European Parliament blocks citizen e-mails protesting 'porn ban' proposal | Hacker News Reader

European Parliament blocks citizen e-mails protesting 'porn ban' proposal

news.cnet.com

22 pointsprotomyth18 comments

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More information about why this is not likely, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5342294

Specifically,

The European Parliament (unlike most national parliaments within Europe) can't actually draft legislation by itself. That's reserved for the executive branch, the European Commission. These kinds of endorsements, once passed, are effectively taken by the European Commission as an indication of the opinion of the Parliament, and it then drafts bills accordingly.

If the Commission wants to introduce measures such as those found in the resolution, it'll have a mandate for them, providing the endorsement of the report (specifically an " own initiative report") passes. Then the draft bill goes back to the Parliament to vote on, and if it passes then, it becomes a legally binding directive for EU member states to follow.

...

The resolution can be seen as a call for further investigation of the issue with an extra clause that's likely to be skipped over in any later phase of legislative debate, rather than the slippery slope to an EU-wide pornography ban -- but just in case, it might be worth writing to your MEP. Otherwise it'll be back to hunting in the railway sidings, and nobody wants that.

Wow, just reading through how the European Council, European Commission, and European Parliament work, I'm struck by the near total lack of direct accountability to voters there is.

Symbolic institution is symbolic. Their support for the ban can lend legitimacy to a future move by the commission, conversely, the successful lobbying of the EP by citizens to shut it down early can do the opposite. Also, a sure way to make sure the institution remains toothless is to ignore it because it's toothless.

This is a lot of noise about nothing. They passed a well meant report on eliminating gender stereotypes in the EU (not a law) containing this sentence: Calls on the EU and its Member States to take concrete action on its resolution of 16 September 1997[1] on discrimination against women in advertising, which called for a ban on all forms of pornography in the media and on the advertising of sex tourism.

The mentioned report is itself contains this sentence: 5. Calls for statutory measures to prevent any form of pornography in the media and in advertising and for a ban on advertising for pornographic products and sex tourism;

This was passed already in 1997.

[1]: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=REPORT...

So they want to prevent advertisements for pornographic products? That's "nothing"?

How is this well meaning?

they want to prevent using pornography as an advertisement (advertising that appeals to your libido)

That an already passed resolution contains something stupid is a poor argument against opposing repeating the stupid thing.

As an American, I was always under the impression we were the puritans when it comes to pornography. How much popular support does this have over there? I'm also surprised this is something the European Parliament has the power to enact.

None that I know of. I've never heard anyone in the news seriously suggest a ban of pornography.

Voters in EU write to their representatives approximally never so getting 350 emails in less than a day could easily mean that there is a huge opposition.

People tend not to care about details of governship that only marginally effect their lives, but this is going to have a potentially huge effect.

Frankly though, I doubt it will pass -- anybody who votes for this risk alienating voters who normally wouldn't care, and there aren't enough proponents to make up for it.

Iceland has banned strip clubs and has an existing law against porn that isn't enforced; they are discussing enforcing it, including on the internet. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/25/iceland-seeks-in...

I remain under the impression that this is somewhat unusual and unique to Iceland and America's puritan status isn't really threatened.

Iceland isn't (yet) a member of the EU though.

link to original document: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//...

submitted HN link: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5340184

That is bad, but the real story here is that the EU is considering banning porn.

Are they insane? Really?

Can you think of a better way to get the general public to start taking information security seriously?

Not that I'm interested in the political process as an EU citizen (because it makes my blood boil), but how credible do you think this is? It's probably been blown out of proportion three times before even reaching the so called journalists at cnet...

Not going to happen.

The story here is not the 'porn ban' but that MEPs are not listening much less responding to their electorates.

In fact they are actively organising to not be bothered by their constituents.

They don't like emails from constituents? What do they prefer, burning cars and brick through their windows?

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