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It isn't illegal in the US (unless it falls under obscenity laws, in which case it would be illegal to publish).

It is illegal to possess in the UK, as of January this year, if it falls under one of their rather vague definitions that they made up in the law (see http://www.backlash-uk.org.uk/ , http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/24/extreme_pron_law_live/ ).

When the UK Government first started thinking "Something Must Be Done" (because some murderer happened to have previously looked at a website featuring porn that the murder victim's mother didn't like), their first response was to try to get the sites shut down. That didn't work, because the sites were legally hosted in places like the US (well, actually, some were also hosted legally in the UK). So instead they decided to criminalise UK citizens themselves for just looking at naughty pictures (it even applies to entirely private personal pics).

Don't get me wrong, I don't find that stuff appealing, but I don't find gay sex appealing either. That doesn't mean it's wrong -- it's just not my thing.

Exactly. If only more people could get this. With this law, it was depressing to see how many people - from lobbyists to politicians - giving the "But it's disgusting" response as their justification.

I agree. And I saw this happen in the UK. According to my Government, "violent" acts between consenting adults, even if simulated, are just as bad as child pornography. Many police forces submitted evidence to the Government consultation saying that people who start out looking at such material will end up abusing children.

I agree - the battle isn't over when the law is passed, even if that happens, I still hope that one day these laws will be overturned, and I see it as part of a large battle against censorship.

I agree about the Daily Mail, although bizarrely enough, even they published a column criticising the "extreme porn" law ( http://www.backlash-uk.org.uk/utley.html ). But yes, usually being in favour of censorship, or scaremongering about things they think are "sick", is right up their street.

I wish I shared your optimism :)

The recent "extreme porn" law covered adults, not "children" (and thus wasn't quite so demonised, and people were more willing to speak out). My impression is that it got more opposition - from people responding to the consultation, to criticism by MPs. But it sailed through, with only minor word changes.

I think a lot of people find these laws mad, but this sadly won't stop the law.

Don't get me wrong, I do think it's worth opposing the law just the same, to generate publicity about it and so on. And I'm glad to see there are organisations now opposing this law (the "extreme porn" law was opposed by a group of organisations under the name Backlash, but up until now, there was nothing for this new bill).

But equally, we shouldn't sit back and think "The law will never pass", because unless there's some sudden change in direction, this law will pass.

Indeed - the problem is that in this country, having a murdered son or daughter apparently gives you the right to pass a law banning whatever you like in your dead child's name. You'll get national media coverage for your campaign, and if the Government agrees, they'll use you as an emotional figurehead, promoting you as the emotive reason why Something Must Be Done.

I saw it with Liz Longhurst and her crusade to criminalise possession of porn she doesn't like, which has now passed. Even now, she continues to pop up in the media again and again giving her uninformed one-sided views, whilst individuals, organisations and academics who opposed the law have had to fight to get even a slim amount of coverage. Anyone who dares criticise her is accused of being disrespectful, whilst it's okay for her to tell those who risk being criminalised "hard luck".

Grieving parents shouldn't be given additional media attention for political campaigning, over anyone else, and they are the last people we should be consulting for an unbiased and unemotional viewpoint on lawmaking.

They should ban pictures of knives. Oh wait, they've done that too - or at least, possession of sexual images of consenting adults role-playing a scene where they "threaten" with a knife is a criminal offence.

Getting back on topic, I suppose we should be glad they're settling on taxation. This Government's usual response for anything it doesn't like is "Ban it".

The United States wishes to require adult websites to verify ages of visitors "in case a child might see it".

The United Kingdom has recently criminalised possession of some adult material, "in case a child might see it" (well, the reasons are varied, but their "justifications" include this as a reason).

The United States law is struck down as a violation of freedom of speech. We do have freedom of expression under the European Convention of Human Rights which some believe this law will violate, however it has the get-out clause "subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, ... for the protection of ... morals".

The COPA law is broader than the pic-and-mix "extreme" images law, in that it covers all adult content not just some, but I thought the comparison is interesting. I am glad that the US has made this sensible step, I'm just unfortunate to live somewhere where the prudes are way ahead.

A large part of the motivating force behind this law are the anti-pornography feminists.

This has been my experience following the progress of the law too. And people should note that that's specifically anti-porn feminists. I know many sex-positive and anti-censorship feminists opposing this law.

The Government's so-called "evidence" for this law, the Rapid Evidence Assessment, was in fact written by three feminists with known anti-porn views, and has been criticised widely by academics.

One of my friends, a feminist who was hosting a speech at a feminist conference about this law, started receiving harrassment and abuse (in fact from charliegrrl, and other anti-porn feminists), unable to believe that another feminist could oppose the law, and doing their best to stifle any debate.

The height of the madness was a petition started by group mediawatch-uk - I can understand this getting support from the anti-sex religious groups, but to my disbelief, I saw feminists giving their support to this pro-censorship anti-sex organisation, that would result in criminalising images of a wide range of sexual acts. The worse part is that they play the card of being oppressed feminists - even though they are in bed with organisations in power that are lobbying for these laws, that will persecute and oppress others.

One of the sad things is the way that this mad law has got support from anyone jumping on the anti-porn bandwagon. Even if you think porn is bad, this is still an awful law!

These anti-porn feminists have been waging a gorilla war against porn for the better part of 4 decades. This law is just the beginning of what they'd like to see. They seriously believed that porn causes women to be raped and that seeing porn turns men into rapists. They don't get a lot of attention because most people think they're nuts. I'd say that their success in getting this law as far as it has gotten should change that. If you don't want to live in a society where porn is banned because those in power believe that it turns men into rapists, then you'd better start paying more attention to what radicals like these are doing - and opposing it.

I agree - some are even calling for all porn to be made a hate crime against women.

I agree, sadly. Much of the problem is that there are all sorts of studies on various forms of media and its supposed effects, some showing evidence, some not showing evidence, some showing a negative correlation. So overall there's no conclusion one could draw, but those supporting censorship can hand-pick the studies which do supposedly show an effect (even if they are old studies that have been discredited or later contradicted by other studies).

I saw this with the UK Government in its plans to criminalise possession of "extreme" porn - it commissioned three researchers with known anti-pornography views to dig out every possible study which showed some negative effect of porn (even though most the studies applied to porn that isn't being criminalised), producing the Rapid Evidence Assessment.

Now this was criticised by academics in the field as being "extremely poor, based on contested findings and accumulated results. It is one-sided and simply ignores the considerable research tradition into "extreme" (be they violent or sexually explicit) materials within the UK's Humanities and Social Sciences." This statement was signed by ove forty academics - but did anyone pushing for this law pay any attention? Of course, sadly not - instead we continue to hear the Rapid Evidence Assessment being cited as proof that possession of naughty pictures needs to be criminalised.

Another example is the UK and its crusade against naughty porn. Because it apparently turns us English people into violent murderers, if we look at a naughty picture, and OMG won't somebody think of the children who might see it on a website.

(Said law is currently going through the House of Lords, and if not stopped will be law by 8 May.)

Although having said that, the EU does at least give a tool to fight these various kinds of censorship, in that the European Convention on Human Rights at last gives us the right to freedom of expression, among other rights - unfortunately member countries still seem keen on censorship.

AFAIK only snuff films are banned entirely (illegal to own; public decency laws mean quite a lot isn't for sale),

Well snuff films probably don't exist ;) I'm not aware of any laws against owning one, but since there's never been a case AFAIK, it's never been tested in court.

although I think that there's a bill banning violent porn on it's way through parliment due to the family of a dead woman blaiming her death on it. I'm at work, so I'm not going to google for links...

Indeed there is, it's a great concern of mine (in that it covers images of acts between consenting adults, and even fictional images - of course I wouldn't be bothered about a law for actual non-consensual violence; though much like snuff films, their existence appears to be an urban legend anyway). (Slashdot covered it at http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/05/199233 , more info at http://www.backlash-uk.org.uk/ ). It gets debated in Parliament this coming Monday.

More information about this law is available on Backlash's homepage, a group opposing the law.

Let's hope they don't realise!

The UK Government realised that censoring "extreme" porn can no longer work via the BBFC, because people visit websites in other countries (e.g., the US, those that actually have this concept known as freedom of speech - anywhere other than places like Iran, basically).

So they are now planning to criminalise _possession_. That's right, three years in prison for possessing a naughty image, even if it involves consenting adults or is simulated.

As soon as they realise about bittorrent, they'll be pushing for it to be a criminal offence to possession violent computer games.

True - but I think this does touch on constitutional issues because of the suggestion that merely talking about something is in itself illegal. In fact, merely listing "incest" in the "Interests" list on a user or community profile was enough to get suspended. Supposedly from Livejournal's abuse team:

"we have been advised that listing an interest in an illegal activity must be viewed as using LiveJournal to solicit that illegal activity."

And will they unsuspend you if you'll remove the interest? Nope:

"Our legal counsel advises us that it would increase LiveJournal's liability if we were to allow your journal to be unsuspended for you to delete the illegal interests from your profile. This is because if someone were to remove the illegal interests from his or her profile, but was in fact using LiveJournal to coordinate, solicit, or participate in illegal activity, LiveJournal would most likely be considered to have foreknowledge of that activity and thus become liable."

So although no one's being prosecuted (which itself is interesting - if we really were talking about pedophiles are, shouldn't LiveJournal and/or the 3rd party which reported the accounts to them be, I dunno, talking to the police?) they're acting under the belief that it's illegal to talk about, or write fiction about (in the case of fan-fiction, which counts for many deleted accounts) things which are illegal.

And it's people like this 3rd party ("warriors for innocence") who try to make it actually illegal to talk, write fiction or draw pictures about illegal things, and even extend that to consensual adults acts which have nothing to do with child abuse (e.g., adult incest, or things like BDSM). I'm in the UK, and I see a similar fight here with the Government and pro-censorship groups such as Mediawatch-UK wanting to criminalise possession of various adult porn.

In that sense, this is more than simply accounts on LiveJournal (although that in itself worries me, as a paid user of the service). It's a fight about freedom of speech versus censorship, and I fear the belief that freedom of speech shouldn't extend to things some people personally find distasteful when it comes to sex is all too strong.

How about "if it shows nudity for non-educational purposes."

What about non-nude pictures which have still been intended for sexual arousal? This is especially the case with less-vanilla stuff like BDSM material. And whilst you and I might count that as erotica rather than pornography, bear in mind that many people and Governments do not (e.g., the UK Government's definition of pornography in their plans to criminalise possession of simulated and consensual "extreme porn" is any image which was produced for the purposes of arousal, whether or not it shows nudity or sex).

On the other hand, there could be nude pictures which aren't porn, but aren't educational either. I mean, would a topless woman count? Breastfeeding? What about nudists?

Another problem, even if we have a fixed definition of porn, is that it's not easily to split everything up into different websites. For example, what if someone wants to post an erotic picture on their LiveJournal? Suddenly we'd have to have LiveJournal.xxx, and split it across two domains.

Personally I think rather than trying to split off "porn", it would be better to split off a "for kiddies [and anyone offended by stuff they don't have to look at] only" domain, leaving an "adult" Internet for the rest of us.

The US have some weird attitudes to tits and nudity (playboy ain't really porn).

Agreed, though it isn't just the US. The UK still has outdated obscenity laws, and you can be charged for showing non-approved material to someone (even if they are an adult who wants to see it), or for importing a video from abroad that wasn't approved by the censors. (Admittedly, this doesn't include playboy as it's legal to publish, but then again I wouldn't be surprised if there were laws about showing it to minors.)

The Government, unable to cope with the fact that they aren't able to censor the Internet, are now planning to criminalise possession (they're using words like "extreme porn", but it's about criminalising possession because some people think the images are too naughty - see http://www.backlash-uk.org.uk/ for more info). Mediawatch are currently petitioning the Government to also criminalise possession of a wider range of (currently legal to publish) porn. (A counter petition is here, or see the one in my .sig.)

Also note that the Government defines porn to be anything which was intended to arouse, so could be broad enough to cover anything erotic (i.e., it doesn't have to be sexually explicit).

Tell them about Firefox, suggest that they get a Mac next time.

Well I'm no great fan of Windows, but I don't think not getting a Mac is a reason to lay blame...

Just so we're clear, their logic is that the internet is a catalyst for youth vandalism?

Sadly a common theme. It reminds me of when a guy with a breathplay fetish was convicted of murdering someone, at which point there was a campaign to ban the porn sites he looked at (sites such as Necrobabes). The Government was unable to do this - because the sites are entirely legal and the US presumably wasn't willing to listen - so it has now responded by saying that anyone who possesses "extreme" porn will now go to prison for three years.

So if this follows a similar pattern, after realising they can't regulate the Internet, it'll instead be a criminal offence for UK citizens to view or possess images of schoolkids breaking windows.

This bill is worrying, and mirrors a proposed law proposed in the UK where even possession of "obscene images" would be a criminal offence. Whether it's posted on the Internet, or kept on your hard drive. The penalty would be up to three years in prison.

Mediawatch-UK are fighting for the law to be extended to include a wider range of images (even those currently not considered obscene by UK law).

Please see http://www.backlash-uk.org.uk/ for more details, or sign the petition in my sig.

It's a good thing this sort of idiotic nonsense pandering to ignorant pressure groups and those with an anti-porn agenda doesn't happen on the right hand side of the pond.

Oh, wait a minute, it does...

The UK Government wants to make it an offence, punishable by three years in jail, to simply possess "violent pornography", the definition of which appears to be based on the subjective viewpoints of some narrow minded and puritanical members of the Home Office.

This knee-jerk legislation came about after Graham Coutts was convicted of the murder of Jane Longhurst, because, it's claimed, he looked at sites like Necrobabes which "promote violence against women".

Even though the Court of Appeal has quashed his conviction the "We must be seen to be doing something!" bandwagon keeps rolling and a law that will create a Thought Crime and trample over people's right to make up their own minds about what they can look at on the internet is in the offing.

For more information see http://www.backlash-uk.org.uk/ and UK citizens can sign an online petition objecting to the Nanny State trying to control what we can or cannot see at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Violent-Porn/ or write to their MP to object via http://www.theyworkforyou.com/

It's not just places like China wanting to crack down on the "revolution" that has come with the Internet.

Here in the UK, the Government plans to criminalise possession of certain types of images it has labelled "extreme" (covered on Slashdot here) - even though the images feature consenting actors or are faked/simulated; this is about censoring "obscene" images because they are inherently seen as harmful to those who view them (more information at http://www.backlash-uk.org.uk/ ).

My understanding is that the US has been recently trying to crack down on online porn sites too, though thankfully Free Speech has restricted these attempts (e.g., see COPA ).