David Cameron wants to ban porn

DonDaddyD

For me this is a worry and no not about porn, because if the UK Government passes this law it'll mean two things:

1. They can do the same for any content on the internet they don't think the public should have access to.

2. Everyone will be opted out of Porn access, so anyone who opts in via their ISP will be put on a list that the Government will have access to and will monitor. Essentially turning each of those people into suspected criminals regardless of any wrong doing.

Techradar has reported this far better than I can:
http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of- ... em-1167534
http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/ ... in-1167503

The issue should be the illegal content not the legal stuff and we shouldn't penalise the general public because of it.

rolf_f

DonDaddyD wrote:

2. Everyone will be opted out of Porn access, so anyone who opts in via their ISP will be put on a list that the Government will have access to and will monitor. Essentially turning each of those people into suspected criminals regardless of any wrong doing.

The Gvt already have this list - it is known as the male birth register.

But DDD - why so naïve? Big Brother isn't out to get you and David Cameron's cheap political cynicism isn't going to have any impact on either our lives or those people who like to look at illegal images (and Cameron is as naïve as you if he thinks it will - though I'm sure in truth he knows perfectly well it won't; he's just relying on the voting public being too stupid to realise it won't work).

rubertoe

There will always be ways around it DDD, so dont you worry about it, you'll get your fix.

Either that or you will just have to go back to the pre - internet days and buy it.

On a more serious note, should this not be about supervision by parents rather than censorship by the state?

asprilla

It was fun hearing Cameron repeatedly describe how the mechanism will work on TV and radio yesterday.

Apparently it will initially only be rolled out on new computers. Erm, since when did filtering at the ISP end have anything to do with the device that's plugged into it.

rml380z

Cameron announces he knows fcku-all about the internet.

The blocking of Pirate Bay has been singularly unsuccessful, and that's just one website.
This measure will make absolutely no difference on how easy it is for people to access pron on the internet.

davis

Aye. It'll make naff-all difference to me. I'm willing to bet there will be multiple ways round it, even with the "no sex please, I read the Daily Mail" tickbox enabled. An utter waste of time and money.

rolf_f

rml380z wrote:

Cameron announces he knows fcku-all about the internet.

The thing I think is most hilarious/disturbing is how he thinks that he can restrict access to illegal material by restricting search terms. It's staggering that the government can confidently stand behind an approach that is so blatently doomed to miserable failure. Surely everyone knows that terms are always changing anyway and as soon as you ban one term, another entirely random replacement will appear. Eg Oooh. I feel a bit illegally frisky; time to log on and download some "Cameron".......

As for the Porn opt out - everyone should really opt in on principle - even if they don't use these sites.

meanredspider

I can't find the exact headline on the BBC but it read something like

"David Cameron calls for porn curbs"

I kept reading it as

"David Cameron calls for porn clubs" :oops:

davis

Rolf F wrote:

It's staggering that the government can confidently stand behind an approach that is so blatently doomed to miserable failure.

They're happy to stand behind it because it's a cheap vote-winner with very little risk to them. The government looks to be doing something to "ban this sick filth", it doesn't cost the government (us) much because it's off-loaded onto the ISPs. It won't work, and then the government will blame the ISPs.

Cleat Eastwood

If he was serious about banning kiddie porn he could do worse than take Ken Clarks laptop off him.

DonDaddyD

rubertoe wrote:

There will always be ways around it DDD, so dont you worry about it, you'll get your fix.

Either that or you will just have to go back to the pre - internet days and buy it.

On a more serious note, should this not be about supervision by parents rather than censorship by the state?

This is indicative of the my whole issue. People don't want to speak out for fear of being accused of being a pervert - porn is a taboo subject after all.

However, its not about the porn. It is about state censorship, turning innocent people watching legal content into suspected criminals - without just cause and the assumption that the majority need additional help protecting their children.

jomoj

cheap political opportunism, practically and technically impossible. Doomed to end up in Cameron's dustbin along with 'the big society', 'greenest government ever' and all the other hollow promises.

This is a good take on the hypocrisy of the daily wail on this subject:

http://www.newstatesman.com/sci-tech/20 ... ind-itself

Bustacapp

"People will be discovering old usb's with porn on under hedges" (Frankie Boyle).

Seriously though - I hope it makes it more difficult to access porn. In my day a pic of a lady's front bottom on some sun-bleached & partially shredded page of Fiesta, retrieved from beneath a massive thicket of thorny brambles was enough to fuel my imagination for years. These days it's all ATM, gapers, creampies and facials all over the show.

Nobody has to earn it these days!!

the_fuggler

I must admit that I'm not keen on having my moral compass set by the Daily Mail.

As has been pointed out far more eloquently than me, my concern is that it's legislation addressing a symptom rather than the root cause. I fear it is going to make little or no difference to those children who are subject to abuse.

DonDaddyD

Bustacapp wrote:

"People will be discovering old usb's with porn on under hedges" (Frankie Boyle).

Seriously though - I hope it makes it more difficult to access porn. In my day a pic of a lady's front bottom on some sun-bleached & partially shredded page of Fiesta, retrieved from beneath a massive thicket of thorny brambles was enough to fuel my imagination for years. These days it's all ATM, gapers, creampies and facials all over the show.

Nobody has to earn it these days!!

What the hell is ATM and gapers?

I agree it is too easy to access porn and sex related sites.

The other issue is that there seems to be an increase in absuive sexual content and I mean properly abusive not the bang bus or rough sex variety.

But I don't need the Government censorship to prevent me or my child from accessing it.

EKE_38BPM

DonDaddyD wrote:

Bustacapp wrote:

"People will be discovering old usb's with porn on under hedges" (Frankie Boyle).

Seriously though - I hope it makes it more difficult to access porn. In my day a pic of a lady's front bottom on some sun-bleached & partially shredded page of Fiesta, retrieved from beneath a massive thicket of thorny brambles was enough to fuel my imagination for years. These days it's all ATM, gapers, creampies and facials all over the show.

Nobody has to earn it these days!!

What the hell is ATM and gapers?

ATM = Automated Teller Machine
A.K.A. Cashpoint machine. No idea what that has to do with porn though.

kelsen

EKE_38BPM wrote:

DonDaddyD wrote:

Bustacapp wrote:

"People will be discovering old usb's with porn on under hedges" (Frankie Boyle).

Seriously though - I hope it makes it more difficult to access porn. In my day a pic of a lady's front bottom on some sun-bleached & partially shredded page of Fiesta, retrieved from beneath a massive thicket of thorny brambles was enough to fuel my imagination for years. These days it's all ATM, gapers, creampies and facials all over the show.

Nobody has to earn it these days!!

What the hell is ATM and gapers?

ATM = Automated Teller Machine
A.K.A. Cashpoint machine. No idea what that has to do with porn though.

Urban Dictionary enlightened me, but what surprised me more is Bustacapp's familiarity with all these exotic terms!

daddy0

DonDaddyD wrote:

What the hell is ATM and gapers?

http://www.urbandictionary.com/

davmaggs

Your home internet connection is already censored, their are pages that you cannot get to and will not be told are being hidden from you.

This became very public a while back when an album cover (by the Scorpions) on wikipedia caused that page to be censored. Not believing all I read online I tried to see the Wikipedia page via my ISP and it was blocked, and no error was provided so I tried via a proxy and sure enough there it was. Meanwhile said album is available on a large shopping web site that the ISPs aren't going to annoy.

DC's idea is clever politics as it plays to the media who really aren't interested in questioning the technicals as IT experts are dull and so the nonsense of the proposal will be ignored. Importantly, and I suspect the real aim; it gets the public signed up to accepting censoring/filters and HMG regulating the internet as they do with broadcasts (eg TV)

notsoblue

I don't quite understand whats happening...

The measures they're proposing won't stop the actual problem they're trying to solve (I doubt that are after illegal pornography will be deterred by not being able to google for it), but will introduce a mechanism that they presume will categorised all traffic into "Approved", "Not Approved", "Needs opt-in".

A government body will be trying to (indirectly) approve all internet content, but people will be able to circumvent it with encryption or other methods.

I don't understand what they're trying to do here because their stated goals are simply unachievable, and I find it hard to believe that they've been that badly informed.

If they really wanted to protect kids from pornography, they'd do more to make parents take some bloody responsibility for the access they give them to technology.

greg66_tri_v2.0

I must admit, I had always understood that when King Canute set up his throne on the beach and ordered the tide not to come in, it was to show his people that he was, just like them, an ordinary man powerless to stop such things.

I'm not sure Cameron has quite the same outlook.

mudcow007

DonDaddyD wrote:

What the hell is ATM and gapers?

ATM = "arris" to mouth

Gape = huge hole :shock:

man get with the now...i thought you were a modern gent, i suppose you don't even know what "feltching" is

(word of warning dont google it)

i think the big worry for people who elect to turn the filters off is, will there be some sort of database listing who has requested their filters off? would that database be then used to profile people??

thing is filters are easy peasy to get around anyways, vpn, proxy, tor/ onion networks

the idea is doomed from the outset

spen666

rubertoe wrote:

There will always be ways around it DDD, so dont you worry about it, you'll get your fix.

Either that or you will just have to go back to the pre - internet days and buy it.

On a more serious note, should this not be about supervision by parents rather than censorship by the state?

I agree with this - the state seem to want to make it far more difficult for people to access legal ( but dubious taste) material because some parents are failing to monitor their children or are failing to set up the pre existing filters provided by ISPs

CiB

I caught Cameron on Mr Vine's wireless programme yesterday and although my natural inclination is to support the bloke, he really did give the impression that he wasn't well briefed and didn't have the first idea of what he was talking about - his response to one awkward question was to roll out what I thought had become the globally accepted joke catch-all response "won't someone think of the children?". Trouble is that this really is giving the punters what they want to hear without bothering at all with the detail; the idea of generating a workable properly thought through solution and implementing it as sound govt policy seems to be beyond them.

An easier solution would be write to everybody in the country and advise them to change the DNS to something like OpenDNS Family Shield. Hand the responsibility and the flexibility to those that should be exercising that responsibility - parents, householders, those of us that actually look after our home systems. Don't introduce some chuffing fatuous unworkable law that to all & sundry looks like nothing less than the beginnings of govt control of the internet. Slippery slope & all that. That just makes govt look inherently stupid and reactionary.

Alitogata

This is state censorship. But as far as I know you don't live in China or USSR.. So don't allow to happen.

daviesee

It will fail. And fail spectacularly.

For starters, how could it be implemented?

Say I don't opt in, what would be filtered? The obvious of course, but then there is the grey area of what is porn* and what isn't. Then there is the simple fact that those who are into the illegal stuff don't use Google etc.

*Does the fact that I have used the word porn mean that this site would now be filtered?

sketchley

One look here http://www.torproject.org tells you all you need to know as to why this will fail. Of course ISPs could start banning access to the tor network or other similar sites, or proxies or any one of a number of ways to circumnavigate this kind of stuff. There is a whole community out there dedicated to a free anonomous internet who will find and publish ways around it, once one kid in the school knows how it will spread like wild fire.

Parental supervision of the internet is one way forward. If I was a parent a computer in a bedroom would be a big no. Although much harder with smartphones and internet games consoles, or inter enabled TVs. Simply put place the children in room where you can monitor thier activity and it would cut down but illminate the risk. Another options is to make damm sure they know that what they see on the internet isn't real.....

squired

We hear about countries like China, where censorship/blocking of web content is a sign of oppressive leaders, but when they implement the same thing for us it is a wonderful thing that we should all be pleased about.

On my current mobile phone network there is an automatic porn filter. I've never bothered to get it removed, but it does annoy me sometimes when I go to read an article on the inner ring and get told that it has been blocked. The same sort of thing will happen with these proposed new rules.

On the one hand we are told that we need to move away from the "nanny state" introduced by Labour, but then we move towards rules like this. Personally, I'm more worried about all the career criminals who never actually spend even a day behind bars (and are probably burgling the homes of decent people right now) than whether the teenager living next door will be able to access adult content.

DonDaddyD

Sketchley wrote:

Simply put place the children in room where you can monitor thier activity

Massively unrealistic.

daviesee

DonDaddyD wrote:

Sketchley wrote:

Simply put place the children in room where you can monitor thier activity

Massively unrealistic.

Don't allow internet connected appliances in their bedrooms, or TVs come to that. It can be done.

sketchley

daviesee wrote:

DonDaddyD wrote:

Sketchley wrote:

Simply put place the children in room where you can monitor thier activity

Massively unrealistic.

Don't allow internet connected appliances in their bedrooms, or TVs come to that. It can be done.

^^^ this.

DDD I'm not saying that's an easy thing to do and I'm not saying you can monitor all that they do even in the same room. But you can stop them watching porn which is what this is all about.....