Slashdot Mirror
UK Gov't Wants To Block Internet Porn By Default
airfoobar writes "Yet another country wants to 'protect the children' by blocking all internet porn — not just child porn, all porn. The British gov will talk with ISPs next month to ask them to make porn blocking mandatory (and they appear more than happy to comply). As an effect, adults who want to access pornography through their internet connections will have to 'opt in.' Their rationale is that if ISPs have managed to block all child porn, they'll also be able to block all other porn as well."
I'm not saying I agree with this, but they're not trying to block porn, they're trying to make it opt-in. Buying a newspaper is definitely opt-in.
Just like to point out, Virgin Media already do this (they have it as a "Parental filter" that is on by default, but can be turned off very easily by editing your account settings (which are linked to by the "this material is blocked" placeholder page).
I turned it off immediately due to the horrendous number of false positives- ever YouTube clips with the "log in to watch" adult flag were being blocked. If this were rolled out accross the ISP landscape I'm sure most people would turn it off for a similar reason, once they find their iPlayer videos and certificate 18 films on iTunes getting nixed.
Are you nuts? The porn industry is one of the biggest driving forces behind the "fight against online porn".
Think about it: Internet gives you free porn without the embarrassing trip to your local porn shop. Who do you think is the biggest loser in this?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If anything, they are attracted to it because adults try to hide it from them.
Having full access to anything I wanted to read[*] as a kid, and parents who would explain whatever I asked about (or provide more books if they didn't know), I was frequently the only source of information for my friends who came from more restrictive homes.
Which was wrong; their parents should have explained things before they went to friends for information. Cause even though what I knew wasn't far off the mark, I was still a kid without any grasp of just what was important information, how to teach, or what the other kids didn't know but should have been told first.
So there were probably some kids who knew about semen, menses, orgasms and syphilis, but not about foreplay or foreskins, or that intercourse didn't have to lead to either orgasm, pregnancy, or being sold to the gypsies. Blame their parents.
Sex ed in school was OK, but too little, too late. By then, a good part of the class were already past their virginity (mostly those from prudish homes were "active"), some girls were on the pill, absolutely all of us were masturbating, and many were well into watching 8mm porn movies and experimenting with more or less successful and sometimes dangerous toys. Mostly because they weren't allowed to, and had to find out on their own.
[*] One thousand and one nights in six huge volumes with non-censored pictures was challenging reading for a four year old, the biblical Canticles even more so for a five year old, and Lady Chatterley's Lover didn't make much sense to an eight year old. Thankfully, I had parents who could explain sex, moral views of other cultures, Victorian values and the strength of carnal desires in adults (anyone past puberty, i.e. old people).