UK Bill Again Demands Web Pornography Ban

nk497 writes "A new bill presented to the House of Lords demands both ISPs and device makers filter adult content. The Online Safety Bill, raised in the Lords by Baroness Howe of Ildicote, asks for ISPs and mobile operators to 'provide a service that excludes pornographic images' and for device makers to include ways to filter content at the point of purchase. The Bill follows efforts by one MP to make users "opt in" to access pornography, and comes despite ISPs already agreeing to offer all customers parental control software. However, as a Private Members Bill, it doesn't have the backing of the Government, so is less likely to actually be passed."

Comments

What is wrong with pornography?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, I can't understand you US and UK people. Pornography is nice. It's one of the basic human instincts. Why do you want to deny it? Are you jealous when other people look sexier than you? Still, I can bet that 99.99% of you wank. And did so as teen too. Stop being so fucking jealous.

Re:What is wrong with pornography?

[Avoiderman]

Not all Uk people. Certainly a wanker here :)

I really don't think is is even the majority in UK - cdertainly not the majority that I speak with. But it does appear to be a repeated obsession with a small but influential group of (mostly) chrisitan influential groups.

My interpretation is that Christianity never really made its peace with sexuality, like more natural religions, from the strange inheretence path of the greek cult of virginity into what was originally a Jewish sect.

I also believe strongly that those argueing for censorship here are missing the real dangers. The internet is public space and should be treated as such. If you are not yet ready to allow your child alone in public space and talking to strangers, don't let them access the internet alone and unmonitored. There are actually worse dangers for children than finding images on the internet, such as predatory grooming, that no amount of filtering will prevent.

Re:What is wrong with pornography?

[rainmouse]

My interpretation is that Christianity never really made its peace with sexuality, like more natural religions, from the strange inheretence path of the greek cult of virginity into what was originally a Jewish sect.

There are many scaremongering documentaries and news articles being spewed out about the dangers of porn to teenagers such as this. While I cant argue if there is truth to their claims or not, the real issue seems to be a lack of sex education at school, I certainly don't remember any. Perhaps there is something to your theory about religion, over the years, continually interfering with this process.

Re:What is wrong with pornography?

[santosh.k83]

We had some fairly good posts on this in the 'Egypt pornography ban' story earlier today. The general consensus (I think) is that it is a threat to the kind of compulsory, loveless marriages that are common accomplices to conservative values. It's not anyone's fault; merely an unfortunate equilibrium that built up over time. Personally, I'm still waiting for the complementary ban on Harlequin Romance novels.

...and sarcastically: escapism is clearly an unacceptable coping mechanism for a bad relationship that you're duty-bound to maintain by a bundle of two-thousand-year-old fairy tales and comic books.

Conversely, have you seen some of the absurdities they get up to in hardcore porn these days? Catering to private fantasies is one thing, but the amount of violence contaminating the general pool of smut at this point is pretty unsettling. It's enough to make me think that a concerted effort to reduce violence in the media might help clean up how sexuality is perceived by the people currently trying to oppress it.

Huh. Love has been hyped up far more than it is in reality. There's a vast gulf between marriages were the couple aren't romantically set on fire by each other (but which work very well nonetheless) and abusive and destructive relationships. It takes all kinds to make this world apparently. I think both rigidly orthodox, conservative societies (which tend to produce insecure, reactionary people as this House member being discussed) and amoral libertarians represent two extremes of the spectrum, and a middle-ground of a healthy society exemplified by "all for one and one for all" is the ideal we should aim for.

Like every other Internet user, having been exposed to all kinds of pornography, I'm now heartily sick of it and realise one ounce of a real relationship (no matter how imperfect it may be, as long as mutual respect is present) is worth tons of worthless fantasy. "Make love, not war" is excellent, but it's sad how it has been slowly transformed into "Make sex, not love."

Re:What is wrong with pornography?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would argue that there's an awful lot more evidence that exposing children to religion is much more dangerous than exposing them to pornography. So, why isn't anyone trying to pass a bill to ban religion?

Re:What is wrong with pornography?

[mwvdlee]

Does their inclusion in Italian goverment negate the posibility of other politicians in the same government being prude powermaniacs?

Re:What is wrong with pornography?

[MrHanky]

It's a bit funny that the persecution of the early Christians get so much attention (any attention at all really), considering that it's only a couple of hundred years compared to the Christian persecution of all other religions and non-religions the following 1700 years.

Re:What is wrong with pornography?

[digitig]

Not all Uk people. Certainly a wanker here :)

I really don't think is is even the majority in UK - cdertainly not the majority that I speak with. But it does appear to be a repeated obsession with a small but influential group of (mostly) chrisitan influential groups.

There's also a strong feminist element in the opposition to porn, and with Baroness Howe's background in the Equal Opportunities Commission I suspect that's where she's coming from. I can see the sense in that as far as some porn goes -- some does seem to carry a message of oppression and abuse of women. But most of the stuff I've seen just carries the message that some people enjoy sex with each other (ok, with perhaps a bit more interest in facials than I've experienced in real life, but that seems to be just so the camera has something to shoot). Have I been sheltered in the porn I've seen?

Re:What is wrong with pornography?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's another industry in the US very similar to that. They talk about keeping the performers off drugs, but in reality there's a lot of pressure to perform, and the regulators often turn a blind eye to abuses. Young kids are encouraged to beat themselves to hamburger trying to break in, even though most of them will never have any significant success. The ones that do can look forward to good pay for years of physical punishment that's likely to leave them infirm. People have suffered brain damage and even been crippled. And since the money flows so freely, many of them never learn to manage their finances and they end up poor with few other career prospects. This industry is called 'pretty much every professional sport.' Porn is probably more sexist, but I'm not sure it does as much harm as the NFL.

Re:What is wrong with pornography?

[Wilf_Brim]

This is a nice example of the perception in class that one must maintain solidarity with what is thought to be the mainstream of thought in the class/university. In this case, the perception is that if one doesn't consider pr0n to be a) demeaning to women b) distasteful c) only consumed by the uneducated underclasses d) THINK OF THE CHILDREN (registered trademark Hillary Clinton, circa 1994) e) all of the above then you are a total neanderthal and should be expelled from the university and have your photo posted on a billboard outside of campus emblazoned with the caption: "PEDOPHILE" The reality is that if you got them out of the classroom and got a few drinks in them, they would admit they like some form of what His Lordship in TFA would refer to as "pornography". They just won't admit it.

Retarded

[Idimmu Xul]

The political cycle

10 introduce bill that screws over the people, sponsored by either the fundamental right or a corporation

20 society tries to rally and shoot it down

30 if people are down trodden enough pass bill; break, else throw out bill

40 sleep 5 years

50 goto 10 with same bill

Politics and corporations are moving at a glacial pace compared to society, it's getting stupid.

Re:Inbreeding... Just say no.

[Anonymous Coward]

The lady is 80 years old... There may be certain limits to her knowledge of the internet.

Re:Inbreeding... Just say no.

[radio4fan]

Elspeth Rosamund Morton Howe (Baroness Howe of Idlicote in her own right and and Lady Howe of Aberavon because she's the wife of Baron Howe of Aberavon) is 80 years old.

This might give everyone a clue as to why she's got no idea about the net, or about the wide acceptance of pornography in mainstream culture.

Thankfully, this bill has no chance of passing, as there's no money in it for any of Cameron's cronies. Anyway, I can't think of a single bill from the last ten years that started in the House of Lords that became law, never mind one from a cross-bencher.

BTW: she was created a baroness, and her husband was created a baron; they're not hereditary peers, and her father was the noted architect and writer Philip Morton Shand, so putting it down to inbreeding rather than her simply being out-of-touch, over-privileged and superannuated is maybe a bit harsh!

Think of the children

[roman_mir]

Wouldn't you think of the children? Those very children, whose future you are selling out by putting all of your current and past expenses on their tab?

Wouldn't you think of the children, those very children that you are leaving with all these hatred around the world because of all the illegal and immoral wars that are you sending children into?

Wouldn't you think of the children, the same children that have no sound economy to look forward to, because you have chased away all of the savings and investment capital and all of the manufacturing and production out of your countries, because you just have to buy everything you, including the biggest governments can with fake money?

Wouldn't you think of those children, whose freedoms you are stealing by creating all these laws that ensure that the children basically end up leaving in prison like conditions, strip searched at every point, fined, jailed, regulated, taxed, etc.?

Wouldn't you think of the children, same ones that will have no knowledge or real education but huge debts, because you are lying to them that they need all that government education while putting them on the government guaranteed (and thus seemingly endless) loan needle?

Wouldn't you think of the children, who won't be able to run their own businesses due to all of the protections you are giving to your preferred monopolies, all of the regulations, laws, taxes, licenses, bail outs, stimulus, etc.etc., everything you do, when you prop up failing corporations you like so much and ensure that nobody can compete with them?

But at least you are making sure that the children don't see those 'offending' pornography images and videos. Of-course that's just a pretence that you are running in order to secure some form of total control over the information on the Internet, the only real outlet of actual data that those very children can use to learn something useful about the world around them.

Re:Best sex-ed

[s0nicfreak]

Porn definitely should not be used as sex ed. The fact that porn was your only source of sex ed shows a huge failure on the part of your parents, your school, and your culture. But anyway I'd be willing to bet that the banning of porn would just happen to catch valid sex ed information, too.

Fucktarded luddites everywhere!

[kheldan]

WHY is it that these morons can't seem to get it through their thick heads that what they're asking to do is not technically feasible??!? You don't like porn? Then don't look at it, morons!!!