Slashdot Mirror
UK Government Changes Tack and Demands Default Porn Block
judgecorp writes "British Prime Minister David Cameron is set to reverse a policy announced last week, and demand that ISPs filter adult content by default. This system would require users to actively opt out of a filter designed to block adult content and material about self-harm. Last week, after consultation with parents, the Department for Education had said that an opt-in system would be sufficient and no default porn block would be required, but the Daily Mail has announced triumphantly that Cameron will be presenting the policy in the paper. MP Claire Perry, who has argued for the block, will be in charge — and freedom of speech campaigners have branded the sudden change of mind as 'chaotic.'"
Perhaps we could, I don't know, wait until David Cameron actually announces this policy, rather than just believing everything you read in the Daily Mail, particularly as the Daily Mail are so hilariously biased on this subject in the place. Not to mention it's the Daily Mail.
This is like this news stories you see where they tell you what someone is going to "announce" later. If we already know what they're going to say, why are you telling me before they've said it?
Syllable : It's an Operating System
Since freedom of speech is the center piece of a functioning democratic society (which we consider good) anything that opposes that has to be evil.
We have thus logically concluded that MP Claire Perry's alignment is Chaotic Evil.
Me, I'm voting for the paladin candidate.
Orwell was a brit. Stands to reason....
Okay, define pornography then.
Bearing in mind that there are particularly lurid and erotic oil paintings hanging in Britain's museums, voluptuous topless women in many British mass-distribution daily newspapers, and fine art photography of nudes, not to mention album cover art, statues, anatomy and medical journals, encyclopedias, etc...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
As in, the government will ask about what the people think and then prettend to listen... Of course then they will do whatever the hell they want anyway.
I'd rather not be asked in the fucking first place, it's like teasing a child with a cookie it can never have, all they do is piss people off AND ignore the majority view.
We have had one minor dose of common sense this week with the revised social media legal guidelines. It was far to much to hope that it would continue
Orwell was a brit. Stands to reason....
Orwell was a bloody optimist.
things have become untenable.
Oh gods, I have to tell that that I want to be able to view adult content! This position is untenable!
Despite the US being far from perfect, at least I have the freedom to do pretty much whatever I want as long as life and property are respected.
I live in the UK, and I also have that freedom. I also had a few freedoms a lot earlier than I would have had them in the US:
UK public drinking age: 18
US: 21
UK public smoking age: 16
US: 18
UK age of consent/adulthood: 16
US: 18
Tell me, which is closer to being a "totalitarian state".. the country with an opt-out porn filter, or the one where the government can do whatever the fuck it wants, whenever it wants - without telling anyone - via the PATRIOT act? How can you be so hypocritical?
which is totally what she said
none of this is true....
Okay, define pornography then.
Pornography: Noun; That which becomes uninteresting after mastrubation.
The UK smoking age has been 18 for some time....
Staying awake?
I never get used to these constant resurrections
If parents want to protect their children for things that they consider objectionable they could use a government proxy to block what the government think that is objectionable or ask their isp for filtering (to avoid messing with i.e. browser configuration), but must be the parents option.
Can I get a default block on things I find offensive to children please?
* Violence
* Religion
* Telephone Scams
* Adverts to tacky products
* politicians
* The Daily Mail
Seriously why the focus on this one thing that some people think is bad for some other people? If you have a problem with receiving something, you fix it, the tools are out there and free! Don't make your problem my problem because of your ignorance and laziness.
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
Porn is for jerking off. Nudity in art like Michelangeo's David or The Thinker came from times where the human body was the sculpture of God incarnate. These days, religion takes a backseat while parents who are more prudish than even the Amish try and stop every little thing from harming their children's delicate psyches.
This country is being run by moron Daily Mail readers.
The only reason why these clueless wrecking cockheads are running the show, is because New Labour screwed up so badly.
No, he's right. Age of purchase moved to 18, age of possession is still 16.
Well, you can live away from your parents/guardians and get married at 16 in the UK. I always considered that the point adulthood, but obviously there will be a lot of differing opinions on the term.
After looking it up just now I see you still need permission from your parents though, so I guess you're right about 18.
Yep, it doesn't have anything to do with totalitarianism, but it does have to do with freedom. An optional web filter doesn't have much to do with either.
which is totally what she said
Speaking as a British citizen, one with two small children (aged 7 and 8), my take is that my government is acting like a bunch of morons. They're allowing themselves to be led by the Daily Mail - a newspaper that has a long track record of spouting an ultra-conservative line that includes rabid xenophobia and plain and simple hatred of a significant proportion of the UK population. This move is not about making a rational choice, it's simply all about securing votes - the Daily Mail's readership are exclusively Conservative party voters, David Cameron's party.
I'm strongly against net filtering. Implementing mandatory filtering is the thin end of the wedge. It will not be long before there's complaints and campaigns by the likes of the Daily Mail complaining about inappropriate material that is not being filtered. How long will it be before Wikipedia gets banned? That site is packed full of very adult material that some will find objectionable. And what about the BBC News covering stories about pedophilia? And all the swearing in YouTube videos? Google searches can link through to objectionable material, complete with previews, so shouldn't that be banned too? Even without such encroachment into areas that rational people can see as being innocuous, filtering still ends up being a blunt weapon, filtering out sites that deal with issues such as contraception and abortion since they fall under the label of "sex". If kids can't do research into such things then the problems we have in this country of teenage pregnancy can only get worse.
As an example of such blunt filtering, I recently used a wifi network at a local church that had filtering enabled on their connection. They wanted to prevent childrens groups that met there from accessing things they deemed as being objectionable material. The end result was that almost every single link off of the church's own website was blocked. They saw the light after a few weeks and disabled the filtering.
If this move happens I will be opting out of the filtering. That in itself makes me nervous - some people will assume that because I've done that I must be a bad parent. That sadly is exactly the kind of false conclusion that an average Daily Mail reader will reach.
The Supreme Court says "any act that has no artistic merit and causes sexual thought". So that's the Daily Mail blocked...
[Source: Bill Hicks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcefX9TPlkY]
Actually, I believe that you only need parental permission in England and Wales - in Scotland you can get married at 16 without any parental consent whatsoever!
So there are two issues here:
1) As others have mentioned, using the Daily Mail as the definitive source for anything ridiculous
2) No matter the source, it would be nice if the submitter/editor actually read the content of the article and not just link blindly to it.
The article quite clearly states:
.
To say that the government is changing tack and demanding a default porn block is a downright lie.
Once you define one filter and have a functioning censorship system,
adding another filter is trivial and *NOBODY WILL NOTICE* until it's too late.
Religion is a form of control of the people.
Now that it's going away, they need something new and quick!
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Ah, well I'm Scottish so that explains it. Thanks for clearing that up :)
which is totally what she said
And there in lies the problem... by having to "opt out"; the majority of people will (by default) be accepting a filtered view of the Internet, *not* a "porn-free" view of the internet (because there is no singularly accepted definition of the term), as they wouldn't want to identify themselves as wanting to include "porn" for fear of being added to a list; even if they really just want to have an unfiltered view of the internet (and perhaps genuinely aren't interested in *their* definition of porn.)
Having to "opt in" to filtering is much better, because by default you have no filter and can determine what you do and do not want to be exposed to without having to categorize yourself and asking to have the filter applied doesn't brand you a "perv", etc..
This has been a standard for Mobile internet for a long time.
I remember getting a Pay-as-you-go 3G dongle that was opt-out filtering, but it filtered a hell of a lot more than just pornography.
It filtered Reddit, it filtered 4chan, it filtered b3ta, it filtered a fair few web comics too. And they wouldn't unlock it over the phone unless you had a credit card (I only had a debit card and they wouldn't accept it, go figure), so you had to take the dongle into the store and ask them to unlock it, and take proof of age with you.
If the proposed filter is in any way similer to the current mobile one - and it's opt out - expect there to be a right shitstorm regardless of the ethics of the filter in the first place.
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
Anything that the government does not like. If it is anti government, it is obviously offensive and therefore pornography. Look at the things the US gov has done under the anti terrorist legislation to get an idea of how this will go. You accessed a web site that had once been used by someone that is now in the army, you are a terrorist... You looked accessed a photo of someone with a naked shoulder, you downloaded pornography!
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
This is somewhat misleading. States actually determine the age at which all of these things are legal. While it's true that all states fall into line with federal policy on drinking and tobacco ages, this hasn't always been the case. The legal drinking age in Louisiana was 18 well into the 1990's. It didn't change until 1996 or 1997 (I remember becasue I'd just graduated college, and my girlfriend at the time was only 20. She was "grandfathered" in and could drink, as could anyone who at least 18 the day the new law went into effect). Age of consent varies wildly state by state and can be as low as 14. In theory any state can change any of these ages independently (though in practice funding rules from the feds make it unlikely that they will for drinking or tobacco)
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
And the Patriot act is the big bad boogie monster that supposedly strips everyone of their constitutional rights even when nobody can actually give an example of what constitutional rights have supposedly been nullified.
Privacy. And examples or not, such legislation must be eliminated.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
The Sun will have to shut down its web site, that will be a great loss to society...
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Darn right. He apparently just realized British porn sucks, lol.
therefore, nothing?
Okay, define pornography then.
'Pornography' means 'anything the government does not wish you to see'. Surely you knew that?
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Legally, you become an adult at 18 in the UK but the age of consent is 16.
The UK is not England. The age of majority is not 18 in Scotland and never has been. Do keep up at the back.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Why are you bringing religion into this?
Aah seriously though, setting up Tor isn't that hard and might be an option for those countries in which "Freedom" comes with dickish air quotes. At least until such time as your government decides to ban it. It should be good for another decade or so, though, until someone realizes that the entire internet-using population of the country is browsing through an encrypted network.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
... what can we learn from this political flip flop?
Actually, there's a good argument that porn responsible for basically all of human progress. You know it's true, everything we do, we do it for porn.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Opt Out David Cameron Filter?
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Generally credit cards generally are not issued to minors, while debit cards come with the checking account. That would explain why a debit card was unacceptable as a method to verify age.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Indeed, one painter that needs to be blocked entirely is probably Rubens. All that naked flesh!
Okay, then we need a definition of artistic merit. Leaving out sexuality entirely for the example, my wife was rather unimpressed when she visited the Tate Modern Museum in London several years back, so we didn't go see it when we visited a couple years ago. She did not feel that the works in the Tate Modern held artistic merit. After the fact, I saw something on the Internet that was at the Tate Modern that I probably wouldn't have minded seeing, but she still did not care for.
My point is that it's difficult to define pornography because it always comes down to one's own perspective. Someone might find some fetish work to be art because of some characteristic of the fetish that requires skill to wear or display or carry out, while others will simply see it as pornography without any consideration for the craftsmanship. Even basic nude photography without any hypersexualized intent can fall into this, where some see an image of a naked person as pornography, while others look at the composition of the photograph for focus, lighting, lens selection, background content or props, the work put into the model in hair and makeup, posing, even the particular selection of the model as being able to have artistic merit. It's also possible for those same characteristics to apply to an image or a work that is of something sexual.
Do I believe that parents should have both the right and the responsibility to control their children's exposure to content? Absolutely. Do I believe that it's the State's job to do that? No, I don't.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Maybe because there's a strong correlation, when speaking in terms of population, between how religious one is and how likely one is to be offended by the sight of a nipple. Or in some cultures, an ankle.
Now remember, correlation causation! But in this case, I'd put my money on "sure it does", if I were a betting man.
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
If you read the Daily Mail article http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2250809/Victory-Mail-Children-WILL-protected-online-porn-Cameron-orders-sites-blocked-automatically.html you will find that the truth is that David Cameron "is backing alternative proposals to allow parents to tailor exactly what they can and cannot see". Sadly due to the continuing illiterate editing by the Daily Mail this was somehow equated to "Victory for the Mail! Children WILL be protected from online porn after Cameron orders automatic block on sites"
oops, slashdot removed my != between "correlation" and "causation". Silly me, thinking I could get away with Unicode 2260.
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
Really?
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/12/scandal-alert-congress-is-quietly-abandoning-the-5th-amendment/266498/
You might want to rethink that "I have freedom" opinion a bit..
So.. it has come to this
Except your privacy. Unless you feel that is of no value.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"Last week after consultation with parents" Which parents? How many? What was their political makeup? This whole story screams censorship.
I mean, I walk past an adult shop on my way to work every day (nice bondage display in the show windows btw). Is there also a plan to put up black walls around that so the poor children don't see it when they walk by?
Man, I WISH I could default block all religious content.
THAT stuff is offensive.
from times where the human body was the sculpture of God incarnate.
Hahahahhahahahhahaha!
You are in good fooling today, sir.
Either that or you are _amazingly_ and I mean AMAZINGLY ignorant of history. Or, indeed, the human condition. I'll let you in on a little secret about people:
nothing is new.
Lest you leave this thread believing that people in ye olde days were somehow less interested in sex, porn and all else, let me hand you a few links.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Hill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma,_Lady_Hamilton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caligula
And do you really think those nude paintings are for some pure, religious perspective about how the human body is god incarnate? My god that's naive.
I'll bet you believe people when they read Playboy for the the articles, too. Or read the Sun for the sports.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Silly me, thinking I could get away with Unicode 2260.
Get that 21st century technology off of Slashdot, we run ancient Perl here and we like it! *mumbles something about uphill in the snow*
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Will the Sun (UK paper) have to put a "warning filter" on its front page (ok, slashkiddies, google Page 3 girl")?
mark
It's probably a technical thing. They may not have an API that lets them query your bank for your date of birth, while I believe running such a check against a credit card may be included in the usual antifraud capabilities (i.e. they make a preauth that doesn't charge you anything but lets them validate your DOB).
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
mastrubation
I was going to correct you, but then I remembered how the British put their 'r's in weird places.
After this is introduced other so called "questionable content" websites will slowly start appearing in the blacklist. Want to know more about drugs / safety / etc? Too bad, you're too young to know anything and have an opinion.
Nope, just freedom
What does the Supreme Court of the United States definition of pornography, have to do with the UK?
So was Murphy.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Everything!
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
but I read that as "UK Government Changes Tack and Demands Porn".
...I never implied any of that. I'm not ignorant of history in any way and learned it as religion was more powerful then than it is now. Thank you for the links.
Erm, the first opportunity for Scottish people aged 16 or 17 to vote in elections is coming up but hasn't happened yet....and Scottish 16 year olds who commit a crime are not imprisoned in adult jails.
Irrespective of what is good for whom, PoliticianA agrees to support some policy of PoliticianB in return for vice-versa and suddenly legislation is passed.
A sudden reversal of announced policy within a week is absolutely someone whoring out their principles to get what they want elsewhere.
Most (but not all) Politicians have the morals, ethics, and integrity of pondscum.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
OK, maybe this was a bit harsh, but the religion was nothing but an excuse and a handy background setting. Note that many also had classical themes, not Christian ones.
There's a reason they didn't draw ugly, naked ladies.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
is fast becoming a Muppet.
Teachin #1: This is about Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) to protect the British porn industries from continental internet competition from players like Belgium based Youporn, Pornhub etc. The European competitors should call upon the WTO to give Britons unlimited market access to free internet porn.
Teaching #2 Violent muslim believers are known for excessive porn consumption.
Can't wait for Rupert Murdoch to become a British citizen.
Look, did you ever read a Groklaw article about stupidity in British Courts?
I guess "consent" relates to porn production... Sorry, I am confused.
The Patriot act does not apply in the UK, not in Britain, not in England.
Yeahhhh, I probably should have realized that one.
No, the state is enabling the controls by default, and forcing you to tell the state that you want the controls turned off. The term Google uses for such is "chilling effects". There are a lot of people that won't opt-out because they are concerned about the perception or longer term ramifications if they do opt-out.
Opt-in would be that the state would make it generally known that the controls exist, and would encourage those with children who do not know how to monitor their own connections to subscribe to the block. Making that option known would be as simple as a statement in the initial signup contract for the Internet service or a line added to each monthly bill offering it.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I demand the Internet to have a default David Cameron block. I think that might be more useful.
I know.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
This is a system whereby every time someone connects a new computer to the Internet, it will ask a series of probing questions and if you don't answer them all correctly (or at any point imply you have a child in the house), a massive (and wildly-inaccurate) web-filter will be put in place, in theory blocking anything about:
Because these are all things that children need protecting from and shouldn't be able to find out about (on the Internet; offline everything is fine). Oh, and because user-generated content tends to contain a lot of this, many of the existing filters just block all blog sites. And anything that flags certain keywords.
Oh, and this is to protect children from "sexualisation and commercialisation." But it won't block adverts. Or the Daily Mail (who are, of course, behind this block - presumably to drive desperate children to their website?).
And this will require putting "government sponsored filtering and snoop-ware software on every machine in the country" as part of what will be one of the largest state-sponsored mass-censorship programmes in a democracy.
So you think nothing of value will be lost here? You might want to have another think.
*List taken from the Government's response to the consultation on this.
The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.
Did you mount a military-grade, variable-focus MASER on an unlicensed artificial intelligence?
No no that word is the present participal of 'masticate' I believe.