UK Considering Requiring a License to View Porn
techdirt.com
techdirt.com
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/07/online-p...
The problem here is that parents are unable or unwilling to regulate their children's access to the internet.
Like most of the UK Government's attempts to regulate the internet, this 'porn licensing' idea is ill-informed, expensive and ineffective.
Is there anything more likely to make a kid want to browse porn that finding out not only is it taboo, it's a technical challenge too.
Speaking as someone who nearly got excluded from school for trying to get around restrictions...
Now I don't actually use it, but I am still pissed of by the censorship. Fortunately getting around the filter is extremely simple -- but there is a part of me that almost wish it was more of a challenge.
Given they have gone a LONG way past that with a proposal of a default ISP block and opt-in requirement, we can safely be sure this has nothing to do with regulating children's access.
Inline with other new legislation, the real reason this legislation is being proposed is that it forces ISP's to pay to upgrade their infrastructure for real-time surveillance. In other words, it is the infrastructure angle that the government wants private companies to pay for. After all, how effectively can you censor if you do not eventually do it in real time.
You can think of it as "the last mile" for the Intelligence Services, a part of the the "Going Dark" problem as technology and information rapidly expands along vectors that were not available to private entities in the past. By fair means or foul, the UK government will get what it needs - either directly from its first direct real-time proposal or via these types of censoring proposals to apply pressure on ISPs.
The "for the children" argument has nothing to do with anything since at most merely forcing the ISPs to give a parental options to block porn would have been sufficient against young children. No block of any kind (ISP or not) would ever work against older children, obviously, since many of them tend to be the most sophisticated technology and even socially-connected users in the household.
If parents couldn't keep their kids from gaining access to poisons, disease agents or machine guns, few people would argue against regulating them. Of course, those things are already regulated. I don't think porn is actually very harmful to children as long as they're taught that it's not any more a realistic depiction of what adult sexual relationships are like than CoD is of what war is like. If someone's primary source of information about sex is porn, that's not so good.
Saying "licence" implies that a cop can come along and demand to see your "porn licence", or that there'll be tests to get your "porn licence", or that there'll be a governmental "porn licencing authority". All of these things are ridiculous and not what anyone is considering.
I think introducing something like the optional meta tag above would be a more productive measure. I don't believe that porn-creators want to peddle their material to kids. Or at the very least, it's be easy to criticise them if they failed to implement the meta tag.
It's worth a shot, before we start introducing the sort of bat shit crazy stuff this article talks about.
Even if we reject that, you are still failing to take into account a very important difference between tobacco distribution and online pornography distribution: accurate age verification is far easier in meatspace where lies about your age have to have some semblance to reality.
In fact, the meatspace sale of pornography provides a nifty little counterexample to your thesis: guess how fast a minor would get kicked out of a sex shop. (answer: faster than you could possibly believe.)
I don't disagree that it is easier to implement age-based restrictions in real life versus online, but the fact remains that every single porn site distributes to minors, with obvious benefits to the industry.
What a silly thing to say.
> induces comparable if not identical neurological changes as traditional addictive substances such as nicotine
Show me the peer reviewed studies. Nicotine is a drug which alters brain chemistry, pornography merely facilitates naturally occurring brain chemistry phenomenons. It absolutely defies reason that these could be identical.
> but the fact remains that every single porn site distributes to minors
Already refuted bullshit.
Just about every (maybe just every?) porn site which I am aware of verifies the users age before allowing them to proceed. Furthermore, a very significant portion of the pornography industry does not give their product away; in those cases payment walls prevent involuntary and voluntary viewing.
Futhermore, I reject the assertion that a site which is accessible to minors who chose to lie about their age is run by somebody who does not care about them. If they are attempting to trick minors into visiting then that is one thing but merely failing to preventing minors from voluntarily accessing the site by lying is not enough to assert that they do not care about children.
Any publically available website is open to... well, the public.
At best a public website can ask the user to verify their age, which is hardly reliable.
Would it be? I imagine the standard response from those who did not would be something along the lines of "Screw that, I'm not British. Why should I change my site because they refuse to be parents?", or something along those lines.
Kind of hard to fault that reasoning. There are a lot of different cultures with dramatically different views on what constitutes pornography and who is allowed to view it. Placing responsibility of keeping track of all of that on site owners is asking too much.
The age of consent for sex in the UK is 16.
Which always seemed ridiculous to me.
(Sarcasm, btw)
Seriously. Solving purely social problem with purely technical means is just doomed.
I don't know if this is government mandated or just interfering mobile networks.
Is there a possibility you're talking about the open wifi spots? The ones near me are invariably slower than 3G so I've turned BTOpenZone off. Not that I regularly view porn out and about, but I'd assume that I'd hit the block at some point.
EDIT: There is one, bizarre, never knew that:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2134659/Phone-firms-...
I obviously need to start viewing more porn sites out and about or something to express my freedoms!
[1]http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-03/04/o2-mobile-web...
So yes, it was caused by the same law that prevents children from buying adult magazines or subscribing to porn websites - though likely the networks could have got away with less had they wanted to (such as the "If you are under 18, leave now" messages most porn sites now offer).
Additionally, noone even tried to check my age when I wanted to unblock it (well - they can't, can they?). Standard phone verification of access to the account (address, date of birth, everything that the whole family knows) was all it took.
1. Is porn addictive? There have been various recent studies pointing out similarities in the brains of internet addicts with drug addicts, but little focus specifically on porn to my knowledge. 2. What are the sociological effects of widespread regular porn use? I'm thinking in terms of motivation levels, risk-taking behavior, and any other psychological effects (for example as a positive effect some argue mass porn use explains the recent drop in rate of sex offenses).
If porn is potentially the neurological equivalent of digital heroin, I think it definitely deserves more discussion than it currently receives.
I think it is easily available wherever there is unlimited internet access: http://www.google.com/trends/?q=porn
The neurological equivalent of digital heroin is not free access to YouPorn. The reward happens offline. And the lab rats you're looking at are enjoying this 'give me pleasure' button forever, with society swinging like a pendulum between (correct) ignorance and (crazy) ideas of imposed restrictions.
Seriously - when I was a teen I had no internet porn. But certainly equal substitutes, ~just as readily available~. Maybe I couldn't really focus on specifics like 'give me a threesome of the following composition of sex, race and sexual preference, speaking in language x' - but that's a different kind of problem I guess. More like 'I had plenty of heroin, but nowadays I can order it online specifically from Redmond and add the fantasy that I shoot the same stuff Bill buys' [1].
1: I've nothing against him and I highly doubt he has any experience with (these sorts of) drugs.
However it seems like addiction is reinforced by the negative social attitudes towards sex (i want what is forbidden/taboo), which is really a vicious cycle. Rationally speaking, porn shouldn't even exist (a dog never has to pay for it).
Edit: do you think I'm kidding? http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/easy-read/EA15/
"If you are registered blind or severely sight impaired you can get a TV Licence for half of the usual cost."
The blind can still listen to radio or use iplayer for non-live broadcasts.
Well, not watch, but you know what I mean.
Feel free to argue that the license shouldn't exist for anyone, but I see no reason why blind people should be excluded. In fact, I'd go so far as to say the reduction in fee that they currently pay is unfair to the rest of us. Should they get cheaper broadband too? Half price DVDs? Half price tickets to the Olympics?
Cable is opt-in, of course, but your TV is not a paperweight without it. Sure, you don't need a TV license if you only play videogames, but I'm sure you'll have a hard time convincing the auditors.
Blind people surely benefit from television, and have a severe handicap, and that's the point.
"Should they get cheaper broadband too?" Maybe, but they probably pay less since speed is not so important to them.
The auditors can't do anything if you aren't using an aerial. I've lived at a house without a connection to the aerial, where the TV was only used for DVDs (and video cassettes). We never had trouble, but no one I know who's been warned for not having a licence (when they didn't have a connection) has been punished.
"Blind people surely benefit from television, and have a severe handicap, and that's the point."
Blind people surely benefit from food, and have a severe handicap. I'm not sure what's different here?
What is the specific benefit of television that can't be garnered from other sources? Especially given that the blind can play TV audio through a hi-fi system for free.
If blind people don't want to have TV on, they don't have to pay anything. If they do then clearly they feel they are getting something out of it, so why should they get it free unlike everybody else?
The TV is a communications device.
Sure, they can listen to the radio, but some things you get through tv that you don't get on the radio.
This sounds like extreme pettiness by 'tv regulators' towards people with a severe handicap.
I'm sure the concept of not paying is as strange as the concept of paying for those who aren't accustomed to it.
But the incremental cost of each receptor is insignificant, so IMHO there should be an incentive for blind people to have a television.
"TV is opt in" sure, so is the radio, so is internet. But realistically, very few people don't have it.
Today, with internet, the importance of the television is significantly diminished, but its communication power was important.
On the overall topic, I'm very much in favour of it, but go find a speech Stephen Fry gave about it (search "Briefings - Stephen Fry", sorry I'm not at my PC) as he makes every argument I'd make, but better. Why did you compare it to the internet which, while there is no license fee, is definitely not a free-to-use service.
Comparison with the internet was only because the internet is a communication medium
What do you expect from a country that startet WWII?
What do you expect from a country that is called Americas hat?
What do you expect from a country where half don't read a book?