With filtering in place, two different things can happen. First: adult content will move closer to non-adult content in its presentation on the internet. Sites like imgur and wikipedia will become more popular for the distribution of adult content because it is harder to justify blocking them. Second, darknets will develop to work around the filtering. This might happen through alternate DNS roots, and steganographic embedding of adult content in ostensibly non-adult content.
At the end of the day it just becomes an annoyance (at first) and later, a handy way to avoid spying and sensorship, which is rather handy, I think.
Gee don’t these people know that porn is what the internet is for and cats too, of course.
If they wanted to cut down on porn they should have devoted their effort and funds subsidizing cat pictures.
But, what about the children? Will no one think about the children… and the terrorists?
Yes, there’s NO way this could possibly go wrong. No way, whatsoever.
It’s probably going to be on budget and have 100% efficacy, too.
Edit:
It’ll also surely not be used to block unwanted criticism.
Nor will the blacklists be secret, and they’ll surely take great care not to censor artistic nudity or anything.
They’ll probably not going to secretly expand their definition of “unsuited” or “offensive”.
Right?
I kind of thought the implementation would be this:
Once upon a time Peregrinus Phoenix posted a criticism of the government on BB.net. When he refused to withdraw or delete it, a government approved sticker appeared on his door … “This house is opted into PORN. Beware.”
The thing that frightens me is that Cameron is backing these proposals with nothing but rhetoric. No empirical evidence to suggest that this approach can even work, and we all know the obvious reason that evidence is not being used to back this up; Cameron’s proposals do not hold up to a shred of scrutiny.
High impact legislation being proposed by rhetoric alone is both frustrating and terrifying to me.
There’s a bunch of hand-waving magic at work. DC says there WILL be an opt-out filter in place at the majority of ISPs. ISPs shrug and say, sure but THIS is what it will cost extra on an Internet subscription to do that. The policy goes away because of freedom of speech and justice, and oh, ya know, you don’t want to be the political party that made everyone’s Internet cost more.
Come what may, I really like the idea of having a family filter on the Internet, perhaps one of those Net Nanny programs offered on a government subsidy. Talk all you want about the rights and wrongs, but the reality is that most parents haven’t a clue what to do about it, or are unwilling to spend extra on it but kids have easy access to the sort of material that was virtually unobtainable ten or twenty years ago. Blaming parents for being bad parents doesn’t actually turn them into good parents.
Nor, should this be about judging anything but the complete unavailability of porn to children as being a failure and therefore not worth pursuing. It’s about doing what you can to raise the barrier to entry. That seems like a worthwhile goal to me.
And as I said in the other thread, I’m basically pro-porn, just not the weird stuff. Now let’s define weird…
Stop children from viewing porn at Starbucks? I had to scratch my head a little on that one. Is Starbucks child friendly? I don’t recall ever seeing one there.
Seriously, though. Its the parents who have the obligation and responsibility to keep their children safe. Despite the ease of use of the tech or how advanced the kids may be, they are the ones who have that duty. Not the government. I have the right to read, view, listen to whatever I want. Why should I suffer an infringement of that right because parents are not meeting that obligation?
I submitted an epetition to ban celebrity gossip on the internet. Unfortunately it was rejected with the following message:
E-petitions cannot be used to request action on issues that are outside the responsibility of the government.
I really wish the someone would tell the PM this…
Did any recent government claim to be led by scientific debate/reasoning for the creation/application of new laws?
If so, then this flies in the face of it, as did so many decisions in the past (going back to the dissolution of the ACMD and David Nutt’s dismissal). I don’t think it will ever change, but it depresses me to see each new generation hope for huge changes in the ways government works, only to be disillusioned by vote grabbing Daily Mail pleasing rhetoric spouted by people who are clearly only in it for their own self satisfaction and self preservation.
Grump.
Rant over.
When they say “children” they mean 16-year-olds.
That’s what you’re like when you’re grumpy? I’m like that when I’m happy.
But one cannot dictate what information is and is not to be available, unless it’s directly illegal. It’s like forbidding children to hear dirty jokes from someone casually telling them nearby.
It’s obvious that, viewed through an uncritical lens, pork porn can be a destructive force on a young psyche. However, i believe simply making it more difficult to find is not exactly a cure. It’s more of a sugar pill.
Edit: A cellphone is not necessarily a good way to convey textual opinions.
I’m just waiting with baited breath for the first politician that says “that list of rights … yeah … they weren’t really thinking of modern times. That list is kind of … old fashioned, y’know?”
Making it more illicit difficult to find = more kudos to the kid with it
Sometimes I wonder how much of this is just anger over how easy it is for the kids these days. Those of us who grew up pre-internet - like the majority of humanity - still managed to get our hands on porn as young teenagers in some form or another. It’s just that it was secret, hard to come by, and required subterfuge.
I can just imagine David Cameron saying, “When I was a kid I had to shoplift Playboy! The kids these days… they have it so easy.”
There is an issue at stake - the local kids at a well-to-do school are sexting eachother and subsequently suffering harrassment and embarassment as the pics go viral.
The idea seems to be that the wide and easy availability of all degrees of porn is influencing behaviour that later degrades self-dignity. My brother dated a retired porn star for a while, who was basically trapped in the business, and her lack of confidence and dignity were unsettling.
But the key thing is, good parenting, good influence. My parents dashed the paradise of sexual hopefulness for me at a young age when they explained in dull biological detail what was going on. It worked well - having lost the intrigue and fascination I carried on with my childhood (still do).
My view with my kids is, early, explain about it all and de-mystify it. Back-up with some histories of participants in the business. Encourage them to maintain dignity and choice. Recognise that sexual activity, for all its ubiquity, is a profoundly impactful and sensitive area, and needs to be treated with respect.
A number of my prior girlfriends contacted me in the last few years with “the real story behind why …” and a common aspect was a spectrum of sexual “misadventure”, which had engendered regret.
Another new local more is for the teen girls to undertake anal intercourse to avoid pregnancy. This is a new one on me - it makes sense, yes, but when I was a teen, that was not a familiar motivation or concept. It’s easy to draw a link between that and the type of porn that 20 years ago would have been reserved for the top of top shelves.
But I don’t think the solution is what David Cameron proposes. The genie’s out. What one generation loses, the following is utterly fascinated by. I suspect the whole exercise will be hot air.
I really don’t believe that teenagers sending naked pictures of themselves to one another is fuelled by the availability of pornography. It is fuelled by the availability of cameras. You can take a naked picture of yourself in a few seconds and text it off without thinking about it.
I’m sure that somewhere a girl has been pressured into taking naked pictures by the normalcy of porn and somewhere a girl has refused to have such a picture taken, saying, “If you want to look at naked girls, there’s the internet.” I’m sure that for some kids looking at porn gives them ideas that they then try out and for others it satisfies a curiosity and makes them decide not to do that.
It’s not that I think that porn has no influence on behaviour, everything does. But parents have pretty much always spent a lot of time fretting that their children will do exactly the same kinds of things they did when they were young, and kids have pretty much always done those things anyway.
I agree that the best defence kids have against making bad decisions is education and empowerment. I think the proposal by the UK government runs exactly counter to those ideas.
