

Wikipedia founder brands PM's porn filters plan 'ridiculous' - Libertatea
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23558865

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WizzleKake
Of course it's ridiculous. Why does it take Jimmy Fucking Wales saying this
for BBC to run a story saying that?

Either David Cameron is an abject moron or he (and his cronies) don't
understand this whole internet thing. It's probably the latter. AFAIK,
everyone who didn't grow up online doesn't seem to "get" it.

~~~
gaius
No, I'm afraid _you_ don't understand it. What Cameron proposes is perfectly
do-able if you have a) billions of pounds b) physical access to the submarine
cables and c) buy your computing power by the acre. GCHQ ticks all those
boxes. The people saying "haha I'll use a VPN" are the ones who don't "get"
it.

~~~
jwdunne
The thing I take issue with is that the government DOESN'T have billions of
pounds. This is a government of austerity that consistently derides the
previous government of stupid spending. They take any opportunity of insulting
Labour about how their bad spending habits have ruined our economy yet then
want to fund something as stupid as this?

Kids will see porno, whether its blocked of not. It's the same as people being
able to download torrents after the pirate bay was blocked or making drugs
illegal doesn't stop people getting drugs.

This is a deeper issue that can't be solved by closing off parts of the
Internet. We need to improve society in general, not make it harder for the
people who want to seek this sort of thing out.

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tankenmate
I don't believe Cameron is proposing the Govt to foot the bill and/or to host
the equipment; that will be foisted upon ISPs. Having said that _some
influential_ companies and government departments will benefit from said
structure.

~~~
jwdunne
Thanks for clarifying that, this makes it easier to stomach.

There will still be a large expenditure on the side of the government, as is
with most things in government. Such e penditure would be best spend
influencing innovation and business, not requiring a sector to implement
mandatory technology which probably has large costs.

It seems like the consumer will really foot the bill here. It seems a lot of
decisions are made which cause the average joe to spend less, which isn't
great for the economy.

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diminoten
This is my problem with the vitriolic nature of politics in general - when a
truly, profoundly stupefying idea comes along, we've run out of proper words
we can use to aptly convey how utterly incomprehensible and devoid of
rationality the idea is.

Our outrage can be reasonably seen as just another political discussion when
in fact it's composed of literal and unbridled flabergastery the likes of
which have not thusfar been witnessed by mankind.

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corin_
> _" Additionally when we use cases of a paedophile who's been addicted to
> child porn videos online, you realise all that Cameron's rules would require
> him to do is opt in and say, 'Yes, I would like porn please'."_

Am I missing something? Or have people genuinely made the argument that this
filter will help prevent _child_ pornography? Surely the existing laws already
block these sites?

~~~
davidgerard
They've genuinely made the argument that that justifies this, yes. No, they
can't work computers, but neither can the people whose votes they hope this
will net.

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justincormack
Jimmy did once own a porn site of course, which they might mention. Not that I
disagree with him.

~~~
cupcake-unicorn
Yeah, I was just going to add the very same thing, since it doesn't exactly
make him the most neutral and unbiased person to talk about the subject. I
think he's even tried to get his own Wiki page edited to remove or tone down
that fact.

But like pretty much everyone in comments, yes, of course it's a stupid idea.
I'm not sure why Jimmy is somehow an "authority" on this though.

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jasonjei
In truth, some of the content on Wikipedia is sensitive and would brand the
site in more than one of the blocked categories. While not strictly
pornographic, Wikipedia does get quite explicit, including entries and
descriptions for things like fellatio, etc.

~~~
corin_
Fingers crossed they also ban dictionaries so that children can't find any
words like "fellatio" in them either.

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geekam
It will be very interesting to see the criteria for a site to be labeled as
porn. Is [http://500px.com](http://500px.com) going to be deemed a porn site
because it has a "nude" section?

~~~
cs02rm0
I suspect there will be different criteria at each ISP, kept secret in the
name of protecting children without anyone taking responsibly for that list
when it inevitably gets abused.

Secret until leaked that is.

