
David Cameron cracks down on online pornography - mariorz
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jul/22/david-cameron-crackdown-internet-pornography
======
conroy
> 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
> > 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"?

~~~
rodgerd
I 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.

~~~
yenoham
I'd forgotten all about Irreversable - I purchased the DVD, then later on sold
it on eBay... does this now mean I'm a 'user' and distributor?

We'll have to see for sure, but it seems to suggest that the legislation only
applies to videos that couldn't even get R18 (sex-shop only) rated - but I
would have thought possession of those was illegal anyway.

There are a ton of films, legally classified as 18 in the UK, that have scenes
that graphically depict simulated rape, torture, murder, and so on.

~~~
chii
i always maintain that the classification is merely suggestions. I would
propose that anything not classified should not be illegal to sell - just
illegal to sell to minors (ie., same as the 18+ classification).

------
Everlag
`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
In 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.

~~~
mr_spothawk
Now it's the duty of the people to pressure their government from making these
absurd tools for Fascism.

~~~
Everlag
The people will truly be able to be trusted with the ability to do their
democratic duty....

You know, when 20% of the population of Canada elects a Majority government
that can do whatever it wants for 4 years because of voter apathy, I'm wary of
the trust that should be placed in the people. But where the hell is it
supposed to go?!

------
bhickey
Meh.

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.

~~~
dclowd9901
Spitzer 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.

~~~
gojomo
Spitzer prosecuted people for both prostitution and the same kind of
'structuring' of large cash transactions that he himself did. He deserves his
place on the above 'moral crusaders who turned out to be hypocrites' list,
even if you happen to like some of his other crusades.

~~~
dclowd9901
Fair points, but on the flip side, it's one thing to prosecute because it's
your job, and another to persecute simply because it's your political ideology
or fundamental belief. For all we know, Spitzer felt like prostitution laws
were stupid, which really wouldn't make him a hypocrite at all.

~~~
jessaustin
Yeah sure, doing evil because it's your job to do evil is very normal, very
human. The practice still merits criticism.

------
fauigerzigerk
It'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
Meh, 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..

------
JDDunn9
Are 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.

~~~
lemming
Citation, please? Everything I've seen suggests that porn is pretty socially
debilitating, especially for the current generation which has grown up with
almost ubiquitous access to it (see for example
[http://www.internetsafety101.org/upload/file/Social%20Costs%...](http://www.internetsafety101.org/upload/file/Social%20Costs%20of%20Pornography%20Report.pdf)).
And that's not even the really nasty stuff.

~~~
nostromo
[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-
sunny-s...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-sunny-side-
of-smut)

> For most people, pornography use has no negative effects—and it may even
> deter sexual violence

------
harrytuttle
Considering 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
You 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
yes 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...

------
bulatb
> 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.

------
adamnemecek
[https://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

~~~
Sven7
Do you have kids?

~~~
gjm11
I have a young daughter and I live in the UK. I think this legislation is
bloody stupid.

Yes, some people might reasonably not want their children to run across
pornographic material on the internet. Here are some other things some people
might reasonably not want their children to run across on the internet: Anti-
religious material. Religious material. Depictions of violence. Any mention of
prejudice against racial minorities, women, etc. Websites offering do-my-
homework-for-me services. News about upsetting things like tens of thousands
of children starving to death every day in poor parts of Africa.

I hope it's clear that the internet would not be improved by having opt-out
filters for all those things. I think it's clear, in fact, that the internet
would not be improved by having opt-out filters for _any_ of those things.

Yes, I hope my daughter will learn about sex in better ways than by stumbling
across porn on the internet. And I hope she'll learn about those other things
in better ways than by stumbling across them on the internet, too. It is not
the government's, or my ISP's, job to make that happen by making things harder
to find online; it probably won't work, and it will probably break other
things (as such filters always have in the past), and it's the wrong way to
solve the "problem" anyway.

And I also hope that if in the fullness of time our daughter _wants_ to find
porn on the internet, she will be able to, and she won't be (or feel) obliged
to disclose the fact to her parents, and doing so without telling us won't
require her to seek out dubious illegal channels which are likely to be full
of stuff much "worse" than she'd easily have found without all the censorship.

~~~
user24
Great comment.

> won't require her to seek out dubious illegal channels which are likely to
> be full of stuff much "worse" than she'd easily have found without all the
> censorship.

This is one of my biggest fears.

As an analogy (and a true story); they banned selling knives on ebay[1]. Now I
have to go to specialist knife-selling websites to buy my knives (I am a
collector). Those websites have a much better range and promote knives much
better than ebay did.

[1]
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7879701.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7879701.stm)

~~~
vidarh
"Hardcore" porn (anything with penetration or erect penises) was illegal in
Norway when I was a child. As a result my generations source of porn was
illegal imports sold in shady shops which, because they were already breaking
the law, had few reasons to avoid selling anything that was available from
their sources.

So if you wanted just "mainstream" porn, you'd get that from places with
prominent displays of all kinds of fetishes many of us would never have even
heard of otherwise.

Then came the BBS's, and the same was the case - normal mainstream stuff in
between every fetish imaginable.

Now I don't necessarily see that as a problem, but it does mean that by adding
these kind of restrictions, they are effectively losing all control. They are
also likely to massively hasten the move towards technologies to better
anonymous, encrypted browsing.

If anything drives "darknets" and systems like Tor to the next level, it will
be more extensive porn filtering even more so than piracy, _especially_
because of the amount of money in porn that is legally manufactured and
distributed, but that is or may become illegal in large potential markets.

------
hoggle
There 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
The 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-
brit...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/magazine/god-save-the-british-
economy.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

------
fsniper
Same 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.

~~~
netcan
_Nobody 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.

------
andyhmltn
Why 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
There 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
Indeed 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
> 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.

------
shanelja
This 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_
No, this is just a demonstration that it's really the Daily Mail that runs the
UK.

------
will_asouka
> "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.

~~~
tomjen3
Not only that but to have a politician lecture others on morality and duty.
Such a hypocrit.

------
iuguy
If 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-
ac...](https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2013/cameron-demands-action-on-
child-abuse-images)

------
foobarbazqux
Personally 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.

~~~
yk
Even 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.

~~~
brokenparser
In 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.

~~~
yk
That works as long as the ISP faithfully reports the routing rules they use
for each user, which is rather hard to verify. ( And it would probably illegal
for the ISP to tell their customers, if the government wants to use the DPI
equipment.)

------
astrange
> 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.

------
jackschultz
First 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.

~~~
t0dd
Yep. 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
> 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.

------
mariorz
Submited title was: "Every household in England obliged to declare whether
they want to access porn".

~~~
jmspring
But it was corrected to actual article title. Might be better to submit with
comment than wrong title.

~~~
bollockitis
Article 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.

------
muyuu
This 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.

------
netcan
The 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.

------
yenoham
TL;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
Targeted 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
This 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.

~~~
summerdown2
I'm not sure this is as simple as an opt in/out switch for the user. It will
also require the construction of a way of rating sites as in or out, which
will lead to the government being able to choose sites to fall one side of the
filter or the other.

It begins with porn, of course, but it's essentially creating the apparatus to
censor at will.

------
confluence
I'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
> Banning porn is like trying ban alcohol. Everyone knows that it's a vice,

Really? That's just an undisputed fact?

~~~
foobarbazqux
Some people don't know that it's a vice, because they're in denial. Have fun
guessing about the tone of this message.

~~~
Dewie
OK, 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.

~~~
foobarbazqux
Glad that you totally got the tone of my message totally right. Maybe I didn't
need to include the hint!

~~~
Dewie
How the hell am I supposed to guess the sarcasm or lack thereof behind written
form? Your 'good luck trying to guess the tone of this message' could be
interpreted as the former sentence being sarcastic, or be interpreted as pure
condescension for me "not knowing better" or being coy.

~~~
foobarbazqux
Yeah, I set a bit of a trap for you. That was kind of mean. Rest assured that
if we were having this conversation in person everybody would be laughing.

------
mtp0101
As 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.

------
bollockitis
In other news, VPN usage in the UK skyrockets. Strict measures to be taken to
reduce sexcrime.

~~~
MWil
Rule 34 David Cameron.

~~~
venomsnake
I 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.

------
shimfish
My 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
Subversion... 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.

------
toyg
The 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.

------
cinquemb
> _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…

------
frozenport
I 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_contracep...](http://www.nuigalway.ie/hbsc/documents/godeau_2008_contraceptive_use_apam_1621_6673.pdf)

------
vincie
Should 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.

------
jpswade
This 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.

------
Gonzih
Sweet, list of people interested in pornography. And that information will be
stored inside government infrastructure. Leaks are coming, public shaming is
coming.

~~~
mdda
Idea : 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?".

------
Fuxy
Great 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.

------
MarkMc
Isn'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.

------
ciderpunx
Its 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.

------
philip1209
How are they enacting the filter? Would switching DNS from the cable company
bypass it?

------
eksith
We 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.

------
summerdown2
> 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)

------
lobe44
I 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.

------
mcintyre1994
Mr 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.

------
rayj
How about he does something productive and bans 50 shades of grey.

------
moocowduckquack
How is this going to work if people https to sites outside the UK?

~~~
icebraining
When 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.

~~~
bigiain
Sure - 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-a...](http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/how-asics-
attempt-to-block-one-website-took-down-250000-20130605-2np6v.html)

~~~
marshray
It 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.

~~~
bigiain
Not at a 100% level, but we know the Chinese government (and I suspect the UK
government) are capable of deploying faked google.com SSL certs which'll pass
unnoticed by just about anyone who's not using a certificate-pinning version
of Chrome. And China(/Iran/Egypt) clearly has national-border level firewalls
capable of using such faked SSL certs to MITM and deep packet inspect entire
countries worth of internet traffic on the fly.

~~~
marshray
Yes, but they are not capable of getting away with it for any length of time.

------
hide_nowhere
And 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.

------
vjvj
Trying 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.

------
JanneVee
>> 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.

------
joshuak
This 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...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/books/fifty-shades-of-grey-s-and-m-
cinderella.html) (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).

------
hkmurakami
This honestly makes more sense as an opt out for parents to utilize for their
children...

------
summerdown2
A 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
If 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&so...](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)
), presumably they are also equally complicit.

------
conradfr
I guess we would live in a wonderful world if there was no children and
terrorists.

------
lazyjones
We'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.

------
ollysb
According 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-
ca...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/21/david-cameron-war-
internet-porn)

~~~
InternalRun
I think that it is a online system where the box is ticked by default. This is
his version of opt-in to porn.

------
bittired
I 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.

------
ogwyther
There 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.

------
aspensmonster
>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.

------
bruceboughton
The 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".

------
marshray
I 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
Oh but all they're ever used for is circumventing the paedophile-filter.
You'll need a license for that VPN, young man.

------
beedogs
It'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.

------
SG-
It 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.

------
TomGullen
He 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.

------
mixxer
I can't wait until David Cameron learns that you can anonymously buy drugs on
the Internet and have them shipped directly to your house.

------
DoubleMalt
Actually 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)

------
vfclists
This 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?

------
noptic
Best get one of those:
[http://www.streetshirts.co.uk/sites/streetshirts.co.uk/conte...](http://www.streetshirts.co.uk/sites/streetshirts.co.uk/content/fb.aspx?designkey=PFC\[4Ve969n6eJwFgmK1895F11F0canNQ6\])

Disclaimer: No I do not get money for this.

------
aunty_helen
This would be a good segue into blocking anonymising proxies as well. For the
kids of course.

~~~
marshray
Good 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.

------
ulrikrasmussen
Wait, 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
It'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
Ah, okay, thanks. That eases my mind a bit!

------
gordaco
It'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?

------
bjoyx
Translation: "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"

------
DanBC
It'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.

------
loceng
Wrong for too many reasons - especially linking child pornography with
pornography - the former actually being child abuse, and later being
consenting adults.

------
alexchamberlain
So, what stops a technically literate teenage boy from opening an encrypted
VPN connection to a VM and tunneling traffic through that?

~~~
pisarzp
Nothing. 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.

------
rythie
I 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
It will likely only be able to block SSL by IP address, maaybe by looking at
DNS names.

------
FellowTraveler
This has nothing to do with porn.

Porn is just a good justification for getting a "Great Firewall of China"
system implemented in the UK.

------
waqasx
upvote 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.

------
merlincorey
Just curious... So depictions of violence against men are still going to be
okay?

And we think we've come so far with gender equality...

------
Mordor
You know it's time for an election when politicians start talking about
morals. When will they ever learn?

------
tragomaskhalos
Anything done in response to a campaign by the Daily Mail can only be a bad
idea ...

------
mcantelon
Good way to be able to implement "D-notices" on the web. Sigh.

------
lotsofcows
Weasel generates easy headlines without doing anything useful. FTFY.

------
goggles99
Yeah, 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
> Just look at life before porn existed.

There were pornographic cave drawings.

~~~
goggles99
Please 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...)

------
goggles99
OK, 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
It'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...

~~~
goggles99
So explain it to your partner then. Big deal. If your partner does not trust
you than you have larger issues. If you look at porn and do not tell your
partner than they have reason to not trust you.

This sounds like a lot of people don't want to come clean about viewing porn -
yet they sing it's praises. Prevents rapes, promotes healthy sexuality, ETC.
BS.

