Godaddy caves to UK Porn hysteria

Most governments already control alcohol and tobacco sales "to protect the children". It seems like the UK government thinks they can make the argument that pornography falls in the same category. TV, movies, and YouTube already restrict pornographic content as well, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of strong arguments against that.

Maybe my analogy would also by naive, but I consider the effects of porn to be similar to effects of consuming alcohol - some enjoy it, some became addicted to it, and some people's lives will get literally destroyed by it. Therefore, alcohol is "opt-in" - you have to reach certain age, and you also need to buy it, there are not bottles of alcohol available anywhere for anybody to consume.

Similar with porn, it should be opt-in, you should read certain age to be able to access it, and then do some kind of opting for it.

I don't consider lawmakers openly calling for the systematic suppression of a particular minority (and deliberate non-enforcement of the law against vigilantes), to be that similar to a nanny-state approach towards regulating content probably enjoyed by the majority of adult men. And I haven't seen even the craziest of British regional political figures propose whipping porn-viewers in public squares. I think that rather actually trivialises the issues faced by gay men in Russia.

It's a bit disappointing to see the generally better-informed anti-censorship brigade resorting to the same hysteria and half truths as the Mary Whitehouse brigade. Opt-in porn censorship that probably won't even work simply isn't the same as bigotry, and likewise it's disappointing to see the linked article - actually one of the better and more nuanced articles I've read on the subject - repeating the widespread claim that the UK government's policy says anything at all about opt-in filters on esoteric material and web forums (a meme apparently started based on a screenshot of one of many commercial filters used by ISPs that's been around for years without causing any controversy)

On technical counts, I agree. The scenario of a poorly implemented filter reminds me of "porn before the Internet": young people learning the basic tricks to gain access to forbidden material and then spreading them within their groups. Even with physical pornography, doing this was neither complex nor particularly time-consuming.

However, I maintain that there's reason for concern when a government elects to make sexuality a matter of policy. Steering public opinion in a certain direction (making the filter opt-out sounds more like a "you shouldn't be doing it, perv" rather than a "it's entirely up to you, my well-adjusted friend!") and exerting control over exposure at the infrastructure level might not be censorship proper, but I wouldn't consider it harmless from a cultural perspective. Generally, I'm indeed bothered when my government wields morality to crusade against something of dubious consequence.

Granted, this comes from someone who considers the most common stances on pornography and sexual education largely detrimental.

Mission creep is a concern I have with this though. It's a short jump to go from optional blocking to mandatory blocking (as we already have with CleanFeed). The proposal is for it to be on by default - that's censorship in my eyes since you have to ask for the perverse content you're already being protected from.

I don't agree with the notion that the freedoms offered by the internet need to be curtailed to bring it back into line with the rest of life.

The adolescents teaching each other how to get around filters - that is exactly what ends up happening. A few years back, Turkey had a pretty long ban on Youtube. Countless sites for tweaking browser settings specifically geared for Turkish Youtubers emerged. There was even a cartoon by a prominent artist that depicted the PM declaring his agenda: "We won't lift the ban until we have 70 million DNS experts."

Hey, at least it will produce another generation of tech savvy Internet users! Maybe we'll get some more engineers out of it.

&> The people who think it works get placated*

That is the whole point. Mr Cameron has just offended a group of Tory supporters, some of whom are rich and/or influential, with the gay marriage thing. In order to placate them ready for next time he needs their influence and/or campaign donations he is taking on this issue that the same subset care about.

If the controls are not particularly effective then all the better for him. The people he needs to placate will be placated for a time and the people that only care because they want access to porn will stop caring when they discover this won't stop them accessing porn (so he'll not become someone who has taken away some of their freedom). True free speech fighters will stay on the case of course, but there are so few of them that it'll not be a massive concern (and most of them will admit they have bigger fish to fry), many of the people say they really care about free speech are just not wanting to admit that they really care about porn.

> (Ironically, that article about getting rid of porn has a full column of ads on the right side filled with half-naked women)

That's the Daily Mail for you. Ironic.

Why does government or industry have to intervene in your personal life? If you don't want to view pornographic material, don't search for it. Stay away from sites where you might see something like it. If you're a parent, educate your kid.

This is a waste of time and money. Plain and simple.

If you don't agree with blocking other forms of content, why would you think opt-in is a good idea? Surely opt-out is far more sensible all ways round.

Censoring something is the lazy way of getting people to conform to your ideals. Imagine that instead of a censor campaign, the UK government had made an attempt to educate the public on the effects of porn. This could be done with adverts and studied in sex ed in school.

You need to be a responsible adult and talk to your children about pornography. If you don't trust them then you need to install a porn filter. But if you don't trust your kids, you're going to have a lot of bigger problems then porn.

I don't think you deserve to be downvoted for expressing a dissenting opinion, but citing "/r/nofap" as sole reference does not really help your argument.

Anyway, we all know that if kids want access to porn they'll find a way or an other, what we need is to educate the parents and explain that you can't leave a kid alone on the web any more than you can leave them alone in the streets.

So because you think porn has a negative impact, everyone else should have that decision made for them?

Blocking porn requires that you draw a definitive boundary around a subjectively defined area. You'll always draw the wrong shape because everyone has their own.

So now you're blocking stuff that people think you shouldn't, like girls in bare ankles or breast cancer papers or who knows, and now you're requiring people to divulge their thoughts by requesting access to it.

And now you have an insight, however primitive, into someone's thoughts. And you have no right to be in there.

So, in your scheme, existing websites are deprived of their domains if someone in government decides they belong in .xxx? And new sites are forced to the likely-to-be-blocked tld if someone deems them pornographic? What definition do you propose should be used? Can you imagine any conflicts over definitions of "adult material"? How would you imagine them being resolved? Would you have have site owners forced to self-apply labels they disagree with? What about foreign sites not subject to the law?

Try reading up on the many criticisms made of the .xxx concept when it was proposed.

There'll never be a way of filtering it correctly (is ASCII art of sex acts posted to reddit porn?) so the only real option is ensure people are aware of the risks (whatever they might be). Opting out is already possible today - don't visit porn websites if you don't want to see it.