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Comment by LukeB_UK | Hacker News Reader

The problems with these filters is that they catch things that aren't porn too. For example advice on safe sex.

The problem is that they catch porn, in the first place. Who is the government to tell me what I can and can't watch, provided I don't hurt anyone directly or indirectly.

Next thing you know, the government is going to tell me who to vote in and out the office.

The government already tell you what you can and can't watch via the BBFC and other various legal means (e.g. downloading a film to watch because the studio hasn't given it a UK theatre/DVD release would be illegal, I think.)

I do note that the government have already mentioned aloud the possibility of coercing ISPs to use these filters to block foreign porn sites which wouldn't get a BBFC 18R (see the ATVOD crap we've been having over here).

That's a lot more sites than you might think.

Oh, I don't know, I can think of loads offhand that would be caught - even more if they applied the 18R rules to static images as well as VOD.

But I'm not surprised it's already on the cards - this has been coming since the early 00s (e.g. the "usenet is CHILD PORN!!!!1!!" newspaper outrages, the Sexual Offences Act 2003, etc.)

For the sake of argument let's assume the only person you hurt by watching porn is yourself, and let's not worry yet about the degree of harm or the potential mitigation from "responsible" usage. (This applies to various drugs, too.) Why would a government that cares about its citizens not step in when there are simple counter-measures with significant gains that stop the majority from doing self-inflicted damage? Even if that majority can come up with rationalizations for the damage? (Like self-flagellation to get closer to God, or brain-cell killing substances "to take the edge off".) I'm not advocating for draconian measures to try and prevent 100% of the people from doing X, and those are impossible anyway when X is readily produced (like alcohol) but there's a middle ground between that and doing nothing while your population withers.

The democratic government aren't preventing you from getting your fill of porn; they're telling ISPs that it might be best if you just have to log on to your ISP config page and uncheck a box and ISPs are (not surprisingly as it will save them bandwidth I imagine) agreeing.

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