
UK Considering Requiring a License to View Porn - bconway
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120507/02272218799/uk-govt-considering-requiring-porn-license-if-you-want-to-look-porn-online.shtml
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fredley
The Guardian sums up the problems, and the correct approach to porn/kids quite
well:

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/07/online-p...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/07/online-
porn-regulate-kids-not-net)

The problem here is that parents are unable or unwilling to regulate their
children's access to the internet.

Like most of the UK Government's attempts to regulate the internet, this 'porn
licensing' idea is ill-informed, expensive and ineffective.

~~~
helipad
Exactly.

Is there anything more likely to make a kid want to browse porn that finding
out not only is it taboo, it's a technical challenge too.

~~~
tomjen3
The pirate bay is banned by my ISP.

Now I don't actually use it, but I am still pissed of by the censorship.
Fortunately getting around the filter is extremely simple -- but there is a
part of me that almost wish it was more of a challenge.

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rmc
Slightly misleading headline. The UK government is considering all residential
internet connections to, by default, have an porn filter, and people can opt
out of it. They have been talking about this for months. Remember there was
some recent local elections in the UK which the current party didn't do well
in, so this is realpolitik.

Saying "licence" implies that a cop can come along and demand to see your
"porn licence", or that there'll be tests to get your "porn licence", or that
there'll be a governmental "porn licencing authority". All of these things are
ridiculous and not what anyone is considering.

~~~
drucken
It has the same basic mechanism as a license: you need to apply to have it and
it could be denied. Of course, technically, it could also be revoked too.

~~~
rmc
It lakes numerous important differences from (for example) a driving licence.
You do not have to do a test for your 'porn licence'. You do not have to pay
for a 'porn licence'. Your 'porn licence' cannot be taken away. No-one can
ever ask for to see your 'porn licence'. Porn website will not and cannot
check your 'porn licence'. etc.

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tomelders
<meta age-restiction="18+" region="uk">

I think introducing something like the optional meta tag above would be a more
productive measure. I don't believe that porn-creators want to peddle their
material to kids. Or at the very least, it's be easy to criticise them if they
failed to implement the meta tag.

It's worth a shot, before we start introducing the sort of bat shit crazy
stuff this article talks about.

~~~
reader5000
Yeah I'm sure those upstanding pornographers always have the kids at heart
first.

~~~
dsr_
What they usually have is a business model that includes reduction of legal
risk. If a minor change such as including specific tags or keywords can keep
them out of court, that change will be made.

~~~
reader5000
How many times have pornographers been brought to court for distributing to
minors? Getting minors addicted at a young age would be very important
strategically for the porn industry, ensuring both future customers and
cultural mainstreaming. Compare with the tobacco industry.

~~~
jlgreco
Substance addiction and physical attraction to other members of your species
are _wildly_ different topics. _(With rare exception,)_ physical attraction is
something you acquire during maturation through natural brain chemistry
changes induced internally.

Even if we reject that, you are still failing to take into account a very
important difference between tobacco distribution and online pornography
distribution: accurate age verification is _far_ easier in meatspace where
lies about your age have to have some semblance to reality.

In fact, the meatspace sale of pornography provides a nifty little
counterexample to your thesis: guess how fast a minor would get kicked out of
a sex shop. (answer: faster than you could possibly believe.)

~~~
reader5000
Pornography is a (digital) substance that induces comparable if not identical
neurological changes as traditional addictive substances such as nicotine. It
has already been established the internet generally is sufficient to induce
addiction-related neurological changes.

I don't disagree that it is easier to implement age-based restrictions in real
life versus online, but the fact remains that every single porn site
distributes to minors, with obvious benefits to the industry.

~~~
jlgreco
> _Pornography is a (digital) substance_

What a silly thing to say.

> _induces comparable if not identical neurological changes as traditional
> addictive substances such as nicotine_

Show me the peer reviewed studies. Nicotine is a drug which _alters_ brain
chemistry, pornography merely facilitates naturally occurring brain chemistry
phenomenons. It absolutely defies reason that these could be identical.

> _but the fact remains that every single porn site distributes to minors_

Already refuted bullshit.

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alex-g
I'm sure MPs will be happy to let us know whether they themselves have
obtained a porn license.

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arethuza
So this is a way of re-introducing the UK National Identity Card?

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mike-cardwell
My understanding is that this is already the case for mobile phone networks
here in the UK. I remember having to phone up my mobile phone provider
(T-Mobile, or maybe it was O2 at the time?) to ask them to remove the adult
content lock because it was incorrectly blocking access to some tech news site
I was trying to read. POS.

I don't know if this is government mandated or just interfering mobile
networks.

~~~
mattmanser
I'm with o2, never been blocked viewing anything.

Is there a possibility you're talking about the open wifi spots? The ones near
me are invariably slower than 3G so I've turned BTOpenZone off. Not that I
regularly view porn out and about, but I'd assume that I'd hit the block at
some point.

EDIT: There is one, bizarre, never knew that:

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2134659/Phone-
firms-...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2134659/Phone-firms-block-
porn-web-giants-Internet-providers-technology-install-opt-filters.html)

I obviously need to start viewing more porn sites out and about or something
to express my freedoms!

~~~
pja
O2 certainly had an adult filter on their 3G data by default in 2011[1]. It
was very annoying because it was so indiscriminate - anything that could be
used as a proxy was blocked (like Google Translate) for instance. Turning it
off required giving them your drivers licence number as I recall.

[1][http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-03/04/o2-mobile-
web...](http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-03/04/o2-mobile-web-
filtering)

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moylan
so unless there has been a giant leap in a.i. we'll need a licence to access a
site about scunthorpe?

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem>

~~~
tomelders
Buttbuttinate the french ambbuttador!

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reader5000
Widespread internet porn I think is an understudied sociological phenomenon.
In the West, it is easily available to both minors and adults alike.
Questions:

1\. Is porn addictive? There have been various recent studies pointing out
similarities in the brains of internet addicts with drug addicts, but little
focus specifically on porn to my knowledge. 2\. What are the sociological
effects of widespread regular porn use? I'm thinking in terms of motivation
levels, risk-taking behavior, and any other psychological effects (for example
as a positive effect some argue mass porn use explains the recent drop in rate
of sex offenses).

If porn is potentially the neurological equivalent of digital heroin, I think
it definitely deserves more discussion than it currently receives.

~~~
darklajid
I don't think it works this way.

The neurological equivalent of digital heroin is not free access to YouPorn.
The reward happens offline. And the lab rats you're looking at are enjoying
this 'give me pleasure' button forever, with society swinging like a pendulum
between (correct) ignorance and (crazy) ideas of imposed restrictions.

Seriously - when I was a teen I had no internet porn. But certainly equal
substitutes, ~just as readily available~. Maybe I couldn't really focus on
specifics like 'give me a threesome of the following composition of sex, race
and sexual preference, speaking in language x' - but that's a different kind
of problem I guess. More like 'I had plenty of heroin, but nowadays I can
order it online specifically from Redmond and add the fantasy that I shoot the
same stuff Bill buys' [1].

1: I've nothing against him and I highly doubt he has any experience with
(these sorts of) drugs.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
You have a valid point. Pornography is merely an aid in, er... sexually
fantasising. Without it you still have the same problem.

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senthilnayagam
dont tell me I need to pay entertainment tax for porn and sex

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ktizo
Considering you don't need a license to be in porn, does this mean that people
will be banned from viewing online footage that they star in unless they get
permission?

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rsanchez1
The bureaucracy required to actually enforce that license will be draconian at
the very least, and extremely costly.

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raverbashing
What to expect from a country that charges a TV license for blind people...

Edit: do you think I'm kidding? <http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/easy-read/EA15/>

"If you are registered blind or severely sight impaired you can get a TV
Licence for half of the usual cost."

~~~
corin_
For people outside the UK: a TV license is an opt-in for people who chose to
watch TV. Blind people aren't required to pay for a service they don't use,
they can chose to pay (at a discounted rate) if they wish to consume
(listening rather than watching) live television.

If blind people don't want to have TV on, they don't have to pay anything. If
they do then clearly they feel they are getting something out of it, so why
should they get it free unlike everybody else?

~~~
raverbashing
"If they do then clearly they feel they are getting something out of it, so
why should they get it free unlike everybody else?"

The TV is a communications device.

Sure, they can listen to the radio, but some things you get through tv that
you don't get on the radio.

This sounds like extreme pettiness by 'tv regulators' towards people with a
severe handicap.

~~~
corin_
Sorry I don't follow - why is it petty to charge people for listening to TV
content?

~~~
raverbashing
I don't know, I think it's absurd to charge for an unencrypted, public Over
The Air TV signal. Sure, it's an opt-in system, and it finances the BBC, etc.

I'm sure the concept of not paying is as strange as the concept of paying for
those who aren't accustomed to it.

But the incremental cost of each receptor is insignificant, so IMHO there
should be an incentive for blind people to have a television.

"TV is opt in" sure, so is the radio, so is internet. But realistically, very
few people don't have it.

Today, with internet, the importance of the television is significantly
diminished, but its communication power was important.

~~~
corin_
Oh I totally get the arguments against TV licensing, but that's a different
topic to whether, assuming it exists, blind people should have to pay for it.

On the overall topic, I'm very much in favour of it, but go find a speech
Stephen Fry gave about it (search "Briefings - Stephen Fry", sorry I'm not at
my PC) as he makes every argument I'd make, but better. Why did you compare it
to the internet which, while there is no license fee, is definitely not a
free-to-use service.

~~~
raverbashing
Great! I think this is the video you mentioned:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8evnEqOVEns>

Comparison with the internet was only because the internet is a communication
medium

