
All Internet porn will be blocked by default under UK government plan - gasull
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/world/all-internet-porn-will-be-blocked-to-protect-children-under-uk-government-plan/story-e6frfkui-1225973481287
======
soneil
It's not a "government plan". One MP raised the idea. And was quickly put
down.

"Devizes Tory MP Claire Perry raised the issue at a special Commons debate,
because as a mother-of-three she knew how difficult it was to keep youngsters
from seeing inappropriate material.

But Mr Vaizey made it clear ministers will not take any steps to force
internet service providers (ISPs) to tackle the problem.

He said: "We believe in an open, lightly regulated internet. The internet is
by and large a force for good, it is central to our lives and to our economy
and Government has to be wary about regulating or passing legislation."

The minister suggested it was for parents to take responsibility for what
their children see online, rather than the ISPs that make money from
pornography."

[http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/news/Request-net-porn-
refuse...](http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/news/Request-net-porn-refused-
MP/article-2936701-detail/article.html)

~~~
grav1tas
It may not be a government plan, but the article sure makes it sound like the
government is using the threat of legislation to force the ISPs to move. So
instead it's some kind of threat maneuver?

~~~
soneil
It was just a debate, and one that seemed fairly well-reasoned to me. A back-
bencher (represents a local constituency and nothing more) put the quest
forward, and was told "We believe in an open lightly regulated internet. [...]
Government have to be wary about regulating or passing legislation".

If you're interested, you can read the transcript verbatim, free of tabloid
scandal, at <http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2010-11-23c.235.0>

------
acangiano
What about sites that deal with violence or dangerous political ideas? Are we
going to censor them by default as well? What about violence in movies which
is probably far more damaging to children? Are we going to block that too on
the telly? Where do we draw the line?

On a practical note, I can only imagine how many arguments this new
legislation would lead to. Typical scenario: Husband openly or secretly wants
porn, wife doesn't.

~~~
lsd5you
I suppose you should define damaging. Presumably you're relating violence to
homicide and other violent crime. I can think of an equally plausible (and
equally unverified) analysis. Depicted violence is clearly fantasy and
generally bears no resemblance to reality (of life in the UK), whereas the
relationship with reality of the typically pretty appalling sexual behaviour
depicted in pornography is much more ambiguous (especially to young people)
and as such more deleterious to behaviour.

In any case movies (or films rather) in the UK are censored for violence on
the telly, and generally not shown before 9pm. Although the restrictions are
much laxer than previously.

Back to the original point, is depicted violence more damaging? Is that even
true, and how much do people value it? Is it something you want for your
children or more other people's children? At risk of demagogy, it might be
best to think about what people desire. Many people, perhaps most people,
fundamentally don't want their children to be exposed to large quantities of
pornography - just on the grounds of the potential for awkwardness - and
perhaps don't care so much about an unquantifiable increase in violence in
society.

~~~
pyre
Teens are currently _making their own porn_ and texting it to themselves. How
is censoring the internet supposed to change this? So now they can't get
access to porn on the internet, but they can get access to nude photos of the
girl in the next classroom. What have we really 'won' here?

~~~
lsd5you
Nothing you've written here contradicts what I wrote, because it is a matter
of degrees, which you completely fail to acknowledge in your view point.

A proportion of teenagers in some groups in some parts of society texting
privately amongst themselves. Nude, consensual photos are arguably 'better'
and more natural than typical pornography in any case and almost certainly
less extreme and with a natural progression as the participants get older. It
is (to me quite blatant) equivocation on your part to say, well A = B,
therefore what is the point.

The article mentioned that 1 in 3 children under the age of 10 have seen
pornography on the internet. Probably most of them will be fine, but its not
probably something they particularly would want (as children, or later as
adults) to have happened since there is plenty of time to lose one's
innocence.

Finally, what have we won? This is a completely destructive dismissive
attitude, again possibly characteristic of the highly partisan nature of
American politics. Introduce the scheme, tune it, see how it goes.

In light of the all of the above, it bemuses and somewhat disappoints me that
your opinion should be voted up. You can of course disagree, but, in my mind
at least, you have to be more nuissanced and acknowledging.

------
DjDarkman
This is disturbing, and I can't really imagine how they want the ISPs to pull
this off.

What counts as a porn site? Who will evaluate it? If I have a photo sharing
site and some douche uploads a picture of a naked lady, does that count?

I'm ok with the child protection and all that crap, that should be parent's
responsibility to begin with, but I think this is not the answer. They should
at least ask everyone about this.

I really feel this is heading towards internet censorship in the UK.

~~~
chubs
I'm all for child protection too. It can't be the parents responsibility
though, for purely pragmatic reasons - i mean are there really _any_ parents
in the world who are able to put a filter on their net connection their kids
can't get past? I'm 99% sure by the time i have a teen son, he'll be more tech
savvy than me... Now if they could do this in a way that's open and honest, to
allay concerns such as your point above about photo sharing sites. But i worry
that it'll be a black box, and people with legit sites will one day discover
that they've been blacklisted with no recourse.

~~~
te_platt
Parental protection means a lot more than a filter on the internet connection.
I know full well my kids can find a way to get what they really want to get
whether porn, drugs, or whatever. My wife even found candy hidden away in my
five year old's bed the other day (no candy after brushing teeth). Much more
important is instilling values and helping them understand the reasons behind
the rules. It is almost 100% the parents responsibility to do that.

------
angrycoder
The funny part is that kids will be the first ones to figure out how to bypass
this. Then daddy is going to have to go ask little Timmy how to turn on the
real internet whenever he wants to look at some bewbs

~~~
wlievens
Maybe this will lead to improved father-son bonding?

Or just lots of akwardness.

------
_flag
There are two very big assumptions being made here. One is that this is even
possible to do, and two that porn is harmful to children. I doubt either of
those are true.

~~~
pyre
I doubt that viewing _sex_ is harmful to children, but most porn is not in the
realm of reality. As long as children are able to realize that porn is not
reality, there should be no issue, but if children are introduced to sex
through pornography, then pornography becomes what they believe reality is.

(I should note that, though I am not in the UK, I do _not_ support this
action. "Nanny State" indeed.)

{edit=expanding} I think it's all about how children relate to others.
Violence definitely has an effect on children, but I think it may have less of
an effect on them than viewing pornography does. Why? (well, let me answer
that question that I brilliantly asked myself!) Because most of the elements
of the violence that you see (I'm not talking about sexual violence here) in
media are elements of relationships with other people that most children have
already experienced by the time that one would think that they are able to
view violent media. Basically they have experienced the reality of relating to
people in such a manner, and can easily distinguish the fantasy (e.g. getting
angry at someone, vs getting angry at them and then beating them with a
baseball bat).

On the other hand, pornography is all about relating to others sexually.
Children have no experience with this, so the viewing experience becomes not
just entertainment, but education, and I don't think that most porn has life
lessons in it that we want to teach children.

Note that this is a _very_ general argument. Even the word 'children' is
almost too general to mean anything. A high-schooler and a 3 year old are on
very different levels with respect to how they can handle these things.

------
RK
Wouldn't it be simpler to just ban children from using the internet? They
could just point those CCTV cameras at every computer to keep an eye out for
violators. Pretty straight forward actually.

</sarcasm>

------
pan69
If we're going to make legislation that way maybe we can make everyone a organ
donor unless you opt-out? And while where busy changing laws anyway, maybe
from now on if you're suspected of a crime you're guilty unless proven
innocent. There's to many criminals walking the streets who actually should be
in jail...

~~~
wisty
I'm a fan of opt-out organ donors. Unless you have strong feelings (possibly
religious beliefs), there's no reason to take it all with you.

Porn, on the other hand, has very few externalities.

~~~
muuh-gnu
> there's no reason to take it all with you

Theres no reason to force people to "donate" without bothering to talk to them
or their families even once about it. The only reason is to trick them into
donating by not telling them they'll be donating, knowing that a large part of
them wouldn't donate if they had a fair choice. I think many people _do_ have
strong feelings about their physical integrity and the physical integrity of
their loved ones, especially in the case of not even being asked.

A silent, deadhearted, mandatory opt-in would be for me a major reason to
immediately opt-out without any chance of reconsideration.

~~~
stoney
> Theres no reason to force people to "donate" without bothering to talk to
> them or their families even once about it

I would have said a shortage of donor organs would be a reason to force this?
Maybe not an acceptable reason to you, but still a fairly strong reason.

------
petercooper
I disagree with this but do agree that there's a problem to be seriously
_discussed_.

The Sunday Times ran a big and rather non-judgmental feature on "Generation
XXX" today. The stat quoted in the Commons was that 80% of 14-16 year old
children "frequently" use Internet pornography. They also interviewed some
various teenagers and discovered both that anal sex is now "normalized" (their
word, not mine) and almost everyone's shaving their "lady garden" (again,
their term) merely because that's what they're seeing in porn.

Without being judgmental about it myself, I find it rather amusing but I can
see why people are getting upset.

~~~
tomjen3
Personally I find it deeply disturbing that anybody has a problem with 14 year
olds watching sex. At that age they have already been told what it is and some
may have tried it, no doubt many more wish they had.

They shave their private parts? Horror, I say why it may grow back in a few
months or, god forbid, they may feel itching. If youre children attacks others
in the manner described in the article, it's not because of the pornography,
but because _you_ failed at being a parent. If you had any shame left you
would have killed you self, but it is no doubt easier to blame porn than for
once in your life taking responsibility for the monster you have created.

~~~
petercooper
The people whose strawman you're attacking aren't likely to be reading HN,
alas (it has "hacker" in the title!)

I suspect that the people getting in a moral outrage aren't doing so over
"vanilla" sex. The LSE study quoted in the Times' article (UK Children Go
Online, 2005) found that 31% of 9- to 19-year olds were using "violent or
gruesome material."

I haven't expressed any judgments here, nor can I get as excited about it as
you, but I contest it's not as simple as people who have a "problem with 14
year olds watching sex" - that's a strawman.

------
lsd5you
Probably a contraversial opinion here, but I think it is a good idea. Parents
are often behind their kids on this one, and the current status quo is
massively out of kilter with the state of, say, TV censorship - which people
are reasonably happy with.

As for the, this is the start of censorship debate... it's not groundless, but
I don't really buy it. If anything, 'letting' something like this through
could be considered appeasement, and become considered as the only grounds for
censorship. It works in other mediums, newspapers can be as critical of the
government as they want, but cannot be obscene.

~~~
FreeKill
Yeah, but who gets to decide what the cutoff for "porn" is? Any movie with a
naked person in it? What if it's just a bare ass? What if it's a painting or
sculpture?

Just like television ratings don't stop kids from watching violent tv, movie
ratings don't stop kids from watching certain movies, and video game ratings
certainly don't stop kids from violent/adult games, this would accomplish
nothing...

It all comes down to the parents. They need to be on top of what their kids
are doing online and the last thing we need is more useless censorship that
protects nothing.

~~~
lsd5you
_Yeah, but who gets to decide what the cutoff for "porn" is?_

Somebody, using consensual guidelines. You are perhaps mistaking the UK for
America. It isn't a battle between constitutional rights and puritanical
religous nuts. People are generally more moderate, and as such any introduced
change is likely to remain moderate. (Not that the UK hasn't got its own major
problems).

Many people rely on ratings for guidance, they make life a lot easier. For
games they do admittedly have less effect, but that is perhaps to do with
inertia in society, and the starting point of initial feelings towards games
as unrealistic (which in some cases is not so true any more).

If it won't accomplish anything then I don't really see what the objection is.
In reality it could well be quite effective. Obviously teenage boys of a
certain disposition will circumvent any controls, via private networking,
encrypted email attachments ... etc. This has always been true and people
aren't that bothered about it. What is more half the fun is in the act of
circumvention.

~~~
FreeKill
The opposition is that we shouldn't be treating people like they are incapable
of making reasonable decisions.

You say "If it won't accomplish anything then I don't really see what the
objection is." but that's like saying if you have nothing to hide, what's
wrong with installing CCTV cameras every 10 feet? The more your step on a
person's freedoms, the easier it becomes to do it more and more. You shouldn't
have to justify your desire to access pornography to the government or your
ISP (or any content that is perfectly legal for that matter) simply because
some parents can't watch over their children when it comes to computers.

------
OoTheNigerian
First they came for the porn industry...

------
sixtofour
Is porn illegal in the UK? I assume not.

Would a UK parent be arrested if their kid found a parent's porn magazine? I
assume/hope not.

Finally, where is the evidence/research that this change will have the desired
effect, or even that the current state harms kids?

~~~
petercooper
On your last point, a key report being cited around this story is "the
Witherspoon report":
[http://www.winst.org/family_marriage_and_democracy/social_co...](http://www.winst.org/family_marriage_and_democracy/social_costs_of_pornography/project.php)

Maybe it's just me, but there's something overly slick about the promotional
site for the report and its various media:
<http://www.socialcostsofpornography.org/>

------
callumjones
I wonder if will be easy to opt-out, imagine being old enough to view
pornography but then awkwardly asking your parents to enable the 'adult's
internet'.

------
meatsock
as someone who became interested in the topic when it was difficult or time-
consuming, i support making it slightly more difficult.

------
finemann
The poor guys at Torproject will suffer!

------
elblanco
good luck with that....seriously there's always page 3 girls

