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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."
To be fair to the US and UK people, most of them probably don't want this bill to pass either and every other country in the world has prude powermaniacs in political office as well. You just read more about it because both countries speak the same language as this website.
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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.
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Even in the UK, we thought that was just amusing.
We don't quite have the liberal attitudes that Europeans do - we used to have a TV show that just showed foreign TV commercials so we could (amongst other things) gawp at the pretty Swedish ladies with their shirts off.
The American attitude seems so schizo though - they'll sexualize everything to the hilt, but no further. Lots of cleavage and skin, even on very young ladies, but heaven forbid you reveal anything that everyone sees every morning in the mirror...