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UK Gov't Wants To Block Internet Porn By Default

Posted by timothy on from the get-naked-for-the-cctv-instead dept.

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."

18 of 642 comments (clear)

  1. cp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    o-+-[

    You just looked at ASCII Child porn. You should be ashamed of yourself.

    1. Re:cp by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is not about porn.

      It is about using porn to get people to roll back the advances and advantages that they acquired with the advent of wide-spread Internet communications access.

      "Back in your cage, you!"

      --
      "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
      Never been known to fail..."
    2. Re:cp by Mista2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      After porn, it will be other harmful content, then wikileaks, then anyother site the government doesnt want you to get to. And as they have to sniff you traffic to see if it's porn, they may as well keep all those logs on you, and get to them without any need for a pesky warrant, or due process.

    3. Re:cp by kasperd · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There are still tons of free CP out there!

      Have you got any evidence to back up that statement? More likely there wasn't tons of it to begin with, and most of the blocked sites are legitimate. Recently there was news about a group that audited the sites in the Danish and Norwegian lists, and of the hundreds of sites they audited only three were found to have illegal content. They managed to get those three sites taken down in a couple of days. They were not just filtered, they were completely taken down. (Which would then leave the filter in a state where everything filtered was legitimate content).

      the ISPs have only managed to hide it from plain sight.

      That is true. Instead of filtering, they could work on getting every one of those sites taken down, that would bring them one step closer to the source. Even better would be to prosecute the site operators. The best would be to go after the people who produce it in the first place.

      Sometimes you have to stop and wonder why they are fighting it to begin with. Are they fighting it because they think it is distasteful? If that is the only reason to fight it, then it is nothing but censorship. But that of course isn't the reason we should fight against it, the reason we should fight against it is to stop the abuse of children which is happening to produce it.

      If you accept that the real crime we want to prevent is child abuse, then distribution of child pornography is really not a major crime. The child porn however is evidence of a major crime. Seen in that light, fighting distribution of child porn is really just hiding the problem. Even if they succeed in stopping all distribution of child porn on the internet, it still means they have done nothing to stop the real problem, they have just hidden it very well.

      Now go back and think about some of the moves that have been done in the fight against child pornography. How many of the moves suggest the fight is because people find it distasteful? How many of the moves suggest the fight is to stop child abuse?

      --

      Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
  2. Oh wow. by contra_mundi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is there a better example of the slippery slope associated with any censorship?

    1. Re:Oh wow. by hairyfeet · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hey now. Personally I think we should thank Britain. Thank you, o British people, for no matter how big of a bunch of douchebags our government in the USA becomes, you will ALWAYS end up so much worse we here in America will always have something to feel good about. You are to us what Mississippi is to the south. At least we can point at you, with your fifty bazillion cameras and nanny state BS and go "Well at least we aren't them!". So thank you Britain, for always stepping up to the plate.

      Seriously, I thought the religious ninnies in the USA were bad. When did the British become more uptight about sex than the USA? I thought being a giant bunch of prudes was OUR gig! And wouldn't you just looooove to snatch the PCs of the ones pushing this? You know they probably need TB sized drives just to hold all the kink.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    2. Re:Oh wow. by jonbryce · · Score: 5, Insightful

      and if they do want to block porn, then why not start with the photos on page 3 of our biggest selling newspaper?

    3. Re:Oh wow. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    4. Re:Oh wow. by chrb · · Score: 5, Informative

      Apparently they don't actually want to block all porn:

      Culture Minister Ed Vaizey has refused a request from a West MP for the Government to take action to stop children being able to access internet pornography.

      Devizes Tory MP Claire Perry raised the issue at a special Commons debate, because as a mother-of-three she knew how difficult it was to keep youngsters from seeing inappropriate material.

      But Mr Vaizey made it clear ministers will not take any steps to force internet service providers (ISPs) to tackle the problem.

      He said: "We believe in an open, lightly regulated internet. The internet is by and large a force for good, it is central to our lives and to our economy and Government has to be wary about regulating or passing legislation."

      The minister suggested it was for parents to take responsibility for what their children see online, rather than the ISPs that make money from pornography.

    5. Re:Oh wow. by lambent · · Score: 5, Insightful

      How is it not opt-in the way it is already? Nobody forces you to look at porn when you open a web browser. They very act of going to specific sites to look at pornography is opt-in by itself.

    6. Re:Oh wow. by RDW · · Score: 5, Informative

      For perhaps the only time in living memory, the Daily Mail has one of the more measured articles about this:

      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1339926/Internet-pornography-Parents-allowed-block-sexual-imagery.html

      'The plan is to allow parents to 'opt out' of the sites and they will then be blocked at the source, rather than using conventional parental controls...Adults who wish to view the material would have to choose to 'opt in'.'

      The Metro is even clearer:

      http://www.metro.co.uk/news/850896-new-porn-controls-for-children-on-internet-planned-by-government

      'He hopes to introduce a system that would enable parents to ask internet service providers (ISPs) to block adult sites at source, rather than relying on parental controls that they need to set themselves...Adults using the internet connection would then have to specifically 'opt in' if they want to view pornography.'

      So Vaizey (and right now it's just him having a chat with the IPSs, not government policy) wants a scheme where parents can REQUEST a default filter for their connection, but Dad can opt back in when he's 'working late' at the PC.

    7. Re:Oh wow. by bursch-X · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Going to a porn site is also pretty opt-in. It's not like porn sites are randomly set as your default page in your browser.

      --
      There are two rules for success:
      1. Never tell everything you know.
  3. Poor Assumption by crow_t_robot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    Except, they haven't...not even close.

  4. So lets start. by Haedrian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1. How are you going to block porn? Would you like me to register a new domain in 2 minutes and bypass your blacklist?

    2. What about porn which comes from filesharing - such as torrents or upload-services? Oh right, they're the next step. *Marks*

    3. This is going to backfire horribly. 18 year old kiddy living with his mom can't get her to opt in. Married Man with very controlling wife can't get to opt in. So lets visit the bowels of the internet to get porn - and get a virus collection while we're there.

    4. If you want to think of the children, you could like - give away free child-control software or something? Yes? No? Maybe?

  5. Re:What in the heck?? by PinkyGigglebrain · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... Banning all torrents, usernet access, or file shareing sites such as Rapidshare, Uploading, DepositFiles, etc??? How would they do this without killing almost all of the internet??

    I think that is their plan, both in method and intent.

  6. I'm ambivalent... by IrrepressibleMonkey · · Score: 5, Funny

    On one hand, something does need to be done about the corrosive, depraved, negative sexual imagery that pervades large parts of the internet - it's definitely not something I want my children exposed to.

    On the other hand... er, let's just say the other hand is busy right now.

  7. What is porn? by houghi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Please tell me what porn is. Then once you are done I will come up with two things.
    1) Something that you explain is porn and clearly is not.
    2) Something that you explain is not porn and clearly is.

    And what again is so bad about porn and what again is not bad about violence?

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  8. Terrible journalism by litheye · · Score: 5, Informative

    This article is completely inaccurate and hyperbolic. It's just one MP (not a minister or anyone with any real power) calling for this and there are no signs that it is gaining traction with the actual government. In fact, the minister responsible said this: "The internet is by and large a force for good, it is central to our lives and to our economy and Government has to be wary before it regulates and passes legislation". Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5jJiC8J_CirrU_ieNBO6oiEXvFlbw?docId=N0237401290546543448A