Slashdot Mirror
UK Proposal To Restrict Internet Pornography Sparks Row
An anonymous reader writes "The BBC reports on the row over proposals by the UK Government to criminalize possession of 'extreme' porn. The bill, published last week, would include the prohibition of fictional depictions of violence and images of acts between consenting adults. The law would also apply to screenshots taken from a legal film, if the screenshot was made for erotic purposes. The goal is to prevent disturbed individuals from accessing content online that would trigger violent behavior. From the article: 'Labour MP Martin Salter, who has worked closely ... in pushing the legislation, rejected the BDSM community's claims their civil liberties were being undermined. He said: "No-one is stopping people doing weird stuff to each other but they would be strongly advised not to put it on the internet. At the end of the day it is all too easy for this stuff to trigger an unbalanced mind."' The bill follows from plans initially announced last August."
Prehaps it would be smarter to spend resources finding and providing care for unbalanced people, rather than banning anything (which means pretty much everything) that sets them off, No?
slippery slope here, very slippery
Some unbalanced person might be pushed over the edge, and start dropping anvils on people heads.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
ok...so that means they also have to ban aggressive chase scenes in movies since that could trigger road rage. They have to ban smoking, drug use, alcohol use etc since that could trigger addicts to relapse. They have to ban religious scenes since that could trigger extremists to taking action against atheists...or vice versa. What a bunch of idiots. If you ban it...it'll just get distributed around all the stupid bans anyway. Some things just simply can't be governed.
"At the end of the day it is all too easy for this stuff to trigger an unbalanced mind."
Really? Can I see some peer-reviewed research papers showing such a link? (Seriously, I don't know either way - let's see what scientists say, not politicians.)
"It simply plugs a hole in the law because the Obscene Publications Act is about as much use as a chocolate fireguard as far as the internet is concerned. This new law is designed to meet the challenge of the internet."
What the hell is a chocolate fireguard and what does it have to do with the internet?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Pics or it didnt happen!
What the hell is a row?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Each is going to be every bit as likely to have any effect on the world at large as this ban.
Crow T. Trollbot
You'd think they'd be working on the muslim problem instead of this.
But they ARE working on the Muslim problem. Perhaps if the UK bans everything and adopts the Sharia, the Muslim problem will go away. Allah u ackba
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
OK. I won't go through my views on what I think of violent pornography, or the idea that it will set mentally unbalanced people off if seen on the internet. I won't comment on the censorship aspect of this. I just have one honest question:
There have been various episodes of CSI (Vegas) that dealt with BDSM and such, especially those featuring Mistress Heather. There was a recent episode of Criminal Minds where the villain captured homeless people and put them in a torture maze to be sadistic.
Are those legal on TV? How about putting those episodes on the internet (say CBS did it), would that be legal under this law? Seems to me those two answers might be different.
It's OK to show a mentally unbalanced individual this on TV a show (which won't mess with their head), but if you show the exact same thing from the internet, they'll go NUTS.
Sure. If the answers to the hypothetical questions above are the same, where is the line and how long until television crosses it? Then what will the answers to my questions be.
TV is OK, but the Internet is evil. Even if they show the same exact content.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
You're free to make full use of your civil liberties... You're just not allowed to talk about it.
How comforting that today's politicians don't even understand what freedom is.
Basilisk Digital
Such a naughty boy...Someone needs a whipping!
...
But Seriously...
1) Ban Violent Porn
2)
3) *Fewer* instances of real-life violence?
I wouldn't be surprised if by blocking this outlet, more people decide to go out and reenact the dreams they can no longer watch at home.
On an unrelated note, I'll be back in a couple of hours.
More information about this law is available on Backlash's homepage, a group opposing the law.
One of the main problems that prudes have is that any fair study of this disgusting filth shows that people that view it are LESS likely to commit crimes, whether violent or not.
This is in dinstinct difference from peopel that view kiddie porn, who are in fact more likely to commit crimes.
Apparently it seems that smart people like getting hit, not hitting on children.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I agree.
The problem is not that an imbalanced mind sees extreme porn. The problem is that the mind in question is imbalanced. Denying all minds access to extreme porn will not solve the problem...the mind in question will still be imbalanced.
And the mind in question will still be likely to cause harm.
All this law will do is create another subjective standard by which some people can be arbitrarily criminalized.
is the BushCo War In Iraq
Ever watched a British Soap opera? That is the kind of stuff that will "trigger an unbalanced mind." *shutter*
Geez, hasn't anyone in the UK heard of "going postal"?
I'm going to get moderated to all hell for this, but I don't care: After arguing in three or four threads in the last few weeks about how "it's not just the US" doing things like this, I'd just like to say a few words:
I TOLD YOU SO.
Politicians the world over love this do-nothing regulation of the things that "offend" their poor widdle voters and their sensibilities. "Violent porn? How dare they!" What's next, scat? Then what, facials, because they're degrading and might encourage men to treat women like objects? Yes, this is a slippery slope argument, but the reason cited was that these sorts of things trigger unbalanced minds. I could care less about violent porn, it's not my bag. I've been hearing for decades that porn causes rape: Apply the argument against violent porn to regular porn, and it won't be long before some bright MP suggests banning all internet porn because it might trigger someone to rape.
Which is a load of bollocks, because if everyone who looked at porn committed a rape, well... all of slashdot's readers would be making license plates right now and desperately clinging to the soap.
If someone is bent enough that seeing images is going to cause them to act on their fantasies, why is it only violent porn that will trigger them? What about violent media in general? Whose to say they won't catch an episode of the BBC's Spooks and act on the Plot of the Week? There are always going to be loons out there and we can't really effectively ban everything that might set them off without turning the world into a very damn boring place. They also make up a small percent of the population, so why are we going to let them ruin things for everyone else?
to avoid repercussions from crazy people:
crazy people will do crazy things. very little will set them off, and if it isn't bdsm images on the internet (really?) then it will be something else. so basically, you can't alter your behavior in such a way that prevents crazy people from doing crazy things. all you do is limit the activities of noncrazy people, and the crazy people still do crazy things. it's just something you have no control over that sets them off instead
likewise, you can't alter your behavior to prevent terrorist attacks. if the west acceded to every demand from violent jihadists, would violent jihadist become pastoral sheep farmers? no, they would go right on with their bloody agenda, they would just find some other lame excuse, because the root of their motivation is not the behavior of the west
it's a common fallacy, actually, that has parallels in childhood psychology: when parents divorce, children often blame themselves for their parents getting divorced. of course, it's crazy to blame the child, and no one does, except the child himself. but it is a common human psychological response to violence: when violence is committed against them, or their society, the first thing people do in their pain is blame themselves, or their society. then they think they can do something differently, and they won't be victimized anymore. no: you have to blame the perpetrators, not yourselves
the biggest believers of the blame the victim mindset is often the victims
a society or individual will always wonder why they are victims of violence when they did nothing wrong. it is trying to rationalize that which can't be rationalized
you can't change the behavior of crazy people, you can only identify them and limit their actions. that works far more than altering society itself to fit the needs of crazy people, when all you really do in such a situation is inconvenience noncrazy people
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Are they put under surveillance?
Following this (well meant yet broken) logic, it would be only a small step...
/ Visit the UK: a CCTV at every corner and on every bedpost
______________________________________________
sigamajig...
Because a chocolate fireguard would MELT in a fire.
It's just a figure of speech. Although I prefer "chocolate kettle".
And don't even get me started on the Castle Anthrax sequence from Monty Python and the Holy Grail...
Crow T. Trollbot
There*s too many sparkling wiggles too!! :(
Reciprocal extradition treaties
Ho ho ho isn't the world becoming an interesting place to live.
Deleted
"No-one is stopping people doing weird stuff to each other but they would be strongly advised not to put it on the internet." ...which is a silly thing to say, since the law says it applies to possession, not publication. Even if you kept it on your hard disk private, surely it would be illegal under this law?
He insisted the law did not ban anything which was not already illegal under the Obscene Publications Act. "It simply plugs a hole in the law because the Obscene Publications Act is about as much use as a chocolate fireguard as far as the internet is concerned. This new law is designed to meet the challenge of the internet."
Well, I give him some points for using the term "chocolate fireguard", but otherwise, this doesn't make sense - after all, if the law criminalises an image extracted from a legal film, we have the situation that the image is illegal even though it was clearly legal to publish in the original film. (Plus, I thought the OPA requires the jury to believe that the image would "deprave and corrupt" those who viewed it, while the new law just bans categories of images based on their content.)
Another point - if it doesn't cover already illegal material, why does the bill need an exemption for "classified works"?
"These snuff movies are other stuff are seriously disturbing. Many police officers who have to view it as part of their job have to undergo psychological counselling."
Heh, OMG Please Won't Somebody Think Of The Police Officers!!!
Really though - snuff movies? Have they actually discovered some snuff movies, after all these years of it being an urban myth? Strange how they never seem to show evidence for these snuff movies...
Yes...they are working on it...just not in the right way.
"When you can't run anymore, you crawl... and when you can't do that, you find someone to carry you." - Malcolm Reynolds
It never ceases to amaze me how well politicians manage to sell a broad and generalized law on the basis of coincidence in a handful of specific cases. A murderer confesses to having viewed violent porn, thus we need a law to criminalize possession of violent porn for everyone? This kind of flawed logic is coming up more and more these days, especially in anything to do with politics or law.
General law shouldn't be based on extraordinary cases.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
or...
"No-one is stopping people of communicating weird stuff to each other but they would be strongly advised not to put it on the internet. At the end of the day it is all too easy for this stuff to trigger an unbalanced mind."
Whether we are talking about pron, microsoft, music, politics or My Little Pony; it can all trigger and unbalanced mind.
Load New Commander (Y/N)?
Do they realize how they are making a movie come to life?
the UK are very liberal minded people and also smart enough to know that this is not the cause or pre cause of sexual violence. It will rage on for quite sometime then be squashed.. After all many of those barristers are wearing suspenders under those gowns!
Is quite quickly becoming the creepiest democratic country in the world. At least here in America we try to blame our arbitrary government interference on security concerns. The UK just appears to be doing all this out of boredom at this point.
I don't follow British politics closely enough - once the Liberal Democratic Party supplants Labour, are they going to be doing more of this, or less? Any Brits out there wanna educate me?
HI, MY NAME IS ISAAC.
- Ban all pictures of food, then no one will be triggered to over-eat.
- Ban all pictures of children under 18, who knows what sicko needed just that picture to set them off.
- Ban all pictures of senior citizens, their appearance might make them appear like easy targets and trigger a robbery.
- Ban all pictures of women, best not take any chances of triggering any sexual thoughts in a rapists head.
- Ban all pictures of men, these days, you never know what could happen, maybe a gay or even a female rapist may be triggered.
Imagine all the problems that could be solved by banning pictures. It's these darn pictures that cause this behavior. No rape or violence used to happen before cameras and the internet came around. If there was, it was certainly the fault of painters and those scantily clad stick figures on the cave wall.At the end of the day it is all too easy for this stuff to trigger an unbalanced mind.
I guess that means the Bible, Torah, and Koran are next.
We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
There goes 4chan
Well being a fetishist and living in the UK I can tell you that this law, if passed, wont stop anything.
It is a short easyjet flight from here to Amsterdam. There you can get all manner of really screwed up fetish porn there.
Want an example, my ex GF used to live in Amsterdam and we were both kinksters so we went video shopping. We bought some beastie videos, some extreme SM (By extreme I mean real extreme) etc and I brought it back to the UK. Didnt get stopped at customs, there wasnt even a cop on duty.
So what difference is this going to make, when a real hardcore person wants get some of the most extreme porn round? Not much, just get an Easyjet flight for $100 or so and visit some of the backstreets and get more than most (note I said most) sites offer and at better quality and not just short movie clips but over 1.5 hours of extreme HD porn.
http://www.writeitfor.us - Writing IT for the IT generation.
Maybe this is just one of those WTFs brough about because IANAL, but seriously - any data which is capable of conversion into an extreme image?
Who wants to be the first to convert the text of the bill into an ASCII goatse?
I knew it would only be a matter of time before the Brits, conditioned to a life of surveillance by their ever present CCTVs began fully implementing Big Brother.
Government censorship is evil, whatever the reasoning given for its implementation. Since this idiotic law would not apply outside of the "daddy knows best" government of the UK, the next step would be for the UK to implement filtering nationwide to stop these "unbalanced minds" from getting access to these images from other, less "enlightened" countries with more freedom[^H^H^H]access to filth...
"There are laws that enslave men, and laws that set them free. " - Sean Connery as King Arthur
Well, they're an independent record label, but I doubt that was the reference he was going for. The Urban Dictionary defines it as something "completely useless", but doesn't provide any etymology. Here's an article on chocolate teapots and fireguards, which might make more sense if one knew what a fireguard was. You'd think that Fireguard Systems, Inc. might answer that question, but if they do, I can't tell where. Ah, finally New Zealand comes to the rescue.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I am quite delusional, and a bit insane, but despite my BDSM porn habbits, I've never had the slightest urge to go out and act any of it out on unwilling women. Not even fantasy. Some of the tamer stuff has creeped it's way in to the bedroom, but that is fairly normal anyway.
In fact, the thought of acting any of it out on an unwilling participant is physically repulsive to me. BDSM is all about instinctive sexual dominance relationships, and sadistic violent acts are completely unrelated.
On the rare occaisions vindictive people might immitate BDSM during their crimes, it is hardly because their repressed lust overcame them and they just couldn't hold in their urges to tie unwilling women up and rape them any longer.
Politicians who resort to shit like this should be dragged behind trains. It's no different than discriminatory legislation against any other misunderstood or demonized minority.
Guess what people? Everyone is one such minority in one way or another, and the more they deny that fact, the more issues they really have.
Well, for all those Brits, etc., who beat me by several minutes to the answer, I'll add that we in America call those "fireplace screens". I know, very unimaginative.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
you are correct, some people flail out, but most put too much blame inwards
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I used to know a masochist who liked to have a cold shower every morning.
So he had a hot one instead.
--- These are not words: wierd, genious, rediculous
Anyway, I recently wrote an article, copied and pasted below, about the criminalisation of the possession of child pornography. I know that most people will automatically disagree with the decriminalisation of the possession of child pornography, but the government and its supporters make similar assertions about the possession of child pornography and the possession of violent pornography, so much of it is relevant to this particular act of censorship.
Note: This article does not condone illegal activity; it suggests a change in child pornography legislation.
Should the Possession of Child Pornography be Illegal?
I have discussed this issue with many friends, including those who have been convicted of offences involving child pornography, as well as those who are old enough to remember a time when child pornography was legal and was as available as adult pornography. They have discussed the issue in great detail in order to aid me in writing this article, explaining the motivations for producing, distributing, trading and possessing such material. I feel this gives me a reasonale level of insight into the issue, without taking the risk of engaging in criminal activity.
This article will focus on UK laws against child pornography, however I feel it is relevant to other jurisdcitions which prohibit the possession of certain images depicting children.
UK laws against child pornography are governed primarily by the Protection of Children Act (1978), which was amended by the Criminal Justice Act (1988), the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act (1994) and the Sexual Offences Act (2003). There are other acts which amend sentencing and search protocols, however these will not be discussed here.
The amended Protection of Children Act states that:
I should state that, when I refer to "possession" in this article, I am also referring to "making" when it applies to simply downloading images from the internet.
At this point, it's important to explain how "indecent" is defined.
The definition of indecent under UK law is rather vague, however case law and sentencing guidelines allow one to interpret the term more accurately.
According to case law such as that of R v Stamford and R v Graham-Kerr, indecent can be defined as anything which does not comply with the "recognised standards of propriety."
It is a mistake to assume that indecent is absolutely synonymous with "pornographic," as this is not the case. People have been imprisoned for naturist images (see O'Carroll, Stamford, Graham-Kerr), suggesting that any full frontal nudity is illegal. According to sentencing guidelines, clothed images which depict c
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free" ~ Nineteen Eighty-Four
So, is that why they're called "row" houses?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Isn't sanity really just a one trick pony anyway? I mean, all you get is one trick...rational thinking! But when you're good and crazy...ooh hoo hoo hoo...the sky's the limit!-The Tick But then, when correctly viewed, everything is lewd. Here again, it's the gun that kills people, so say the Brits. I say, it is not the gun, but the person that pulled the trigger.
Freedom and responsibility are the same thing.
If you take responsibility, you inevitably removing the freedom of the individual. It cannot be escaped. The Labour party are fundamentally a socialist party and Labour party MPs are basically socialist. Well meaning, but the inevitable result is the removal of freedom.
Something else to note. Liberalism, concerned with the freedom of the individual is fundamentally incompatible with the left, with socialism. The term "liberal left" is an oxymoron, a fundamental misunderstanding of what being liberal means.
Deleted
I love how politicians raise unsupported theories of criminal etiology to the level of fact simply because they sound reasonable to them or support their pre-existing misconceptions. From what I've seen on this subject, it is the lack of a socially acceptable form of release that often leads to the acting out of such fantasies. But then, the law has never been about preventing crime. It is about control freaks who enjoy telling people what to do and their sadistic pleasure from enforcing draconian punishment. The Spanish Inquisition comes to mind, as well as the Nazies, and particularly our present simian executive who reportedly laughed uncontrollably every time someone asked for clemency when he was governor of Texas. Unless of course you happen to be a former employee of the big Dick.
I'd like to see how they spell out exactly what cross the line and what is acceptable.
Few members of my family including my x have worked for social services and thus have helped me realize a few impossible facts that you should be aware of before you start getting so fervently ideological. You have a child who was raped continuously growing up, cps come in throws the parent in jail and puts the child in foster care. The only problem is now this child has been programed to act on warped sexual impulses in very violent way. he rapes and kills the dog and tries to mulest mom. The child is no longer able to be in foster care and now grows up in a a juvi home with other like him. This child now turns eighteen where according to law they must now let him go into society and there is nothing that can do about it. Simply because all his crimes were committed as a juvenile he has served his time and he record was expunged at 18 years old. So they let him go hoping for the best knowing full well with a few years he will act on said impulse and end up in prison in the psych ward. So how do you propose to fix this problem, you can't hold them againts there will. you cant' force them to seek treatment, they are jsut sitting there like a time bomb just waiting on teh right stimulus to explode.
Who is Martin Salter and what does he do? What else does he vote for? well...
a ding_west
look at his voting record here; http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/martin_salter/re
things include...
Very strongly against investigating the Iraq war
Now I might not be an MP and, as thus, able to say what people should think in the same way the labour party does, but I would think that WAR might (just might) "trigger an unbalanced mind" to do something crazy - or else why would the London bombers explicitly mention it in their suicide videos? I'm not saying that it provides an excuse for what they did, nor even that we should feel bad for ensuring that Saddam got what was coming to him, but does he not think that the arse up that has been made of post-invasion Iraq (after the end of the formal hostilities) might be worth investigating - it could give us some new perspectives on why some people feel so strongly that they would try and kill as many people they could...
Nah. Its definitely the porn.
At the end of the day it is all too easy for this stuff to trigger an unbalanced mind.
Man, the bullshit is really flowing now. If I may be serious for a moment, the reality is that the only unbalanced minds worth concerning ourselves about receive government paychecks.
Here's the thing. Why don't the British and United States governments just come out and admit it: they really like the way the Chinese do things, and would like to be just like them. Freedom of speech? Screw that. The Internet? Dangerous toy. Popularity Ratings? Phooey. We don't care what you think. The Rule of Law? An inconvenience.
I have some advice for the lawmakers in both countries: stop sprinkling this shit with sugar in a vain effort to make it more palatable: it's always been shit, it's still shit, and it will always be shit, and trying to convince us that your shit don't stink just insults our collective intelligence.
I gotta tell ya: in spite of all the efforts the Federal Government has made to rationalize this same kind of shit, even the really stupid, complacent "it'll never happen here" people I know are beginning to notice the stench. It's getting that bad.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Speaking from experience is he? Sounds like the "unbalanced minds" are in the UK Parliament.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I want to beat the crap out of any NannyNazi who would sponsor such garbage. Therefore, by their own logic, they must ban themselves from discussing such laws on the internet or in any public forum.
Ahh, the wonders of hypocrisy.
I know it's a fanatical user base, but this seems to go a bit far. Wait... maybe I mis-read...
technical writing / development
You don't "follow British politics closely enough" but you know enough to make a sweeping statement like "The UK is quite quickly becoming the creepiest democratic country in the world"?
Why? Because of a small part of one bill that has yet to even be debated in Parliament yet alone be voted on? Did you even RTFA and notice that before jerking your knee? You live in the US, where indefinite detention without trial is how you do things and yet you're lecturing the rest of the world on democracy?
As for the stupid assertion that this is based not upon "security concerns" but "out of boredom", well, if you RTFA then you would see that this change in the law is proposed on the back of a rather violent murder case where the murderer admitted to being addicted to violent rape websites, etc.
Sounds whimsical to you, does it? Really? If it was someone related to a Virgina Tech campus massacre victim campaigning for gun control would you accuse them of raising the issue "out of boredom"?
Personally, I couldn't be more opposed to this proposed legislation. As others have pointed out, it's an overreaction to a tragic but rare occurance. Emotive laws aren't often good ones - there's a reason why we don't let victims don't get to pick the sentences of those that have done them wrong.
As much as I can sympathise with the victim's family and friends, I find it hard to support their need for some sort of "Jane's Law" as part of their grieving process. Families of drink driving victims don't get alcohol bans being proposed on their behalf and I fail to see how this is any different.
Debate it? Yes. Look at measures that would be practical but not restrictive?. Yes. Legislate against something because of a single, deranged individual? No. Move on, and move on in a different, more positive manner.
But, hey, thanks for writing off our parliamentary democracy just for, you know, actually being prepared to talk about stuff. Instead of just brushing it under the carpet and then getting back to the important stuff like Paris Hilton's jail term and Britney's divorce case.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
victims of violence often blame themselves, even for things they don't deserve at all, such as surprise mass murder on civilians during peacetime. it's a psychological weakness
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
""No-one is stopping people doing weird stuff to each other" - really?
Yet another, typically british, knee-jerk reaction to grab publicity.
Jaj
defended as rigorously as the 1st, everyone would be required to have firearms.
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
You would very likely reduce repeat violent offenses and maybe non-violent ones as well. You would also improve the mental health of the country substantially, reduce the overcrowding in prisons and improve the general morale of the country.
You'd also be looking at VERY stiff taxation to pay for all of this. It might, just might, pay for itself over a 20-40 year timeframe, as the environment to create crime diminishes, but that's not guaranteed. In the meantime, you're looking at replacing simple prison cells with multiple individuals in each and one guard to maybe a few hundred inmates with hospital rooms holding a single person and multiple highly-trained staff per inmate. Ignoring the cost of the medical equipment needed, and neither EEGs nor MRIs come cheap, you're still talking ten to a hundred time the setup cost, plus a hundred times the wages on an ongoing basis.
(It costs about $82,000 per year per prisoner in the UK, according to the Home Office. A hundred time that would be $8,200,000 per year per prisoner. The Home Office also reports 59.1 million people in prison in Britain. This would give you a total of $484.62 quadrillion per year.)
And what of the equipment costs? There's one 7 Tesla MRI at present. To have enough to be able to give quality checkups on tens of millions of prisoners in a reasonable space of time, you'd need maybe three or four thousand of them. Based on AIRC's factsheet on the cost of their high-power MRI systems, I'd estimate that 4000 7 Tesla MRIs would cost somewhere in the region of $14 billion. Maybe a little less, as the systems in Oregon were made in the UK, so you'd have lower transport costs. However, that's to build, not run or maintain.
England is not a poor country, by any means, but we're talking numbers that well outside the reach of any nation. Although some form of mental health program would seem essential to avoid the path America has followed (one of the highest prison populations per capita in the world, which implies one of the lowest available workforce per capita in the world, which in turn implies a high cost with less revenue generation to pay for it), a comprehensive high-quality system would seem to be financially impossible. It would be interesting to theorize what the results of such a system would be, but if you were to attempt cures and rehab to reduce violent offense, you'd have to use a different approach than this.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Well, seems like trying to fix CPS would be a better use of resources than gradually banning everything that can be a "stimulus," particularly when the disturbed people in question are so deeply warped that they'll inevitably be set off by something.
Of course, fixing CPS and similar agencies like it, is a tough problem -- one that no politician wants to tackle. Instead they prefer to just ban some porn and push the problem down to the next guy who comes along.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
"Mr Salter, MP for Reading West, said: "These snuff movies are other stuff are seriously disturbing. Many police officers who have to view it as part of their job have to undergo psychological counselling.""
:-)
While I'm sympathetic with police officers that need help because of what they are viewing, and I have no interest in 'snuff movies' or other bondage-type stuff myself, A) police officers face first-hand violence on the streets every day and the psychological challenges of dealing with it. They do a tough job and deserve access to counseling when they need it; B) if individual police officers are facing psychological problems because of what they are asked to view in the course of their job, then it is clear that they should be switched to a different department; and C) Salter's comment doesn't make a SPECK of sense, because were this bill to come in to force it is freaking obvious that it will take more officers looking at this stuff in order to police it!!!
So, won't someone please think of the police officers, and not pass this law?
Crime novels will be banned so they don't "trigger the impulses" of serial killers, the Bible, Koran and Tora will be banned so they don't "trigger the impulses" of religious fanatics and and stupid "thought crime" laws will be banned so they don't "trigger the stupidity impulses" of retarded legislators...
Come on, they`re seriously going to make that stuff illegal just because it might trigger some unstable minds? The violent crimes these people supposedly might commit due to being "triggered" are already illegal. Not to mention, people likely to commit violent crimes as a result of "triggers" are liable to be affected by a far wider range of stuff than just hardcore porn. What about blockbuster Hollywood movies that have excessively violent scenes all throughout (Saw, Hostel etc.)??
What happens when we find that some of these easily-triggered violent people are also determined to have outbursts of violence when they see fairly innocuous material, for example a children's cartoon that happens to show some spooky-looking villain for a moment? Who says that's not going to trigger a psychotic episode in some potentially violent unstable person? How long until your favorite action/adventure movies become illegal to buy without some kind of "license" or approval stamp?
Also, what business is it of the government to decide what we are legally permitted to peruse for entertainment/"private" purposes? As long as it's not media of actual illegal violent acts being enacted (as opposed to acting, well-simulated, or consensual violence), why is it any of their concern? This has rights-violation written all over it. Frankly, in the privacy of your own home, as long as it's not child porn or photos of someone literally being murdered or tortured, I can see NO sound objection to restricting what people can legally observe.
no.
imbalanced minds have existed and will continue to exist through mankind's history.
even if you seclude an individual from everything, a delirious mind will incite him to pour gasoline on himself/herself and light it up while "trying to be like the sun" - the sun s/he saw in the sky and admired/delirium'ed himself/herself to imitating.
no, i dont give crecedence to such "clean up the internet" crap, because you cant limit entire society just to prevent %0.01 of the society's imbalanced individuals getting incited to do stuff.
its government's job to find and CURE these individuals, not restrain liberties on entire society that a pathetically negligible percentage of the population which has psychological disorders wouldnt do anything unwanted.
Read radical news here
> At the end of the day it is all too easy for this stuff to trigger an unbalanced mind.
It clearly has triggered his.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I think this is near the limits of what the European Court of Human Rights can accept.
In defending the law proposal they are referring to the Spanner case where the European Court of Human Rights (the next instance after a divided ruling in the highest UK court) said that the legality of people whipping each other in a consensual way should be left to UK souverenity, although the UK courts had ruled it illegal.
To me this looks as if the UK it trying to see if this human rights decision can be extended to include cases where somebody is in possession of pornographic material depicting such acts.
In Britain, they don't go postal, they go "Royal Mail."
... and then they built the supercollider.
I have talked to friends of both genders who have insisted that they *need* to get laid. If it weren't for the internet and dirty magazines, what might some people do to satisfy the *need* when that outlet is no longer available. I'm not necessarily talking about crime - although for some it's a distinct possibility - but picking up some chick/dude in a bar just to scratch the itch isn't always the safest or most productive behavior either.
I'm sure I've got a clip somewhere from Mr and Mrs Smith where Angelina Jolie is undercover as a dominatrix. Does that mean I'm now a sex offender? Should I wait for the law to be passed or just hand myself in now before I commit heinous crimes?
Political correctness is an obsession with not offending anybody (er, I mean any entity) at anytime. Down this road lies an obsession with avoiding anything that could trigger a warped mind. Since it is a warped mind, that could be anything. What a blank check to give to a wannabe suppressive government.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
So...are the English going to firewall themselves in like China?
Has anyone broken the news to these fellows that the reachable network falls beyond the borders of "The Empire" and that a "randy perv" may follow his interests thus?
I'll refrain from the 1000 words or so of humorous comment that sprang to my thoughts and leave it at this.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
I keep rereading that bit of the bill, convinced there must be mistake.
Note, the intent is that of the producer, not the one who possesses it - okay, in the case of taking a screenshot, the person who possesses the screenshot is probably the person who produced the screenshot. But if you're looking at a naughty image online or that you downloaded - you get criminalised for possession, based on the intent of whoever originally produced the image. So it's not just mind-reading technology they need, they have to tackle the fact that they may not know who even produced it in the first place!
It's all up to the police and jury to guess, I suppose. Nice way to decide whether someone goes to prison or not.
www.purevolume.com/martyd
then you might be equally as mad about the preceding sections of this act - read above the linked section to discover that if you are subject to a miscarriage of justice, i.e. the police deliberately fabricate evidence to set you up for a crime that you didn't commit, no matter how long you spend in prison wrongly, nor how much you would have earned, you will still only get compensation up to a maximum of £500,000.
So if you earn £1 million p/a and get set up (maybe just by bent coppers, or maybe by a political office) such as that you spend 10 years in prison, lose your house/car/wife/family... you can only get £500K!
This law fails to discourage adequately the sort of criminal and negligent acts which cause these issues. If the Home Office has to pay out £50 million each time you can bet you bollocks to a barn dance that they'll try really hard for this not to happen - £500k is less than they spend on paper.
Also, about the porno law, if you have an illegal image but not for an "unreasonably long" period of time, you've got a valid legal defence - so downloading into a browser would still be legal because once it has been opened so long as there isn't any interactive content it (as far as I am aware) can't tell if it was open for 1 second, 5 mins, or 1 year. Seems like a badly drafted law to me all round...
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
Politicians who resort to shit like this should be dragged behind trains
That sounds hot. Tell me more!
Professor Farnsworth: (sighing) Now I'll need a fake ID to rent ultra-porn!
No-one is stopping people doing weird stuff to each other but they would be strongly advised not to put it on the internet.
Nice to see the main proponent of the legislation is keeping an open, unbiased mind when dealing with its critics.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Clearly there is a problem in our world with violence against women but I don't see this law as the solution. Here are some of the failures I see with this kind of law:
1. Define violence against women. I would say every picture in playboy of a woman looking childish, with her eyes downcast is violence against women, making them out to be stupid and submissive. Like the American Supreme Court case goes, I don't know what pornography is versus art but I know it when I see it.
2. Exploiting the minority to benefit the majority. Because of some loose screws out there, we need to make the whole playing field level and vanilla to avoid any kind of perversion.
3. Thinking for yourself is necessary in a Democracy. This law suggests that because some people cannot distinguish between rape and consentual sex, we need to start censoring any idea of rape. So artists who tie up someone as a kind of "metaphor" will be put in jail?
4. Women need extra laws to protect them because they are weak. This law is insulting that it doesn't include men, who are also raped. Therefore, it suggests we need to also ban pictures of men tied up.
5. People who have anything other than missionary sex are second class citizens. BDSM is just the beginning. More "blue" laws are on their way to ban publishing anything about oral sex, which may be perceived as subservience/violence.
6. The state is chosing to discriminate against BDSM. By choosing to regulate pictures of violence towards women, we are deciding that it is the worst sexual crime in society. But clearly we need to take all young women off magazines, to avoid tempting pedophilles who are (by most accounts) far worse.
7. Unintended consequences. Anyone who studies law even somewhat will see where this might lead. A lawyer might mount a case to get her client off because the police showed her client handcuffed and did violence to her. Because a man saw a picture of a woman tied up before raping someone, he was not responsible for his actions.
I hope someone will be able to use this analysis to mount current and future attacks against laws like this.
On a personal note, as someone who does BDSM, the concept is both as beautiful and tender as any other form of intimacy. Initially it seems odd that you should bind or strike someone you love, but it is a reaction to a very difficult world and how difficult it is to feel intimate with anyone. Believe it or not, some people tie each other up to be free.
For those of you not aquainted, please check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDSM
The legislators aren't entirely lacking in logic....
An actual line:
An "extreme pornographic image" is an image which is both--
(a) pornographic, and
(b) an extreme image.
OK, they are further defined later on with enough ifs, ands, and buts to make it perfectly unclear as too what is included .
Were I the Queen of England, I should have long since had these shameful perverts lashed until they drop!
hope this attempt fails. The last I need are millions of blue dots ruining my pr0n. Seriously,
think of the models that will be losing work because their assets are off limits.
I can't stand to think of it, but my wrist could use a break.
[http://it-tastes-so-good.blogspot.com] Are you hungry?
then you don't believe in peacetime
if you don't believe in peacetime, you have nothing valid to add to the discussion
for many reasons. but mainly because anything goes in war, and so, according to you, anything is fair game, from either side of the conflict. complete amorality as the standard everywhere, all of the time
of course, this is 100% bullshit, but i'm just following the logical inference of your own retarded position: nothing requires justification. if everything is justified, there is no need to support your actions. just do them. why talk or justify anythign when evertything is justified?
since you have no reason to be logical or make your case, that all you have to do is whatever you want, without any justification, then why the fuck are you talking? you have no choice but to shut up, according to your own retarded way of looking at the world. why talk to me if there is no ground rules? people talk to each other to establish ground rules, trust, build society. but you don't believe in that. so take your words to their rightful conclusion: shut up
bye bye
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
mentally unstable people do things without reason. if you are around someone who does things without any valid reason, you tend to be a little more concerned and careful
skin cancer won't make me punch you in the face completely randomly. mental illness might. doesn't mean i will, but are you saying a mental ill person would never do that without reason? i can say a person with skin cancer would never do that without reason. so there's an increased stigma with mental illness. it's just common sense
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Inevitably it's the weirdest perverts that try to get this stuff banned. Something to do with the public school system I think. I think it's a form of projection.
One day they're in parliament trying to get sex banned, the next they're found dead in a hotel room, orange stuffed in their mouth, dressed up in nylons, plastic bag over their head and their belt wrapped round their neck in a failed attempt at auto-erotic asphyxiation.
Deleted
I propose we ban processed sugar from free sales since it triggers ADHD.
that would be the problem that people of violence CALL themselves muslims then?
Every time government proposes a new law we seem to take it for gospel that something must happen one way or the other. Politicians play this game successfully over and over. They raise a non issue, get a discussion started by proposing some crazy "solution" and then people happily discus and offer alternate "solutions" and thus accepting the "fact" there is a problem that needs legislating.
Why not a third option....Do nothing!
Wont be long until people will stand up and say "Hands off".
The government is supposed to serve the people, not rule us with an iron fist. Within fair and equitable laws we can decide what we want to see, how we want to live and what we choose to do with our lives. This kind of rampant censorship and the conversion to a big brother state cannot be allowed to continue.
"Dark Wings, Dark Words"
Great idea, now instead of looking at pictures to satisfy their fetish, now maybe this will drive more unbalanced individuals to act it out as their only source. Great piece of critical thinking in that legislation...
Is there any actual evidence that "extreme" pornography triggers violent behavior?
I'd suggest that smoking has declined because information about it is no longer censored, not because we censored the ads. If ads were truly the cause, I'm sure I would have tried Head On or Axe body spray by now.
"At the end of the day it is all too easy for this stuff to trigger an unbalanced mind (like my own)"
Strange how the Internet is being used to do weird stuff to one another: the systematic and widespread use of it as a scapegoat for the restriction of civil liberties (in the UK, USA, Germany, Brazil, Thailand, China, etc.).
In all these countries people are pushing legislation that furthers agendas that have nothing or very little to do with the "war on terrorism."
Germany has been the most extreme case, outlawing TOR, etc.
I wonder what effect this will have on the long run...Perhaps it will push the very people they want to outlaw to a "new techie underground" (SciFi/Cyberpunk/Cypherpunk galore)?
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
They're on Al-Jazeera. Back before 9/11 CNN also used to show them (albeit censored), but now they just tell you when new ones were published.
Nice try, liberal...
WTF? This doesn't make any sense at all.
They pass a movie like Hostel II. They declare the movie is legal. Watching the movie is legal. Advertising the movie is legal. To be very specific, watching a girl being bound and hung upside down naked while someone bathes in her dripping blood is legal.
But saving a clip from the movie and putting it on the Internet would be illegal.
Politicians are brain damaged.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Row houses are units (one hesitates to call them actually houses) all in a row such that they share common walls. One can imagine that rows happen there all the time. I thought they were common in both the UK and the US. I suppose you might just call them flats, but I'm not sure if that's quite the same thing.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Look at the stats!
l &date=all
Milton Keynes, Sheffield, and Birmin'am are the top three cities worldwide!
http://www.google.com/trends?q=porn&ctab=0&geo=al
1. Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
2. Sheffield, United Kingdom
3. Birmingham, United Kingdom
4. Edinburgh, United Kingdom
5. Manchester, United Kingdom
6. Thames Ditton, United Kingdom
7. Dublin, Ireland
8. Melbourne, Australia
9. Auckland, New Zealand
10. Sydney, Australia
You'd expect Australia to be in the top 10, but that's because England sent all the criminals there (We got all the religious nuts. I think we got the short end of the stick)
Doublin, arr, that's a toughie to figure out. Someone help me with that one.
The UK will never outlaw any kind of "violent" pr0n because it's likely Brown is into it. Didn't the Brits _invent_ S&M? Heaven forbid they take pictures of it! Even if passed, this will be repealed as soon as the first MP goes to Halifax. Mister MP! What's in YOUR sock drawer?
--
BMO
... how it will end, Ladies and Gentlemen. Not with a bang, but with laws by governments. Thoughtcrimes, imposed morals... let the fun begin.
Nah, but I'm sure some british politician would be happy to outlaw the practice for you. :)
February 9th, 2009 8:55pm: Slashdot becomes self-aware.
But what is an extreme pornographic image?
" An "extreme pornographic image" is an image which is both:
(a) pornographic, and
(b) an extreme image."
Thankyou for clearing that up for me
The UK needs some kind of clause in their constitution that says people can't create new laws to help with the grieving process. It is obvious that the mother and the MP who is working closely with her can not stand back and make an unbiased decision here. I think that should've been the first thing raised when this debate started. Can the people who decide this do what is best for the people, without taking an overemotional idealistic view of it. None of the parties mentioned here could be neutral enough to be on the jury in a court. And like the doctor said you can't create a law every time someone dies. It's another John Smith foundation for cancer relief because John Smith died, the family felt bad, and they realised the reality that most of the world couldn't care less. Grief and laws should not mix. Plus this law reeks of 1984 and religious extremism, just take our rights little by little until we have free speech and freedom in a nice controlled way.
I think the issue is that most people assume enjoying bdsm requires an insane mind, which means an uncontrolled mind. Which is bullshit.
I know a few people who are into different aspects of the scene, and they understand full well that acting out on an unwilling participant a tenth of the actions they can on a willing participant would see them rapidly jailed, reviled etc. These people have jobs, they have friends and lives; only an uncontrolled mind would throw that away.
'Deviant' interests does not mean insanity. But in the end, it's an issue of empathy. Someone known to be a part of the BDSM scene is just different enough that they don't evoke empathy, which allows everyone to dehumanise them. They act this way, therefore they are not us, therefore we don't have to accord them the same rights we have. First step to a segregated society.
I get very nervous about legislation justified on the basis of prevent X because X causes Y since I have yet to see strong evidence that demonstrates that the human mind behaves according to this rule. (such as X=content, Y=disturbed behavior in this case)
For instance I think it just as likely that indulging in X could release the pressure to truly perform Y. The classic example being games like GTA or violent first person shooters. I and others have played them frequently in the past and they have never triggered real violent behavior and it makes me feel more at ease afterwards.
I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
Always taking away our civil liberties! That stupid monkey! Bush and global warming and the oil corporation, [1] always trying to keep the common man under their thu--
Oh, wait...
[1] Singular; after all, there is only one oil company. It's like a hive-mind of white people trying to own everything.
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
think of the Xena fans!
there will never be peace, philosophically. but there can be peace, in terms of bloodletting. there will always be malcontents with a grievance, justified or not, who will resort to violence. the idea is that:
1. open warfare in the form of geographical bloodsport across tribal/ natinalistic fractures goes the way of history
2. as much of the grivances as possible are channeled into nonbloodletting means: debate, catharsis, the legal system, etc
of course 100% peace is not possible, some asshole will always resort to violence. but just because such assholes exist doesn't eman the rest of us must forever he held hostage to that ashole's low standards. you have to set a standard of behavior: no bloodletting. you ask me when that has ever existed. certainly there have been certain times and places, but none of that matters: peace is like happiness. it is nothing you ever really have, but it is something you always pursue. and to not pursue peace, or not pursue happiness, is to make life bereft of meaning or enjoyment
therefore, your entire train of thought about the difficulty of peace is meaningless: yes of course it is difficult, yes of course it is fleeting. and none of that in any way lessens the need to work for it
it's not a mirage. it is very real. because we make it real, through effort
and to not try to achieve peace is to simply be in complicity with those who plan war
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The more and more I see shit like this, the more appealing Libertarianism looks as a political philosophy. This worries me greatly.
The idea that you can have a "free" society is a giant illusion, a lie, and a bucket of pretense. One man's freedom to have BDSM anal nun porn violates another man's freedom to live in a society without it. Your thinking, dear West, is shoddy.
Anti-Globalism
Please explain in which ways Britain isn't a "full democracy"?
How ironic that such a patently ridiculous statement should come from someone with the username of "Myopic".
Britain is a constitutional monarchy in name only: the monarch's is effectively powerless and his/her constitutional role consists primarily of rubber stamping whatever the democratically elected Parliament has decided upon.
(The benefit of such a system (because it does have one) is that we have a nominal head of state that doesn't change with the wind and who's politically neutral.)
As for a constitution, well, we have effectively do have one, but it's not explicitly defined. Instead we have rights, etc set out by the Human Rights Act and other legislation.
Have you heard of Magna Carta? Where do you think that comes from? Habeas corpus? Where do you think that those concept originated?
Unlike some places I could mention, it's not like the government can detain me indefinitely, do whatever it wants with me, etc... Oh, wait, that could never happen in the US, right?
Not a full democracy? Have a revolution and then we'll talk?. Incredible. You're talking out of your backside, mate. Get an education and then we'll talk.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
...in some way terrorists will be linked to porn to justify it being banned. Such is the world of politics today between the U.S. and Britian.
okinawa japan
This sounds like the same line of reasoning that mullahs use to prevent women from displaying their ankles ("uncovered meat") and bible thumpers use against Catcher in the Rye.
From the article: 'Labour MP Martin Salter, who has worked closely
By that definition, British Secretary of State for War, John Profumo would be put on the sex offenders register if he had pictures from the parties he attended (depicted in the movie Scandal as involving placing bees in cups on sensitive places).
Mind you, this is the same country that's famous for Operation Spanner which found, "A person does not have the legal ability to consent to receive an act which will seriously harm them, such as branding or other intense activities of a sadomasochistic nature." Fantastically, upon finding they were wrong in their assumption the "victims" must have been murdered, the police gave the submissives a choice, "Testify against the people you consented to 'assaulting' you - or we'll charge you as accessories in your own assault."
This, however, is arguably worse. Now the definition is broadened to the point of ridiculousness. Say you're a totally balanced individual, completely capable of distinguishing fact from fiction, fantasy from reality. You have a kink - the idea of mutilation, even if you would never act on it turns you on. You put fake blood on a realistic sex toy and take a picture for private use only. Absolutely no one is, in any way, harmed by this act. No one else has seen it, you're not escalating towards a crime, no harm whatsoever. If the police discover this image - say a pissed off ex snoops around your system and finds it then reports it - you're now looking at a life of ostracism on the sex offenders register, access to your kids denied. For what exactly? A private picture with props that in no way led to any harm to anyone?
Of course, as Martin Salter so reassuringly puts it, "No-one is stopping people doing weird stuff to each other." Sure they aren't Martin, sure they aren't.
Hahahahahaha
Does anyone familiar with EU law know how this stands with free movement of legal materials between member states?
As I understand it, if you can legally purchase it in one member state you are free to carry it back to your home country and own it there?
I'm currently living in Amsterdam and given the quickest route to work and back is walking through the red light area I'm quite familiar with what dvds can be purchased here...
$_="Slashdotter";$syn="OTT";s;..;;;sub _{print shift||$_};s!ash!Perl !;s=$syn=ack=i;tr+LLEd+BLAH+;_"Just Another ";_
I want to defend the UK record on these matters against what seems like rather unthinking criticism. The UK law is quite careful about making appropriate distinctions between different levels of offence.
It first distinguishes between acts of abuse, and images of acts of abuse.
Second, it distinguishes between different kinds of illegal content - it distinguishes between Child Pornography, which is contrary to the Child Protection Act, illegal pornorgraphy, which is defined in the Obscene Publications legislation, and plain ordinary legal erotic material.
Third, it distinguishes between possession and publication. The only material which it is illegal to possess is that covered by the Child Protection Act. Other material may be illegal to publish or disseminate, but not to own.
Fourth, it distinguishes between different channels and levels of access. Material which may be broadcast after the 9pm watershed on television may not be lawfully broadcast before it. Material which may appear in cinemas with an Adult rating may not appear with a universal rating.
Fifth, its distinctions are not solely based on sexual content. It also tries to control the dissemination of or access to other kinds of material, violent, racist - look at the Race Relations legislation. Look at the recent video game episode.
Its against this background, which is one of a legal establishment doing its best to treat different things differently, that you have to see the present proposals. Despite what people are saying here, its not clear that the proposal actually is that material which it is legal to publish is going to be made illegal to own. That seems most unlikely given the care with which these matters are usually approached. It also seems unenforceable. If its legal to publish, its legal to own. If its legal to own, it has to be legal to clip out sections. So if this is really in the present proposals, which is a bit hard to tell from the draft as published, it will almost certainly not be in the final version.
The difficulty they are having with drafting is a well meaning but probably mistaken effort to accommodate 'art' movies, in which material which would normally fall under the Obscene Publications legislation can be granted a sort of contextual exemption. A little as if Germany would give a contextual exemption to art films in which Nazi era footage appeared. However, the UK record recently on taking context into account is rather a good one.
The proposals do seem ill advised. Not because they unfairly discriminate or criminalize S&M devotees. Rather, because existing legislation is arguably comprehensive enough and fine tuned enough to make any further legislation unnecessary, or at least, it is comprehensive enough given fairly minor amendments. It would probably be better to review the material covered by existing legislation, and if necessary enlarge its scope. Also, blaming the Internet is thoroughly misguided of course - but the grieving will inevitably feel they have to blame something.
Do not just condemn the UK's approach to these matters out of hand without finding out exactly how they do things. Its a difficult area, they do make mistakes, particularly sometimes in enforcement, but on the whole the record is moderate, rational and praiseworthy.
To drag it back on topic, though: IIRC what got the brits with their panties in a knot about extreme porn, was a case where one deranged guy watched a bunch of snuff movies, then went and strangled a woman to death.
I'm sorry, but that's a completely different place to draw the border than "missionary position in marriage for procreation under the covers with the lights out". That's a fundamentally different point.
At that point we're not even talking about an aversion to sex, but about an aversion to _murder_. That's a fundamentally different thing.
I'm not a prude in any form or shape, and as far as porn itself goes, I couldn't care less if you watch people having sex. But if anyone's fantasy is _killing_ someone for sexual gratification, let me say I'd consider them dangerously disturbed. Or disturbingly dangerous. Regardless of whether it's triggered by movies or not, that's someone who's seriously messed up in the head.
We're not talking about anyone criminalizing you for masturbation, or for having a 69 instead of missionary position. We're talking a fantasy about murder. It's a freakin' fundamentally different activity than sex. We're not talking "slippery slope" kind of arguments from masturbation to murder, we're talking about someone who's turned on by murder and fantasizes about murder in the first place.
I don't even care if it's necessarily in a sex context or not, that someone better freakin' get some psychiatric help ASAP.
And much as I'm not necessarily about censorship as such, just to play the devil's advocate: I fail to see what good it does to provide movies for _that_ deranged minority. Again, I'm not talking about people having sex in a different position, not even BDSM between consenting adults, but people who are deranged enough to fantasize about murder. I don't want _those_ treated like yet another minority, or as, really, just a small deviation from missionary position, I want those in a freakin' mental hospital where they can't actually enact that fantasy.
Do movies trigger them to act on those fantasies? I don't know. But I'll say they're messed up in the head as it is. With or without movies, that's a disturbingly unbalanced person who gets an erection at the thought of taking a life.
And being that usually schizophrenia _is_ a slippery slope by itself, and it will often get worse over time if untreated, I'd rather have them treated before they get worse enough to actually start enacting those fantasies. I don't want them catered for and reassured that, really, they're no different than anyone else, and it's only bigotry and closed mindedness that gets people against them. I want them to go to a good psychiatrist ASAP. It's not bigotry, it's not closed mindedness, and it's not just some arbitrary religious dogma that makes people have an aversion to _murder_.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Every time I see a politician that proposes some ridiculous curtailment of liberty, whether as a cheap way of gaining publicity, a denial of his own nature of Phelpsian proportions, or a step in the relentless march towards big government, I have this fantasy about pinning him down and taking him roughly from behind.
I think the only way to get rid of these urges I have is to ban self-serving, self-denying politicians.
captcha: pacified
this is what happens as most societies become more totalitarian. first they go for those who won't stand up for themselves, or won't get stood up for by anyone else. BDSM, urolagnia (piss fetish) and others are good examples which are all being cracked down on atm. the idea is that when they come for the rest, there is no one left to stand up.
it's in the interests of us all as a society that we stand up, even for those we don't agree with, to thwart this slide into a police state.
After all, all these things can trigger an unbalanced mind, can't they???
...
:-)
And while we are at it, can we please ban:
1) news broadcasts, because seeing news about war can trigger unbalanced minds.
2) strip clubs, because seeing booty can trigger unbalanced minds.
3) history lessons, because of all the sadistic acts and wars in the middle ages.
4) religion lessons, because the bible contains extremely graphic acts.
5) pacman, because eating dots may trigger unbalanced minds subliminally.
6) Lara Croft products, because some unbalanced mind might see the bouncing boobs and get his unbalanced mind triggered.
7) lolipops, because seeing a girl with a lolipop on the street can trigger unbalanced minds.
The western society goes backwards to a 2nd middle ages. Next, they will require all of us to attend Sunday church.
The banning will only serve to strengthen the problem. People will go underground and perform their activities outside of mainstream view.
Banning Pornography will seriously hurt economy, because porn will not be taxed...and the porn industry is huge.
And the number of rapes and other acts will go up, because sexually frustrated people will not have an outlet for their sexual urges.
And these people have not considered the consequences on slashdot members!!!
Mental issues until he and enough of his fellow dog-fucking Microsofters lobby and maneuver relevant psychological boards into certifying dog-fucking as A-OK healthy "lifestyle choice". It's not without precendent. Examine the coordinated effort effected by fags against the APA, successfully lobbying to get homosexuality removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). It was there in DSM-III and gone in DSM-IV due to coordinated efforts by said deviants both from without and within the APA.
It's neither politically correct not pleasant, but there it is...
When will good intentioned twits of the world... stop trying to save the world from the world. By logical extension, let's take the entire population, wrap them in Charmin (or some other squeezably soft cushioning material), sedate them to near flatline, float the lot of them in isolation tanks, and remove all voluntary muscle control just for good measure. That way nobody will ever again commit an act of brutality, violence, aggression, anger, rage, protest, offence, or antisocial behavior. Of course you've now reduced humanity to vegetable crop... but think of all the benefits.
How long before this jerk gets a bunch of zip files in his inbox with the message "Ay up Martin, here's the pictures you were after mate."
Seriously though, when are folks going to realise that there's got to be a point where taking away the "virtual" things they disapprove of causes a rise in the "physical" instances of said actions.
> SELECT * FROM Polititions WHERE Clue > 0;
> 0 rows returned
Bah.
I for one would certainly go out killing far less often if only I could freely wank over puppies being raped.
I grew up in a world where the HR director (wasn't call HR back then) had a 20 foot bull whip decoratively coiled on her wall with a sign that read, "Sexual harassment will not be reported. It will, however, be evaluated." And she was hot. I thought to myself whomever made a pass at her had better make it good. Fast forward to today... I'm not sure what I would think. First the decoration wouldn't even be there but if it was I'd probably be thinking in terms of how long before a lawsuit happened. In the future, I see a day where I'll probably be thinking how long before the police arrive.
Every complaint I've read in this forum is true about how absurd it is to legislate to the lowest common denominator.
Are we Sheepeople or Lemings. I haven't figured out which. I live in the United States. The mens strength of charactor that formed this country is no more. Rather I see an apathy, not just in the US but all around the world, that mimics Germany in the '30s and '40.
Maybe too in a few years I'll read your complains of injustice when your Grandson is taken off to prison for what you did as a youngster that would have only caused a Father/Son talk. Maybe this isn't the correct forum. In other words, maybe this is just the complaint department and the managers meeting is down the hall.
It's the missing comments in this blog that speak the loudest.
-[d]-
My parents both worked in the UK police for quite some time - so I have been into one of the main control rooms where the output of these cameras is displayed. They really are just for monitoring traffic.
As well as just looking at the volume of traffic on the road, they are used to look at the road conditions to issue warnings to the public - i.e. heavy rain etc.
I'm really quite bored listening to the whole 1984 argument - sometimes these things are actually there to help you.
It's worse for porn since it's much more addictive than violence and has zero benefits for anyone save for the wallets of people in the industry.
Er... how does this line not also fit television, movies, music, dancing, playing soccer....
The whole point of entertainment is to entertain the person doing it. It doesn't have to have "benefits for anyone". What benefit do you get from me watching a movie? None. So why do you think you should get a benefit to me jacking off to some smut? How are the two any different other than ways I choose to spend my time? It's no skin off your back.
The government does not belong in people's bedrooms. Period. If someone gets off watching a donkey piss on a chicks head while she fucks a banana, and someone else wants to make money by making a website about it - as long as the chick is doing it of her own accord, more power to them.
It's not my cup of tea but who cares? Neither is needlepoint but I don't put up a hissy fit to outlaw quilting conventions.
Legislation like this helps no one. If the people who were after the BSDM porn were "mentally unbalenced" then they're still going to find something to set them off anyway. All it is is another way to crack down on people who don't fall into society's "norms".
I can honestly say that since the advent of broadband, NOT cheating on my girlfriends has become my new MOO
There is no proof that so-called "disturbed" people are "set off" by seeing their particular fetishes enacted in images and videos. There is plenty of weight to the claim that being able to access this content can prevent them from acting out their desires in other ways, say like raping someone. The internet is a safe release for those feelings. You want some crazy fuck getting horny, unable to find any satisfaction by going online, deciding to come pay you a visit? This is yet another attempt to legislate morality. This is an inexpressibly dumb and harmful idea.
The goal is to prevent disturbed individuals from accessing content online that would trigger violent behavior.
What makes them thing they'll *ever* succeed in that, or that it even helps? Why wouldn't "violent behavior" from a psycho be triggered by a 20 year old woman walking in string on a beach? Or exposing cleavage in an alley in an evening? Seriously, what makes them thing this even increases the risks of psychos going crazy from it? Do they have any research backing them up as they're writing these far reaching proposals? Is it just a "gut feeling" from politicans that it "might" work? How is the proposal weighed when considering freedoms of *consenting* adults? So many questions with things like this.
It's not like I really care for scat or urine sex or whatever "extreme" forms there might be, but I'm just afraid conservative politicians that are likely for this will also have a conservative view on sex and it'll be one more step towards a sheltered society.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Long live the moral majority.
Seriously for a moment, the people trying to ban this are pigs. Through and through.
Internet: Serious Business
"1) SNUFF MOVIES ARE A MYTH!"
If you genuinely believe that they don't exist when there is a market for them, you're a fool.
"Excuse me shouting, but in 30 years of searching by police agencies worldwide..."
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Again, if there are people willing to buy them, then claiming they don't exist so decisively is ridiculous.
This is why you have a 'pause' button on your DVD/Tivo :)
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
That sounds right. So, are the houses on either end of the row considered "semi-detached"?
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
What're you talking about? You can quote the Holy Qaran *or* the Bible in school.
You just can't preach them.
In literature class, they teach Shakespeare all the time. He quotes the Bible quite a bit. I'd go as far as to say the Bible is quoted quite a bit more than the Holy Qaran, especially in Shakespeare, the most-taught dead white guy alive.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Ho ho ho isn't the world becoming an interesting place to live.
As in the curse, "May you live in interesting times?"
Yes it is, Santa.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Yes! Now take that to the next logical step.
If "hardcore" pornography is unavailable, then "softcore" pornography becomes the new acceptable taboo. It becomes more appealing, more erotic, and more likely to set off a violent episode. So now we'll have to ban that. Bye bye, Playboy; GQ will be the new boundary. Eventually this will reach all the way to Slashdot and posts like this one.
No matter where society sets the boundary, the socially unacceptable will become appealing. This is the nature of the human imagination. When burqas are the norm, any flash of skin is arousing.
If the goal is to prevent visual stimulation from causing a response, then the proper answer is to OVER-stimulate until the response no longer occurs. Make someone look at all sorts of hardcore pornography until they get bored -- or look at even more intense pornography so that "hardcore" becomes uninteresting. Desensitize!
But then, the goal never was preventing the response, was it?
@HbFyo0$k8 tH!$
Well damn, there goes my subscriptions for xgameshoneys.com and sexandskiing.org
You can get as pointed and confrontational as you like, but one thing is certain, and you can't refute it.
People have weird tastes, and some of those people have money. Again, if you think that snuff doesn't exist even though there is a market for it, you're just too stupid to continue discussing this with.
"Absence of proof, especially after 30 years looking, is good enough to counter this sort of FUD argument."
No, it sure the fuck isn't. You think so, but you also think snuff doesn't exist even though there is a market for it.
You're wrong. Get over it.
makes me want to beat someone into the ground!
I wish I had a witty
This article was published by Fox news journalist. The numbers may be wrong but this is alarming thing. http://www.ifeminists.net/e107_plugins/content/con tent.php?content.185
If we ban all porn, we will have tens of millions cases - major industry and employer.
"Even if you go the "market" argument, doesn't that sort of fall apart when you examine it from a market standpoint?"
Not even a little.
You're still wrong, have a nice weekend.
"ROFL! Sorry, *who* was making comments about being "pointed and confrontational"?!"
I was because that's what was happening. I give what I get, stop being a twat about it.
"'Paging Messers Pott and Kettle-Black'...!"
OOOH a stupid snarky comment fit for a 14 year old girl. Very high quality.
"If you have proof: Show it."
How fucking stupid are you? SLAVERY exists you fucking moron. People's lives are REGULARLY traded for common everyday items or money. They are regarded as less than cattle, they are property. They are abused in every possible way.
But NO, snuff films? NO FUCKING WAY!! Because you've never seen proof.
Again, how fucking stupid are you?
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,37 5883,00.html
_ murders
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snuff_films#Recorded
There you go, I will happily accept your mea culpa at your convenience.
You were wrong. Be a man and admit it.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,37 5883,00.html
_ murders
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snuff_films#Recorded
There you go.
"If you have proof: Show it."
I did, now let's see whether you're man enough to admit you were completely wrong. Because you were.
You are so brazen as to say THIS to me
"Your argument is based on supposition and innuendo (not to mention ad hominem comments!) not proof."
Then YOUR response to evidence that shows you are wrong, and cannot disprove, is
"don't you think that if there *had* been actual "snuff" films, the media would have been trumpeting it from the rooftops?!"
Who the hell are you to accuse anyone of basing an argument on "supposition and innuendo" when that is the totality of your response to evidence you can't refute?
But the best was this
"Paging Messers Pott and Kettle-Black"...!
Hmm, it seems like do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do is your M.O.
That's just embarrassingly sad for you.
"*What* "evidence I can't refute"? I just have refuted it because it is *not* evidence, it *is* simply supposition and innuendo."
PROVE IT. It sure looks like evidence.
No, it's an official police report that you can't refute, so you discount it. Sorry, that's evidence whether you like it or not.
As to proof, PROVE that the article I gave you is wrong. Prove that the guy DIDN'T sell a snuff film.
I'll wait patiently for YOUR proof.
You lose, you're wrong, and now you're just pathetic.
You're the loser who is dismissing evidence because it proves you're wrong.
No wonder you want to stifle debate, I won and you can't take it.
"However, the real issue is whether there exists porn feature non-consenting _adults_ "
Says who? You? The issue is "snuff" nothing more.
The adult qualifier is YOURS and is meaningless. If you have some input that isn't irrelevant, please give it.
Otherwise, keep your arbitrary assertions to yourself.
"The Wikipedia article first cites the same report without any more proof, it then goes on to say Some murderers have in various instances recorded their acts on video; however, the resultant footage is not usually considered to be a snuff film because it is not made for the express purpose of distribution."
No, actually it doesn't. The sentence you bolded DOES NOT REFER TO THE PRECEDING PARAGRAPH. Have someone read it to you and explain it, as you seem to be having trouble on your own.
The link I gave you makes it clear that the guy WAS distributing, so your point is wrong and moot.
Keep trying, you'll fail, but it's fun to watch someone be totally wrong and try to spin it.
All you need to do is provide proof that the guy WASN'T selling snuff and you'll be set. WHERE IS THAT PROOF GUY? WELL?
Right. You lose. Again.