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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."
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.
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.
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
Nearly all ISP's in the UK have a service which allows the customer's Internet connection to be set to "off." When the "off" setting is activated, all pornographic Internet content can no longer be accessed. This technology is cutting edge — no other filtering is 100% effective.
Dude, it isn't about stopping porn on the internet, it is all about thinking of the children.
People looking at porn on the internet should not be thinking about children.
The lady is 80 years old... There may be certain limits to her knowledge of the internet.
Anyone trying to put a bill through like this should be able to answer this question first. Preferably in essay form, and then present something comparable to a thesis defense.
The whole point of the House of Lords is that they're not elected, and hence don't have to spend their time pandering to the electorate; they can make sensible decisions that no elected politician would be allowed to do. Opposition to the Lords comes primarily from those trying to push through unpopular legislation, not because they try to push through unpopular legislation; which they can't do unless the elected politicians support it.
There is absolutely no point in electing two different groups of politicians because you'll get roughly the same mix of parties in both. Switching from indirect to direct election of the Senate was one of the most disastrous decisions in the political history of America, for the same reason.
Parental control software is utterly useless, the vast majority of kids know a lot more about computers than their parents and have no trouble bypassing a parental control system that is purely software based... It's a classic case of client side security.
If you want something like that to be even remotely effective, it has to run at a layer further up the network that the kids have no access to.
That said, porn and sex are a fact of life.
Your kids will encounter them at some point wether you like it or not... When they're really young they wont be interested in it, and when they get older they will actively seek it out.
To a kid, if a subject is forbidden then its automatically more interesting... The more you try to prevent them seeing porn, they more they will look for it, and this is nothing new.
When i was a kid, internet access was very rare and porn on computers was pixelated and dithered.. So we acquired porn from magazines and on vhs tapes.
And something else important to consider, if you try to prevent your kids from learning about such things as porn, then they will just get introduced to it by other kids at school instead... Surely better for you to educate them in a controlled environment, so they are prepared for what they will encounter when they venture out into an environment that you don't control.
If you wrap them in cotton wool and shield them from any thoughts or violence, sex, bad language etc, then they will be completely unprepared when they encounter such things form other kids at school, and will have far more interest in them because its new to them and forbidden at home.
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My poor brothers across the pond. I can only imagine your pain. Blue and swollen pain.
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!
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.
You can't handle the truth.
... especially in the House of Lords mean nothing. They are individual bills introduced by members to usually provoke conversation versus any real intention of becoming law. They get debated and discussed and almost always get struck down. It is a customary process that allows the UK to consider and discuss things that would not be discussed by normal routes. So even mentioning (and mis-characterising it) is just to just sensationalise something that shouldn't be. The fact that the UK Government is actually considering unwarranted surveillance of the Internet in the UK is far more "dangerous" because of the way they are introducing it, via the Queen's Speech, which means it is setting out what the Government supports and actually plans to do over the next 12 months. Usually what is in the Queen's Speech gets banged into Law one way or another.
D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M.
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.
...why she's got no idea about the net, or about the wide acceptance of pornography
Maybe she is just tense and needs a visit from the pizza man.