Good point on the texting pics!
My God! Itâs full of hubris!
I think the simple answer to this is a campaign to have âCameronâ, and perhaps the surnames of some other members of the front bench, take on new and interesting definitions in the same way has been done with âSantorumâ. Iâd like to see the look on the governmentâs face when they realise that all their efforts have done is reduce their own visibility on the net (not that it will work).
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Sex: a clear threat to humanity. Without it, none of us would be here. We have to put a stop to this sex thing right away.
This is all over the place this morning. The porn I couldnât care less. Protecting the kids - yes, itâs very high on my priorities. The highest. But despite the publically stated objectives, it feels like internet freedom erosion.
I like porn and Iâm happy to opt out of the filter. Internet freedom erosion⊠sure⊠but Iâm kinda not happy about the access kids have to porn. Porn is for grown-ups. Iâm honestly all over the place with this. âParents shouldâŠâ is a non-starter because there are too many bad and/or technologically illiterate/time-poor parents.
Freedom is a great concept and looks dandy on t-shirts, but wouldnât it be neat if we had to consciously sign-up for all the Internet crap we waste our time on?
Yeah, so Iâm signing up for forum-trolling, cat videos, sneezing pandas, porn, Big Brother and⊠uh⊠the Daily Mail website⊠shhh, no donât repeat that bit back!
With you on the porn is for grown-ups. When I was first shown Playboy aged 7 or 8, by a kid whoâs Dad had a collection, I was confused over the importance of it. It seemed utterly unimportant. It was, really. Lots of kids placed an inherited importance on it. I built forts and crashed my bike going down hills.
But nowadays they see all sorts of yuch stuff. Loss of innocence. Too early they learn to focus on stuff that ultimately, doesnât help them leave healthy, invigorated, safe lives. I suspect there is a split between families that highlight the unimportance of it all, and families that donât bother, in terms of the preparatory outcomes of the kidsâ minds.
Signing up is one thing, but an over-arching monitoring and surveillance system?
Is there an election coming up in the UK? This sounds like bullshit pandering to the âthink of the childrenâ crowd. Filtering doesnât work. It wonât filter out all porn and it will filter out things that arenât porn. And how long before the filter is used to blacklist things like Wikileaks, groups critical of the government, The Pirate Bay, and then maybe The Pirate Party?
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I always thought it was total BS that porn sites werenât all on a separate, unique TLD like .xxx which would make it trivial to self-regulate without hurting anyone. Total lost opportunity.
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Under whose definition of porn? There are things most people will agree is porn, sure. But everyone has their own cutoff point where something is art instead of porn. Maybe every topless photo has to be on a .xxx domain, but thatâs not porn to everyone. What about showing stomachs or ankles? Or faces? What about things that are painted or drawn? Is The Watchmen porn? Dr. Manhattan doesnât wear clothes. Boing Boing often has content on its front page that would generally be considered not safe for work. Would Boing Boing need to be boingboing.xxx?
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If it is video or pictures of people having sex, and the entire business model of the website is predicated on showing people having sex, then .xxx domain? It doesnât seem all that complex to me.
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What problem does that fix though? There would still be stuff that could be called porn on other sites, so the anti-porn crusaders would keep campaigning to push all smut onto .xxx domains. Not all the regular porn sites would move voluntarily, so youâd have to put it into the rules of .com, .net, .org, .us, .ca, .tv, .it, .se, etc. Or legislate it in a bunch of countries. And get everyone to agree on a single definition of what has to go on there.
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Future news headline, âMayoral candidate opts in for smut! Do you want this person really running your community?!â
Few years after the porn ban, âHmm, that went well. Lets put the kibosh on those pesky foreign news sites that keep pointing out our hypocrisy.â Lil more time goes by, âSome of these domestic websites sure are causing a ruckus. Lets add them to the âopt inâ list as well. Thatâll make it even easier to know who to keep an eye on.â etc etc etc.
Parents need to parent. Period.
If keeping your kids from losing their minds over porn is even remotely high on your list of problems you are worrying about, youâve already failed the test. Talk about âfirst world problemsâ.
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When I was 13 it was a mission to get a copy of Playboy off âthat kidâ that stole it from his dad. These days as a 13 year old its SMUT CENTRAL⊠which can be arrived at simply by typing âsmut centralâ into Google.
There is a happy medium between smut depot for every 13 year old and all out Internet porn ban.
I worry about the practicality of any large scale smut block, I also agree with @Jardine that one manâs hard core porn image is anotherâs pink Burka revealing a sensual smile.
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Sure, artful nudes have some nuance. But there is rather broad consensus on what an actual sex act looks like though!
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Sure, but thatâs not what the anti-porn people want banned. Thatâs not far enough for them.
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Sure, but then again:
Sometimes sex happens in movies and its considered âartâ not porn. So just cause there is a âsexâ act, does not make it porn. Its a very broad gamut.
Given the persistently pathetic treatment, by the establishment, of LGBT people; my concern is that the application of the law will be considerably biased.
Many years ago I saw an interview with someone from the BBFC (possibly James Ferman, canât remember for sure) and they were discussing a quandary that they encountered when classifying a foot-fetish video. The entire film consisted of nothing but close-up shots of womenâs feet, no other part of the body was shown. They had a real problem deciding how to rate the film, the vast majority of people wouldnât consider a foot offensive, but it was being sold as pornography. In the end they gave it an 18 certificate, but in theory they could have passed it as a U. Itâs an extreme case, but it does show how tricky it can be to classify these things.
Iâm wondering if, akin to Obama announcing his intent to restrict the availability of firearms, there was a massive rush to download smut yesterday in the UK.
