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Comment by decasteve | Hacker News Reader

My rant about the topic of UK Porn is that it is entirely analogous to what is happening in Russia with the anti-Gay legislation.

Two forms of sexual expression, both states using the same logic in terms of reasons for legislating against them, namely "Protect the children". Both with social stigma and negative attitudes from the most ardent conservatives of the population.

Though in Russia the bigotry extends a little deeper in terms of social acceptance (or lack thereof), i.e. violence against porn watchers is pretty much non-existent in the UK. But in terms of the law, what is to be codified into law is very similar.

/endrant

Feel free to debate and correct my naive interpretation if you disagree.

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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)

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.

Alcohol and tobacco, at least in the US, are not controlled to "protect the children". Because a 20 year old man can't get alcohol either.

To your other point, there is a material philosophical difference between Google/YouTube, (private company), banning books/media, and one's government banning books/media.

> Alcohol and tobacco, at least in the US, are not controlled to "protect the children". Because a 20 year old man can't get alcohol either.

Furthermore, in many (if not most) places, it is even worse than that. A 40 year old man cannot buy alcohol depending on the day of the week or time of day. In some states they can only purchase certain kinds of alcohol from the state itself (if they don't feel like paying for it at a bar). In others, wide swaths of alcohol are simply unavailable.

Are we really to believe that the unavailability of beer over 4abv in Utah is to protect the children? No. That law, like nearly every alcohol law, is a puritanical attempt to regulate the morality of adults. These laws have no place in a civilized society, and neither do the "corresponding" porn laws.

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.

Buying alcohol doesn't require you to declare your desire to consume it, a barman does not check your name against a list when you order a drink and say "says here that you are teetotal, I cannot serve you until you call our head office and declare that you desire to now consume alcohol".

Going to a web site is already opt-in. Plus google has default safe search. The only other path I can think of offhand is advertisements on torrent sites. If you want to make those opt-in I won't complain.

And as surely as you could "accidentally" visit a porn website (does this really happen to anybody? I am convinced that this is a myth created by the go-to excuse of every teenager and husband with a controlling spouse...), you could accidentally visit a restaurant that serves alcohol.

If such an incident disturbs you to the core, then turn around and find the door.

Okay, if we are going the play it safe then we need to ban sugar. Oh, and soda. As well as chips. Definitely chocolate bars. Tea of course contains caffeine, an extremely dangerous substance in extreme circumstances?

The point is that people can become addicted to essentially everything. If you single out one thing as being an opt-in/certain age simply because of that reason then you create a situation of forcing your worldview on others simply because you created a reasoning that can be applied to anything and used that as a justification.

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