not be abused? You may as well let them open every bit of mail and every parcel and check to see what you are wearing each morning to ensure it is appropriate.
But, I think the implementation of anything that restricts the internet before content gets to the client will take things down a bad road, which is why similar efforts keep getting struck down in the U.S. When you give the power of restricting communication to the government or even to a contractor for the government, how will that not be abused? You may as well let them open every bit of mail and every parcel and check to see what you are wearing each morning to ensure it is appropriate.
There is a more fundamental problem here than the law itself. People who fail to understand any aspect of the internet, should not be allowed to legislate against it in any way. It's madness.
>Once those filters are installed, it should not be the case that technically literate children can just flick the filters off at the click of a mouse without anyone knowing.
BAHAHAHA.
Ouch. My sides.
BAHAHAHA.
Ouch. My sides.
The one hope in all of this is the inability of ISPs to filter accurately, especially with innocuous false positives. A lot of mobile providers in the UK already have opt-out adult filters on their 3G services. They frequently block things such as websites about bars & pubs.
If the filters are this poor and the blocked page banner tells you how to, a large percentage of people will opt out making this an ineffective "watches porn list".
If the filters are this poor and the blocked page banner tells you how to, a large percentage of people will opt out making this an ineffective "watches porn list".
I commend David Cameron and his party for doing more than anyone else this week in promoting privacy-preserving technologies such as Tor, VPNs, HTTPS, etc.
Oh but all they're ever used for is circumventing the paedophile-filter. You'll need a license for that VPN, young man.
It's almost as if the US and the UK are trying to one-up each other in the race to fully implement a fascist police-state.
Seems like the UK has just taken the lead.
Seems like the UK has just taken the lead.
It seems it would be better to have an opt-in list instead of forcing everyone into it by default and making a list of those that didn't want it.
He does this for "moral" reasons yet recently vetoed the minimum alcohol price proposal:
> “We do not yet have enough concrete evidence that its introduction would be effective in reducing harms associated with problem drinking, without penalising people who drink responsibly.
Where's the "concrete evidence" for this new stuff?
Not something anyone can challenge either without putting their reputation on the line.
> “We do not yet have enough concrete evidence that its introduction would be effective in reducing harms associated with problem drinking, without penalising people who drink responsibly.
Where's the "concrete evidence" for this new stuff?
Not something anyone can challenge either without putting their reputation on the line.
I can't wait until David Cameron learns that you can anonymously buy drugs on the Internet and have them shipped directly to your house.
Actually that would make Zeffirelli's production of "The Taming of the Shrew" borderline illegal.
Along with many other respected works of art and culture.
The Anglo Saxon penchant for pruderish grandstanding combined with the British desire for an overbearing nanny state is a truly disturbing combination.
Unfortunately there are a lot of sheep on the British isles (as everywhere)
Along with many other respected works of art and culture.
The Anglo Saxon penchant for pruderish grandstanding combined with the British desire for an overbearing nanny state is a truly disturbing combination.
Unfortunately there are a lot of sheep on the British isles (as everywhere)
This law only shows the kind of filthy, dirty, sleazebags our politicians have become.
The whole idea is to create a database of people who are happy to view porn on their internet connections. The concept is so outrageous that it simple boggles the mind.
What kind grubby vote seeking laws are politicians going to come up with next?
Best get one of those:
http://www.streetshirts.co.uk/sites/streetshirts.co.uk/conte...
Disclaimer: No I do not get money for this.
Disclaimer: No I do not get money for this.
This would be a good segue into blocking anonymising proxies as well. For the kids of course.
Good luck with that. Not even Pakistan was able to get away with blocking VPNs, and VPN protocols make absolutely no attempt at being difficult to block.
Wait, this just went through parliament without any problems? I may have lived under a rock, but this is the first time I ever hear about this. Is this just a proposition from the English government, or is the new legislation already accepted?
It's not been through parliament. The last time more concrete details were leaked, No10 were pressuring the ISPs into voluntarily doing it. They've not yet released any details saying they're now passing legislation.
Ah, okay, thanks. That eases my mind a bit!
It's baffling how many times the "think of the children" excuse gets used to, actually, treat everyone as children. Won't somebody please think of the adults?
Translation:
"I’m not making this speech because I want to moralise or scaremonger"
->
"I’m making this speech because I want to moralise and scaremonger"
It's scary just how idiotic he sounds when talking about this.
He did an interview with the BBC Radio Four programme "Woman's Hour". He sounds computer illiterate.
He did an interview with the BBC Radio Four programme "Woman's Hour". He sounds computer illiterate.
Wrong for too many reasons - especially linking child pornography with pornography - the former actually being child abuse, and later being consenting adults.
[deleted]
So, what stops a technically literate teenage boy from opening an encrypted VPN connection to a VM and tunneling traffic through that?
Nothing. Most probably you won't even need VPN.
Some time ago all UK ISPs blocked pirate bay. Next day hundreds of pirate bay proxies appeared. This law is just another propaganda...
On another note, some mobile providers in UK (O2 for instance) already block adult content by default, and you need to prove to them that you are 18 and above to have filter removed.
Some time ago all UK ISPs blocked pirate bay. Next day hundreds of pirate bay proxies appeared. This law is just another propaganda...
On another note, some mobile providers in UK (O2 for instance) already block adult content by default, and you need to prove to them that you are 18 and above to have filter removed.
If that VM is in the same house hold, there would be little point.
This has nothing to do with porn.
Porn is just a good justification for getting a "Great Firewall of China" system implemented in the UK.
Porn is just a good justification for getting a "Great Firewall of China" system implemented in the UK.
upvote if you think this is just a cover story to increase internet surveillance and put internet in government control. USA does it to protect itself from 'terroeists' we all know how well that turned out. but since theres going to be no public outrage over freedom to watch porn, this trickster will fool his public this way.
Just curious... So depictions of violence against men are still going to be okay?
And we think we've come so far with gender equality...
And we think we've come so far with gender equality...
You know it's time for an election when politicians start talking about morals. When will they ever learn?
Anything done in response to a campaign by the Daily Mail can only be a bad idea ...
Good way to be able to implement "D-notices" on the web. Sigh.
Weasel generates easy headlines without doing anything useful. FTFY.
Yeah, porn should be at the fingertips of every man woman and child. Porn leads to healthy lifestyles and healthy sex lives, cultures and communities.
Just look at life before porn existed. Never any healthy societies or sexual relationships then - they did not even exist. What harm could porn possibly cause anyone? Putting into someones mind a fantasy of how sex really can and should be? How could that ever cause any future sexual relationship to suffer in any way?
How could putting sexual assault video or images into any 10 year old's mind - images that they will never come out, how could that ever cause any potential problems with their natural sexual development? Inconceivable.
People in a truly free country should be able to get their free porn on YouTube whilst buying their methamphetamine (legally) outside (or even inside) of the local welfare office. Now that it the country that I want to live in...
Just look at life before porn existed. Never any healthy societies or sexual relationships then - they did not even exist. What harm could porn possibly cause anyone? Putting into someones mind a fantasy of how sex really can and should be? How could that ever cause any future sexual relationship to suffer in any way?
How could putting sexual assault video or images into any 10 year old's mind - images that they will never come out, how could that ever cause any potential problems with their natural sexual development? Inconceivable.
People in a truly free country should be able to get their free porn on YouTube whilst buying their methamphetamine (legally) outside (or even inside) of the local welfare office. Now that it the country that I want to live in...
Yeah, facebook should be at the fingertips of every man woman and child. Facebook leads to healthy social lifestyles and friendships, cultures and communities.
Just look at life before facebook existed. Never any healthy societies or social relationships then - they did not even exist. What harm could facebook possibly cause anyone? Putting into someone's mind a fantasy of how easy socialising really can and should be? How could that ever cause any future social relationship to suffer in any way?
How could allowing a child to interact with somebody who could be a paedophile cause any potential problems with their natural sexual or social development? Inconceivable.
People in a truly free country should be able to sit at home and speak to people on facebook without ever speaking to people face to face. Now that is a country I want to live in...
Just look at life before facebook existed. Never any healthy societies or social relationships then - they did not even exist. What harm could facebook possibly cause anyone? Putting into someone's mind a fantasy of how easy socialising really can and should be? How could that ever cause any future social relationship to suffer in any way?
How could allowing a child to interact with somebody who could be a paedophile cause any potential problems with their natural sexual or social development? Inconceivable.
People in a truly free country should be able to sit at home and speak to people on facebook without ever speaking to people face to face. Now that is a country I want to live in...
You've really burned that strawman to the ground, well done.
I wonder what you'd say when the list gets leaked and your name is there by mistake. Can't happen, right? It's not like the UK government ever leaked private info[1]. Maybe the moral busybodies will press to take your kids from you.
[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2000/jun/25/futureofthenhs...
I wonder what you'd say when the list gets leaked and your name is there by mistake. Can't happen, right? It's not like the UK government ever leaked private info[1]. Maybe the moral busybodies will press to take your kids from you.
[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2000/jun/25/futureofthenhs...
> Just look at life before porn existed.
There were pornographic cave drawings.
There were pornographic cave drawings.
Please don't compare 1080p Dolby digital Pan and zoom, multi camera 3d porn to a still of a stick figure drawn on a cave wall by the light of a weak flame. (Okay I am being a bit dramatic but really...)
Please don't troll HN.
> Just look at life before porn existed. Never any healthy societies or sexual relationships then - they did not even exist. What harm could porn possibly cause anyone? Putting into someones mind a fantasy of how sex really can and should be? How could that ever cause any future sexual relationship to suffer in any way?
Sure, it could be. Might not though.
We're all gamblers when it comes to the truth, and you have to be holding some cards to be taken seriously most of the games worth playing.
Could is not a strong card. It really doesn't mean much when it comes to promoting a strong or extreme position without a high probability of harm or benefit attached to it. It's the start of an argument, not an argument of itself.
"Oh it could be... the aliens plotting to invade could be in his garage... sure it could happen that you win the lottery."
'Possibly' is like 'could' - almost directly interchangeable in fact:
"Oh it's possible... the aliens plotting to invade are possibly in his garage... sure it's possible that you win the lottery."
But, probably not.
Possibility alone is not an argument. Almost anything could possibly mess someone up, almost anything could possibly set a murderer off for instance. Have your read some mass murderers' messages? There's stuff in there like the women exercising at the gym made them realise how they'd never get anyone to love them and then they got snubbed by a woman and went mental.
So, possibly my going swimming will make someone kill someone, best not go swimming any more then!
Of course, you probable wouldn't suggest that women stop swimming because it might set some random nutjob off. Because the pleasure that many women take in swimming is taken to far outweigh a small probability of it doing so. Our rights trump the probability of their madness, people shouldn't have to live in fear that they're going to be someone's excuse. But, if the probability of madness was high - if men almost always went insane when women were swimming, if they were just physiologically unable to control themselves; well, I suspect that it wouldn't be the case that our right trumped their madness because the probability of harm would be so much higher.
Merely noting that something is possible is a potential beginning; somewhere to go and look up statistics and start measuring harms from if it seems probable enough to you on the basis of your prior and the actions you'd take on the basis of it being true or false to be worth looking into. If someone tells you there's an alien in their garrage the next step, if you think it probable enough to be worth looking into, is to go, 'Well, let's have a look then.' Not to start planning your response to the invasion fleet.
What the probability is matters. We can all imagine things possibly happening that are not implausible, yet in reality are not at all probable. And because our brains are not operating on floating point variables, we don't actually have a way to feel how small the probabilities behind various degrees of possible are. So, going with your feelings of shock about 'how could something possibly' is a bad call. To say something meaningful, in the sense that it ought to guide policy and action you have to use maths and numbers, not feelings. You have to use data, not instinct. You have to be able to promote an idea of how probable it is, not just note that it's possible.
#
While we're here I suppose I should note that 'Just look at life before porn... it wasn't awful.' Is not evidence for porn being bad either. It's, at best, just an argument for it not being an all surpassing good - and even there you haven't controlled for socioeconomic factors so you can't really be said to be comparing like for like. Methodologically it's not sound.
And even ignoring all that, the argument still falls down. Maybe there were some healthy relationships before porn, but the days before porn included....
Oh, you mean the days when young girls were sold off to be fucked when they had their first period?
Or perhaps you're talking about the golden era of traditional gender roles, when it was legal to rape your wife and some women were essentially prisoners in their own homes.
Or perhaps you're going more traditional, Aesop's fables:
'A woman, a spaniel and a walnut tree, The more they're beaten the better they'll be.'
Even disregarding the methodological flaws, noted above, life before porn was not good for some people. Of course there probably were some healthy relationships back then, and maybe even the majority of such relationships were healthy. Or maybe not. As I'm sure you'll agree, the numbers matter in determining quite how horrifying history is.
------------------
Aside:
Personally, I find the unequal treatment of women in the workplace and government in history to make even the definition of healthy relationships in historical terms very difficult. Were I to define a healthy relationship it would go something like 'An equal, fair, and mutually beneficial relationship that makes those involved happy....' But how can it be equal and fair when one side has the majority of the power? We, or at least women at various points in time, were deprived of access to significant power, and thus of significant agency, from a very early age.
Imagine telling someone that the most they could aspire to was to be some man's secretary and the only way they could hope to interact with most of society was through their husband. I've no doubt you could grow to largely ignore that, if you grew up with it, but then again people grow up to largely ignore being blind too. I'm unsure under that interpretation how you'd even begin to define a healthy relationship as distinct from Stockholm Syndrome.
I wouldn't be able to take that. I wouldn't want to live in that world and I'd be constantly timid and afraid of even someone I'd otherwise love if they wielded that sort of power over me.
Which isn't to say that all historical relationships were examples of such patterns. I'm just saying that even the act of definition there is going to be very difficult. You can't really talk about healthy relationships without reference to the psychology of those involved, and that also involves references to the surrounding power structures - which will vary both with time and place. You can't meaningfully abstract over large portions of history without putting in significant work to normalise your terms across contexts.
Sure, it could be. Might not though.
We're all gamblers when it comes to the truth, and you have to be holding some cards to be taken seriously most of the games worth playing.
Could is not a strong card. It really doesn't mean much when it comes to promoting a strong or extreme position without a high probability of harm or benefit attached to it. It's the start of an argument, not an argument of itself.
"Oh it could be... the aliens plotting to invade could be in his garage... sure it could happen that you win the lottery."
'Possibly' is like 'could' - almost directly interchangeable in fact:
"Oh it's possible... the aliens plotting to invade are possibly in his garage... sure it's possible that you win the lottery."
But, probably not.
Possibility alone is not an argument. Almost anything could possibly mess someone up, almost anything could possibly set a murderer off for instance. Have your read some mass murderers' messages? There's stuff in there like the women exercising at the gym made them realise how they'd never get anyone to love them and then they got snubbed by a woman and went mental.
So, possibly my going swimming will make someone kill someone, best not go swimming any more then!
Of course, you probable wouldn't suggest that women stop swimming because it might set some random nutjob off. Because the pleasure that many women take in swimming is taken to far outweigh a small probability of it doing so. Our rights trump the probability of their madness, people shouldn't have to live in fear that they're going to be someone's excuse. But, if the probability of madness was high - if men almost always went insane when women were swimming, if they were just physiologically unable to control themselves; well, I suspect that it wouldn't be the case that our right trumped their madness because the probability of harm would be so much higher.
Merely noting that something is possible is a potential beginning; somewhere to go and look up statistics and start measuring harms from if it seems probable enough to you on the basis of your prior and the actions you'd take on the basis of it being true or false to be worth looking into. If someone tells you there's an alien in their garrage the next step, if you think it probable enough to be worth looking into, is to go, 'Well, let's have a look then.' Not to start planning your response to the invasion fleet.
What the probability is matters. We can all imagine things possibly happening that are not implausible, yet in reality are not at all probable. And because our brains are not operating on floating point variables, we don't actually have a way to feel how small the probabilities behind various degrees of possible are. So, going with your feelings of shock about 'how could something possibly' is a bad call. To say something meaningful, in the sense that it ought to guide policy and action you have to use maths and numbers, not feelings. You have to use data, not instinct. You have to be able to promote an idea of how probable it is, not just note that it's possible.
#
While we're here I suppose I should note that 'Just look at life before porn... it wasn't awful.' Is not evidence for porn being bad either. It's, at best, just an argument for it not being an all surpassing good - and even there you haven't controlled for socioeconomic factors so you can't really be said to be comparing like for like. Methodologically it's not sound.
And even ignoring all that, the argument still falls down. Maybe there were some healthy relationships before porn, but the days before porn included....
Oh, you mean the days when young girls were sold off to be fucked when they had their first period?
Or perhaps you're talking about the golden era of traditional gender roles, when it was legal to rape your wife and some women were essentially prisoners in their own homes.
Or perhaps you're going more traditional, Aesop's fables:
'A woman, a spaniel and a walnut tree, The more they're beaten the better they'll be.'
Even disregarding the methodological flaws, noted above, life before porn was not good for some people. Of course there probably were some healthy relationships back then, and maybe even the majority of such relationships were healthy. Or maybe not. As I'm sure you'll agree, the numbers matter in determining quite how horrifying history is.
------------------
Aside:
Personally, I find the unequal treatment of women in the workplace and government in history to make even the definition of healthy relationships in historical terms very difficult. Were I to define a healthy relationship it would go something like 'An equal, fair, and mutually beneficial relationship that makes those involved happy....' But how can it be equal and fair when one side has the majority of the power? We, or at least women at various points in time, were deprived of access to significant power, and thus of significant agency, from a very early age.
Imagine telling someone that the most they could aspire to was to be some man's secretary and the only way they could hope to interact with most of society was through their husband. I've no doubt you could grow to largely ignore that, if you grew up with it, but then again people grow up to largely ignore being blind too. I'm unsure under that interpretation how you'd even begin to define a healthy relationship as distinct from Stockholm Syndrome.
I wouldn't be able to take that. I wouldn't want to live in that world and I'd be constantly timid and afraid of even someone I'd otherwise love if they wielded that sort of power over me.
Which isn't to say that all historical relationships were examples of such patterns. I'm just saying that even the act of definition there is going to be very difficult. You can't really talk about healthy relationships without reference to the psychology of those involved, and that also involves references to the surrounding power structures - which will vary both with time and place. You can't meaningfully abstract over large portions of history without putting in significant work to normalise your terms across contexts.
Sure, it could be. Might not though.
The probability is higher than almost any other type of content that can be viewed. You fail to mention this, comparing simulated rape and hardcore porn to swimming? The probabilities are not even on the same chart they are so far apart. Throw out psychology and statistics/polls and merely do a brain scan on the average person going to the beach/pool and the average person watching simulated rape or some hardcore porn. Only the latter creates a huge response in the brain and vivid memories for decades. This alone is evidence to any neurologist that porn has a high probability to create lasting effects in the brain and form brand new neural pathways which change the through process of the subject (usually permanently).
My mention of "life before porn" was not meant to be an argument that port is bad. Some comments here treat port as such a healthy, natural and helpful thing. Lets take the last 100 years of western civilization. the first without porn, the second with. What did it improve? It is hard to argue that it has benefited society as a whole, but not so hard to make an argument that it has harmed it.
My mention of "life before porn" was not meant to be an argument that port is bad. Some comments here treat port as such a healthy, natural and helpful thing. Lets take the last 100 years of western civilization. the first without porn, the second with. What did it improve? It is hard to argue that it has benefited society as a whole, but not so hard to make an argument that it has harmed it.
> Throw out psychology and statistics/polls and....
And you lose the ability to talk about probability in a meaningful way.
If something does create an almost unprecedentedly large response in the brain, does that make it more likely to create lasting effects in the brain and cause the formation of new neural pathways?
I don't know. You want to claim that it's highly probable but you've provided no evidence for this. I know that porn addicts brains are different, primarily in terms of the reward system in ways similar to other addictions I believe, but you'd expect that to be the case. And you've certainly not linked any probability of large responses to the probability of potential changes to the probability of any potential to harm.
If you can't put numbers on it to compare it to other things, you really have no way to talk about probability that's not just waving your hands around and going 'Look at the brain scan!' Well, so what? Even assuming that all of your premises are true, (and the probability of concurrent events is the sum of their multiples so you've lost probability at every stage whatever the actual numbers would turn out to be; complexity penalty) and these brain scans actually exist, what does that mean? Is the probability of harm five times as likely as something else, twenty? If the initial chance of harm is quite small this doesn't make much difference. Is it three orders of magnitude out?
Neurology is a complicated area of inquiry, unless you know how often a given change links up with some result, it's just a picture.
You can't forget about psychology and stats and still meaningfully make statements like 'it's not even on the same chart' you have to know where both things are to be able to talk about that sort of thing - you have to have put the work in and have the numbers.
And you lose the ability to talk about probability in a meaningful way.
If something does create an almost unprecedentedly large response in the brain, does that make it more likely to create lasting effects in the brain and cause the formation of new neural pathways?
I don't know. You want to claim that it's highly probable but you've provided no evidence for this. I know that porn addicts brains are different, primarily in terms of the reward system in ways similar to other addictions I believe, but you'd expect that to be the case. And you've certainly not linked any probability of large responses to the probability of potential changes to the probability of any potential to harm.
If you can't put numbers on it to compare it to other things, you really have no way to talk about probability that's not just waving your hands around and going 'Look at the brain scan!' Well, so what? Even assuming that all of your premises are true, (and the probability of concurrent events is the sum of their multiples so you've lost probability at every stage whatever the actual numbers would turn out to be; complexity penalty) and these brain scans actually exist, what does that mean? Is the probability of harm five times as likely as something else, twenty? If the initial chance of harm is quite small this doesn't make much difference. Is it three orders of magnitude out?
Neurology is a complicated area of inquiry, unless you know how often a given change links up with some result, it's just a picture.
You can't forget about psychology and stats and still meaningfully make statements like 'it's not even on the same chart' you have to know where both things are to be able to talk about that sort of thing - you have to have put the work in and have the numbers.
OK, here is the difference. I know, I know - censorship generally is bad. What will they (the government) consider "harmful" next? information right? political opinion, it's book burning, this is a slippery slope ETC.
The aforementioned things do not have the consensus of psychologists and other professionals in the world agreeing that the content in question can cause psychological harm to a certain percent of society (particularly children).
That is the difference. The legal guardians of those who know that the potential is higher that their children may be affected negatively by pornography should be able to have the ability to make it harder for them to access it.
I see a lot of posts here talking about parents putting filtering software on their computer. Well, there is always easy ways around those. How many kids have iPhones today with unfettered internet access? how many kids use a public library? how many kids know computers better than their parents or grandparents and can get around any filtering software that may be installed on their home computer?
I remember the uproar at the proposition that porn content be delivered over an .xxx domain. Why was there such an uproar? How was it censorship to classify content that could be dangerous to some? Are movie ratings censorship? Are 8 year old kids legally allowed to buy tickets to NC-17 movies? It seems like the precedent had already been set.
It was all about money of course. The porn industry knows that the younger a person watches porn for the first time, the more likely they are to continue watching/purchasing porn indefinitely. The porn industry WANTS minors to view the porn. They do everything they possibly can to entice them at the earliest age possible. Does anyone think that the porn industry is high on the ethical and moral hill and would never take advantage of children to make more money?
Why should anyone outside the home have the power to do this? Why do parents have such little power and so little and ineffective tools to limit their child's exposure to pornographic material?
This is no more censorship than current laws requiring that porn mags be put on shelves a certain distance from the ground in retail stores so that 8 year old kids generally cannot reach them.
The aforementioned things do not have the consensus of psychologists and other professionals in the world agreeing that the content in question can cause psychological harm to a certain percent of society (particularly children).
That is the difference. The legal guardians of those who know that the potential is higher that their children may be affected negatively by pornography should be able to have the ability to make it harder for them to access it.
I see a lot of posts here talking about parents putting filtering software on their computer. Well, there is always easy ways around those. How many kids have iPhones today with unfettered internet access? how many kids use a public library? how many kids know computers better than their parents or grandparents and can get around any filtering software that may be installed on their home computer?
I remember the uproar at the proposition that porn content be delivered over an .xxx domain. Why was there such an uproar? How was it censorship to classify content that could be dangerous to some? Are movie ratings censorship? Are 8 year old kids legally allowed to buy tickets to NC-17 movies? It seems like the precedent had already been set.
It was all about money of course. The porn industry knows that the younger a person watches porn for the first time, the more likely they are to continue watching/purchasing porn indefinitely. The porn industry WANTS minors to view the porn. They do everything they possibly can to entice them at the earliest age possible. Does anyone think that the porn industry is high on the ethical and moral hill and would never take advantage of children to make more money?
Why should anyone outside the home have the power to do this? Why do parents have such little power and so little and ineffective tools to limit their child's exposure to pornographic material?
This is no more censorship than current laws requiring that porn mags be put on shelves a certain distance from the ground in retail stores so that 8 year old kids generally cannot reach them.
It's not (only) to keep them out of the hands of kids; it's to embarrass the pornhound into reaching for it in public.
I had to activate grown-up mode on my giffgaff data (to buy swimmies, which were bogusly blocked by a bad filter). Even though I'm a sleazebag, I still felt a little squeamish asking for porn mode.
...now if that comes in on the monthly bills, "Data mode: Adult", then you have to explain it to your partner...
I had to activate grown-up mode on my giffgaff data (to buy swimmies, which were bogusly blocked by a bad filter). Even though I'm a sleazebag, I still felt a little squeamish asking for porn mode.
...now if that comes in on the monthly bills, "Data mode: Adult", then you have to explain it to your partner...
So explain it to your partner then. Big deal. If your partner does not trust you than you have larger issues. If you look at porn and do not tell your partner than they have reason to not trust you.
This sounds like a lot of people don't want to come clean about viewing porn - yet they sing it's praises. Prevents rapes, promotes healthy sexuality, ETC. BS.
This sounds like a lot of people don't want to come clean about viewing porn - yet they sing it's praises. Prevents rapes, promotes healthy sexuality, ETC. BS.
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These declarations will only be used to shame public figures once the list is leaked.
> The possession of "extreme pornography", which includes scenes of simulated rape, is to be outlawed.
Video footage of two consenting adults, acting out a scene, will be illegal to own. With this on the books, it seems a short hop to outlaw videos of simulated murder.
> The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) is to draw up a blacklist of "abhorrent" internet search terms to identify and prevent paedophiles searching for illegal material.
A single search can now land you on a government list of accused pedophiles.
Yikes.