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Possession of Violent Pornography Outlawed in UK

An anonymous reader writes "The BBC is reporting that possession of violent pornography is now punishable by three years in prison. This decision was handed down in response to a campaign waged by a grieving mother who lost her daughter to someone obsessed with violent pornography." From the article: "Shaun Gabb, director of the anti-censorship organization the Libertarian Alliance, said: 'If you are criminalizing possession then you are giving police inquisitorial powers to come into your house and see what you've got, now we didn't have this in the past.'"

6 of 779 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Ah brilliant by Richard_at_work · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well actually this is off the back of a 30 month campaign, 50,000 signature petition and many MPs backing the mother of a victim of a deranged murderer whoes pasttime was viewing violent porn on the internet of the exact manner in which he killed this womans daughter. Its right there in the linked article.

    This is anything BUT kneejerk legislation based on media headlines, its coming up from grassroots victims of crime.

  2. System of a Down? by DesireCampbell · · Score: 3, Informative
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  3. Not so fast... by psmears · · Score: 5, Informative
    “possession of violent pornography is now punishable by three years in prison”

    Umm... no it isn’t. FTFA:

    The government has announced plans to make the possession of violent porn punishable by three years in jail.

    The government have announced plans to make it illegal. So it may happen. But also, the civil liberties types have plenty of time to raise objections, get the sentence changed, get exemptions added etc... which has got to be a good thing.

  4. Re:Steganography... by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Informative
    "Next it will be illegal to listen to a song entitled "Violent Pornography" by System of a Down."

    For that matter, guess they could go after some of the classics then too like The Stones' Midnight Rambler .

    Heck guess we could nix Brown Sugar too:

    "Scarred old slaver know's he's doing alright...hear him whip the women just around midnight..."

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  5. Link to PDF of consultation paper. by sharopolis · · Score: 3, Informative

    Heres a link to the PDF of the paper this article arises from. It's very vaugue as to how the law will be applied and surprisingly actually shows that the majority of respondents were against the proposal. This is not law yet, no by a long way, the govenment is leaving itself plenty of wiggle room to drop this if it becomes unpopular or difficult.

  6. Re:British Porn Cannot Compare to myRedbook in USA by werewolf1031 · · Score: 4, Informative
    In London, we call those "Phoneboxes". You can get any perversion you want from the adverts in those.
    <sigh> Why is all sex equated with "perversion"? Unless maybe you're talking about two unspeakably ugly people...

    All joking aside, it is precisely this attitude that seeking out sex is a "perverted" thing to do, that provides the incentive and the ammunition for folks like US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to make consensual adult imagery illegal, taking away resources from child pornography investigation units to go after adult pornography. And that was a year ago. How it doesn't create more of an uproar still baffles me.

    Getting back to the current topic, keep in mind that much "violent" pornography is acted, not real violence. Here in the States, we call porn with real violence "snuff" films, and they are already illegal here as they depict real, intentional violence against the actors for the sake of creating the film.