UK government could force ISPs to block adult sites without age verification
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
</sarcasm> for those who didn't get it.
I am all for protecting kids from the extreme sides of porn but that is something a parent should be doing. You know like how they protect their children from drugs, alcohol, violent movies and games, the stuff kids shouldn't be exposed too.
There are plenty of parental control systems available for computers to prevent accidental exposure (not perfect but good enough) should a parent want a more automated solution. But putting the government in control of picking what is acceptable porn for consenting adults and what is not is not the solution.
I am a 30-something male. I have a wife. I look at porn. Big deal. People act like they don't care about porn but if that were true it wouldn't be such a huge business. Enough people pay for the crappy porn you get on TV for it to be a profitable business for god sake. Literally everybody looks at porn and I would be more worried about those who don't than those who do.
This is a terrible step down a dangerous path and of course it is wrapped up in a "think of the children!" spin.
The availability of hardcore porn to young adults is a genuine problem, there's isp level filtering but it doesn't work, part of the problem is image search, which embeds content into the page which means that it doesn't get picked up by the ISP's filter.
I think the situation could be greatly improved by not embedding explicit content into image searches and instead fetch explicit content from a separate cache which could be easily blocked by ISP level filtering. I'm no expert though, I suspect there's a performance penalty if you stop embedding the content, but maybe that would be a reasonable sacrifice.
As for protecting kids, I think we can agree that now that every kid has a smartphone with unfettered web access it's certainly more difficult to protect them from porn than it is to protect them from, say, alcohol where you generally need to prove your age etc.
I am by no means saying that state imposed filtering is an appropriate solution, but I'm not entirely certain what other effective solutions are available - it's a genuine problem.
It is? Teens are going to be interested in sex - porn is probably the safest way for them to explore that. Yes, clearly porn is a fantasy and has issues to do with expectation, but the answer to that is to educate them more, not try to keep them ignorant.
This kind of thing is a lazy and stupid attempt to do something no one will go against, because if you say anything about it, you can be smeared for being pro-porn and anti-child, regardless of the truth.
Fair, I agree that it can be seen as a shrewd move by government for exactly this reason.
It goes way beyond porn though, if we allow gov to block anything it doesn't like then we're on a road to a bleak future (hint: we are already).
IMHO it's far, far better for families to actually deal with this new reality by being honest and educating their children. Honestly, I try not to really worry too much.
But I agree with you on education, and maybe I now have to concede my original point, since you're right to say that if children received better education there would potentially be less of a problem...
I can generally see why people would want to filter away adult content from accidental viewing by children. What I think is completely doomed is attempting to keep it away from children that are actively searching for it. It'll just start circulating on USB sticks.
Don't worry, they are already working on a law to make it illegal to use non-government sanctioned USB sticks with built in remote access and bio-metric access control so the government can monitor everything that is put on it and by who.
Why?
And who took it upon themselves to establish this as fact for the rest of us?
From the rather more in depth Guardian piece[1] on the topic "A spokeswoman for the BBFC said it would also check whether sites host “pornographic content that we would refuse to classify”.
“In making this assessment, we will apply the standards that we apply to pornography that is distributed offline,” she said. “If a website fails on either of these [age verification or obscene content] tests then a notification of non-compliance will be sent to the site.”
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/23/censor-no...
> Pictures and videos that show spanking, whipping or caning that leaves marks, and sex acts involving urination, female ejaculation or menstruation as well as sex in public, or showing more than four digits inserted into an orifice for sexual stimulation.
Exhibit A is the sacking of Professor David Nutt, who was the most senior government advisor on drugs. His scientific advice contradicted government policy, so he was replaced with someone who would toe the party line. The Home Secretary did not consult the Science Minister on this decision. After Nutt's sacking, five other members of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs resigned in protest.
The government has shown utter contempt for evidence on the harms of drugs. They have consistently rejected scientific evidence when it contradicts their political ideology. Their reasoning for criminalisation is facile and circular. An examination of the relationship between the Home Office and the ACMD shows this with absolute clarity.
[1]: https://mic.com/articles/110344/14-years-after-portugal-decr...
Based on the HN thread about the snoopers charter last week, I was spurred on to try do something about it. I searched and read so much about activism but I honestly feel, without a semi-large scale protest in the streets, all this is a) going to proceed unheard of and b) be trivialised by the media.
Any pointers on effective social change at scale? Particularly the scale part.
It's not about reliability. The government could be more reliable at telling you and you children how to dress, does that mean it should be able to?
I'd like to see them try blocking Reddit. I know "accelerationism" is seldom a great idea, but I think it might actually wake people up.
How is the internet used? By Adults, by a broad majority. And adults have been drawing penises and breasts on cave walls since the beginning.
Just for UK geolocated users? I dunno, it would be even more unpopular with the user base than the last round of cleanup. And it would cost them money.
I seem to recall some level of geoblocking for German users as well, so it's not as if it's unprecedented.
The UK government often come out with annoucements like this; and pretty rapidly retreat when they realise that their proposals are impractical, or just let the idea die quietly.
ISPs don't want to do this, and the BBFC (a not particularly high-tech organisation of less than a hundred people) don't have the capability to issue these notices on any significant scale, either manually or using machine learning. Does anyone know how much extra funding they're being offered to do this job?
(edited to add the obviously missing word "don't" in the first sentence)
My guess is that this is a poison chalice... someone lining the BBFC up to look bad, for some reason incidental to online porn.
The UK government sees this as a "sex shop" problem, where adult material is hidden behind a door where under 18's are not showed to enter.
Most of us would agree that the responsibility for our children's internet access falls on the parents shoulders, but since the vast majority of children are much more tech savvy than their parents, and they have smartphones that are difficult to lock down, parents are failing to protect their children.
The NSPCC study that was linked illustrates that point. The question is, how do we solve the problem?
My preference would be to opt in with service provider to block known porn content, but blacklists are flimsy. Also, there are websites like reddit that offer a variety of content that spans various subjects, including porn subreddits. Can my child access the Minecraft subreddit? It's a pretty easy jump to NSFW material.
OpenDNS used to have some pretty good content blocking tools, but a smart kid is going to figure out how to switch their DNS settings to use Google instead. It's a whack a mole problem where established websites will suffer, and we'll new porn sites popping up even more frequently than they do now, with ISP's playing a constant game of catch up.
I was able to get hold on porn videos when I was a teenager, despite not having internet at home or somewhere else.
At the end, the only way forward is to speak with your children, it has nothing to do with firewalls.
I was referring to this part of the article:
>The government said its new rules were based on studies that suggest viewing pornography at a young age can have detrimental effects on future adult relationships. A survey from the NSPCC found that nearly half of 11-16-year-olds had accessed an adult site and one in five 11-17-year-olds said that they had seen images that had shocked or upset them.
The reality is that even younger children are now regularly accessing the internet and they are able to access pornographic content by accident. When it comes to young children, what exactly are you expecting parents to talk to them about? These are children who haven't reached the age where they have had any education regarding sexual activity, but they can still use an iPad or a laptop. Here is a classic example of inappropriate advertising in a children's iOS application: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/advertising/explicit...
As a parent of young children I do want to be able to restrict their access to the certain parts of the internet, in exactly the same way that I wouldn't let them watch an age-inappropriate movie. It's an entirely different scenario to you as a teenager seeking out pornographic videos.
The point is that young children can stumble into a "virtual sex shop" or a "virtual strip club", whilst in real life they can't - they are barred from entry.
When I mean "talking to children" I mean the all things, tell them to reach you if they see anything they find concerning on the internet, tell them some people may put ugly things on the internet so if they see anything that upsets them they should talk to you, all this even before sex education.
Still, you are over-estimating the effects of sexual images to kids, they barely understand what they see at that age; and I'm pretty sure it's 100% impossible to tell apart adults who saw porn when they were that young from the ones who didn't.
But still, even with the firewall argument: parents who are concerned about it should be educated about using Ublock or something like that; not a censoring that affects everyone. Specially because such censoring power is always going to be used for evil after a few administrations, it starts with porn and then it is for "evil online forums" and then its for anyone talking against the government.
I'd be perfectly happy for major porn sites to be blocked by default, as long as ISP customers can just go to their account online and toggle a checkbox and be done with it.
Google images blocks "adult" pictures by default doesn't it? Why aren't we having the same conversation and upset with Google images? Perhaps because all it takes is toggle the filter off in the menu.
Their proposal to block sites without age verification is pretty dumb though. Any kids can get through that, and it doesn't give any power to the parents to block these sites.
edit: I guess as usual the difficulty is in having rules that can be clearly defined, so "age verification" just fulfills that. But if they already have laws to categorize pronography I don't see why they couldn't apply to setting up "default" filters. Especially if looking at commercial pornography sites. I think commercial ones are the most damaging because their drive for money is what pushes them to create the most extreme and dehumanizing content.
But then again, how does the age verification protect children? I guess they are looking at the initial "impression" (in web semantics, the initial page load and what is shown without age verification).
It proceeds from newspaper headlines to policy announcements generating counter-headlines. The whole thing is driven by "BAN THIS FILTH" arguments in the Mail, Sun and Express. (At least two of which daily publish exploitative photos of women; the Mail has an entire sidebar of not-really-consensual bikini shots of celebrities)
The smaller, more technical ones don't. They don't even have a content control panel.
On one side you have people asking Governments to ban Games like GTA, on the other you have people who are surprised Governments use the power they have to "protect the children".
Only solution to this i think is to limit Govt's power and The majority of people using a constitution.
I suspect this latest threat will soon fall by the wayside.
It's done. Pervasive surveillance is in.
We have already achieved "forced ISPs to do this, that or the other".
So do you use something that has your name attached to it like a national ID or credit card? One, credit cards can be stolen, and secondly having to give your real name to these websites will have a cooling effect even among legal adults (although that might be part of the idea).
And then, what about websites that aren't hosted in the UK? Does UK have something similar to the great firewall of China or are they just planning on building one for this?
I hope the Lovejoys will censor youtube too, I see too much swearing by top youtubers nowadays.
We will have Private Cities [1] before that.
[1] https://fee.org/articles/private-cities-a-path-to-liberty/
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First they came for the Porn Sites, and I did not speak out— Because I didn't watch Porn.
Then they came for the Torrent Sites, and I did not speak out— Because I didn't torrent.
Then they came for the Bitcoin Sites, and I did not speak out— Because I didn't pay with bitcoin.
Then they came for me for using VPN and there was no one left to speak for me.
Tons of people watch porn, but it's taboo topic.
Back in the early days of the web it was a funny game for colleagues to email links to "hilariously" revolting images.
This is a "know it when you see it" problem.
What about art ? Bosch for instance...is that suitable for kids ? I think it's a healthy satirical commentary on human nature.
It's what we read too. I've read things in forums, out of nowhere, and suddenly I know something I wish I didn't know. That's life.
Maybe AI's can help ?
In fact, let's protect kids from anything minimally shocking on the internet so they can grow up super sensitive to anything people do.
There are many good arguments against online censorship but "porn is sex ed" isn't one of them. I'm aware that there are porn sites that are more "realistic" but it's still the wrong argument.
The correct argument is: that something exists doesn't mean children will be exposed to it and that something is harder to seek out intentionally doesn't mean children won't be exposed to it.
Of course the real argument is: stop trying to pass laws based on tabloid newspaper headlines.
But, I know that anywhere I would go will probably already (or soon) have similar policies. I don't even want to be on this damned planet, argh! Just far away from the "people in power" who keep coming up with these things.
It's not even about porn, it's just the idea of age verification being required to access _any_ kind of site.