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David Cameron cracks down on online pornography
- RP_Joe 13y agoSo they think they are going to stop porn? Is there a place where I can place a wager on this?
- mariorz 13y agoSubmited title was: "Every household in England obliged to declare whether they want to access porn".
- jmspring 13y agoBut it was corrected to actual article title. Might be better to submit with comment than wrong title.
- bollockitis 13y agoArticle title or not, "David Cameron cracks down on online pornography" is not news to me. I know this. But the submitted title was big news. That's why I clicked over and that's why I read the article. Otherwise I would have skipped it entirely.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- bguthrie 13y agoThe submitted title appears more or less verbatim in the lede of the article, and is the more significant news. I don't know if I'd call it wrong.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- shanelja 13y agoThis is a move to shame those who watch pornography, that you have to ring someone up and say "Yeah, I'm trying to jack off here but for some reason pornhub won't load... Yeah... Uh... I'd like you to remove the porn filter please?"
- _mulder_ 13y agoNo, this is just a demonstration that it's really the Daily Mail that runs the UK.
- brokenparser 13y agoI would not have a problem with this, I pay for the pipe so it's their job to deliver that service. It sucks not to have full Internet access. The proposed legislation is hard to swallow but I'll openly resist it, no biggie.
- bhickey 13y agoMeh. I doubt the Tories have a clean house in this regard. Every time some politician or other 'moral leader' starts pontificating about moral panic, I get suspicious that they're just trying to ban their vice. Clearly if they're so vocally opposed to it, they mustn't be partaking, right? Glenn Loury and cocaine. Mark Foley and the exploitation of children. Eliot Spitzer and prostitution. John Ensign and 'family values'. Larry Craig, Ted Haggard, countless others and homosexuality. The Conservative Party and Back to Basics. The list of hypocrites goes on and on and on.
- harrytuttle 13y agoPerhaps we should get together and pay for signage to be made up promoting this? After all, that's what they want for us.
- conroy 13y agoA 2011 survey found that 80% of 18-24 males in the UK had watched porn online[1]. I'm comfortable assuming that a significant percentage of Tories have or do watch it as well. [1]: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/12918531 http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/12918531
- shin_lao 13y agoAnd 20% lie about not watching it...
- coldarchon 13y agoDr. Cox from Scrubs:" I’m fairly sure if they took porn off the internet, there’d only be one website left, and it’d be called Bring back the porn!”
- dclowd9901 13y agoSpitzer was a dem who became a target of banks and credit institutions afraid of his cracking down on their anti-consumer business practices. He was Elizabeth Warren before Elizabeth Warren, and deserves more respect than to be pigeonholed as a politician with his pigeon in a hole. From Wikipedia: "Spitzer used this authority in his civil actions against corporations and criminal prosecutions against their officers." Damn shame.
- hkmurakami 13y agoThis honestly makes more sense as an opt out for parents to utilize for their children...
- bollockitis 13y agoIn other news, VPN usage in the UK skyrockets. Strict measures to be taken to reduce sexcrime.
- MWil 13y agoRule 34 David Cameron.
- venomsnake 13y agoI think you are more right here than you realize. A porn is whatever a person gets his boner with. By his descriptions of pornography seem a lot of the internet stuff arouses Mr. Cameron ... the really edgy stuff.
- jackschultz 13y agoFirst off, I hate it how they always try to frame new laws as trying to "protect" people. The same with airline searches and the whole PRISM deal. Also, I read somewhere on the subject of child pornography that allowing those people to look at images cuts down on the act because they seem to "get their fix." I can't remember where I read this so I can't provide a source, but it seems to make sense.
- Ygg2 13y agoIt works, that's why they do it. I do wonder how many people will accept to this out of shame.
- t0dd 13y agoYep. Or it's for "national security purposes". One of many beautiful euphemisms they employ. This is completely absurd. Do people believe in a free and open Internet, or do they not? Government asking us to make "declarations" over the content we want access to or what we may or may not search for is an absurdly dangerous precedent. IMO, imposing morality typically tends to make whatever problem worse.
- bulatb 13y ago> Do people believe in a free and open Internet, or do they not? Not really. They want a special kind of freedom where censorship is not allowed... unless the stuff that's getting censored is the kind of stuff that they don't like. Lots of people would enthusiastically support their moral standards being written into law.
- Zakharov 13y agoThis particular law is hurting people far more than it's protecting them, but in general, laws are framed as trying to protect people because the purpose of laws in general is to protect people.
- conroy 13y ago> Every household in Britain connected to the internet will be obliged to declare whether they want to maintain access to online pornography These declarations will only be used to shame public figures once the list is leaked. > The possession of "extreme pornography", which includes scenes of simulated rape, is to be outlawed. Video footage of two consenting adults, acting out a scene, will be illegal to own. With this on the books, it seems a short hop to outlaw videos of simulated murder. > The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) is to draw up a blacklist of "abhorrent" internet search terms to identify and prevent paedophiles searching for illegal material. A single search can now land you on a government list of accused pedophiles. Yikes.
- cskau 13y ago> > The possession of "extreme pornography", which includes scenes of simulated rape, is to be outlawed. > Video footage of two consenting adults, acting out a scene, will be illegal to own. With this on the books, it seems a short hop to outlaw videos of simulated murder. Even without such an extension, aren't there plenty of Hollywood movies which include "scenes of simulated rape"?
- sspiff 13y agoI have a copy of A Clockwork Orange, so I would be an abhorrent pervert owning illegal extreme pornography?
- rodgerd 13y agoI can't speak to Hollywood, but this presumably means it will be illegal to watch "Irreversable" online. Still, it's a handy way to tar anyone complaining about online survellience as a rape-loving pedophile.
- adamnemecek 13y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children can't believe that people still fall for this shtick
- xentronium 13y agoIn Russia we have a special commission that bans every internet page containing anything relevant to suicide and drugs. For example, famous australian ad "Dumb ways to die" is banned in Russia. Yeah, seriously, these guys have zero sense of humor. Apparently, it's to protect children from killing themselves.
- marshray 13y agoPerhaps they should ban all references to drinking vodka too?
- naa42 13y agoAlcohol advertisement is banned for decades =)
- vidarh 13y agoSuicide related materials actually makes some sense, depending on how extreme the censorship is. There's research (I don't have the reference handy, but it's described in Cialdini's "Influence") that estimates that in the US, each well published suicide results in an additional 48 deaths through suicides and murder-suicides, as people who are suicidal at the time appears to be more likely to go through with it in those conditions. So if you are to censor something, suicide descriptions would be far more morally defensible to censor than porn, as to my knowledge there's little to no evidence that increased access to porn leads to increases in harm to other people.
- Sven7 13y agoDo you have kids?
- 13y ago
- Everlag 13y ago`The government today has made a significant step forward in preventing rapists using rape pornography to legitimise and strategise their crimes and, more broadly, in challenging the eroticisation of violence against women and girls` What? In what world would 90% of ANY porn be legitimate?! I want rapists using strategies found in the fake garbage you can find online, at least then they will be less effective than they could be. `And, in a really big step forward, all the ISPs have rewired their technology so that once your filters are installed, they will cover any device connected to your home internet account. No more hassle of downloading filters for every device, just one-click protection. One click to protect your whole home and keep your children safe.` That's fucking censorship and I THOUGHT WE ALL AGREED THAT IS A SIGN OF FASCISM. Seriously, how many bloody times can someone use `FOR THE CHILDREN` as an a valid excuse? I hope this fellow gets put out of office with no pension. He is committing widespread censorship of an entire nation. And the people appreciate that. People also appreciated that Hitler brought Austria and Germany together in anschluss as well as the fact that he returned them from 40% unemployment. Funny how short sighted the people are. `You're the people who have worked out how to map almost every inch of the Earth from space; who have developed algorithms that make sense of vast quantities of information. Set your greatest brains to work on this. You are not separate from our society, you are part of our society, and you must play a responsible role in it` I see, you want the people who have been working for their entire lives to better the human race to take their valued time and put that towards your endeavors of censoring anything that could potentially offend the parents of children? I'm sorry, you are what's wrong with the world. I say we should build systems designed specifically to undermine these authoritarian measures.
- buro9 13y agoIn one way we got what we asked for. Whenever the argument was made that Google, British Telecom, et al, had a "moral duty" to censor pornography, we were able to simply say that this was an empty argument and that the only duty the companies had was to follow the law of the land. Now, by changing the law, the companies have a legal duty. That is what I and others have wanted, censorship is something we are able to attack through established channels. The politicians are of the view that this wins votes, now we find out whether they are right or wrong.
- JDDunn9 13y agoAre there any real studies on the "corrosive influence" of porn on children? I'm pretty sure every young teen boy has seen porn these days. The only actual studies I'm aware of say that porn reduces actually violent sex crimes. It acts as a substitute.
- conroy 13y ago> In one study surveying 471 Dutch teens ages 13 to 18, the researchers found that the more often young people sought out online porn, the more likely they were to have a "recreational" attitude toward sex--specifically, to view sex as a purely physical function like eating or drinking. > [T]he team also found a relationship between porn use and the feeling that it wasn't necessary to have affection for people to have sex with them. However, > [R]esearchers can't say for sure whether access to Internet porn causes certain attitudes and behaviors. http://www.apa.org/monitor/nov07/webporn.aspx http://www.apa.org/monitor/nov07/webporn.aspx
- jamesaguilar 13y agoAlso, I know it's outside the scope of this research, but it's yet to be demonstrated that a recreational attitude toward sex leads to lower well-being.
- brokenparser 13y agoDon't know why this was downvoted, I couldn't have put my thoughts into better words than this. But to to the narrow-minded, let me put it another way: We have contraceptives, we can have sex whenever we damn choose to, with whoever we fancy.
- gilgoomesh 13y agoIt's extremely difficult to quantify negative impacts or get people to accurately recall what they may or may not have seen. It's almost as difficult to approve studies on children. This study: http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cpb.2005.8.473 http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cpb.2005.8.473 Showed a correlation between children who seek out porn on the internet and delinquency. However, there's no indication of causation.
- vincie 13y agoShould crack down on Facebook instead. Here in Australia at least, I have read of more people being murdered by someone they met via Facebook that through a pornography site.
- foobarbazqux 13y agoPersonally speaking I would be glad to have this filter, but I wouldn't want to force it on other people. So if people got a choice about enabling the filter I would be okay with it, i.e. if it was opt-in. In that case it's providing a service to people who need a human barrier to help them stop looking at porn if they have a problem. Any preventative mechanism that you set up for your own sake is pointless when you have root. Are there any arguments against an opt-in filter? The legislation is for an opt-out filter.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- shrikant 13y agoUnable to hunt up a link right now, but literally every single ISP in the UK currently offers an opt-in filter for 'adult material'. Maybe the legislation should've just been to force more effective marketing of this.
- timthorn 13y agoMine doesn't.
- yk 13y agoEven a opt-in filter on an infrastructure level would imply DPI, and therefore would enable the ability for traffic analysis. And besides it creates a national 'watches porn' list.
- Qantourisc 13y agoIf the filter is opt-in, it's a "doesn't want to watch porn" list :)
- brokenparser 13y agoIn a free market economy, you could provide filtering as a service to those who want it. You get to use whatever setup of proxies and packet sniffers you please, so as long as they don't overstep the users mandate. Routing your other customers past these intermediaries would be a good idea, you can provide each customer the service they want.
- frozenport 13y agoI doubt this will have much effect on English youth as they also have the earliest self reported loss of virginity in the civilized world! See http://www.nuigalway.ie/hbsc/documents/godeau_2008_contraceptive_use_apam_1621_6673.pdf http://www.nuigalway.ie/hbsc/documents/godeau_2008_contracep...
- philip1209 13y agoHow are they enacting the filter? Would switching DNS from the cable company bypass it?
- fsniper 13y agoSame tactics everywhere, Mandatory internet Filters on every ISP as a precaution against pornography or child pornography. Same crippled laws as Turkey. Nobody is prevented reaching porn. But most of the time filters are used against so called "piracy", "extremist" political or "regional" views and these kinds of political agendas. Currently websites pro-evolution are struggling censorship.
- disintermediate 13y agoYep. Any time a politician talks about child porn or terrorism, you want to ask yourself, "what are they really trying to achieve here?" My guess is that the film lobby is trying to get the government to push the cost of preventing piracy onto Internet firmshere. The end user will pay for it and have a more restricted Internet.
- netcan 13y agoNobody is prevented reaching porn I think we need to stop thinking of censorship as an on off switch. Total prevention of information transfer to motivated parties is not possible in this day and age. What is possible is making content more marginal, less likely to be stumbled onto, etc.. That doesn't mean it's not powerful though. It's a different type of power. You will not prevent hardcore political dissidents from learning relevant news through internet censorship. You can however influence mainstream views. You can increase the publics exposures to one view and decrease exposure to another view. You can make certain positions feel safe, mainstream. This works particularly well within the context of a "tribe" you identify with. Censorship's influence on political opinions is similar to its influence on sexual morality. The influence is strongest near the mainstream, weakest at the extreme. If you have to call up and request access to porn, use special software, etc., it will feel like you are doing something slightly abnormal. Like walking into an adult cinema in the 70s.
- fsniper 13y agoopps big typo, religional not regional :)
- hoggle 13y agoThere is an awful lot of populist policies coming out of the UK for the last couple of years. Is the current state of the economy really that bad? Usually that's when politicians concentrate on less demanding, more emotional issues. Also, nice power-grab right there - cause you never know! "Sorry Angela, I can't open that WikiLeaks link you told me about." "Nigel, could it be that you forgot to let your porn filter be lifted?" This is bad and as always not only for UK citizens because politicians like to look at other countries for inspiration and validation. Clearly in Austria some pundits will applaud this.
- parasubvert 13y agoThe UK economy is in abysmal shape, in large part due to the failure of Cameron's austerity measures. But there can be no admission of error, just deflection: hey look, porn! More info: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/magazine/god-save-the-british-economy.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/magazine/god-save-the-brit...
- astrange 13y ago> challenging the eroticisation of violence against women and girls I wonder what the legal tests for that are here? Non-consensual fantasies are very popular among women who don't actually want to be victims of crimes. Will they ban romance novels? Then next they could go after the female fandoms for Loki from the Avengers movie, yandere characters, and those girls who write love letters to serial killers. Okay, maybe the last ones could use some help.
- yenoham 13y agoTL;DR - "Yea I guess, but..." Personally I don't have huge a problem with the default filtering; most households (with or without kids) don't have the knowledge to effectively enable filtering for all their devices - giving them 'protection' by default, and allowing the option to have full access is currently what most - maybe all - mobile phone operators do in the UK anyway in 3G/GSM connections. However, its important that the opt-out is incredibly straight forward - an online form for example (ideally during signup with a new provider) - no need for 'humiliating' phone calls where you have to explain why you want to see Super Army of Boob 2, for example. I do wonder what this will mean when accessing sites like The Pirate Bay - which often have boobs-a-plenty in the sidebar ads. Does it mean that people who visit sites that happen to have 'pornographic' ads ALSO need the filtering off. My bigger concern here is that these measures will very likely do nothing to stem child pornography (and I would hazard a guess sexual abuse in general); my reasoning is that I don't imagine your average paedophile just opens their vanilla browser in the morning and Googles for '[child related sex terms]' - surely this kind of activity hides behind systems such as Tor? One other thing that springs to mind; presumably, unless there is explicit legislation against this, ISPs can now sell your filter preferences for marketing purposes; perhaps putting you in some 'boxes' you wouldn't want to be in.
- brokenparser 13y agoTargeted ads would be the least of my worries. What concerns me is fascist governments deciding they get to filter whatever they're contempt with. Such censorship doesn't fit well with civil liberties, we know this from other countries which already have nation-wide filtering.
- yenoham 13y agoThis is why I believe the 'opt-in/out' switching should be as seemless and accessible as possible - if it is, then to my mind this is no closer to censorship than the film classification system. "By default the state assumes you don't want to see sexual content; if you do - thats fine by us" Note that I'm saying this is how I see it balancing with civil liberties - there is of course the chance that it DOESN'T work out like this in practice.
- iuguy 13y agoIf you want to try and do something about this, donate to the UK equivalent to the EFF, the Open Rights Group[1]. See their rather sane and well thought out views on this here[2] [1] - http://www.openrightsgroup.org/ http://www.openrightsgroup.org/ [2] - https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2013/cameron-demands-action-on-child-abuse-images https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2013/cameron-demands-ac...
- moocowduckquack 13y agoHow is this going to work if people https to sites outside the UK?
- icebraining 13y agoWhen you connect to an HTTPS site, your browser send the domain (hostname) unencrypted, so that the server can select the right certificate. If it doesn't/didn't, the server could only have one site per IP, so you could identify the site by doing a reverse DNS query. In any case, blocking access to an HTTPS site is not a significant technical problem.
- captn3m0 13y agoMore details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication
- bigiain 13y agoSure - blocking access to https://www.google.com https://www.google.com is not a significant tech problem. I somehow don't think they're planning on that though. Blocking access to https://www.google.com/?q=nasty+goat+sex https://www.google.com/?q=nasty+goat+sex while not blocking access to https://www.google.com/?q=how+to+vote+conservative+in+the+UK https://www.google.com/?q=how+to+vote+conservative+in+the+UK requires some technical chops that while not impossible, would put the UK right up there with enlightened democracies such as China, Iran, and Egypt in terms of interfering with their citizens internet use. I eagerly await the spectacular demonstration of incompetence and misunderstanding of basic internet operation that'll be the fallout of this - perhaps it'll make my local government's own similar mistakes seem less obvious and stupid: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/how-asics-attempt-to-block-one-website-took-down-250000-20130605-2np6v.html http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/how-asics-a...
- marshray 13y agoIt is not possible for anyone to block access to https://www.google.com/?q=specific+thing https://www.google.com/?q=specific+thing over a long period of time without either custom modifications to every affected client or help from Google itself. Google's long rocky experience with China proves exactly that.
- bulatb 13y ago> The possession of "extreme pornography", which includes scenes of simulated rape, is to be outlawed. Certain scenes in Game of Thrones might trip this rule. More interestingly, the show is partly filmed in the UK. I guess Martin, Benioff, and Weiss are all a bunch of criminals. But all those scenes of people stabbing, slashing, and killing each other with all kinds of blades are not a major THREAT TO CHILDREN in a country with a knife-crime problem.
- SG- 13y agoIt seems it would be better to have an opt-in list instead of forcing everyone into it by default and making a list of those that didn't want it.
- ixacto 13y agoHow about he does something productive and bans 50 shades of grey.
- cinquemb 13y ago> All police forces will work with a single secure database of illegal images of children to help "close the net on paedophiles". Let me guess, David Cameron is going to appoint himself to head some special committee to dole out who gets to access to said database… This is going go down well in history…
- muyuu 13y agoThis stinks. I don't want a great firewall of Britain filtering my access to the net China-style, site by site. We let this trend advance and they'll be whitelisting in no time. And when you complain about the extreme surveillance you will be branded a paedophile and a rapist.
- harrytuttle 13y agoConsidering my mobile ISP (GiffGaff) thinks that the ThinkPad wiki is pornographic, I genuinely can say all this is going to do is break the internet. The last thing we need is a broken Internet here. The economy is fucked enough already. Add to that the whole is censorship right debate (it's not unless it's opt-in), the pre-crime list this generates and we're right into blatant fascism. Where do we even start at fixing all this? I think we're helpless.
- pja 13y agoYou can turn off the mobile filtering. IIRC you have to give them some form of ID that demonstrates that you're over 18. My memory says driving license number, but it could be wrong. Yes, the mobile filtering in the UK is completely useless and blocks many, many sites that having nothing whatsoever to do with porn in any form, and probably fails to block the majority of the porn on the internet but that's where we are.
- harrytuttle 13y agoyes I know. I have turned it off. It requires either a driving license number or credit card number. It didn't however happen for nearly a month after I made the selection so perhaps I'm now logged as a potential sex offender somewhere...
- peterkelly 13y agoTo be fair, anyone that finds ThinkPads attractive is pretty twisted.
- whatusername 13y agoCome on. We all know the ThinkPad wiki is full of Pornographic terms: http://xkcd.com/243/ http://xkcd.com/243/
- fauigerzigerk 13y agoIt's amazing how politicians keep conflating these 4 things: (a) Voluntary acts between adults (b) Fantasy (c) Preventing the use of porn by adolescents (d) Protecting children (and others) from horrific crimes In my view, the reason for that "mix up" is simply old fashioned prudery and religious fanaticism. (d) is the only thing that governments should care about.
- scrrr 13y agoMeh, they don't confuse these things. I suppose this is only a bullshit proposal to distract from something else. Online spying on their citizens, crappy economy or whatever. For as long as there's politicians "protect the children" will always be B.S.. As if Cameron cared..
- mcantelon 13y agoGood way to be able to implement "D-notices" on the web. Sigh.
- beedogs 13y agoIt's almost as if the US and the UK are trying to one-up each other in the race to fully implement a fascist police-state. Seems like the UK has just taken the lead.
- toyg 13y agoThe fact that they're bringing it up now, while half the country is on holiday and the land is in the grips of the best weather for almost a decade, is worrying. It means they might actually be serious about it. And serious they might be indeed, considering they need some cheap win after years of economic mismanagement. The economy keeps stalling and the 2015 General Election is getting closer; considering bureaucratic timescales, if you want anything to actually be done by then, you need to start now. Sigh. I guess it'll be a win for Swedish VPN providers.
- aunty_helen 13y agoThis would be a good segue into blocking anonymising proxies as well. For the kids of course.
- marshray 13y agoGood luck with that. Not even Pakistan was able to get away with blocking VPNs, and VPN protocols make absolutely no attempt at being difficult to block.
- bruceboughton 13y agoThe one hope in all of this is the inability of ISPs to filter accurately, especially with innocuous false positives. A lot of mobile providers in the UK already have opt-out adult filters on their 3G services. They frequently block things such as websites about bars & pubs. If the filters are this poor and the blocked page banner tells you how to, a large percentage of people will opt out making this an ineffective "watches porn list".
- shimfish 13y agoMy Israeli ISP has a default porn filter. I had to call and cancel it because the proxy broke svn. No, honestly, it did.
- andy_ppp 13y agoSubversion... I was working for Essex county council years ago and their filter managed to break access to their own website for some users (Essex has the word sex in it). Power and control, carry on.
- will_asouka 13y ago> "I have a very clear message for Google, Bing, Yahoo and the rest. You have a duty to act on this – and it is a moral duty. If there are technical obstacles to acting on [search engines], don't just stand by and say nothing can be done; use your great brains to help overcome them. >"You're the people who have worked out how to map almost every inch of the Earth from space; who have developed algorithms that make sense of vast quantities of information. Set your greatest brains to work on this. You are not separate from our society, you are part of our society, and you must play a responsible role in it." Yeah, come on clever technical people. Get it sorted. We've decided you need to uninvent nuclear weapons as well please. Immediately. What embarrassing ignorance from a major public figure.
- disintermediate 13y agoIf the MPAA wants software to protect its outdated business model, it ought to pay for it itself, not lobby the gov to threaten tech firms. This is about developing filters to prevent piracy. You'll see.
- tomjen3 13y agoNot only that but to have a politician lecture others on morality and duty. Such a hypocrit.
- will_asouka 13y agoIt's like he's a child asking Mummy and Daddy to bring his dead hamster back to life.
- joshuak 13y agoThis is, stupidly, in direct opposition to the trend towards a popular understanding of "power exchange" relationships. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/books/fifty-shades-of-grey-s-and-m-cinderella.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/books/fifty-shades-of-grey... (not even a new idea) http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/493829.SM_101 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/493829.SM_101 Dear Mr. Cameron, you just saw how the gay marriage issue went and you where quick to jump on board. You really want to be on the wrong side of this issue? Beware the Red Menace--er I mean child pornography (insert fear of the moment mongering here).
- marshray 13y agoI commend David Cameron and his party for doing more than anyone else this week in promoting privacy-preserving technologies such as Tor, VPNs, HTTPS, etc.
- bencollier49 13y agoOh but all they're ever used for is circumventing the paedophile-filter. You'll need a license for that VPN, young man.
- noptic 13y agoBest get one of those: http://www.streetshirts.co.uk/sites/streetshirts.co.uk/content/fb.aspx?designkey=PFC[4Ve969n6eJwFgmK1895F11F0canNQ6] http://www.streetshirts.co.uk/sites/streetshirts.co.uk/conte... Disclaimer: No I do not get money for this.
- mixxer 13y agoI can't wait until David Cameron learns that you can anonymously buy drugs on the Internet and have them shipped directly to your house.
- rythie 13y agoI wonder if this will actually be able filter SSL sites. Even if it can, it's not going protect from people using Tor or VPNs.
- marshray 13y agoIt will likely only be able to block SSL by IP address, maaybe by looking at DNS names.
- goggles99 13y agoYeah, porn should be at the fingertips of every man woman and child. Porn leads to healthy lifestyles and healthy sex lives, cultures and communities. Just look at life before porn existed. Never any healthy societies or sexual relationships then - they did not even exist. What harm could porn possibly cause anyone? Putting into someones mind a fantasy of how sex really can and should be? How could that ever cause any future sexual relationship to suffer in any way? How could putting sexual assault video or images into any 10 year old's mind - images that they will never come out, how could that ever cause any potential problems with their natural sexual development? Inconceivable. People in a truly free country should be able to get their free porn on YouTube whilst buying their methamphetamine (legally) outside (or even inside) of the local welfare office. Now that it the country that I want to live in...
- eikenberry 13y ago> Just look at life before porn existed. There were pornographic cave drawings.
- goggles99 13y agoPlease don't compare 1080p Dolby digital Pan and zoom, multi camera 3d porn to a still of a stick figure drawn on a cave wall by the light of a weak flame. (Okay I am being a bit dramatic but really...)
- icebraining 13y agoYou've really burned that strawman to the ground, well done. I wonder what you'd say when the list gets leaked and your name is there by mistake. Can't happen, right? It's not like the UK government ever leaked private info[1]. Maybe the moral busybodies will press to take your kids from you. [1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2000/jun/25/futureofthenhs.health http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2000/jun/25/futureofthenhs...
- Cakez0r 13y agoYeah, facebook should be at the fingertips of every man woman and child. Facebook leads to healthy social lifestyles and friendships, cultures and communities. Just look at life before facebook existed. Never any healthy societies or social relationships then - they did not even exist. What harm could facebook possibly cause anyone? Putting into someone's mind a fantasy of how easy socialising really can and should be? How could that ever cause any future social relationship to suffer in any way? How could allowing a child to interact with somebody who could be a paedophile cause any potential problems with their natural sexual or social development? Inconceivable. People in a truly free country should be able to sit at home and speak to people on facebook without ever speaking to people face to face. Now that is a country I want to live in...
- lotsofcows 13y agoWeasel generates easy headlines without doing anything useful. FTFY.
- Gonzih 13y agoSweet, list of people interested in pornography. And that information will be stored inside government infrastructure. Leaks are coming, public shaming is coming.
- mdda 13y agoIdea : Create a 'pictures of cats' site, and voluntarily put it on the ISPs' 'must be blocked' list. Then, people that want uncensored internet access can simply state that they liked to get to the innocuous cat pictures site - and that porn access wasn't part of their opt-in reasoning. Minimal-plausible deniability... Of course, if someone is attacking this plausible deniability thing, then the question is "What do you gain from knowing I dislike censorship?".
- Mordor 13y agoYou know it's time for an election when politicians start talking about morals. When will they ever learn?
- confluence 13y agoI'm consistently astounded at England's ability in the last couple of decades to move towards the fictional UK societies we see in 1984 and V for Vendetta. It's almost like the people have come to the exact opposite conclusion that the authors were trying to impress upon their audiences. > "Wow, censorship, totalitarianism and mass surveillance are great ideas. We really should implement them." Secondly, it is impossible to filter information within a society that doesn't have North Korea like tendencies. As soon as this filter goes up, people will just rent servers overseas, and get their internet via encrypted lines that aren't subject to censorship. Banning porn is like trying ban alcohol. Everyone knows that it's a vice, everyone still does it (isn't 20% of global internet bandwidth porn?), and banning it just puts money into the hands of organized crime. Thirdly, won't a bunch of mainstream award-winning films that come out every single year become illegal under this act? Games too for that matter. Say good bye to crime shows and violent film in the UK. Finally, this is just one step away the Great Firewall of China. The argument that we need to protect children from the "corrosive" aspects of society might expand to other political parties, or ideas that aren't in the interests of those already in power. The thing with censorship is that as soon as a you do a little, it's funny how quickly that becomes a lot. You just have to think of the children now then don't you?
- Dewie 13y ago> Banning porn is like trying ban alcohol. Everyone knows that it's a vice, Really? That's just an undisputed fact?
- foobarbazqux 13y agoSome people don't know that it's a vice, because they're in denial. Have fun guessing about the tone of this message.
- Dewie 13y agoOK, so I guess it's a vice then. Good that some random person on the Internet was able to set that straight for me by just asserting it with nothing to back it up.
- jpswade 13y agoThis is because it's very difficult to argue with "think of the children". However, when we were kids, we traded pornography on floppy disks, so this solves nothing.
- alexchamberlain 13y agoSo, what stops a technically literate teenage boy from opening an encrypted VPN connection to a VM and tunneling traffic through that?
- pisarzp 13y agoNothing. Most probably you won't even need VPN. Some time ago all UK ISPs blocked pirate bay. Next day hundreds of pirate bay proxies appeared. This law is just another propaganda... On another note, some mobile providers in UK (O2 for instance) already block adult content by default, and you need to prove to them that you are 18 and above to have filter removed.
- 013 13y agoIf that VM is in the same house hold, there would be little point.
- DoubleMalt 13y agoActually that would make Zeffirelli's production of "The Taming of the Shrew" borderline illegal. Along with many other respected works of art and culture. The Anglo Saxon penchant for pruderish grandstanding combined with the British desire for an overbearing nanny state is a truly disturbing combination. Unfortunately there are a lot of sheep on the British isles (as everywhere)
- andyhmltn 13y agoWhy are people so afraid of pornography? A healthy society is one that promotes sex. Not one that censors its citizens for 'the children.' Don't get me wrong: People that look at children and the like should be caught and prosecuted. But really, the way to go about that isn't to ban ALL of pornography. Are we to ban butter knifes incase someone goes on a rampage with one? No, we identify the issues that cause someone to do that and go after them. I don't see the point in spending millions of pounds blocking search engines when those millions could be spent on the core issue. If someone wants to look at illegal illicit images, I can guarantee you the majority aren't going to search for it on google using their home internet connection.
- rmc 13y agoThere are people who don't like sex. They don't think it's right for people to like sex, they think sex should only be used for procreation. I call them sex-orexics, like anarexics, they have a similar attitude towards sex that anarexics have towards food. It's just not healthy.
- andyhmltn 13y agoIndeed it's not. You often find that the people that have their sex life suppressed and made to feel disgusting are the ones with the weirdest bedroom habits.
- user24 13y ago> You often find that the people that have their sex life suppressed and made to feel disgusting are the ones with the weirdest bedroom habits. Now let's imagine Britain in 18 years time when today's babies are adults who've had their sexuality suppressed by this censorship.
- rmc 13y agoWell, yes there is some hypocracy with some ardent (say) anti-gay politicians who are caught with a rent boy. However there are some people who are anti-sex publicly and privately.
- goggles99 13y agoOK, here is the difference. I know, I know - censorship generally is bad. What will they (the government) consider "harmful" next? information right? political opinion, it's book burning, this is a slippery slope ETC. The aforementioned things do not have the consensus of psychologists and other professionals in the world agreeing that the content in question can cause psychological harm to a certain percent of society (particularly children). That is the difference. The legal guardians of those who know that the potential is higher that their children may be affected negatively by pornography should be able to have the ability to make it harder for them to access it. I see a lot of posts here talking about parents putting filtering software on their computer. Well, there is always easy ways around those. How many kids have iPhones today with unfettered internet access? how many kids use a public library? how many kids know computers better than their parents or grandparents and can get around any filtering software that may be installed on their home computer? I remember the uproar at the proposition that porn content be delivered over an .xxx domain. Why was there such an uproar? How was it censorship to classify content that could be dangerous to some? Are movie ratings censorship? Are 8 year old kids legally allowed to buy tickets to NC-17 movies? It seems like the precedent had already been set. It was all about money of course. The porn industry knows that the younger a person watches porn for the first time, the more likely they are to continue watching/purchasing porn indefinitely. The porn industry WANTS minors to view the porn. They do everything they possibly can to entice them at the earliest age possible. Does anyone think that the porn industry is high on the ethical and moral hill and would never take advantage of children to make more money? Why should anyone outside the home have the power to do this? Why do parents have such little power and so little and ineffective tools to limit their child's exposure to pornographic material? This is no more censorship than current laws requiring that porn mags be put on shelves a certain distance from the ground in retail stores so that 8 year old kids generally cannot reach them.
- andygates 13y agoIt's not (only) to keep them out of the hands of kids; it's to embarrass the pornhound into reaching for it in public. I had to activate grown-up mode on my giffgaff data (to buy swimmies, which were bogusly blocked by a bad filter). Even though I'm a sleazebag, I still felt a little squeamish asking for porn mode. ...now if that comes in on the monthly bills, "Data mode: Adult", then you have to explain it to your partner...
- netcan 13y agoThe news here is not the moral sentiments of the legislators. Porn (and sex generally) has been banned or restricted in pretty much every time and place. Think of TV. Different countries have different standards of what is allowable but the internet's median porn sites' contents would not be allowed anywhere near television. The news here is more subtle. What the internet is, was, how it works and how its changing. It no longer feels like an anarchy that no one can control. We can argue about the why and how but I don't think we can dispute that the internet is no longer unregulatable, anonymous anarchy. That is the news here. Governments, large corporations and other traditional power sources feel they can exercise influence and control over the internet. It's within their jurisdiction and physical capabilities.
- conradfr 13y agoI guess we would live in a wonderful world if there was no children and terrorists.
- ollysb 13y agoAccording to the guardian's article at [1] it appears the system will actually be opt-in. From a leaked letter sent from the Department of Education to the ISPs: "Without changing what you will be offering (ie active-choice +), the prime minister would like to be able to refer to your solutions [as] 'default-on'" active-choice+ is a set of filters that may be enabled on request. [1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/21/david-cameron-war-internet-porn http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/21/david-ca...
- InternalRun 13y agoI think that it is a online system where the box is ticked by default. This is his version of opt-in to porn.
- FellowTraveler 13y agoThis has nothing to do with porn. Porn is just a good justification for getting a "Great Firewall of China" system implemented in the UK.
- ciderpunx 13y agoIts going to be against the rules to look up offensive terms like, say, "child abuse imagery". Which presumably means that the legislation will have to use the term "child abuse imagery". Which means that it will be impossible to look up the legislation using a search engine. One has to wonder how we are expected to know whether or not we are complying with it given that we shan't be legally allowed to search for it.
- Fuxy 13y agoGreat another excuse to ban millions of sites under the disguise of protecting children from porn or catching child rapists. Let's talk about what this really is. It's just the governments way of telling us what porn we should watch and banning anything they think is "not normal". And if some legitimate sites get mixed up in this this filter we're suppose to believe it's an honest mistake right? Stay away from my porn Cameron or I'll fuck you up.
- waqasx 13y agoupvote if you think this is just a cover story to increase internet surveillance and put internet in government control. USA does it to protect itself from 'terroeists' we all know how well that turned out. but since theres going to be no public outrage over freedom to watch porn, this trickster will fool his public this way.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- aspensmonster 13y ago>Once those filters are installed, it should not be the case that technically literate children can just flick the filters off at the click of a mouse without anyone knowing. BAHAHAHA. Ouch. My sides.
- waqasx 13y agoupvote if you think this is just a cover story to increase internet surveillance and put internet in government control. USA does it to protect itself from 'terroeists' we all know how well that turned out. but since theres going to be no public outrage over freedom to watch porn, this trickster will fool his public this way.
- tragomaskhalos 13y agoAnything done in response to a campaign by the Daily Mail can only be a bad idea ...
- mtp0101 13y agoAs a kid, my parents tried using parental control software on my computer to block porn and other inappropriate content. This turned out to be helpful because it motivated me to learn how to exploit the software. I applaud Mr. Cameron's inadvertent efforts to enhance the computer skills of his nation's youth.
- vjvj 13y agoTrying to garner popularity because: a) This is something most people hate, and he is taking a stance they will sympathize with b) He singles out Google as needing to do more. Google has received a lot of bad press recently due to tax avoidance. Therefore, criticizing Google will go down well with a lot of people.
- ogwyther 13y agoThere is a more fundamental problem here than the law itself. People who fail to understand any aspect of the internet, should not be allowed to legislate against it in any way. It's madness.
- DanBC 13y agoIt's scary just how idiotic he sounds when talking about this. He did an interview with the BBC Radio Four programme "Woman's Hour". He sounds computer illiterate.
- bjoyx 13y agoTranslation: "I’m not making this speech because I want to moralise or scaremonger" -> "I’m making this speech because I want to moralise and scaremonger"
- ulrikrasmussen 13y agoWait, this just went through parliament without any problems? I may have lived under a rock, but this is the first time I ever hear about this. Is this just a proposition from the English government, or is the new legislation already accepted?
- desas 13y agoIt's not been through parliament. The last time more concrete details were leaked, No10 were pressuring the ISPs into voluntarily doing it. They've not yet released any details saying they're now passing legislation.
- ulrikrasmussen 13y agoAh, okay, thanks. That eases my mind a bit!
- summerdown2 13y ago> The possession of "extreme pornography", which includes scenes of simulated rape, is to be outlawed. Irreversible? The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo? Once Upon a Time in the West? A Clockwork Orange? Titus Andronicus? Remember when RIPA was only supposed to be for terrorism? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/7341179.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/7341179.stm
- MarkMc 13y agoIsn't this policy electoral suicide? Sure, there's a vocal minority who want to 'think of the children' and are backing Cameron's plan. But I'd imagine the vast majority of the population want to view pornography without putting their name on a smut-list. These people aren't going to form campaign groups but will be happy to express their view in the anonymous confines of a polling booth.
- beaker52 13y agoPeople may find these links interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisexualism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisexualism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_repression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_repression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libido_(Psychoanalysis) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libido_(Psychoanalysis) "It is this need to conform to society and control the libido that leads to tension and disturbance in the individual, prompting the use of ego defenses to dissipate the psychic energy of these unmet and mostly unconscious needs into other forms." Say... consuming material goods?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- eksith 13y agoWe should all applaud David Cameron for supporting small businesses. Escort services have been in the dump lately due to the proliferation of free/cheap filth; this will finally give much needed boost to the local economy. /sarc I'm wondering if a sizable number of the public is brave enough to get their names into the opt-in as a virtual "I am Spartacus" and two fingers to Cameron.
- TomGullen 13y agoHe does this for "moral" reasons yet recently vetoed the minimum alcohol price proposal: > “We do not yet have enough concrete evidence that its introduction would be effective in reducing harms associated with problem drinking, without penalising people who drink responsibly. Where's the "concrete evidence" for this new stuff? Not something anyone can challenge either without putting their reputation on the line.
- loceng 13y agoWrong for too many reasons - especially linking child pornography with pornography - the former actually being child abuse, and later being consenting adults.
- gordaco 13y agoIt's baffling how many times the "think of the children" excuse gets used to, actually, treat everyone as children. Won't somebody please think of the adults?
- summerdown2 13y agoA comment today on Nicky Cambell's bbc phone in: > I'm a social worker, and once this goes into force, I will know that any household where the kids have access to porn has come from a parent making a conscious choice to let it happen.
- moocowduckquack 13y agoIf they also buy the sun, or stuff like the technology wank-mag T3 ( https://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1436&bih=791&q=t3+image+cover&oq=t3+image+cover&gs_l=img.3...4395.10642.0.10808.14.14.0.0.0.0.166.1378.9j5.14.0.cqrwrth...0...1.1.21.img.QxTk1PkcTO8 https://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&so... ), presumably they are also equally complicit.
- JanneVee 13y ago>> If there are technical obstacles to acting on [search engines], don't just stand by and say nothing can be done; use your great brains to help overcome them. >> "You're the people who have worked out how to map almost every inch of the Earth from space; who have developed algorithms that make sense of vast quantities of information. Set your greatest brains to work on this. You are not separate from our society, you are part of our society, and you must play a responsible role in it." Do I read this right? So they don't care how expensive or hard the problem is to solve they just demand it to be solved. And even if the solution is bad or expensive, both customers and taxpayers must still pay to have it implemented. Got it.
- vfclists 13y agoThis law only shows the kind of filthy, dirty, sleazebags our politicians have become. The whole idea is to create a database of people who are happy to view porn on their internet connections. The concept is so outrageous that it simple boggles the mind. What kind grubby vote seeking laws are politicians going to come up with next?
- n0mad01 13y agoeverybody knows that this is just a first step toward filtering and censoring the net, blocking whatever benefits someone powerful ...
- merlincorey 13y agoJust curious... So depictions of violence against men are still going to be okay? And we think we've come so far with gender equality...
- lazyjones 13y agoWe've had similar attempts in several countries before, mostly argued for with the fight against child pornography. This has nothing to do with pornography, Cameron wants a censorship infrastructure so he can prevent access to sensitive "leaks" and other content that his regime might find dangerous. Just don't get dragged into a for/against pornography discussion, it's pointless in this context. Even if you're naive enough to believe Cameron is actually trying to censor pornography, ask yourself whether such an infrastructure can and consequently will be abused.
- hide_nowhere 13y agoAnd like usual, we'll find the public figures responsible for pushing such regulations on morality will be those most likely to be the biggest offenders. But this isn't about "protecting the children" from porn, is it? I'm on the wrong side of 40, and I've been online for 28 years. Professionally involved in the software and bitplumbing of "the web" for all of my adult life. I saw jwz's camo cube and montulli's fish tank with my own eyes, and years before that, wrote software alongside visionaries guided by the promise of building online communities and the freedom of information. It wasn't supposed to turn out like this. The people making these rules are incapable of building the surveillance apparatus without our involvement. Take this opportunity to look hard at what you're creating, and examine the motives of the people you're building it for.
- bittired 13y agoI think it is great that David Cameron is trying to protect his country. But, I think the implementation of anything that restricts the internet before content gets to the client will take things down a bad road, which is why similar efforts keep getting struck down in the U.S. When you give the power of restricting communication to the government or even to a contractor for the government, how will that not be abused? You may as well let them open every bit of mail and every parcel and check to see what you are wearing each morning to ensure it is appropriate.
- mcintyre1994 13y agoMr Cameron tells us that he's terrified of what his children can access online. You'd think with access to some of the UK's most intelligent brains he'd be able to master parental guidance of internet usage without legislating it. Isn't this just telling parents that the internet will suddenly be safe, a government sanctioned message to that effect is quite a bit stronger than your ISPs salesperson. Of course, the filter will either resemble China or have holes so assuming the latter any responsible parent will still want to monitor their children's usage. The effect of this law seems to be constrained to making David Cameron (and other not-very-technically-knowledgeable parents) feel that he's a responsible parent, but to be honest I'd rather taxpayers pay for a nanny for him than for this ridiculous law - cheaper and much more effective.
- lobe44 13y agoI think society as a whole is a bit too hard on pedophiles. Even rapists have an outlet to relieve their sexual frustration and can go to counseling without still being called a monster. Pedophilia is just like any other sexual orientation. It is not something you just turn off, pedophiles need counseling and ways to relieve their sexual frustration. Things like CG porn and Lolicon for example should be legal. It is just not realistic to tell pedophiles to just stop and then put them in prison for the rest of their lives when they act on their desires, they will most likely be stabbed because even among criminals pedophilia is the worst of the worst and you are more likely to be stabbed if you raped a 15 year old than a 16 year old. And this whole argument that watching fake rape porn will turn you into a rapist is bullshit. It is just like the argument that violent video games turn you into a violent person.