India Blocks Over 800 Adult Websites

William Robinson writes: The government of India has blocked over 800 adult websites through a secret order. “Free and open access to porn websites has been brought under check,” N.N. Kaul, a spokesman at the department of telecommunications said. “We don’t want them to become a social nuisance.” The ban has provoked debates in the country about extreme and unwarranted moral policing by the government. The action came after the Supreme Court of India had refused to ban porn sites in India.

Comments

Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's take away a perfectly safe outlet for sexual frustration in a country with a pervasive rape problem, fucking brilliant.

Re:Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

It's actually about chasing men back to the plantation/marriage. Men have started realizing that radical feminism makes marriage a bad deal for them and so they have started avoiding it. which scares governments. This is why lots of countries like Russia, Iceland, and Canada are also starting to restrict porn and sexual services.

Re:Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

No one claimed that abuse would NOT occur, just that it would occur less often.

Re:Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice straw-man, bootlicker. There's zero legitimate reason for blocking pornographic sites featuring of-age, consenting adults. It's not about morality, it's about control of the populace. Glad to see you're all on board with the thought-police, though. Maybe the G-man will give you a doggie treat.

Re:Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

You should probably actually learn about these topics before you deign to try sounding clever.

Re: Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's knock something on the head here. Rape has virtually nothing to do with sexual frustration, and everything to do with a need for the rapist to dominate and humiliate, often because of his deep-seated sense of sexual inadequacy. At a time when porn is more widely available than ever, rape levels are also at an all-time high. (Go check the research data, there's lots of it to support this view.) Many feminists (yes, count me in) both female and male take the view that porn leads to higher levels of tape because Mr. Sexually Inadequate wonders why the women he encounters don't react like those he sees on porn sites panting and groaning in response to the guy's every demand and whim. He concludes, not entirely surprisingly, that women are untrustworthy, phoney bitch whores who deliberately tease guys like him then withhold what they've given to every other guy and so need to be taught a lesson.
The other problem with porn is that it potentially ruins everyone's sex lives. How? By making young guys (and older ones too) think that what they see on porn sites is how to 'do' sex, while young women (and older ones too) think they need to do sex that way too, which largely means they feel they have to ignore their own sexual needs, wishes and desires in order to 'do' sex 'properly'. That way neither is getting their true sexual needs met, and much confusion and counter-accusation (stated or silent) abounds, resulting in, for example, truly depressingly low levels of orhasm through intercourse among some, as any reader of women's mags can attest.
So before we all assume that banning porn is a result of kill-joy or repressive thinking lets just reflect for a while, eh?
Sorry: I have to submit anonymously because this is the first time I've visited this site (nothing like jumping in feet first but this is a matter I feel strongly about) otherwise I'd have been happy to own what I post. Maybe next time.
Be kind to a 'virgin' please folks?

Re:Yeah, great

[Dutch Gun]

Kaul said the government was working on a long-term solution and suggested the ban would not remain indefinitely.

I'm dying to know what sort of "long-term solution" would be acceptable to those who feel a need to ban or block others from watching pornography. Drug therapy? Morality police? Castration? Shotgun weddings?

Re:Yeah, great

[circletimessquare]

how socially clueless and sheltered can someone be?

you have asperger's maybe?

there's some sort of large social deficit at work here resulting in spouting this nonsense

Re: Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

I know it's a rite of passage for posters to chip in without knowing what they'er talking about, but holy smokes! You really jumped in head-first. Let's all sit back and thank our lucky stars you're not in a position of power, thinking like yours is just a couple steps away from mandatory castration for anything born male.

Re:Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this the indian adult sites we are talking about? https://www.google.com.au/tren...

Re:Yeah, great

[circletimessquare]

more socially conservative societies that restrict outlets for harmless sexual release do indeed have higher rates of rape and sexual violence in general. there is much truth to the concept of catharsis as a way to reduce rape and sexual violence. it doesn't prevent everything, just some of it

but bringing up child porn in this context is a red herring because the creation of child porn victimizes actual children, and this is why it is genuinely immoral illegal and verboten

sexual content between consenting adults is completely unrelated to child porn. to believe it is marks you as woefully inadequate to comment intelligently on the topic, or a failed troll

Re: Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

You are rather misled, I guess. There is no pervasive rape problem in India. In fact, India has amongst the lowest rape per capita rates in the world. About .19 per million as per UN statistics. USA has more than 10 times as much, about 2.5 per million.

What if you add surprise sex?

Re:Yeah, great

[fustakrakich]

...the creation of child porn victimizes actual children

Even fiction and drawings?

Re:Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

The good news is that people figured out sex long before there were things like TV and the Internet. In fact, I think our cave-dwelling predecessors had it figured out too. In fact, if they hadn't then we'd be pretty boned right now - boned for a lack of boners. Trying to remove all notion of sex and sexuality from the population won't achieve what they think it will achieve. Worse, it might breed ignorance. Especially amongst the teenage population deliberately shrouding the whole subject in mystery will lead to a lot less shrouding in the bedroom, which will lead to a lot more teenage pregnancies and rampant STD infections.

Banning porn is stupid. There's nothing to gain here.

Re:Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you one of those people that think child porn is good because it prevents potential child molesters from molesting children?

Are you claiming that having a "safe" outlet for sexual frustrations increases problems?

Re: Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

India doesnt do stats on 95 percent of occurrances. Fact. Would you go to police station to report being raped just to get raped again?

Re:Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

Socially conservative? Today, the countries enacting these new policies are doing so because of feminist lobbying. I'm not sure you know what 'conservative' means.

Re: Yeah, great

[WOOFYGOOFY]

I quote from the above post. I am sure (that is, I know for a fact) that this is staple fare amongst a *certain kind* or radically politically correct, social constructivist, radical feminist which I mean to distinguish from feminists generally, a group I and others include myself in.

BEGIN QUOTE:
Mr. Sexually Inadequate wonders why the women he encounters don't react like those he sees on porn sites panting and groaning in response to the guy's every demand and whim. He concludes, not entirely surprisingly, that women are untrustworthy, phoney bitch whores who deliberately tease guys like him then withhold what they've given to every other guy and so need to be taught a lesson.
END QUOTE

This is an approach to social theorizing and sadly, and ultimately lawmaking, which is based on *nothing more than a narrative which sounds plausible to the narrative's creator.*

That's it. That's the sum total of the evidence used to support that narrative. Remember, this narrative is not just any tale, it's meant to be taken seriously as an accurate description of the casual relationship between two things- porn and rape.

There are no epidemiological studies or population based studies which show, for instance, that porn viewers:

"wonder(s) why the women he encounters don't react like those he sees on porn sites panting and groaning in response to the guy's every demand and whim."

Nor is there any evidence that, for a given porn viewer, he reasons as presented:

" He concludes, not entirely surprisingly, that women are untrustworthy, phoney bitch whores who deliberately tease guys like him then withhold what they've given to every other guy "

Nor any is this a product of evidentiary based reasoning :

"and so (women) need to be taught a lesson."

It's amazing AMAZING to me that entire legislatures can be pressured into action and effectively captured by this level of "evidence" and pass laws and allocate funds and based on a mere narrative.

Rape is not ONLY about sex it's about the fact that the rapist is a criminal, that is, is criminally inclined.

Historical Fact: people of both genders have always and will always engage in sex play which resembles, on the face of it, the worst kind of rape. Thus the books 50 Shades of Gray, The Story of O and Justine to name but the most well known. But these people who view this pornography- and these books ARE pornography, are not rapists and are not potential rapists. The reason is, they are not criminally inclined.

Think of what it means to be a criminal. You are anti-social, at least. You simply do not care about what happens to other people. Their feelings mean basically nothing to you and their suffering is a matter of indifference to you. When they genuinely scream and cry in pain, you're unmoved. You have no empathy.

This pretty much describes a lot of people in society who do a lot of other things than rape, although they may do that too if they get the chance.

As I see it, we have a criminal problem. In the executive suites, in the state legislatures, in Washington, in industry, everywhere we have a disturbingly largish segment of the population which starts off, say, beating up their fellow playmates or learning to be manipulative, and then progresses on to more and perhaps more subtle orviolent crimes depending on the circumstances.

Go after the people who express anti-social behavior patterns early, because they're nt just raping, they're assualting other men, they're ripping people off, they're writing bills for Congress which destroy the earth so they can profit, they're hiding how dangerous the products and drugs theor corporations create are. They're lawyers and think tank employees and broadcasters and CEOs.

Violence against a target is violence against a target. Sure, some fo them rape. But it's not because of pornpornporn. It's because up until they rape, everyone, including feminists looked the other way at their anti-social behavior, some even admired their aggression, some even preferred it and found it exciting.

Re: Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

It is in the gp post. As per UN stats, under reporting is around 90%. Even considering which, it doesn't go above the median.

Re:Yeah, great

[circletimessquare]

thank you, that's a valid clarification

i am aware some countries outlaw fantasy cartoon child porn as well as actual real child porn

while real child porn should never be legal and should always be blocked, i think that fantasy drawings and cartoons do have valid cathartic use and should be legal

also, the legal status quo against fantasy content precludes the tactic of honey pots

outlawing the fantasy content drives it underground, while allowing it to flow freely allows the authorities to track profile, and locate consumers of it

as they should

because viewing this material indicates a proclivity that allows us to find pedophiles

and pedophiles should never be able to exist in open society without monitoring

like drug addiction, we should not incarcerate pedophiles, we should treat them as having a healthcare issue. pedophiles, once identified, should be treated, not jailed

and closely watched nonetheless

because like how valid porn between consenting adults does not prevent all rape, only minimize it, fantasy child porn would also only mitigate child abduction and victimization, not prevent all of it

being a pedophile marks you as fundamentally incompatible with human society in a truly horrible way. i feel sorry for pedophiles, i'd rather have painful cancer than be a pedophile, it is a truly life destroying, life hobbling vile affliction

because to be a pedophile means you have a sexual proclivity which immediately elicits the completely valid parental response and societal response to protect their children. some of that instinct outside the realm of law will find immediate and violent impulse, and even large sympathy for that violent impulse. the imperative to protect children is strong, as it should be, and pedophilia is a valid threat. but even in the realm of legality, society has to strongly consider the potential for grave harm that a pedophile represents in open society. a pedophile is truly screwed in many ways, and there is little empathy for them

pedophilia, like homosexuality, is merely a genetic aberration in the formation of sexual attraction. but while homosexuality is fine because it involves consenting adults, pedophilia will never be ok because it involves one party that can never consent (in an informed way, not a bullshit "i gave you toys and candy and you said 'ok' to my suggestion of sex" because a child can never give informed consent on the topic)

i think maybe in the future we can treat pedophilia with child shaped robots

but even so, treatment will never prevent all pedophiles from hurting real children. and therefore society must always view them in a very critical, suspicious, dim light. because they always represent the potential for grave harm

i think if i were a pedophile i'd choose self-banishment to greenland or something. having a strong sense of morality is only a guide, not a cloak of protection, we all have moments of weakness, and i would never want a moment of weakness of mine to result in harm to a child

truly a life-crippling, monstrous affliction

Re: Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

Socially conservative along the lines of Saudi Arabia, where just about anything showing female skin will be deemed "immoral" and land you in a heap of trouble.

Re:Yeah, great

[Nemyst]

Socially conservative? Today, the countries enacting these new policies are doing so because of feminist lobbying. I'm not sure you know what 'conservative' means.

India, getting policies enacted because of feminist lobbying? Hahahahahahaha... Good one mate, good one!

Re: Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

... thinking like yours is just a couple steps away from mandatory castration for anything born male.

The poster is a modern (third wave) feminist, said so right in the post. Denigrating men / anything "male"* is what they're about.

*Of course rape is entirely male, just ask a feminist!

Re: Yeah, great

[quenda]

I have to submit anonymously because this is the first time I've visited this site.
Be kind to a 'virgin' please folks?

Thats OK. It is traditional here for clueless rants opposing all factual evidence to be posted as AC. It reduces work for the mods.

Re:Yeah, great

[circletimessquare]

i would never think a country like britain would fall victim to this sort of censorial nonsense, and it is a troubling development

however, i don't buy the argument it is because of feminism

you need to understand that feminism there is the older valid causes against the maltreatment of women and the removal of their rights. which used to be far worse in the west. and is indeed still a major problem in the world, especially in areas like india and islamic countries

but the kind of feminism you seem to be reacting to isn't really feminism at all, it is instead this sort of clueless teenaged reactive naval gazing by immature clowns

kind of like how dismantling all governmental protections against abuses by large market players is called "libertarianism" in the usa. while actual genuine libertarianism of the original european sort has to do with social issues. real valid libertarians are interested in legalizing marijuana, not freeing plutocrats from paying their fair share of taxes

so like the word "libertarian" in the usa has been hijacked corrupted and rendered invalid by a plutocrat agenda, so to have a few headcases coopted the word "feminist" and advanced truly nutty causes that only mark the believer in those causes as having some sort of psychological or social deficiency

furthermore, for you to react to these fringe idiots, and believe what they stand for is actual feminism, just means you have been horribly trolled. snap out of it, you've been fooled

real, valid feminism is a very important ideology in this world, against the very real and very evil treatment of women in many parts of this world

Re:Yeah, great

[circletimessquare]

there are societies in this world where women are treated legally as little more than property

the west is only beginning to emerge from this barbarity, as "mens rights" morons like yourself illustrate, misogyny still exists

but to answer your scenario:

if a woman is going to try to victimize me, my first defense is a valid judge of character and never getting involved with an evil harpy in the first place

but if i am socially clueless and lack the insight that will protect me from getting invovled with a vile woman, she's going to victimize me anyway, even if she lives in a medieval sharia law society as you somehow believe it should be: poison me, assassinate my character with gossip, harm our children, etc.

there are evil people in this world

some are men. some are women

fight the evil shitbags of the world, not women. not men

to react to the very notion of women's rights as wrong simply marks you as a socially inept loser

i'm sorry your experience with some women has been so bad. but now you're constructing an artificial fantasy about how you interact with the opposite sex that only means you will be forever victimized in the way you fear. it's really only a testament to your weak mental faculties your own poor character

Re:Yeah, great

[Falos]

>Are you one of those people that think child porn is good because it prevents potential child molesters from molesting children?

I think there's already enough data out there to show trends between outlets and decreased sexual crime. But I'm actually just here to laugh at how quickly Lovejoy's Law kicked in.

Re: Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure that we fundamentally disagree that much. I'm happy to take on the chin your criticism that I offered no research evidence to back my assertions, but then I wasn't really suggesting I was offering anything other than a possible and, I believe, plausible narrative. But it's a narrative that chimes with what I recall of the studies of rapist behaviour I have read. (Long, long ago; I'm very old and can't even begin to try to produce them immediately.) Can we perhaps agree to paraphrase your remark that 'rape isn't just about sex' into 'rape isn't even about sex'? That's surely a pretty uncontested view amongst criminologists and the like these days.
As for sadomasochistic sex that wasn't what I was thinking of; I was referring to the more general kind of pornography. Of course what two or more consenting adults choose to do has nothing to do with the reality of rape. It's an entirely different class of event.
I'm much more concerned with the performance (as in dramatic performance) of sex as the meta narrative of 'straight' 'vanilla' (or whatever term seems to fit) porn in which sex is something the woman (or women) does *for* not with the man (or men), and how this feeds into people's views.
I'm not, by nature, a fan of banning anything but i do worry that the widespread availability of Internet porn, in particular, maybe damaging people's sex lives, not least by making it easier to get off solo by hitting a few keys rather than actually engaging with a living, therefore complex and potentially difficult, human being, and that even once sex moves from a solo to a duet the disparity between the onscreen version and reality may lead to all sorts of self-censoring or mistaken actions.
So although I think the argument that porn reduces rape is both mistaken and, at the very least, unproven, nor do I think unlimited access is A Good Thing unless accompanied by much more widespread education about the difference between pretend sex and the often messy, frequently confusing, sometimes shy-making but ultimately soul-soaring real thing ifâ"ifâ"both (all) partners understand their right to have their own needs met, and not just be expected to perform a service for others.
Finally, I'd need to see a lot more research before I'd feel happy about the performance of any kind of non-consensual sexual violence on film. How confident can one be that the performers, especially, but not exclusively, the females as the more usual players of the 'victim' parts, are not subject to coercion in one form or another? How many female porn stars go forward to a happy, drug-free retirement?
It seems a truism the prostitutes and porn stars are heavy drug users, working both to pay for the drugs and because they need the drugs to do their work. In that case, in what sense is consent freely given? Do not the arguments against child pornogtaphyâ"that it involves real children who cannot consentâ"apply to much general pornogtaphy, if only to a perhaps lesser extent?
I'm not trying for a moment to suggest that women are such weak-minded little dears that they can't know exactly what they're doing. These performers are (one hopes) grown adults. But the power imbalance between the overwhelmingly male producers of porn and the male performers, and the women performers is notoriously immense, with the males making most of the money. So there is no level monetary playing field, which has a whiff of exploitation to start with. Then if the women do need, generally hard, drugs to perform, what does that suggest about consent?
So my objection to any kind of violence in connection with sex is two-fold: I worry that it may normalise sexual violence against women and so lower the barriers against transferring that behaviour to real life (I'm not talking about consensual violence here, remember), and I worry about the value, the reality of consent on the part of the female performers. Is it really okay for people to use porn in which full consent may not be present to enhance their own consensual violence durin

Re:Yeah, great

[Jack Griffin]

more socially conservative societies that restrict outlets for harmless sexual release do indeed have higher rates of rape and sexual violence in general. there is much truth to the concept of catharsis as a way to reduce rape and sexual violence. it doesn't prevent everything, just some of it

There is also evidence that a lot of exposure to Porn, especially at a young age is detrimental to brain development, especially respect for women. And that respect for women is one of the key differentiators between an advanced society.
So yes, free porn offers benefits, I personally love the stuff, but am also aware that there needs to be some limitation somewhere to ensure like drugs, alcohol and other good stuff, it doesn't get abused (Note I don't support India's action, but can see understand the frustration some people have around this subject, and the knee jerk reactions to a seemingly unsolvable problem).

Re:Yeah, great

[circletimessquare]

There is also evidence that a lot of exposure to Porn, especially at a young age is detrimental to brain development, especially respect for women. And that respect for women is one of the key differentiators between an advanced society.

yeah, that's complete laughable nonsense. there is no magic substance in media that creates disrespect. disrespect is a function of a person's low character. putting that on media is a lame attempt at avoiding personal responsibility

i would like to see this "evidence" you refer to, as it sounds like a hilarious pile of crap

Re:Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

So that would be regulated by the Ministry of Truth? You're wrong on all counts. Treatment of women tends to be better in advanced societies not because treating women better advances societies but because people in advanced societies don't need to send men to war as much, have individual standards of wealth that allow more individual choices, don't need to have a lot of kids so that at least some survive, aren't as religious, and don't need to focus on agriculture as small groups, and don't need to focus on villages as the primary focus of society.

Therefore the protection of women isn't as practically important and fewer people are needed to care for children. This in turn leads to gender rolls blurring. This means women should lose the all privileges of being assumed to be primary caretakers and should assume all responsibilities that men used to hold. Much of that happens in advanced societies. But differing gender roles are effect, not cause.

And the mental gymnastics you're performing to go from "women are treated better in advanced societies" to "banning porn is a good thing" are absurd.

Re:Yeah, great

[ShanghaiBill]

There is also evidence that a lot of exposure to Porn, especially at a young age is detrimental to brain development

You state that there is evidence, but fail to provide a link or citation, which usually means that there actually is no such evidence.

Re: Yeah, great

[nikkipolya]

In many parts of India, rape is still considered to be a hobby, a "real man's" sport. And none other than the chief minister of one of the states backed it in the name of cultural heritage:

http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/...

Re: Yeah, great

[Sleepyscribbler]

Worked out how to join! No more anonymity. Hoorah! I don't actually like peeping from behind that cloak.

Re:Yeah, great

[ShanghaiBill]

I think there's already enough data out there to show trends between outlets and decreased sexual crime.

Nope. There is not enough data to either support or refute a casual link. We are passing laws, destroying lives, and imprisoning people, based on conjecture, not evidence.

Re: Yeah, great

[nikkipolya]

A bigger problem in India is, getting raped at the police station for reporting rape. And the lack of a working justice and enforcement system in general, puts the life of the victim in peril. Most of the offenders freely roam about on the streets for ever. And even if convicted after decades, with the decades in court room proceedings only adding to the agony of the victim, the punishment is a mere slap on the wrist. We even have the chief minister of a state saying "Boys will be Boys".

Re:Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

> there is no magic substance in media that creates disrespect.

It's called 'culture' and it's made up of everyone's expectations. Those are set via experiences, even those watching fictional people behave. No, of course there's some differentiation between fantasy and reality, normal people won't start expecting to cast spells after watching Harry Potter (other than kids screwing around, maybe). But if everyone they see treats women like crap during sex and, well, they probably don't watch many real people having sex, well.... just let that sink in for a moment. It's similar to why people have no idea what drowning looks like and such, because all the fictional accounts they've seen are very similar and completely wrong.

Re:Yeah, great

[circletimessquare]

is this the evidence you are referring to?

furthermore there's many different kinds of porn

there is indeed porn which is rape fantasy or porn which treats the woman brutally

there is also porn which is entirely respectful and almost romantic

there is also porn which shows a woman or women treating a man like shit

i submit the type of porn someone chooses is a reflection of their own predilections, so if they gravitate towards porn which subjugates and brutalizes women, that's about their organic character that existed before viewing that kind of porn

if you put me in front of gay porn, made me watch it constantly since a young age, would i be gay? i submit i would be quite bored, and never get aroused, and never become gay

you have one stilted prejudicial view of only one sector of porn, and think it applies to all porn, and you call this "evidence"

you're a troll or a moron on this topic. either way, you fail, and you reneed to rethink your position, it is intellectually invalid

Re:Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

anyone not loudly denouncing pedophiles must be a pedophile, and therefore can't be making a valid point.

Can you see the multiple logic errors here? Oh but I'm AC, so I can't possibly be making a valid point.

I pity your closed mind.

Re:Yeah, great

[circletimessquare]

yeah, you got me, by expressing any sort of sympathy for someone who has a sexual proclivity which places them on a collision course with morality, means i'm also a pedophile /s

fuck you, you smearmongering asswipe

Re:Yeah, great

[circletimessquare]

no, you are indeed making a valid point

i seem to have elicited irrational hysteria in this tool "s.petry"

Re: Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

So what? I'm all for control of the populace. India can use some control. The man in the street can't even tie his shoelaces without assistance and when something doesn''t go his way he bitches and moans that the government should "do something". And then he wants his "privacy" and "freedoms" too. We Europeans have learned it a long time ago: you cannot trust people. They will elect the first idiot or mass murder who can woo them. Better to have an independent ruling council - like the EU Commission - which can get things done without worrying about millions of drama queens and their wishes.

Re:Yeah, great

[Zero__Kelvin]

"but bringing up child porn in this context is a red herring because the creation of child porn victimizes actual children"

You make a great point. There is a glaring difference in that child porn victimizes actual children, whereas adult porn never victimizes actual adults, only imaginary ones!

Don't get me wrong. I'm not against porn by any stretch of the imagination (excuse the pun), but lets not pretend that the adult film industry is sans exploitation.

Re:Yeah, great

[circletimessquare]

the adult film industry has exploitative parts, yes

so shut down those parts

don't stand against the entire industry

there are plenty of men and women who get into it as a empowerment ego rush, or even just because of the money, but never are in a position because they are forced to do something. it's always a freely chosen choice for them

there also naive kids who are tricked into situations which are basically rape and brutality for pennies. so find those assholes and jail them as the shitbags they are

Re:Yeah, great

[gweihir]

Well, if they think that any press exposure is good press exposure, maybe they actually want more rapes. Because that is exactly what they will get.

Re:Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

PUTO

Re:Yeah, great

[jandersen]

I'm dying to know what sort of "long-term solution" would be acceptable to those who feel a need to ban or block others from watching pornography. Drug therapy? Morality police? Castration? Shotgun weddings?

Well, it is not always as simple as applying a thick layer of 'Freedom Rhetoric'; and it isn't as simple as equating 'porn' with 'sexual freedom'. Especially in a place like India - check out the kinds of imagery you can see on certain Indian temples, for example; they are somewhat friskier than any pornography you are likely to encounter on the web. So, I think it is quite likely that when they, whoever they are, talk about poor, moral influences, it is not so much about the plasticky sex, as it is about something else - perhaps the depiction of sex as something superficial and without consequences, who knows? If we want to make our opinions known, we should at least make the effort to understand what the issue is.

The other thing, of course, is that this may well be what the majority of the population wants: tougher regulations. India is a democracy, and democracies often decide to do stupid things - it is part of the price you pay for the luxury of having democracy. This problem is best solved by liberal application of education, especially in 'soft', humanist subjects, where you learn to think critically and respect your opposition. Liberalisation of pornography is not really a major part of the solution - it is at best irrelevant, and at worst it becomes a hindrance to the development of a realistic attitude to and understanding of sex.

Re:Yeah, great

[Zontar The Mindless]

But that is certainly not the conjecture on which such laws are based, is it?

Re: Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

Sheesh - people know that there are scripts and actors in porn - as in any other kind of movie. If there is a need to ban porn because it leads to rape, then there is a much stronger need to ban violence/fighting in movies - for the same reason. People see fighting movies and think they can succeed beating people up too - and that everybody recovers after a few minutes too like they do in movies. Violence in general is a bigger problem than rape - also, putting and end to violence would incidentally stop most of the rape too. So lets ban move violence . . .

Re:Yeah, great

[Zontar The Mindless]

It's all a matter of the one drive we have, can't rid ourselves of, and that's not essential for day-to-day survival being used for control. It's basically the leader saying, "Sex is bad for the crops unless I'm the one having it."

Re: Yeah, great

[Zontar The Mindless]

Mr. Sexually Inadequate wonders why the women he encounters don't react like those he sees on porn sites panting and groaning in response to the guy's every demand and whim. He concludes, not entirely surprisingly, that women are untrustworthy, phoney bitch whores who deliberately tease guys like him then withhold what they've given to every other guy and so need to be taught a lesson.

Whereas the simple truth of the matter is that they're carrying on that like in the video because they're getting *paid* to do so.

Re: Yeah, great

[Zontar The Mindless]

Congratulations and welcome to Slashdot.

Your eyeglasses with attached rubber nose & fake moustache are in the mail.

Re:Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

Amusement taxes. The problem is solved once porn can only be sold from a licensed porn and sex shops which also provide the versions of the material celebrating the Indian culture and religious traditions. Just kidding. Being nationalistic and reasonable at the same time is a logical contradiction.

Re: Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why eu countries are known for 'sensible' policies like off the deep end feminism and immigration. The discussion is moderated around 'sensible' attitudes like the shunning and criminalization of men and indigenous populations who speak out against them. Yes, how 'progressive'

Re:Yeah, great

[cascadingstylesheet]

because the creation of child porn victimizes actual children,

And the creation of adult porn victimizes actual adults. The "performers" are way more likely than average to be mentally ill, drug addicted, and the victims of childhood abuse.

It's not so sexy once you realize you are watching damaged people be exploited.

Re:Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

Pedophilia will never be okay because it requires RAPE.

I think you completely misunderstood the above post. Pedophilia is a sexual preference, not an action, and, just like homosexuality, it's not something a person can choose or change at will. Therefore, pedophiles DO deserve sympathy, but they should also be monitored so that they don't act on their impulses.

Re: Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

Who the fuck told those boneheads to use a such a crappy and serif font online?

Re:Yeah, great

[jma05]

> with a pervasive rape problem

I know that the series of articles in media seem to make it appear so. But there really aren't any stats to support the claim that India has a "rape problem". The case being built is highly anecdotal, which is easy when you have a country of 1.2 BILLION to pick cases from. There are about 25K rapes reported in India annually. For the second most populous country that amounts to 2 per 100K. That is pretty low.

Granted, only a minority of rapes get reported in relatively conservative societies. But under-reporting occurs everywhere at different levels. 1 in 5 or 6 women report rape in surveys in US. Only a fraction of those get reported. Even if you reasonably adjust for the fact that rape is much more under-reported than say US, it is a very difficult case to make, that India has much more per capita rape than US. For a country, one fourth the size of India, CDC counted 1.3 *million* *reported* rapes in US in 2010. With a more strict definition, FBI counted 86K.

It is "possible" that India has a lot of rape. But the case has not yet been made in data. It also needs to be shown that rape in India is somehow specially higher than other countries in the region with similar development indices. For police recorded offenses, the stats are:

India: 0.4
US: 27.3
Pakistan 28.8 (where I assume much more conservative in reporting than India)
Nepal: 0.8 (which can be assumed to be about the same as India)
Sri Lanka: 7.3

I feel that the real story was how people came to the streets angry about the crime. Which other country had its capital shutdown by the public in response to a rape case? The people do care.

The justice for harassment is sometimes weird :-).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I agree about the outlet argument of course. But in Inda, bans come and go. It isn't China. The state does not really control people. People don't take these seriously. *All* of Indian press condemned the bans as attempts at a nanny state. I doubt that it will last, when subjected to scrutiny. At the end of the day, India is still a noisy democracy.

Here are Indian comedians at the previous attempt at the same ban
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Yeah, great

[misexistentialist]

there is the older valid causes against the maltreatment of women and the removal of their rights

The oldest cause feminists were concerned with in America was banning alcohol, and once that was accomplished they began advocating for adoption of the USSR's political system. A mystery what any of this had to do with women, other than their right to be crazy bitches.

Re: Yeah, great

[net28573]

Wish I didn't already use up my mod points.

Re: Yeah, great

[TrentTheThief]

It's okay. All that silly EU Commission shit will stop when the Islamic Colonization is completed. It shouldn't be much longer.

Re:Yeah, great

[tomhath]

I'm dying to know what sort of "long-term solution" would be acceptable

This is India. Translation is he's looking for a way to turn some of the revenue into bribes that he can pocket.

Re:Yeah, great

[nult]

This isn't about child porn, its about making a choice for the masses without consent !

Re:Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

trollalalal alalalalal alalalalal

serious, women do not victimize men, they have no power.

Re: Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

Rape = violation of private property, namely of self property.
Same as assault.

Re: Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

Control at the barrel of a gun. Hey tough guy, going to pull the trigger? OR pansy like you don't care for blood.

Re: Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

Right to vote?

Re:Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

It is high time to make presence on the autism spectrum a disability meriting the label of [PAMS choir] PROTECTED CLAAAASS!

Oh, wait...tumeric prevents autism.

Now the Autism-Industrial-Complex will fight tooth-and-claw to disappear me!

Re:Yeah, great

[dablow]

How is a sleazy scab who operates a porn site to make money any worse then any other sleazy scab who runs any other kind of company to make money?

You want to be a boss/owner? Then you basically are exploiting humans to earn $$$$. That is how it works.

Also you are assuming they are blocking only sites that violate copyright and sites operated by misogynists, neither of which is stated in the article. Make up shit, much?

Re:Yeah, great

[dablow]

Since when is porn intended for young children?

Sounds to me like that is more of a parenting issue, not a problem with porn.

Just because my neighbor sucks at parenting should not grant the government the right to police my porn consumption.

Re:Yeah, great

[fafaforza]

I think the child porn comparison was only to make the point that viewing it doesn't quell the "desire".

In a society like India where rape seems to be such a non-issue, where it takes a woman to commit suicide and a worldwide outcry before anything is done, maybe warping young people's minds with free access to porno is not such a good idea. I don't think that anyone would say that free access to porn that we've had in the US has not affected us indiviidually in a significant manner.

Re:Yeah, great

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

It is reality that demands you put food in your mouth that is the problem, not businessmen who offer a way for you to do that easily.

Re:Yeah, great

[JimSadler]

Libertarian notions are pretty much a joke to me. The last thing i want is anybody driving with pot in their blood. And the sick part is we have no measurement mode that is portable and convenient to judge the degree to which a person is impaired. A person with one beer and a lack of sleep may well have the chemicals in pot in their system hours after they ingested the pot. So what objective measurement can a cop make to tell how impaired a driver is at the moment. What that will actually cause is subjective arrests in which the cops are free to arrest anyone and claim they appeared to be impaired. In nations where racial strife is common that quickly will translate into the minority races being arrested for next to no offence at all while certain other people can drive impaired all they want. That alone is so socially dangerous that it justifies harsh punishment for the use or possession of any pot at all.

Re:Yeah, great

[JimSadler]

Some prejudices are reality based. If you have a business which depends upon employees that are not easily replaced you may not want to hire a bunch of young fertile women as the time lost to pregnancies may well make your business a failure. I have worked in situations in which i did not get a day off for several months and put in seven days a week at twelve hours a day. How many women could do that for six months running?

Re:Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

But he's a "Senior System Engineer/Architect" so he must be an authority on all topics ...

Re:Yeah, great

[localman]

> So what objective measurement can a cop make to tell how impaired a driver is at the moment.

How about a test of ability to drive? Instead of looking for chemicals that may or may not create a safety issue, how about we look for things like inability to focus, insufficient reaction time, etc - things that actually cause danger (though they may not be solely correlated with drugs)? There must be a way to reasonably test a driver's ability to actually drive - it's just that people would hate getting in trouble for being too tired, too distracted, or too slow. But if the goal is to improve safety, that's what it's about.

Re:Yeah, great

[localman]

Since we're just talking out our asses here, I'll say there's evidence that exposure to porn at young ages increases respect for women. The "evidence" is me. I first found porn mags at age 8 or so, and lots more, including videos, by 14. I have since become an avid porn collector. Yet I am absolutely respectful of women and always have been. I am far more respectful of women than the men in some no-porn areas I've lived in other countries.

Or maybe it's largely unconnected to porn. Maybe it's about culture and upbringing. In fact, there actually _is_ evidence that porn reduces rape (the ultimate form of disrespect for women):

    http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/everyday_economics/2006/10/how_the_web_prevents_rape.html

And even though I'd still argue against allowing younger people's free access porn, the data in that article, tracking total internet usage, certainly includes young people's access to porn.

Re: Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

Sign them up for the draft? Show me a feminist who lobbies for responsibility to go with her new found agency.

Re:Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

You talk like a person that wears a paper hat.

Re:Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

the west is only beginning to emerge from this barbarity, as "mens rights" morons like yourself illustrate, misogyny still exists

Morons are the ones calling others names. 99.999% of men go way out of their way to help/protect/provide for women at their own expense. Patriarchy is mindless conspiracy theory and misogyny is NOT widespread. Any misogyny in modern western society is caused by the feminism imposing itself into every remaining male space under its crazy default assumption that men are out to 'get' women.

if a woman is going to try to victimize me, my first defense is a valid judge of character and never getting involved with an evil harpy in the first place

but if i am socially clueless and lack the insight that will protect me from getting invovled with a vile woman, she's going to victimize me anyway, even if she lives in a medieval sharia law society as you somehow believe it should be: poison me, assassinate my character with gossip, harm our children, etc.

That's it? He should've known better? That's your defense to unequal treatment by feminists in the law/courts? So when a woman is abused by a man, she should've known better, too? Who said I wanted sharia law? I'm an atheist! You need to widen your reading beyond the NYT, washington post, and jezebel. A good dose of critical thinking skills would help too.

to react to the very notion of women's rights as wrong simply marks you as a socially inept loser. i'm sorry your experience with some women has been so bad. but now you're constructing an artificial fantasy about how you interact with the opposite sex that only means you will be forever victimized in the way you fear. it's really only a testament to your weak mental faculties your own poor character
--

Constructing artificial fantasies and rantings is what feminists do. Normally it'd be laughable, but their rantings become law very easily these days, and that IS a threat to liberty. The rest is more shaming language. That's all feminists and their loser mangina supporters have. No rational arguments at all, just appeals to emotion and, ironically, old fashioned notions like chivalry and alimony. I guess feminists have no problem with tradition as long as it's advantageous to women.

Re:Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

whorehouses

Re: Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

I do.

Re:Yeah, great

[KGIII]

Woah... Someone who actually knows what a Libertarian is? On Slashdot???

Why yes, yes I do support roads, police forces, taxes, libraries, public safety nets, and more. Just wait until they find out that I support single-payer health care... The mind, it boggles.

Re:Yeah, great

[KGIII]

FWIW (and that is not a whole lot) I had (she passed away in odd circumstances and her husband died of entirely different causes while they were both in the same hospital - very freaky) a friend who was a councilor who specialized in working with sex offenders and she also further specialized in working with youth offenders. She said the same thing - I never called for a citation or asked to see the studies. I always just assumed there were studies as that field has studies that will say anything you want them to say. Well, that is my assumption after having read other psyche studies and abstracts.

Re:Yeah, great

[nikkipolya]

A bigger problem in India is, getting raped at the police station for reporting rape. And police refusing the register a case. Followed by improper handling of the crime scene and tampering of evidence for money. And the lack of a working justice and enforcement system in general, puts the life of the victim in peril. Most of the offenders freely roam about on the streets forever. And even if convicted after decades, with the decades in court room proceedings only adding to the agony of the victim, the punishment is a mere slap on the wrist. We even have the chief minister of a state saying "Boys will be Boys". In developed nations, at least the victims can reasonably expect the justice and enforcement systems to handle the case and bring about closure. In India the victim gets raped mentally for life by the justice and enforcement systems.

It's not just rape. Because India does not have a working justice and enforcement system, there is brazen corruption. A recent survey concluded that the Indian Police is the most corrupt, only followed by the RTO (Traffic Police. In India Traffic police is a separate department from the Police). People are not afraid to commit crime. Mafia is strong because people go to them to settle scores, since the real justice and enforcement systems are dysfunctional.

Re:Yeah, great

[Jack Griffin]

is this the evidence you are referring to?

I haven't provided any yet, but you still created an argument based on something not provided?

you're a troll or a moron on this topic. either way, you fail, and you reneed to rethink your position

I suggest you go back and learn how to read.

Re:Yeah, great

[Jack Griffin]

Does it really matter? I could show you evidence for the moon landings and you'd still argue it was faked. But if you feel the need to nitpick, here you go: http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/u...

Re:Yeah, great

[Jack Griffin]

Sounds to me like that is more of a parenting issue, not a problem with porn.

Like drugs and alcohol etc? Just blame the parents...

Re:Yeah, great

[jma05]

> A bigger problem in India is, getting raped at the police station for reporting rape.

This is precisely what I am arguing against... anecdotal case building. How can you say that this is a "bigger" problem without any basis in statistics? What is the rate of police station rape per 100K? Would you say that US has a police assassination problem because you saw one article on how a fleeing unarmed black man was gunned down in cold blood?

Indian justice system is indeed slow. Indian police are indeed under-trained. But what do you expect from a poor country? Do you expect the cases to move as quickly as in US or Europe? Is the Indian court system any slower or less fair than its neighbors or other countries with similar development indices? Argue with statistics please.

> In developed nations, at least the victims can reasonably expect the justice and enforcement systems to handle the case and bring about closure.

Right, so the problem is economic development... not a special cultural problem in India. This inappropriate comparison of developing countries with developed countries is precisely what I am arguing against. When India's per capita income reaches US or European levels, it too will have similar law enforcement.

> Because India does not have a working justice and enforcement system, there is brazen corruption.

Which countries with Indian per capita income have non-corrupt police forces?

> People are not afraid to commit crime.

You can't make general statements like that. Indian murder rate is lower than US murder rate, despite poor law enforcement.

> Mafia is strong because people go to them to settle scores, since the real justice and enforcement systems are dysfunctional.

Mafias exist in all large cities with poor populations. Is Mumbai law enforcement worse than say, Karachi law enforcement?

Re:Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

"how about we look for things like inability to focus"

Because that doesn't masturbate peoples' moral self-righteousness

Re: Yeah, great

[david_thornley]

My wife did register for the draft, since she didn't see that unequal responsibilities could support equal rights. They rejected her registration, of course.

Re:Yeah, great

[david_thornley]

Do you have any reason to believe that working like that was a good idea? If it was a creative endeavor, you were burning yourself out fairly rapidly, and if it wasn't the job could have been split between two people.

Re: Yeah, great

[david_thornley]

It seems a truism

When you use this phrase, there is a high probability that what you follow it with is partly or completely wrong. It's a sign that you're working from a mental model rather than evidence, and that's highly unreliable.

Re:Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

India is a primitive shithole. Stop justifying the ridiculous way your culture treats women. Fucking abhorrent heathens.

Re: Yeah, great

[sudon't]

Yes, let's just reflect a moment. You think we should ban porn because a minuscule portion of the population can't tell the difference between reality, and what happens in the (dirty) movies? What about the rest of us? I can assure you that it hasn't ruined all of our sex lives.

You think women aren't getting off because porn? You don't think it might have some basis in biology? That is to say, the fact that men get off a lot faster than women? I'll tell you what, as a person who's been around a while, I can tell you that men care more about seeing their women get off nowadays than they used to in the past.

And, speaking of the past, do you really think rape is more common nowadays? Could it be that more reporting and better record-keeping goes on today? I wonder, because the little I know of history would lead me to think rape less common today, and certainly more frowned upon. Perhaps you have a shorter period in mind?

This notion, or excuse, that because a small group of people might get into trouble with, or are not able to handle, a certain thing, has given us alcohol prohibition, the drug war, and of course pornography bans. You seem to have a very ahistorical viewpoint. Else, it's hard for me to imagine anyone wanting more of that.

Re:Yeah, great

[jma05]

What can I say to that? You are completely ignorant of what India is... because you read anecdotal articles that fit the narrative of the day, from a distance, without any statistical understanding and of the stages of economic development that every country must pass through. US did have to go through Wild West era, genocidal Indian wars, slave era and the gangster era in its earlier stages.

Indian culture is fluid, ever-evolving and is not doctrinaire... comes with being "heathen".

Yes, Indian rural culture is not good to women from a modern standpoint... as is the case with all agrarian cultures. Do Pakistani and Afghan rurals treat their women any better? All will change as they stop being agrarian, as the economy moves forward. It does not even need to change. It will just be replaced.

Most of the rape cases are when rural bumpkins are uprooted from their traditional environments with their own checks, and placed into urban environments where they do not fit. If you look back to US and European early industrial immigration, you will find similar chaos there - crime, child abuse, exploitation etc. It is irritating to watch an ignorant citizen of a developed country, with no historical context, act as if the current system of values magically appeared... as if culture and economics are not inter-connected - pretending to be somehow innately superior.

Indian middle class culture engages women quite well. For instance, women are more than 50% of the engineering work force in India. Compare that to US. India had plenty of strong women political leaders.

In my view, "heathen" is a compliment. Indian spiritual philosophical thought, is much richer, very open-ended and more nuanced than the doctrinaire abrahamic thought.

Re:Yeah, great

[Zero__Kelvin]

Clearly your reading comprehension is limited at best.

Re:Yeah, great

[Anonymous Coward]

To hide evidence that Diarrhea Colored Anthropoids killed those Occidental women. Or to avoid Diarrhea Colored Anthropoids to hear of the people behind the sites and come hunt them. Incommunicating India does have benefits to all involved. 8o|

Blocked 800 huh?

[Immostlyharmless]

So that only leaves what? Couple of million places left?

Re: Blocked 800 huh?

[mnemotronic]

No time for a response here. Ive got 799 more web sites to check out. Gonna be busy for a few days. Pass me that box of kleenex, will ya?

Re:Blocked 800 huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

those weren't some random 800 (after all, that wouldn't be much point), those were the best 800...!

Re:Blocked 800 huh?

[Z00L00K]

The issue is not porn sites, the issue is that this censorship also can hurt other sites as well. Some even claims that Collegehumor and 9gag are filtered. So where's the border between a site that's permitted and a site that's blocked?

Re:Blocked 800 huh?

[Falos]

*pauses briefly*

...Shit, that kind of makes sense.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2733...

WELP.

Re:Blocked 800 huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Impossible to tell since the 800 figure is only a lower bound.

Re:Blocked 800 huh?

[ThatAblaze]

It was obviously merely a symbolic gesture. They aren't going to do anything real by blocking 800 sites and they know it, but now they can declare a victory and forget the whole business.

There's a pattern here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like the Catholic church has a legion of pedophiles, India has roving bands of gang rapists. And both would rather pretend the problem doesn't exist than try to fix it. Seems like societies where sexual repression is a key element of life is fertile ground for sadistic perverts.

Re:There's a pattern here...

[Anonymous Coward]

India doesn't have roving bands of gang rapist the same way American doesn't have college rape epidemic. It's all feminist propaganda. Stop drinking the kool-aid. Feminism is toxic.

Re: There's a pattern here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, because if we just put women back in their proper place then there won't be any more raping, because they will be actually wanting it, or asking for it, or deserving it. Go men!

Re: There's a pattern here...

[Anonymous Coward]

You goofed again. I told you to not drink the kool-aid.

Re: There's a pattern here...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a solution. As we build war machines with AI, let's be sure to teach them to wage war on _men_. And let's make the machines say (in robot voices) "Cone on, you know you want it" as they rip off a penis.

Re: There's a pattern here...

[Anonymous Coward]

What a beautiful feminist fantasy. But it just that, a fantasy.

In the real world it is men who create robots. And we all they know what men would rather build sexbot that obsolete the biocunts rather then a killbot that rip off penises. When you think about it, sexbot are so much better then penises ripping bots. Sorry for the mansplaining, but it just is.

Really?

[sixteenbitsamurai]

Is that even a thousandth of a percent of the total porn on the web? It's like trying to use a super soaker to put out a forest fire...

Re:Really?

[Lodlaiden]

With a population nearing 1B, that's ~400M little super soakers.

O..K..

[Brad1138]

Only 5,000,000 others...

Time to open

[bobstreo]

A nice VPN service.

The solution

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/keezel-online-freedom-for-every-device-everywhere?gclid=CIGwxJ-xjccCFdgLgQodK5QEOw#/story

JJ

Building a censorship infrastructure

[QuietLagoon]

"Blocking porn websites" is usually the rationale given to justify the first step in building an infrastructure to provide wider censorship of the internet.

.
Slowly the criteria used to block websites are expanded, and more websites are blocked. Then websites are blocked because they reflect political ideas not sanctioned by the government.

It's a slippery slope.

Re:Building a censorship infrastructure

[ThatAblaze]

"there is a slippery slope when you start blocking porn" would make a good news headline.

Re:Building a censorship infrastructure

[circletimessquare]

here's some bullshit arguments similar to yours:

"if we legalize marijuana, that means we have to legalize heroin and meth"

"if we legalize gay marriage, that means we have to legalize marrying corpses or animals"

see the problem? people actually think in your world. and they can tell the difference between different topics. we don't slide effortlessly into lack of thought on major issues of liberty and rights. no one does. your argument is illogical FUD

simply having the tool or liberty to do one thing, does not automatically mean that using that tool or liberty in all cases is therefore legitimized or inevitable or even more likely

because people can tell the difference between different topics. we think. we're not blind

the very concept of the slippery slope is a logical fallacy that instantly marks the argument as invalid. it is used to make fear-based demagogue arguments

this doesn't mean i support blocking porn websites, it simply means that the act of blocking websites: phishing sites, child porn sites, etc., does not in any way have anything to do with restricting websites that have genuine free expression use that the govt may not like. to block those, the govt has to actually do that, and therefore is doing something new and different and not in any way related to blocking sites that really do need to be blocked (child porn, phishing, etc.)

you have to remove the thinking human being from the equation to make your bullshit argument work. or do you believe blocking websites requires some vast infrastructure that would not be viable nor exist if we didn't block child porn first? nonsense

you can say having a police dept is a slippery slope to martial law. except there is no actual slippery slope because people can actually tell the difference between different concepts of use for a police dept. as recent controversies in the usa demonstrate. and in fact without a police dept, society quickly succumbs to chaos

think

invoking the concept of the slippery slope removes you from the land of logic and reason and places you firmly in the land of fear based emotion

Re:Building a censorship infrastructure

[Anonymous Coward]

I love it when people state the type of fallacy their argument is in their own argument. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

Not that I think you are wrong, but a lame argument is a lame argument.

Re: Building a censorship infrastructure

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's going to turn into a sticky mess.

Re:Building a censorship infrastructure

[grumpy_old_grandpa]

The slippery slope here is not that people will stop thinking, observing, or even protesting. Rather, it's that with the laws and infrastructure in place, it becomes very easy to block more pages. So rather than a uncontrolled "slippery slope", maybe it should just be called a "first step" or sure tell-tale sign.

That idea is not based on some illogical extrapolation into the future, but on a number of examples from the past: Many European countries have already followed this pattern, some of which you'd think be among the most liberal: Holland, Denmark, France, Germany, UK. Take UK as a prime example: First they put in place the infrastructure because of child porn. Then it's used against "hate speech" or "terrorism". Next violent porn, BDSM. After that, file sharing sites, The Pirate Bay. Next, political party sites like The Pirate Party, and the Chaos Computer Club. The latter two have already been "mistakenly" blocked in multiple countries.

Now, many people believe the state should not be in the business of policing the Internet. So in the UK, they've made the brilliant move of making it "voluntarily". All the major ISPs now have personal filters controlled by their customers. Of course, it'd be a bit naive to think that those settings could not be used against you: If you ever find yourself in a sexual abuse case, Child Protection Services case, background check / government security clearance, you'd better have those settings in the right position.

Re:Building a censorship infrastructure

[circletimessquare]

how hard do you think it is for someone who controls all of the circuits to block a webpage?

additionally, we already block, with complete legal and moral legitimacy, child porn sites, phishing sites, etc.

the "infrastructure" you refer to is not really difficult. and in fact already exists for completely valid reasons

so this argument "if we block porn, political opinions are next" is complete slippery slope fear based bullshit

if you want a winning argument, focus on the kind of govt that would do such a thing, not the red herring "oh noes teh infrastruture!" failed weak argument

Re: Building a censorship infrastructure

[behrooz0az]

That will grow legs?

Re:Building a censorship infrastructure

[grumpy_old_grandpa]

Maybe that's where we disagree. I believe the government, ISPs should not have the ability by law nor technical means, regardless of how easy or complex it is to implement, to censor any traffic on the Internet. (Of course, some internal ISP admin will always be able to cause damage, but he will then be committing a crime, like any other cracker).

Furthermore, I vehemently oppose any moral judgment, moral policing, and censorship. The pixels on my screen do not inconvenience anybody, so I should be free to color them whatever way I please.

Finally, I believe so called decency laws is the hubris of a free society. If naked skin or people holding hands, kissing (regardless of gender) offends anybody, they are free to look the other way. On the Internet, I don't even have to do that, I can simply avoid the sites I don't like. And if anybody wants to "protect the children" from seeing skin-tone pixels, I'm sure there's an app for that. Protecting people from actual violent crime should not start with censorship.

Re:Building a censorship infrastructure

[circletimessquare]

building a police department allows for martial law

are you filled with the same irrational fear and loathing about the existence of police, a completely necessary component for society to function?

Furthermore, I vehemently oppose any moral judgment, moral policing, and censorship.

then you are an immature and naive person. all freedoms have limits. mainly when and where those freedoms impinge on the freedoms of others. my freedom to get a good night's sleep, your freedom to listen to loud music at 2 AM. my freedom to speed on the highway, your freedom to not be killed by a speeding douchebag

there is content, like child porn, whose creation is only possible with the denial of freedom to someone else, a child, who can not consent in an informed way to sex. therefore, censoring child porn is the extension of freedom, not the destruction of it

Re:Building a censorship infrastructure

[SuricouRaven]

"how hard do you think it is for someone who controls all of the circuits to block a webpage?"

Easy. But the block can be subverted, unless it is made in a manner so restrictive as to break most applications as well.

Re:Building a censorship infrastructure

[circletimessquare]

the chinese govt is doing deep packet inspection and going after VPNs now. let's see how hard the politically fearful shitbags get before they realize letting their own people talk freely about politics is a sign of political maturity and social stability, not some evil threat

Re:Building a censorship infrastructure

[NoZart]

Thanks for the link. As a non-native speaker, i interpreted the term "slippery slope" incorrectly for years...

Re:Building a censorship infrastructure

[Anonymous Coward]

What you're missing is that the slippery slope fallacy applies when there is no connection between what has been done now and what can be done in the future. Considering a typical example from the retarded conservatives: If we legalize homosexual marriage the gays will be fucking in open view on our streets. That's slippery slope because nothing about legalizing homosexual marriage has anything to do with fucking in public.

The slippery slope fallacy does not apply when what they do is an enabler for something different.

http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/slippery.pdf

Re:Building a censorship infrastructure

[Zontar The Mindless]

Usually I'm with you. But this time you're (over)reacting to a phrase.

Re: Building a censorship infrastructure

[tomhath]

That will grow legs?

It will grow hair (on your palms).

Unfair comparison!

[EzInKy]

Catholics simply don't have sex unless they are wanting to procreate. It is in there creed that procreation is the only reason to have sex. Anyone who has sex without the purpose of procreation simply is not Catholic. Thus it is written, thus it is done.

Re:Unfair comparison!

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who has sex without the purpose of procreation simply is not Catholic

No true Scotsman...

Re:Unfair comparison!

[EzInKy]

Good answer! Could you please provide references where Catholics encourage sex for purposes other than procreation?

Re:Unfair comparison!

[nikkipolya]

He is referring to the rampant pedophilia prevalent among the catholic priests. It is unwritten and only done.

800??

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

800 down, only 3,453,721,904 left to go.....

Re:800??

[ArcadeMan]

3453721904 porn websites on the net, 3453721904 porn websites...
Take one down, take it offline, 3453721903 porn websites on the net...

Re:800??

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Yep. I think their next project is bailing out the Indian Ocean with a thimble and a sponge.

So how long until a coup?

[Anonymous Coward]

Skewed sex ratio, horny young men, no porn.

I give India 3 weeks.

India is blocking adult websites?

[ArcadeMan]

You mean the same India that invented the freakin' Kama Sutra?!

Re:India is blocking adult websites?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the same India that invented the freakin' Kama Sutra?!

No, the other one. It's an obscure, indy country. You probably haven't heard of it.

Re:India is blocking adult websites?

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. Back then it was known as Bharat I believe. It then got invaded by muslim and christian do-gooders and as a result became something completely different. Their questionable laws on homosexuality were introduced by the British with their superior morale standards in 1800s, as an example.

Re:India is blocking adult websites?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can find hypocrisy with every Government I find. Doesn't stop them from continually pushing out such laws though, since they have no shame or pride or self-respect.

Re:India is blocking adult websites?

[Anonymous Coward]

India, the country, didn't invent Kama Sutra. An Indian dude named Vatsyayana did. Over 2000 years ago.
  How can one *country* invent something? People invent things, not countries. And they do it *in spite* of the country. Great works are usually written or invented *in spite* of the mainstream thinking.
For all we know, Vatsyayana probably wrote Kama Sutra to much opposition from those around him and not support.

Re:India is blocking adult websites?

[jma05]

> to much opposition from those around him and not support.

Unlikely. If you look at ancient Hindu temples and sculpture, you will see that it was normal to consider these things as a natural part of life. Current Indian conservatives have more in common with Victorian mores than with the morality of ancient India. By all accounts, ancient Indians were very open-minded in these matters. Modern Indians perhaps still are, when adjusted for the development indices. A person in India making $1K is probably much more open-minded than an average person making $1K elsewhere. It would be silly to compare that person to a $40K American/European though.

Re:India is blocking adult websites?

[Anonymous Coward]

India did not invent the Kama Sutra. Lots of people had sex long before the book was published. They just made dirty pictures for everyone to see is all

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yay! Democracy in action!

Didn't they invent Kama Sutra?

[Anonymous Coward]

So only these 800 website have position that's not covered in it?

What exactly are the criteria for them?

Re: Didn't they invent Kama Sutra?

[Anonymous Coward]

Browsing through the PDF, it looks completely scatter-shot. You have everything from hardcore to Playboy, which doesn't feature penetration of any kind. The only common denominator is nudity, which leads me to believe this is just the first step of many.

Please explain, how is court ignored?

[wisebabo]

This is an honest question (I'm not Indian). How does the government get to override the recently passed decision by the Indian Supreme Court NOT to ban these very same sites? Is there some sort of executive order that allows the government to do so? Or is the government doing something "illegal" (I think the decisions by the Supreme Court must be the very definition of legality right?).

Re:Please explain, how is court ignored?

[Anonymous Coward]

not indian either, but India passed laws towards the end of 2014 to make it legal for them to block sites with a court order under certain circumstances. It seems this is exactly what they have done as the order to block the 800 odd sites is a court issued order not a government issued one (yes the government would have made the case for it).

Re:Please explain, how is court ignored?

[bain_online]

The court did not actually said no one can block/ban porn sites. It said as current law of land stands it has no provision to block such content and refused to pass an order to ban porn. It did indeed add a comment saying this is for the government to decide and legislate for. Under some authority given to Department Of Telecom under ancient (read british origin) telecom law, the DoT passed an order to block content it deemed harmful. As such these orders have validity of few years till govt passes a legislation either canceling or upholding/modifying them.

Re:Please explain, how is court ignored?

[thegarbz]

The legislative branch of the government can by definition change laws to suit its case regardless of what the judicial branch has ruled on previously.

Re:Please explain, how is court ignored?

[bain_online]

as the order to block the 800 odd sites is a court issued order not a government issued one (yes the government would have made the case for it).

Not really. Its a Department of Telecom order not a court order. DoT has unparalleled supreme power on all communications that happen inside India under its barbaric ancient telecom laws.

Re: Please explain, how is court ignored?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sureme Court of India refused to entertain a PIL ("public Interest Litigation") brought by some party, leaving it to Executive to do if they want to do anything. Court's argument was, if I recall news reports, that the definition of porn is contentious & that internet is like a hydra where you ban one site & 10 new ones pop up to take its place.

First they came for the porn

[Anonymous Coward]

First they came for the porn sites and I said nothing.......

Re: First they came for the porn

[Anonymous Coward]

... because I was not a porn. Wait, what?

Re: First they came for the porn

[Anonymous Coward]

Because you never ask another man if he came, that's just awkward.

Rather than make a joke about how many other websi

[kramerd]

tes are out there...

Just what is on these 800 websites that they need to block?

I am guessing that even the deepest segments of 4chan would look at those and say 'too much'.

Catholic Cannon

[EzInKy]

Okay, maybe I'm wrong. Is there anything in Catholic beliefs that allows for people to have sex that blocks procreation?

Re:Catholic Cannon

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, maybe I'm wrong. Is there anything in Catholic beliefs that allows for people to have sex that blocks procreation?

See already this debate is drifting into a discussion about firearms.

Apu Now Says...

[cayenne8]

"Thank you, (don't) come again!!"

Wait for the PIL

[rikxik]

Soon there will be a public interest litigation filed in the Supreme Court challenging the order and the court, probably already peeved at the government's ignorance of its refusal to block porn, would make the government overturn the order.

Also, not a good idea where every third person is youth [1].

[1]: http://www.thehindu.com/news/n...

Moronic Ban Hammers

[Anonymous Coward]

Indian here. Took me all of 1 hour to get a fresh VPS with OpenVPN running to bypass the ban after hearing the news yesterday. There is no way they can enforce this on a technical level. Was going to do this someday soon anyway as the powers-that-be have also blocked Bleacher Report out here (no idea what morality laws a sports news site was infringing on).

"Blocking porn websites" is usually the rationale given to justify the first step in building an infrastructure to provide wider censorship of the internet..
Slowly the criteria used to block websites are expanded, and more websites are blocked. Then websites are blocked because they reflect political ideas not sanctioned by the government.

This seems to be the real reason the current government keep introducing bans for all sorts of things. I think they are also feeling out how much they can get away with before the backlash hurts their political stability.

As a colleague stated after hearing the news, it seems like our government has decided to ban anything which can provides citizens some form of pleasure within 2 minutes (they also banned a specific and famous local brand of instant noodles a few months back based on some iffy study).

Pure Rubbish!

[s.petry]

I must correct your rubbish, because you dumped out quite a truckload..

the very concept of the slippery slope is a logical fallacy that instantly marks the argument as invalid. it is used to make fear-based demagogue arguments

False! A Slippery Slope is not automatically an invalid argument, it simply an argument which does not prove the conclusion. In other words, we can't prove mass censorship _will_ result from an initial block which defies law, but we can review history and say "it always happens progressively" and be accurate. You proved in a single paragraph that you are either a blatant liar or completely ignorant.

I won't bother correcting anything else. You either repeat this same bad logic mistake or pull crap from the air to argue against GP.

Re:Pure Rubbish!

[circletimessquare]

the existence of a progression indicates an impulse which exists independently

the mere creation of a police dept, for example, does not mean martial law is somehow inevitable. this is fear addled ignorance

the slippery slope is a simple logical fallacy like all the others, asking us to trust to fear instead of reason

anyone who depends upon the concept of a slippery slope in the construction of their argument can immediately be dismissed as invalid, unworthy of consideration, and a fearmongering fool

Re:Pure Rubbish!

[s.petry]

Not surprisingly, you are still wrong. A slippery slope can be expressed as "if A then B or C". No matter how you read that expression, "A" always exists and "B" and "C" are potential outcomes. We can measure the probability of these outcomes based on historical facts (which should not be confused with predicting an outcome).

Your error in logic is claiming that a Slippery Slope is the same thing as a prediction ("if A then B or C" therefor "A then B").

You further claim incorrectly that the person you responded to said "if A then B" when no such thing was stated.

the slippery slope is a simple logical fallacy like all the others, asking us to trust to fear instead of reason

No, a slippery slope is not an appeal to emotion. Further, a fallacy is not the same thing as something being illogical or irrational. For the second time, a fallacy does not prove the conclusion. That is not the same thing as being an invalid argument or statement.

facebook auto like

[chandra786]

The user will get free Facebook auto like on their Facebook status & photos, Likerty is free Facebook auto liking website which help to get Facebook likes to those who are not getting likes on their status and photos From www.likerty.com

I am going to visit all of them in protest!

[postmortem]

PDF with list is in there... let's start with how-do-you-produce-more-seminal-fluid.semenaxx. org

Don't start a comment in the title

[Dutch Gun]

No, these look to be fairly normal adult websites. I took a look at a couple of them, as someone above posted a link to a document with the full list. I couldn't download the list, but I could just barely make out a few site names.

Among the few I perused, I found most were fairly conventional sex sites, with one site targeting gay men. From what I can see, this is simply a list of the most *popular* adult websites. For instance, I saw xxx.com is on the list, which seems to be a standard hardcore sex site. I'd imagine that one is popular simply by virtue of it's domain. Playboy.com is also on the list, so you know that's nothing too extreme.

This is beyond stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Governments should not allowed to do anything of this nature.

Governments meddling with what the people they are supposed to be serving are allowed to do/watch is ridiculous and a huge step over the line. We really need to abolish governments in the 21st century, this shit just doesn't work at all.

Perhaps, not that bad of a decision...

[shivams]

One can never expect any praise for such steps here on Slashdot. But allow me to put my cents in favor of this ban. First, you could look at Ted Bundy's last interview where he confesses that his career as the America's most dreaded serial killer kicked off due to pornography. And he witnessed the same in many other inmates of his: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... Now, Ted Bundy was no social psychologist. So, here is one study done on the effects of pornography: http://www.sciencedirect.com/s... So, blatantly saying that porn has no side effects and it doesn't mess with your brain is stupid. It is the first time in human history that pornographic material is so readily accessible to us. We don't yet know what harmful effects it can have in future. Besides inducing violence, it is a known fact that pornography also messes up the sexual preferences and real sex doesn't remain that beautiful.

Re: Perhaps, not that bad of a decision...

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty sure Ted had other issues.

Re:Perhaps, not that bad of a decision...

[Zontar The Mindless]

You conveniently glossed over the fact that the study was concerned with *violent* pornography and *depictions of rape*.

It was not about videos that simply show consenting adults naked and/or fucking. It was about videos that show (or re-enact) the commission of violent sex crimes.

Not the same thing at all. But, hey, thanks for playing.

Re:Perhaps, not that bad of a decision...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank goodness it has not had that effect on the other 299,999,999 people in the US who have looked at porn

Re:Perhaps, not that bad of a decision...

[Jawnn]

One can never expect any praise for such steps here on Slashdot. But allow me to put my cents in favor of this ban. First, you could look at Ted Bundy's last interview where he confesses that his career as the America's most dreaded serial killer kicked off due to pornography.

So, I'm to take the learned opinion of a bat-shit crazy serial killer as to what "kicked off" his spree. Yeah, right.

Re:Perhaps, not that bad of a decision...

[Copid]

It is the first time in human history that pornographic material is so readily accessible to us.

That's sort of the point, though. Over the past 20 years, the availability of porn has gone up, what? 10%? No, that's not right. It's orders of magnitude higher. The graph would need to be put on a logarithmic scale and it would dwarf most of the other variables you tried to plot with it. So we're doing that experiment right now. Has sexual violence gone up proportionally? Has it even gone up? No. That's a pretty serious counterargument to any thought experiments claiming causation in the other direction.

Re:Perhaps, not that bad of a decision...

[Copid]

Wait a minute. That piece of resarch is from 1988. Now that it's almost 30 years later, how has that experiment worked out in reality? If it's correct, we should be in a Mad Max sort of world with rapists and crossbows everywhere. I'm looking out my window and...

Re:Perhaps, not that bad of a decision...

[shivams]

Thank goodness it has not had that effect on the other 299,999,999 people in the US who have looked at porn

I agree that Ted Bundy argument is not a very strong one. Perhaps he was "born" with such tendencies. The point here to understand is that not everyone will have such tendencies. But a certain section of the society who is either "born" with it or is sexually deprived can be motivated by pornography.

If it's correct, we should be in a Mad Max sort of world with rapists and crossbows everywhere. I'm looking out my window and...

It's indeed a Mad Max sort of world here in New Delhi. I'm also loooking out my window and...

In Northern India, where the sex ratio is around 900:1000 (M:F), magnify this over millions of people, and you'll see how many unsatisfied men are prowling on the streets. New Delhi is not a safe region. Over the past few years, it has seen some really dreaded cases of rapes. Bottles inserted in kids' vaginas and such (cases which never happened before frequently).

And if some say that the research I've quoted is of the 80s and pretty old, then here is a more modern perspective on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... (a TED talk by Ran Gavrieli on "Why I stopped watching porn").

Besides all this, I am also not sure if porn really is bad in the sense that it induces violence. More research needs to be done by social psychologists. But one thing is for sure, it does mess up your sexual enjoyment of real sex.

But govt wont bother about rampant rape by police

[nikkipolya]

A bigger problem in India is, getting raped at the police station for reporting rape. And the lack of a working justice and enforcement system in general, puts the life of the victim in peril. Most of the offenders freely roam about on the streets for ever. And even if convicted after decades, with the decades in court room proceedings only adding to the agony of the victim, the punishment is a mere slap on the wrist. We even have the chief minister of a state saying "Boys will be Boys". Just search the news for "rape India" and you will see how bad the justice system is. The enforcement is corrupt to the core. They will happily erase any evidence for a small sum of money.

What will the ministers do

[nikkipolya]

What will the ministers do now?

http://timesofindia.indiatimes...

800 sites...

[hene]

I think they missed few..

FFS, even 9gag is on the list!!

[vladmir]

Come on! You are banning a site like 9gag? How insecure and out of touch is this govt?

800 down 3 million to go

[GeekWithAKnife]

I love how strict societies in modern settings formally become more entrenched even while their younger generation is long past the drama.

Arranged marriages that last a lifetime. No one looks at porn of course, it's evil. No one cheats of course. 7 kids in a 2 bedroom flat. All you really need is love and respecting your parents.

When David Cameron said that we should be able to block illegal adult sites he had no idea how unrealistic he was being...let the those that have no idea how the internet works come up with "solutions" to a problem that is not even technical.

Pablo Escobar ended face down in a pool of blood but he did say one smart thing I can recall, where there is demand there is supply.

As a society we like to believe that nothing stands in the the way of will power. So I dare anyone to try separating man from porn.

Still have xHamster

[Anonymous Coward]

Well thankfully I'm sure they still at least have access to xHamster.com. They would have never thought to ban that one.

Creed of Misogynists

[Anonymous Coward]

It is high time to dethrone the celebrity status of TTY cancer and Cu-Win-NT cancer. The vast majority of women act in such a manner that their ovaries should be ripped out and shoved down their throats, or at least grenade-raped[PEEENK! klop-klop-klop-klop....BOOM!]

Re:But govt wont bother about rampant rape by poli

[jma05]

If you search for stats, rather than anecdotal articles, you will get an even better idea.

No one disputes that some awful things can happen in a country of 1.2 Billion people, with still weak institutions, given that its per capita income is still low. But judging India by a few articles like these is like judging US by what happens in its ghettos and prisons.

Business as usual in India

[Anonymous Coward]

Governments really get their priorities right, but India's case is egregious. In a country with a serious rape problem they now seem to aspire to close one important release valve for the individuals behind such deeds. And, in the meantime, 500+ million Indian citizens without access to sanitation, running water and electricity. Bravo, India. You've done it again.

Re:Business as usual in India

[Anonymous Coward]

s/really/rarely/
But you guys already knew.

Good

[djhaskin987]

Pornography only serves to frustrate more, and victimizes women.

Half bullshit

[s.petry]

I return your claim of misunderstanding and raise you a "Stop selective reading!". You completely omitted and ignored my first two paragraphs (I'm only quoting my first).

Say what? No, there is no reason to blanket pardon pedophiles. In most cases pedophiles are found due to committing crimes such as rape and child abuse. A person who may have been curious and saw a movie charged as a pedophile is not the same as the pedophile filming a rape.

If we want to follow your logic (and the logic of the person I responded to) any person who forcefully rapes a person in ANY way must also be unable to control their own behavior. They are born with that preference, which you and the other person use as an attempt to excuse the pedophile.

In fact we could follow your logic to any crime and claim that nobody should ever be punished for any crime, because they are born that way.

Alternatively, we could say what I started with. Which happens to match the justice system we envision the US should have. There is no blanket judgement, including a pardon for what society deems is criminal activity.

Re:Half bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

BAH! Kids! Nothing but collateral damage in the endless argument/war/what have you... You all can lecture everybody the evils of sex after you stop dropping the bombs! aieet?

one very important thought

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=ID&hl=id&v=1-FI6D8ZXpc

personally, i applaud whomever in India has made the call to filter content which is offensive or obscene to a non-partisan censorship committee.
though, honestly, i don't think pornography is the real threat to Indian sovereignty and strength:
http://www.newindianexpress.com/thesundaystandard/Ford-Foundation-Had-Infiltrated-Nehru-Government-to-the-Core/2015/07/05/article2902513.ece

Ambedkar

[Anonymous Coward]

If I were Ambedkar I'd have given Licensed Pistols to all Dalit through Indian Constitution for self-defense and to resist oppression;
https://www.change.org/p/indep...

gweihir you raped yourself bigmouth

[Anonymous Coward]

"Run, Forrest: RUN!!!" vs. a fair challenge http://news.slashdot.org/comme...

APK

P.S.=> Keep on shooting your blowhard done nothing in computing mouth off gweihir - I'll be RIGHT THERE AGAIN to expose your crap yet again (have fun with the shame you'll have to publicly endure here & YOU STARTED IT WITH ME YOU USELESS TROLLING LOSER WITH NO SKILLS BUT LOTS OF MERE "TALK", lmao)... apk