Censorship - Won’t someone think of the adults? | Hacker News Reader

Censorship - Won’t someone think of the adults?

gonedigital.net

39 pointsmhw28 comments

Censorship of the internet, any at all, is a problem. As soon as we are filtering in any way shape or form, it will not stop.

The Internet is what it is, open/free/uncensored, and it is no-ones responsibility to censor what is said or shown. If someone would like to "protect" themselves from freedom of speech and freedom of press then it is their own responsibility and no one elses.

Kiddie porn is OK?

Kiddie porn is bad because of mistreatment of kids, duh. By the time it's on the internet, it's way too late to do anything useful about it.

Cannibalism is bad because it involves killing human beings. By the time the human meat is at the supermarket, it's way too late to do anything useful about it.

And yet despite cannibalism being bad, there are no limits on you talking about eating meat, actually eating meat or owning a grill, which are all unrelated to eating humans.

Of course. I'd even tolerate the sale and consumption of in-vitro human meat. (Computer generated imagery, if you're following the metaphor.)

Most people shopping at the supermarket could not see the difference between human meat and cow meat. Kiddie porn is not that hard to spot.

It's interesting how we tie the act of consuming a product to the act of producing it. Sometimes it's more obvious, like when you buy your meat straight from the butcher. But is it as unethical if you buy the meat vacuum packaged from the supermarket? How about possessing kiddie porn, does it make you a child molester?

> How about possessing kiddie porn, does it make you a child molester?

No, but depending on where you live, you may be a criminal.

I think driving kiddie porn consumers further underground will make it harder to find and prosecute the people actually molesting kids: the producers. While I have no sympathy with child-porn consumers and understand they enable the producers and molesters, I don't think they are the problem that demands most attention unless they molest children.

No, of course not. However, it isn't an excuse for censorship. It is an excuse for going after the people producing it, and monitoring those who consume it (in the USA, the FBI is the largest distributor of child porn, with the goal of arresting people who look at it, for instance). Also, there's a pretty huge difference between censoring all the pornography on the internet (which would inevitably include lots of non-pornographic content) and occasionally asking hosting companies to remove illegal content from their networks as part of legal action against the offending individuals.

Also, as an aside, I find it interesting that child porn tends to crop up in every single discussion of censoring the internet. It's something that pretty much everyone agrees is wrong, true, but it's not an argument for generalized censorship, any more than the existence of child abuse is an argument for putting sensors on every child in the world to see if they're being abused.

Hitler once wrote, that children must be in the focal point of the society as then anything can be done in the name of protecting them.

Very fair points, but all I was trying to state is that there is a boundary where most people agree the material should be watched. Where that boundary is happens to be at different locations for different people, but I think it's important to establish one. Hence, I just disagree with the parent that "any censorship at all" is a problem.

> (in the USA, the FBI is the largest distributor of child porn, with the goal of arresting people who look at it, for instance)

[citation needed]

Really, I'm curious where you got this fact.

I recall reading it in an article about child porn a while back, and so don't have a citation off-hand. A bit of googling hasn't turned up that exact fact from any reputable source, although I have seen some other people mentioning it, along with quotes supporting the assertion (which I haven't been able to find the source of, strangely).

As early as 2007, the FBI did post links which claimed to be child porn as part of sting operations[1], and I remember reading about that in the past, so the fact might have gotten confused over time; it's also possible that I saw it in an article which I simply haven't been able to find. However, I'll retract that statement until I'm able to find a citation.

[1] http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9899151-38.html

>> (in the USA, the FBI is the largest distributor of child porn, with the goal of arresting people who look at it, for instance)

> [citation needed]

> Really, I'm curious where you got this fact.

I don't know if the FBI is the largest distributor, but I'd be surprised if they weren't a major distributor.

Why? Because that's how such organizations typically work and even if you assume good will, it's pretty much the only way that they can attempt to deal with such crimes.

See http://reason.com/archives/2010/12/17/the-first-war-on-terro...

The Kincora Boys home scandal and the Marc Dutroux scandal warn us about government complicity in the sexual abuse of children. Censorship helps governments conceal their evil doing.

If you favour censorship you will find yourself supporting censorship, even though you are not permitted to check the censored material for yourself. One day the adult raping the child, in the picture that no-one is allowed to see, will be the Minister of Justice and it will be the censorship laws that grant him impunity.

I've always wondered how we have created the system within which we find ourselves. It is possible for someone to write this well about an argument and obviously be in the right. But somehow, their argument will either be completely ignored or rebutted with a comment that doesn't properly argue the article. The injust law will then be passed regardless.

I'm talking in generalizations and not about this issue specifically. However it is a recurring theme that some invasive law will be proposed, and reasonable people reasonably argue why it shouldn't pass, and it passes anyway. How have we allowed this to happen?

Well, in a democracy the largest mob will win the vote, and not the one with the best arguments. And this largest mob is influenced by the mass media very strongly, so the 'vote' of the majority is really that of a powerful minority that controls the mass media. (which obviously presses for stronger control to be even more powerful) This is an issue with democracies everywhere in the world. I'm not sure how this 'recurring theme' can be broken, if at all.

Except it's not 'The Government' proposing to 'pressure' ISPs, it's one lone back-bench MP.

For such a far-reaching scheme I was curious why it wasn't getting more coverage... Who is the well-informed and clear-minded (ahem) politician in question?

According to http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12041063 it was raised by Culture Minister Ed Vaizey in an interview with the Sunday Times, but they then link to http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11822874 where they say that Conservative MP Claire Perry called for an opt-in system.

I would link to the Sunday Times article, but it's behind the Times paywall, so we're unable to find out what our elected representatives have been saying.

The Government's problem with an opt-in system is that once you agree it should be an opt-in system, who says it has to be a Government opt-in system? Why not a private service? How will they ratchet from an opt-in to an opt-out to a mandatory system if they aren't even the ones running the opt-in system?

That's easy - you just have a quiet word with the owners of the company. Just like the US did with the cell phone companies to get warrantless wiretaps on 1000s of phones.

Then of course since the system is private there is no question of any political motivation and the list of banned sites is also secret as it's "commercially sensitive"

Transcription here, including the culture secretary basically saying 'now that you've said this, the internet will freak out'.

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2010-11-23c.235.0

Ah! Would this be the same Ed Vaizey who seems to think net neutrality is stifling the rights of Internet highwaymen to set up private tolls....? Bright chap, good understanding of the Internet evidently.

Oh well.

What about the good old "The internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it" rule?

Why can't we just continue routing around censorship like we have for the past 20 years?

Maybe, but that can become a tough game. For example, look at the recent takedowns of 70+ .com domain names. The US Government made a decision for the whole world what content is okay. Yes, we can keep routing around the damage. But as governments become gutsier about how they take content down, they may successfully censor content for 99% of the Internet users.

The rest of us - the nerds - will always be able to overcome any censorship that is imposed. But the masses may not follow our tricks; maybe it's too much trouble for them or they just don't care enough. Either way, it's bad news.

When you think about it like that, hippies had the same problem in regards to certain wars once upon a time.

Women also used to have this sort of problem 60-ish years ago.

The point is, governments' minds can be changed.

Yes, we'll certainly keep routing around it. But wouldn't it be even better and more efficient if that wasn't necessary in the first place?

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