All Internet porn will be blocked by default under UK government plan
news.com.au
news.com.au
"Devizes Tory MP Claire Perry raised the issue at a special Commons debate, because as a mother-of-three she knew how difficult it was to keep youngsters from seeing inappropriate material.
But Mr Vaizey made it clear ministers will not take any steps to force internet service providers (ISPs) to tackle the problem.
He said: "We believe in an open, lightly regulated internet. The internet is by and large a force for good, it is central to our lives and to our economy and Government has to be wary about regulating or passing legislation."
The minister suggested it was for parents to take responsibility for what their children see online, rather than the ISPs that make money from pornography."
http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/news/Request-net-porn-refuse...
If you're interested, you can read the transcript verbatim, free of tabloid scandal, at http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2010-11-23c.235.0
On a practical note, I can only imagine how many arguments this new legislation would lead to. Typical scenario: Husband openly or secretly wants porn, wife doesn't.
In any case movies (or films rather) in the UK are censored for violence on the telly, and generally not shown before 9pm. Although the restrictions are much laxer than previously.
Back to the original point, is depicted violence more damaging? Is that even true, and how much do people value it? Is it something you want for your children or more other people's children? At risk of demagogy, it might be best to think about what people desire. Many people, perhaps most people, fundamentally don't want their children to be exposed to large quantities of pornography - just on the grounds of the potential for awkwardness - and perhaps don't care so much about an unquantifiable increase in violence in society.
A proportion of teenagers in some groups in some parts of society texting privately amongst themselves. Nude, consensual photos are arguably 'better' and more natural than typical pornography in any case and almost certainly less extreme and with a natural progression as the participants get older. It is (to me quite blatant) equivocation on your part to say, well A = B, therefore what is the point.
The article mentioned that 1 in 3 children under the age of 10 have seen pornography on the internet. Probably most of them will be fine, but its not probably something they particularly would want (as children, or later as adults) to have happened since there is plenty of time to lose one's innocence.
Finally, what have we won? This is a completely destructive dismissive attitude, again possibly characteristic of the highly partisan nature of American politics. Introduce the scheme, tune it, see how it goes.
In light of the all of the above, it bemuses and somewhat disappoints me that your opinion should be voted up. You can of course disagree, but, in my mind at least, you have to be more nuissanced and acknowledging.
You don't, you fight against them: http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/
What counts as a porn site? Who will evaluate it? If I have a photo sharing site and some douche uploads a picture of a naked lady, does that count?
I'm ok with the child protection and all that crap, that should be parent's responsibility to begin with, but I think this is not the answer. They should at least ask everyone about this.
I really feel this is heading towards internet censorship in the UK.
No there aren't, which doesn't really give me any confidence that an ISP could do it either. Presumably all it takes is an encrypted connection to a server outside of the ISP's filter and you've bypassed the filter.
Or just lots of akwardness.
Anyway, scary thought. Blocking everything by default based on what some conservatives think of as immoral or harmful.
(I should note that, though I am not in the UK, I do not support this action. "Nanny State" indeed.)
{edit=expanding} I think it's all about how children relate to others. Violence definitely has an effect on children, but I think it may have less of an effect on them than viewing pornography does. Why? (well, let me answer that question that I brilliantly asked myself!) Because most of the elements of the violence that you see (I'm not talking about sexual violence here) in media are elements of relationships with other people that most children have already experienced by the time that one would think that they are able to view violent media. Basically they have experienced the reality of relating to people in such a manner, and can easily distinguish the fantasy (e.g. getting angry at someone, vs getting angry at them and then beating them with a baseball bat).
On the other hand, pornography is all about relating to others sexually. Children have no experience with this, so the viewing experience becomes not just entertainment, but education, and I don't think that most porn has life lessons in it that we want to teach children.
Note that this is a very general argument. Even the word 'children' is almost too general to mean anything. A high-schooler and a 3 year old are on very different levels with respect to how they can handle these things.
</sarcasm>
Porn, on the other hand, has very few externalities.
Theres no reason to force people to "donate" without bothering to talk to them or their families even once about it. The only reason is to trick them into donating by not telling them they'll be donating, knowing that a large part of them wouldn't donate if they had a fair choice. I think many people _do_ have strong feelings about their physical integrity and the physical integrity of their loved ones, especially in the case of not even being asked.
A silent, deadhearted, mandatory opt-in would be for me a major reason to immediately opt-out without any chance of reconsideration.
I would have said a shortage of donor organs would be a reason to force this? Maybe not an acceptable reason to you, but still a fairly strong reason.
And if you think it's an overblown fear, consider what happened to the guy they tried to autopsy in South America about a year ago: he woke up on the table.
I am not saying that it is likely to happen, but since your benefit from this is Nothing, it just has to be teoretically possible for it to give you an advantage.
The Sunday Times ran a big and rather non-judgmental feature on "Generation XXX" today. The stat quoted in the Commons was that 80% of 14-16 year old children "frequently" use Internet pornography. They also interviewed some various teenagers and discovered both that anal sex is now "normalized" (their word, not mine) and almost everyone's shaving their "lady garden" (again, their term) merely because that's what they're seeing in porn.
Without being judgmental about it myself, I find it rather amusing but I can see why people are getting upset.
They shave their private parts? Horror, I say why it may grow back in a few months or, god forbid, they may feel itching. If youre children attacks others in the manner described in the article, it's not because of the pornography, but because you failed at being a parent. If you had any shame left you would have killed you self, but it is no doubt easier to blame porn than for once in your life taking responsibility for the monster you have created.
I suspect that the people getting in a moral outrage aren't doing so over "vanilla" sex. The LSE study quoted in the Times' article (UK Children Go Online, 2005) found that 31% of 9- to 19-year olds were using "violent or gruesome material."
I haven't expressed any judgments here, nor can I get as excited about it as you, but I contest it's not as simple as people who have a "problem with 14 year olds watching sex" - that's a strawman.
As for the, this is the start of censorship debate... it's not groundless, but I don't really buy it. If anything, 'letting' something like this through could be considered appeasement, and become considered as the only grounds for censorship. It works in other mediums, newspapers can be as critical of the government as they want, but cannot be obscene.
Just like television ratings don't stop kids from watching violent tv, movie ratings don't stop kids from watching certain movies, and video game ratings certainly don't stop kids from violent/adult games, this would accomplish nothing...
It all comes down to the parents. They need to be on top of what their kids are doing online and the last thing we need is more useless censorship that protects nothing.
Somebody, using consensual guidelines. You are perhaps mistaking the UK for America. It isn't a battle between constitutional rights and puritanical religous nuts. People are generally more moderate, and as such any introduced change is likely to remain moderate. (Not that the UK hasn't got its own major problems).
Many people rely on ratings for guidance, they make life a lot easier. For games they do admittedly have less effect, but that is perhaps to do with inertia in society, and the starting point of initial feelings towards games as unrealistic (which in some cases is not so true any more).
If it won't accomplish anything then I don't really see what the objection is. In reality it could well be quite effective. Obviously teenage boys of a certain disposition will circumvent any controls, via private networking, encrypted email attachments ... etc. This has always been true and people aren't that bothered about it. What is more half the fun is in the act of circumvention.
You say "If it won't accomplish anything then I don't really see what the objection is." but that's like saying if you have nothing to hide, what's wrong with installing CCTV cameras every 10 feet? The more your step on a person's freedoms, the easier it becomes to do it more and more. You shouldn't have to justify your desire to access pornography to the government or your ISP (or any content that is perfectly legal for that matter) simply because some parents can't watch over their children when it comes to computers.
Would a UK parent be arrested if their kid found a parent's porn magazine? I assume/hope not.
Finally, where is the evidence/research that this change will have the desired effect, or even that the current state harms kids?
Maybe it's just me, but there's something overly slick about the promotional site for the report and its various media: http://www.socialcostsofpornography.org/