I guess, after reading all the posts, it doesn't seem that everyone is so upset about regulating pornography so much as they simply don't like the idea of a group of people they didn't elect making the decision about what content is on the Internet and what content is not.
... wait a sec... are we talking about the United States or ICANN.
How about you do what I do? I actually monitor what my kids surf. I monitor proxy logs and history files. I watch over their shoulders. They never know when dad is silently connected with VNC watching their every move. I also have the machine password protected (which changes regularly). The have to ask permission to surf the net and have me log them in. It has worked out remarkably well. They get their school assignements done and still get to surf recreationally. They have been honest and never lost computer privileges.
You do all of that at all of your neighbors' homes? And at school, and at the library, and at every hotspot, and everywhere elese you kid can access the Internet.
When do you find time to work?
It sounds to me that you want somebody else to do your job raising your kids for you. You expect your "content blocker" to do the work and when it invariably fails, everybody else can "segregate" the content for you so you don't have to actually monitor your kids yourself. You wouldn't (I hope) drop your kids off alone in front of a porn shop and expect others to keep them out of trouble, "meatspace constraints" notwithstanding.
I hear ya brother. In fact, I wish my kids had the option of buying firearms, drugs, tobacco, porn magazines, porn dvds, donating their organs, and making all sorts of decisions so that I could spend all of my time monitoring them and keeping them from making really bad mistakes.
In fact, it would be great to watch society grind to a halt so that all parents could spend all of there time monitoring and watching their kids--instead of allowing society to offer reasonable tools to help parents do their jobs, be reasonably sure their children are safe, and contribute back to society.
Brilliant point.
A misguided bill like this might (if it actually passed Constitutional muster) make it more difficult to find porn, like your content filter, but a curious and resourceful child will find it anyway. Besides, Utah will never be able to force their plan on the rest of the world and the Internet is a world media. If you want a foolproof method to protect your child from the wicked Internet, sell your computer and unsubscribe from your ISP.
If you want a foolproof method to protect your child from the wicked Internet, sell your computer and unsubscribe from your ISP., that's it. That is the solution.
Rather than putting the collective intelligence of the world together to solve the problem, that is really what it amounts to.
The motto for the greatest communication tool of the world is, "If you don't want porn, disconnect".
What a crowning achievement of humanity. Someone needs to inscribe that on our next deep space probe.
SNL is on channel 30 in Utah daperdan-tard. You see there is this thing called a u-n-v-e-r-s-a-l r-e-m-o-t-e, it lets you change the channel. Often you can do it with one of your fingers... on your hand... at the end of your arm.
No, CP80 is a statement that PORNOGRAPHY is sufficiently worse than all other forms of potentially objectionable content that PORNOGRAPHY, and only PORNOGRAPHY, must be segregated at the protocol level.
No, CP80 simply recognizes that pornography is a problem and provides a solution. That solution could be used for any adult content.
What's more, you already have the choice. When you go into a bookstore, or a gas station, chances are that they sell porn. But you aren't complaining about that, or demanding that all books with adult content be sold only in adult bookstores. Should the internet be less free than the real world?
Absolutely not. You're talking about playboy, penthouse kind of porn. And even then, it is often on a higher shelf, back room or otherwise kept from where children could access it. There are no high-shevles, back rooms or other mechanisms on the Internet that prevent children from accesses softer or hardcore forms of porn. The Internet should mimic the real world. That is what the CP80 initiative is trying to attempt.
If the real world mimiced the Internet today, porn--in all of its forms--would be available everywhere. A kid could walk into any store and by "girls loving horses" or "Sex, Rape and Murder". Because those hard forms are out on the net and any kid can access them.
Are you implying that the others aren't harmful? I'm confused.
Different forms of pornography have different effects on people. Softer forms might only lead to arousal and addiction, perhaps the objectification of woman, distorted body values, etc. But harder, more violent forms of porn definitely warp a person's perception of human sexuality, especially children.
My point was that this is not about choice, this is about attacking pornography. There is nothing in the architecture that they are proposing that makes it porn-centric, if it were a viable solution, it should be used to solve a multitude of problems at once.
The CP80 solution could be used to categorize any content into general-public and adult. It would be useful for all sorts of content. The CP80 group is only focusing on porn. At 97 Billion, that is a big-enough giant.
Once again, this is not my point. My point is that somebody has to determine what goes where, and that somebody may well be untrustworthy, or so overly zealous that they render the system meaningless.
If I could move all the animal love, rape, murder, excrement-eating, etc., etc., forms of porn off the "community ports" and onto the adult ports, I will gladly discuss all the rest.
As with COPA beforehand, if too much legitimate content gets shunted into the "porn" section, people won't be able to use the filter and it's meaningless.
True, but as a society, if we continue to slide down a moral slope, one day we will be having this argument about "obsolete child porn laws." And don't say it won't happen. If we can't draw a line today, why would we be able to draw those lines later on.
Right, but the whole concept of using ports to deliver this data makes it very difficult to have more than one type of traffic in the open community.
Why? You can have as many as 5000 ports for adult content. Do with them as you please.
I have an alternative proposal: how about, since the point of the internet is the free and open exchange of information, we have a "clean" port 80, and everything else can be open. Then those people who want to filter out all potentially objectionable content can be the ones who have to deal with the hassle of figuring out how to run IP with only one port.
I would gladly have a range of maybe 5000 clean ports.But the first thing all the pornographers would do is start publishing on it and there is no way to keep them off it without a CP80 type initiative. It has to be legislated and enforced.
Yep. Right now, YOU have the choice to keep an eye on your kids, instil
Oh, how quaint, you think they're actually going to let you / your ISP turn it off. haha. No, no, that's not the point of something like this. The point of something like this is to segregate the content in hopes of finding some way to block it in the future.
riiiiight. Lets destroy all road signs, telephone numbers and licenses plates, because all forms of organization are useful. We don't need order le.adfm aljasdpfas adsf[ap a.dfjad.
Or maybe we do need some organization beceause, like an alphabet, it allows us to communicate better.
And in case you don't seem to agree... The Republican Congress of yesteryear forced through legislation that required filters be placed on all publicly accessible computer. If you want to use a PC at a library, you have to go through the same Censorware that the Iran government uses to keep their citizens in the dark.
How is preventing people from accessing porn, keeping them in the dark. Were the filters also blocking people from reading the news, literature, etc.
Porn != advanced civilization
Well, not tooo long after this was pushed through, suddenly liberal and left wing sites started getting blocked as "mature" or "adult content". DailyKOS, most political blogs in swing states, Left wing candidate sites, etc -- all suddenly blocked out of the blue, with no way to get past them without harassing the librarian for each and every page you want to view. Essentially cutting off access to these sites for anyone not wealthy enough to own a PC and Internet Connection.
If that were true, I absolutely oppose that. Did the people in that city sue the library? I would like to read the articles.
I see no difference with those shinanigans and an attempt to start "flagging" porn websites in a different way -- except that this new way is going to have a whole lot of extra people to blame.
Is it just porn, or are you also bothered by warning labels on cigarettes, perscription drugs or sex offenders. Should we do away with all labels?
I like labels that allow me to make a decision. A choice for myself. I am sure most people do. I think its funny that no one is fighting to take labels off of cigarettes, etc.
I want the choice to censor violence in the internet.
1). An individual should always have the choice to access or block whatever content he or she wants to.
2). CP80 is about organization and choice. It empowers individuals. The current state of the Internet is the opposite. It makes choices for me--that's censorship.
Oh, and dishonesty. Any website that presents speculation or opinion as fact should send that data on a separate port, so I can firewall it off easily. I don't my children exposed to lies and brutality on the internet. I also want all advertising to be transmitted on a separate port, to protect my children. Oh, and religious stuff. I don't want any websites forcing their religious views on me, thats harmful and should be filtered out. Particularly that horrid stuff about evolution.
There is a lot of content on the Internet that is not healthy for or intended for a child. Sites that discuss drug use, murder, theft, etc.
The CP80 foundation is working on pornography, because extreme forms are harmful.
Now all we need to do is require sites like Slashdot to make sure that comments are properly sorted, so that they get sent on the appropriate ports. Then, when I get mod points, I can mod people adult, and nobody reading from work will have to see them.
That would be up to the employer, who could just as easily allow access to the Open community. But it is his business. It is his decision to make.
Skipping over the obvious implementation problems, like how much harder it will be when my network game with adult content
Adult-content/oriented games belong on the Open Community. Not a community where kids could stumble into it.
, pornographic web-browsing, and clearing the porn-spam from my email all can all only be done on port, despite using very different protocols, how will this stop the people who will think it's hilarious to IM, email, or simply post pornographic content, just so you'll be surprised when the firewall doesn't catch it?
Laws, individual choice and enhanced Internet governance.
The same way we stop people from posting pornographic content on a school bus today. There is acceptable behavior in a community that everyone abides by. That is what makes a society work.
... the US doesn't rule the internet, so foreign sites wouldn't oblige, and port 80 still wouldn't be very clean.
The CP80 solution uses Laws for countries that have the ability to adopt them and enforce them. It would also allow individuals--INDIVIDUALS--to choose to block IP adress ranges for countries that cannot enforce a standard or whose standard they don't agree with, and finally, it would use enhanced Internet Governance regulations to crack down on those who abuse the Internet.
The solution is global.
PS: While there are doubtless many unethical pornographers, there at least as many ethical ones.
What does that even mean, "ethical pornographers." If that makes people feel good about peddling smut, sure it's "ethical". But don't fool yourse, ethical != moral.
Nor are the standards of what's pornographic or not. Would Sports Illustrated's swimsuit section be required to move? Maxim? They're not considered porn for by the majority of americans, but what about countries like Iran? Do we really want the mutaween deciding what's porn? What about classical art, which frequently features nudity? Would a medical site with pictures of genital areas be required to move? How do we handle a mixed site?
Different countries do have different standards. So either the Internet needs to enable that capability or we need to establish an acceptible global standard.
Currently, the defacto standard on the Internet is anything goes--porn, porn, porn. That is the standard whether you want to believe it or not.
I just can't believe that the powers that be cannot figure out how to allow indivual countries to enable their own standards for servers wihtin their countries and allow their citizens to choose which coutnry's/standards/web content they are willing to access.
It isn't that much of a problem for those who aren't looking for it.
But when you consider that curious teens are looking for it and learning from it--and we are not talking centerfolds, folks. We are talking about super violent, dark and disturbing hardcore porn.
Okay, okay, is there anyone else out there laughing. Ethical porn site. How many years will it be before there ethical child porn?
>>Further, I know that if I was a site operator, I'd resist being shuffled off to some odd port where some state or ISP or anyone with half a brain (literally) could block my business. Or is the idea to pass more laws that prevent US companies from competing in a global market? (grin)
Read the solution. You aren't moving your site to a port, you only have to use the adult range of ports for "adult content". You could still have a sanitized port 80 site. And individual could choose to access both the "clean" ports and "adult" ports if he wanted to, or choose to block the "adult" ports.
Its about choice.
>>Again we're faced with a law that has no chance of succeeding, all in the interests of appearing to be "doing something".
Its not a law. It was a resolution stating the people of Utah want the federal governmentto figure it out.
There website shows a few other states are starting similar resolutions. People are fed up with it.
>>doubt it. The mainstream porn companies will volunteer for this because people know their >>brands anyways. The trouble comes with the huge number of bottom feeders in the industry >>that want you see their porn any way they can get you to.
>>Do you really think someone who would go to far as to typosquat NASA or whitehouse would >>voluntarily switch ports?
The CP80 Initiative is NOT voluntary if your read it. It wants to use federal legislation in the US and Internet governance regulation worldwide to enforce it.
>>We're talking about content. And, to be honest, a voluntary system for identifying "adult >>material" would probably be adhered to. Because it's in the porn industry's best interest.
That's the funniest thing I have read so far. If it were the case, they would already be doing it. Let's not hold are breath waiting for the porn industry to voluntarily do anything.
>>The porn sites are in business to make money. Period. And they're well aware of negative >>image that they give the rest of the industry, and that there's a lot of heat on them. >>Frankly, it helps them a lot to be able to say "look, we provide technical means to allow >>parents to filter this out for their children." Now they can do business in peace, without >>the hue and cry of "Think of the Children! We must protect them from teh interwebs!"
Then why do so many porns site offere free hardcore content. They are in the business of creating future users by offering their wares for free to whomever.
>>Is it possible to circumvent this system? Absolutely. Will some people fail to adhere to >>it? Without doubt. But most of the "legit" porn industry would probably be relieved to >>have a system that lets them say they're acting in good faith as responsible citizens.
Yep, that what makes the CP80 solution a great solution. It zones the Internet in a similar fashion to the real world.
>>The problem here is the implementation, not the concept. Segregating content by internet >>port is just silly.
Not by ports. It creates a range of ports for adult content only. Playboy can still have a prot 80 presence, but it has to be sanitized. All adult content would use the adult range for transfer. The interlinking would be completely transparent to the user.
>>And the underlying concept is somewhat disturbing--I think the notion here is like >>broadcast and basic TV, and FCC decency standards could be enforced on port 80. Frankly, >>that has a LOT of negative implications that have nothing to do with porn.
I know, I know. We should destroy all road signs, phone books and license plates before Big Brother gets us all.
>>Simpler to implement solutions that would achieve the same effect: Add a new TLD for porn >>(though IMO the proliferation of TLD's in also flawed, but that's a different rant), >>adding a specific meta-tag (just as we do today for robots), adding a new attribute to the >>tag to classify certain images as adult-only, etc. I'm sure there are better ideas than >>.mine out there.
Sure, but they have to have an element of enforceability and compliance. Otherwise, they are as worthless as.xxx.
>>At some point, people who are ACTUALLY concerned about children are going to stop trying >>to figure out how to somehow outlaw porn and work with the industry to put voluntary >>controls in place.
Not likely. If anything, the movement to clean-up the Internet is growing.
Aside from, y'know, teaching your child right from wrong, teaching them that you don't want them doing such and such a thing, talking with them, understanding what they are doing, being civil with them, getting them to understand why something is bad or harmful, or a million other ways aside from 'THE GOVERNMENT SAYS NO!'
Jeez, if all it takes is a good talking to... hey lets get rid of all the laws and use that taking to thing. Ya, that would work REAL good.
If the porn industry was so eager to "hearily" support self regulation and voluntarily take action to keep children from the bad stuff, all of them would be using redily available credit-card or password protected web sites.
But they all don't. Because most of them don't support self regulation, nor would they voluntariyly do anything that would cut into their profits.
Don't twist issues to go to an emotional reaction. Original Poster was talking about the VIEWING of pornograpy, not the creation of it.
Viewing can be harmful. There are documented cases of people becoming addicts, acting out deviant behaviors, and even going on rape/murder sprees as a result of it. And for the record, "pornography" is a fairly oblivious, because it span the gamut of a uncovered ankel to extreme depictions of sexualized rape and murder. So when I say pornography can be harmful, I am talking primary of the stuff on the darker, more extreme side of the spectrum that does no one any good.
Because that's a documented physical harm that we konw for a fact that will physically fuck us up really bad.
True, pornography might not directly affect everyone as bad as crude, but it does affect everyoen. A woman might not use pornography at all. But if she is raped by someone who is affected by pornography to the extent that he acts out, then she is affected by it.
Contraty to what the puritian background of the US would have you to beleive, pornography has been pretty much readily available to most people for pretty much forever.
Yes. But there has never been the availability that exists today. Prior to the Internet, people had to go an adult theater or bookstore to get their porn. And there was a certain level of pain associated with that. Whether it was risk of being seen or just having to drive out of town to the store. Today, people can cozy up to their computer and surf porn for hours on end, without any ever knowing.
One of the definitions attributed to addictive behavior is called the Triple A Engine: Affordability, Accessability and Anonymity. With Internet porn you get all three, all day long.
This statement is highly overblown - it also assumes that there is pornography just laying around open in every house in America, which there is not.
When a kid can click a mouse and access Internet porn, it IS the equivalent of having laying around in every household.
Also, theres a huge difference in sitting my 8 year old neice down unsupervised for a few hours next to a loaded Glock as opposed to my latest issue of "Double D Sluts Monthly"
Really? What if it were the latest issue of 8 year olds having sex with old men. Or how woman LOVE being gang banged by 20 or 30 different people. You don't think that puts ideas into impressionable heads. Are you kidding?
If all a kid sees is children having sex with adults, what do you think that kid is going to believe is normal human sexuality. And don't tell me they don't, because crap like that is all over the Internet where anyone--including children--can access it.
Also, much of the other 95% of the worlds population that isn't US of American doesn't have a big issue with human sexuality and last I checked they weren't all constantly engrossed in a neverending spoogefest to the exclusion of all other things.
Checked the news lately? Just about every country on earth is struggling with what to do about the ills created by Internet porn.
A few of them WERE, however, fighting to cut all the good violence out of exported US television. Think on that a few minutes.
I don't have a problem with that either.
"Some People" are not a whole soceity. To some people, getting some peaunt oil in their food can be deadly, but soceity doesn't consider peanut oil harmful.
So, if only some children are abused, that's ok. We shouldn't legislate that? Face it, there are things in the world that justify a society taking action to regulate it for the better of the society.
Or should we repeal all laws and let anarchy reign!
Yes, thats an allergy, but whats the difference between a biological reaction to someting and an addictive reaction? Most people go with the science that addictive behaviors are genetically influenced, and thus biological. Do the math.
Let me finish that for you.
"Oh, wait..." the.xxx domain solution was only voluntary so none of the pornographers would have moved their websites any ways.
I know it's not a new concept, but.. how about we let PARENTS be responsible for their children. I wish we could stop trying to run everyone else's lives. That's why there's a thing we refer to in english as a "repercussion". You do something you are not supposed to, you get punished. It's insane to think that we should take away rights in exchange for safety. A man has a right murder people. His peers then have a right to punish him in a way that makes it... very unfavorable for anyone else to decide murder is a good idea!
First, the guy who gets murder might not be too happy. Secondly, there are no legal repercussions for serving pornography to children or allowing them to access it. And third, if a kid wants to access pornography on the Internet, there is not a single thing any parent can do to stop it--and that is the problem. A parent cannot choose what is good or bad for his child with regard to Internet porn.
Children have a right to seek out sex and pornography, and their parents have a right to decide how to punish them. I for one would rather my son watch a softcore porn than something like Doom.
Sure, but what if your kid gets his kick from watch people have sex with animals, and then decides to act that out. How do you feel now? Or what if a sexual predator lures him away and then assaults him. You okay with that? Because that is what is happening on an unregulated Internet.
Yes, parents ultimately should have control. But they also need the tools in order to enforce their control. Kids are going to push the boundaries, and it is the parent's and society's responsibility to makes those boundaries as safe as possible.
Allowing children to freely surf the Internet and view all the extreme, dark and disturbing pornography they want to is no different thay handing them a bottle of Jack Daniels, some heroine and a loaded firearm, and then say, "Just don't hurt yourself."
Are you kidding?
Today on the Internet, there is nothing any one can do to stop a minor from accessing pornography on the Internet--short of placing the kid in a cryo chamber long enough until he becomes an adult.
I applaud COPA, which only requires pornographers to take measures--that are similr to the real world--to ensure kids can't access the porn.
We don't protect children from pornography. Instead we try to protect parents from the irrational anxiety and fear that comes from knowing their children might see pornography. Children cannot be protected from porn. In order to protect someone from something, that thing must be dangerous or harmful to begin with, which porn is not.
Wrong, wrong and wrong. Although pornography might not affect everyone the same way, there are those people who will become addicted to pornography, the same way as a person would drugs. Allowing children to access pornography is no different than handing them a beer or needle and find out which one becomes a alcholic or junkie.
Furthermore, allowing developing children to access pornography that depicts deviant behavior can hard-wire them to respond to that form of sexuality.
Lastly, if you think pornography doesn't hurt children, tell that to thousands of children who are abused in the production of child pornography.
Imagine if people had the same attitude towards food that many do towards sex. Can you imagine cookbooks being published? What about the food channel? Rachel Ray would be as infamous as Xaveria Hollander and Emeril would be Hugh Heffner.
That's a great example. Why don't you drink a gallon of crude oil and get back to us on that. Some things are good for you. Some things are not.
The truth is that porn is not something anyone needs to be protected from. Porn is harmless, and while I'm certainly not going to go out of my way to show kids porn (I think porn is tastless when not repugnant), neither do I lose any sleep over the fact that most of them do in fact see it. I can in fact prove that porn is not harmful.
The truth is we are about to find out just how harmful pornography can be. Never before in the history of mankind have humans had such readily available and immediate access to pornography via the Internet. It is the eqivalent of keeping alcohol, drugs and loaded fire arms in every household in America and waiting to see what happens.
And not harmful. Like I said tell that to the victims of sex crimes where the criminal was edged on by pornography. Or the person who is now getting a divorce, serving jail time or has acted out due to pornography.
Wake up!
If it were harmful then we would be a nation of damaged people since there are very few minors who manage to make it all the way to their 18th birthday WITHOUT seeing porn. Most adolescent guys seek it out. I saw my fair share between the ages of 13 and 18. If it had actually harmed me in some way I think I would know it.
The nation is full of damaged people. Divorces due to pornography are on the rise and Pornography addiction is the new catch phrase on TV. If pornography was good for us, we would all be healthy by now--and we are not.
"The whole business of protecting society from porn is predicated on the lie that porn is harmful to society."
No. To some people pornography can be very harmful even deadly. We legislate against alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs and firearms. Pornography really is no different.
Keep it out of the hands of children and make the really dangerous stuff illegal.
Define Porn..... Has anyone seen just what it is your congress defines as pornography? I couldn't see if anyone else had asked this very basic question. I for one can get off on a well turned ankle as much as well defined cleavage. Which is porn and where does it begin? As a male I know where it ends for me:) (Is that statement porn for its imagery?) Byeeee
The mystery surrounding the "what is porn" debate has more to do with misconceptions about the First Amendment and current "anti-pornography" laws than it does have to do with the actual pornography.
Defining pornography is simple, and those definitions already exist and are widely accepted by the public. The real trick is to understand that there are two type of "pornography" that need to be defined.
The first is obscenity, or those forms of pornography that are deemed illegal in the US, for example Child Pornography, Beastialiy, and other extreme forms. These forms of pornography are NOT protected by the first amendment.
The second form is "legal pornography". Legal pornography is everything from what is not appropriate for a minor to obscenity. This form of pornography is protected by the first amendment.
What is appropriate for a minor? There are several widely accepted standards such as motion picture rating system, television rating system, parental advisory, and the video game rating system.
So you see, defing pornography is easy. We just need more concrete legislation. For example, the existing Obscenity law is broken due to the subjective nature of its Miller Test. The Child Pornography law is very effective, because it uses percise language to identify the type of pornography that is offensive.
Show me the hundreds of thousands of dead people then.
Your kidding, right. What, do you own stock in tobbacco or something?
It may be the case that it is addictive, it may not. The point is that you cannot just say that and get away with it nor could you say the same thing about smoking.
Here's an idea. Prove that is not. Why do you thing that you can just say that pornography is not addictive and get away with it.
The difference w.r.t. smoking is that a) 50 years ago there was discussion about the health of smoking and b) general acceptance of the health risks were founded on data, not just anecdotes.
Are you suggesting that all the people who died of smoking related cancer before medical evidence proved that it deed in fact cause cancer don't count?
I don't need someone to prove to me that jumping out of an airplane without a parachute is dangerous. It's just something that my good common sense allows me to take for granted.
And when I hear about case after case of people who say they are addicted to porn, and sociologists and therapists are saying that it is addictive, well I think there is something there, more than just an anecdote.
Slashdot Mirror
Trying to clean-up pornography on the Internet, make it safer for kids and protect free speech--sounds just like what a scumbag would do.
cukoo...cukoo
I guess, after reading all the posts, it doesn't seem that everyone is so upset about regulating pornography so much as they simply don't like the idea of a group of people they didn't elect making the decision about what content is on the Internet and what content is not.
... wait a sec ... are we talking about the United States or ICANN.
I can't rememeber.
How about you do what I do? I actually monitor what my kids surf. I monitor proxy logs and history files. I watch over their shoulders. They never know when dad is silently connected with VNC watching their every move. I also have the machine password protected (which changes regularly). The have to ask permission to surf the net and have me log them in. It has worked out remarkably well. They get their school assignements done and still get to surf recreationally. They have been honest and never lost computer privileges.
You do all of that at all of your neighbors' homes? And at school, and at the library, and at every hotspot, and everywhere elese you kid can access the Internet.
When do you find time to work?
It sounds to me that you want somebody else to do your job raising your kids for you. You expect your "content blocker" to do the work and when it invariably fails, everybody else can "segregate" the content for you so you don't have to actually monitor your kids yourself. You wouldn't (I hope) drop your kids off alone in front of a porn shop and expect others to keep them out of trouble, "meatspace constraints" notwithstanding.
I hear ya brother. In fact, I wish my kids had the option of buying firearms, drugs, tobacco, porn magazines, porn dvds, donating their organs, and making all sorts of decisions so that I could spend all of my time monitoring them and keeping them from making really bad mistakes.
In fact, it would be great to watch society grind to a halt so that all parents could spend all of there time monitoring and watching their kids--instead of allowing society to offer reasonable tools to help parents do their jobs, be reasonably sure their children are safe, and contribute back to society.
Brilliant point.
A misguided bill like this might (if it actually passed Constitutional muster) make it more difficult to find porn, like your content filter, but a curious and resourceful child will find it anyway. Besides, Utah will never be able to force their plan on the rest of the world and the Internet is a world media. If you want a foolproof method to protect your child from the wicked Internet, sell your computer and unsubscribe from your ISP.
If you want a foolproof method to protect your child from the wicked Internet, sell your computer and unsubscribe from your ISP. , that's it. That is the solution.
Rather than putting the collective intelligence of the world together to solve the problem, that is really what it amounts to.
The motto for the greatest communication tool of the world is, "If you don't want porn, disconnect".
What a crowning achievement of humanity. Someone needs to inscribe that on our next deep space probe.
We must be so proud.
SNL is on channel 30 in Utah daperdan-tard. You see there is this thing called a u-n-v-e-r-s-a-l r-e-m-o-t-e, it lets you change the channel. Often you can do it with one of your fingers ... on your hand ... at the end of your arm.
You should try it some time.
No, CP80 is a statement that PORNOGRAPHY is sufficiently worse than all other forms of potentially objectionable content that PORNOGRAPHY, and only PORNOGRAPHY, must be segregated at the protocol level.
No, CP80 simply recognizes that pornography is a problem and provides a solution. That solution could be used for any adult content.
What's more, you already have the choice. When you go into a bookstore, or a gas station, chances are that they sell porn. But you aren't complaining about that, or demanding that all books with adult content be sold only in adult bookstores. Should the internet be less free than the real world?
Absolutely not. You're talking about playboy, penthouse kind of porn. And even then, it is often on a higher shelf, back room or otherwise kept from where children could access it. There are no high-shevles, back rooms or other mechanisms on the Internet that prevent children from accesses softer or hardcore forms of porn. The Internet should mimic the real world. That is what the CP80 initiative is trying to attempt.
If the real world mimiced the Internet today, porn--in all of its forms--would be available everywhere. A kid could walk into any store and by "girls loving horses" or "Sex, Rape and Murder". Because those hard forms are out on the net and any kid can access them.
Are you implying that the others aren't harmful? I'm confused.
Different forms of pornography have different effects on people. Softer forms might only lead to arousal and addiction, perhaps the objectification of woman, distorted body values, etc. But harder, more violent forms of porn definitely warp a person's perception of human sexuality, especially children.
My point was that this is not about choice, this is about attacking pornography. There is nothing in the architecture that they are proposing that makes it porn-centric, if it were a viable solution, it should be used to solve a multitude of problems at once.
The CP80 solution could be used to categorize any content into general-public and adult. It would be useful for all sorts of content. The CP80 group is only focusing on porn. At 97 Billion, that is a big-enough giant.
Once again, this is not my point. My point is that somebody has to determine what goes where, and that somebody may well be untrustworthy, or so overly zealous that they render the system meaningless.
If I could move all the animal love, rape, murder, excrement-eating, etc., etc., forms of porn off the "community ports" and onto the adult ports, I will gladly discuss all the rest.
As with COPA beforehand, if too much legitimate content gets shunted into the "porn" section, people won't be able to use the filter and it's meaningless.
True, but as a society, if we continue to slide down a moral slope, one day we will be having this argument about "obsolete child porn laws." And don't say it won't happen. If we can't draw a line today, why would we be able to draw those lines later on.
Right, but the whole concept of using ports to deliver this data makes it very difficult to have more than one type of traffic in the open community.
Why? You can have as many as 5000 ports for adult content. Do with them as you please.
I have an alternative proposal: how about, since the point of the internet is the free and open exchange of information, we have a "clean" port 80, and everything else can be open. Then those people who want to filter out all potentially objectionable content can be the ones who have to deal with the hassle of figuring out how to run IP with only one port.
I would gladly have a range of maybe 5000 clean ports.But the first thing all the pornographers would do is start publishing on it and there is no way to keep them off it without a CP80 type initiative. It has to be legislated and enforced.
Yep. Right now, YOU have the choice to keep an eye on your kids, instil
And what's to stop porn site from simply relocating to another country and ignoring this law completely?
The CP80 solution uses laws, treaties, consumer choice and Internet governance to enforce adoption.
Oh, how quaint, you think they're actually going to let you / your ISP turn it off. haha. No, no, that's not the point of something like this. The point of something like this is to segregate the content in hopes of finding some way to block it in the future. riiiiight. Lets destroy all road signs, telephone numbers and licenses plates, because all forms of organization are useful. We don't need order le.adfm aljasdpfas adsf[ap a.dfjad. Or maybe we do need some organization beceause, like an alphabet, it allows us to communicate better. And in case you don't seem to agree... The Republican Congress of yesteryear forced through legislation that required filters be placed on all publicly accessible computer. If you want to use a PC at a library, you have to go through the same Censorware that the Iran government uses to keep their citizens in the dark. How is preventing people from accessing porn, keeping them in the dark. Were the filters also blocking people from reading the news, literature, etc. Porn != advanced civilization Well, not tooo long after this was pushed through, suddenly liberal and left wing sites started getting blocked as "mature" or "adult content". DailyKOS, most political blogs in swing states, Left wing candidate sites, etc -- all suddenly blocked out of the blue, with no way to get past them without harassing the librarian for each and every page you want to view. Essentially cutting off access to these sites for anyone not wealthy enough to own a PC and Internet Connection. If that were true, I absolutely oppose that. Did the people in that city sue the library? I would like to read the articles. I see no difference with those shinanigans and an attempt to start "flagging" porn websites in a different way -- except that this new way is going to have a whole lot of extra people to blame. Is it just porn, or are you also bothered by warning labels on cigarettes, perscription drugs or sex offenders. Should we do away with all labels? I like labels that allow me to make a decision. A choice for myself. I am sure most people do. I think its funny that no one is fighting to take labels off of cigarettes, etc.
I want the choice to censor violence in the internet.
... the US doesn't rule the internet, so foreign sites wouldn't oblige, and port 80 still wouldn't be very clean.
The CP80 solution uses Laws for countries that have the ability to adopt them and enforce them. It would also allow individuals--INDIVIDUALS--to choose to block IP adress ranges for countries that cannot enforce a standard or whose standard they don't agree with, and finally, it would use enhanced Internet Governance regulations to crack down on those who abuse the Internet.
1). An individual should always have the choice to access or block whatever content he or she wants to.
2). CP80 is about organization and choice. It empowers individuals. The current state of the Internet is the opposite. It makes choices for me--that's censorship.
Oh, and dishonesty. Any website that presents speculation or opinion as fact should send that data on a separate port, so I can firewall it off easily. I don't my children exposed to lies and brutality on the internet. I also want all advertising to be transmitted on a separate port, to protect my children. Oh, and religious stuff. I don't want any websites forcing their religious views on me, thats harmful and should be filtered out. Particularly that horrid stuff about evolution.
There is a lot of content on the Internet that is not healthy for or intended for a child. Sites that discuss drug use, murder, theft, etc.
The CP80 foundation is working on pornography, because extreme forms are harmful.
Now all we need to do is require sites like Slashdot to make sure that comments are properly sorted, so that they get sent on the appropriate ports. Then, when I get mod points, I can mod people adult, and nobody reading from work will have to see them.
That would be up to the employer, who could just as easily allow access to the Open community. But it is his business. It is his decision to make.
Skipping over the obvious implementation problems, like how much harder it will be when my network game with adult content
Adult-content/oriented games belong on the Open Community. Not a community where kids could stumble into it.
, pornographic web-browsing, and clearing the porn-spam from my email all can all only be done on port, despite using very different protocols, how will this stop the people who will think it's hilarious to IM, email, or simply post pornographic content, just so you'll be surprised when the firewall doesn't catch it?
Laws, individual choice and enhanced Internet governance.
The same way we stop people from posting pornographic content on a school bus today. There is acceptable behavior in a community that everyone abides by. That is what makes a society work.
The solution is global.
PS: While there are doubtless many unethical pornographers, there at least as many ethical ones.
What does that even mean, "ethical pornographers." If that makes people feel good about peddling smut, sure it's "ethical". But don't fool yourse, ethical != moral.
Nor are the standards of what's pornographic or not. Would Sports Illustrated's swimsuit section be required to move? Maxim? They're not considered porn for by the majority of americans, but what about countries like Iran? Do we really want the mutaween deciding what's porn? What about classical art, which frequently features nudity? Would a medical site with pictures of genital areas be required to move? How do we handle a mixed site?
Different countries do have different standards. So either the Internet needs to enable that capability or we need to establish an acceptible global standard.
Currently, the defacto standard on the Internet is anything goes--porn, porn, porn. That is the standard whether you want to believe it or not.
I just can't believe that the powers that be cannot figure out how to allow indivual countries to enable their own standards for servers wihtin their countries and allow their citizens to choose which coutnry's/standards/web content they are willing to access.
Seems like a no brainer.
That's what the CP80 initiative is talking about.
But when you consider that curious teens are looking for it and learning from it--and we are not talking centerfolds, folks. We are talking about super violent, dark and disturbing hardcore porn.
That's a problem.
Okay, okay, is there anyone else out there laughing. Ethical porn site. How many years will it be before there ethical child porn?
>>Further, I know that if I was a site operator, I'd resist being shuffled off to some odd port where some state or ISP or anyone with half a brain (literally) could block my business. Or is the idea to pass more laws that prevent US companies from competing in a global market? (grin)
Read the solution. You aren't moving your site to a port, you only have to use the adult range of ports for "adult content". You could still have a sanitized port 80 site. And individual could choose to access both the "clean" ports and "adult" ports if he wanted to, or choose to block the "adult" ports.
Its about choice.
>>Again we're faced with a law that has no chance of succeeding, all in the interests of appearing to be "doing something".
Its not a law. It was a resolution stating the people of Utah want the federal governmentto figure it out.
There website shows a few other states are starting similar resolutions. People are fed up with it.
>>Do you really think someone who would go to far as to typosquat NASA or whitehouse would >>voluntarily switch ports?
The CP80 Initiative is NOT voluntary if your read it. It wants to use federal legislation in the US and Internet governance regulation worldwide to enforce it.
>>We're talking about content. And, to be honest, a voluntary system for identifying "adult >>material" would probably be adhered to. Because it's in the porn industry's best interest. That's the funniest thing I have read so far. If it were the case, they would already be doing it. Let's not hold are breath waiting for the porn industry to voluntarily do anything. >>The porn sites are in business to make money. Period. And they're well aware of negative >>image that they give the rest of the industry, and that there's a lot of heat on them. >>Frankly, it helps them a lot to be able to say "look, we provide technical means to allow >>parents to filter this out for their children." Now they can do business in peace, without >>the hue and cry of "Think of the Children! We must protect them from teh interwebs!" Then why do so many porns site offere free hardcore content. They are in the business of creating future users by offering their wares for free to whomever. >>Is it possible to circumvent this system? Absolutely. Will some people fail to adhere to >>it? Without doubt. But most of the "legit" porn industry would probably be relieved to >>have a system that lets them say they're acting in good faith as responsible citizens. Yep, that what makes the CP80 solution a great solution. It zones the Internet in a similar fashion to the real world. >>The problem here is the implementation, not the concept. Segregating content by internet >>port is just silly. Not by ports. It creates a range of ports for adult content only. Playboy can still have a prot 80 presence, but it has to be sanitized. All adult content would use the adult range for transfer. The interlinking would be completely transparent to the user. >>And the underlying concept is somewhat disturbing--I think the notion here is like >>broadcast and basic TV, and FCC decency standards could be enforced on port 80. Frankly, >>that has a LOT of negative implications that have nothing to do with porn. I know, I know. We should destroy all road signs, phone books and license plates before Big Brother gets us all. >>Simpler to implement solutions that would achieve the same effect: Add a new TLD for porn >>(though IMO the proliferation of TLD's in also flawed, but that's a different rant), >>adding a specific meta-tag (just as we do today for robots), adding a new attribute to the >>tag to classify certain images as adult-only, etc. I'm sure there are better ideas than >>.mine out there. Sure, but they have to have an element of enforceability and compliance. Otherwise, they are as worthless as .xxx.
>>At some point, people who are ACTUALLY concerned about children are going to stop trying >>to figure out how to somehow outlaw porn and work with the industry to put voluntary >>controls in place.
Not likely. If anything, the movement to clean-up the Internet is growing.
Jeez, if all it takes is a good talking to... hey lets get rid of all the laws and use that taking to thing. Ya, that would work REAL good.
The .xxx solution would work if it were mandatory, not voluntary. As long as it is voluntary, it is a worthless solution.
If the porn industry was so eager to "hearily" support self regulation and voluntarily take action to keep children from the bad stuff, all of them would be using redily available credit-card or password protected web sites. But they all don't. Because most of them don't support self regulation, nor would they voluntariyly do anything that would cut into their profits.
Viewing can be harmful. There are documented cases of people becoming addicts, acting out deviant behaviors, and even going on rape/murder sprees as a result of it. And for the record, "pornography" is a fairly oblivious, because it span the gamut of a uncovered ankel to extreme depictions of sexualized rape and murder. So when I say pornography can be harmful, I am talking primary of the stuff on the darker, more extreme side of the spectrum that does no one any good.
Because that's a documented physical harm that we konw for a fact that will physically fuck us up really bad.
True, pornography might not directly affect everyone as bad as crude, but it does affect everyoen. A woman might not use pornography at all. But if she is raped by someone who is affected by pornography to the extent that he acts out, then she is affected by it.
Contraty to what the puritian background of the US would have you to beleive, pornography has been pretty much readily available to most people for pretty much forever.
Yes. But there has never been the availability that exists today. Prior to the Internet, people had to go an adult theater or bookstore to get their porn. And there was a certain level of pain associated with that. Whether it was risk of being seen or just having to drive out of town to the store. Today, people can cozy up to their computer and surf porn for hours on end, without any ever knowing.
One of the definitions attributed to addictive behavior is called the Triple A Engine: Affordability, Accessability and Anonymity. With Internet porn you get all three, all day long.
This statement is highly overblown - it also assumes that there is pornography just laying around open in every house in America, which there is not.
When a kid can click a mouse and access Internet porn, it IS the equivalent of having laying around in every household.
Also, theres a huge difference in sitting my 8 year old neice down unsupervised for a few hours next to a loaded Glock as opposed to my latest issue of "Double D Sluts Monthly"
Really? What if it were the latest issue of 8 year olds having sex with old men. Or how woman LOVE being gang banged by 20 or 30 different people. You don't think that puts ideas into impressionable heads. Are you kidding?
If all a kid sees is children having sex with adults, what do you think that kid is going to believe is normal human sexuality. And don't tell me they don't, because crap like that is all over the Internet where anyone--including children--can access it.
Also, much of the other 95% of the worlds population that isn't US of American doesn't have a big issue with human sexuality and last I checked they weren't all constantly engrossed in a neverending spoogefest to the exclusion of all other things.
Checked the news lately? Just about every country on earth is struggling with what to do about the ills created by Internet porn.
A few of them WERE, however, fighting to cut all the good violence out of exported US television. Think on that a few minutes.
I don't have a problem with that either.
"Some People" are not a whole soceity. To some people, getting some peaunt oil in their food can be deadly, but soceity doesn't consider peanut oil harmful.
So, if only some children are abused, that's ok. We shouldn't legislate that? Face it, there are things in the world that justify a society taking action to regulate it for the better of the society.
Or should we repeal all laws and let anarchy reign!
Yes, thats an allergy, but whats the difference between a biological reaction to someting and an addictive reaction? Most people go with the science that addictive behaviors are genetically influenced, and thus biological. Do the math.
What does that even
Let me finish that for you. "Oh, wait..." the .xxx domain solution was only voluntary so none of the pornographers would have moved their websites any ways.
First, the guy who gets murder might not be too happy. Secondly, there are no legal repercussions for serving pornography to children or allowing them to access it. And third, if a kid wants to access pornography on the Internet, there is not a single thing any parent can do to stop it--and that is the problem. A parent cannot choose what is good or bad for his child with regard to Internet porn.
Children have a right to seek out sex and pornography, and their parents have a right to decide how to punish them. I for one would rather my son watch a softcore porn than something like Doom.
Sure, but what if your kid gets his kick from watch people have sex with animals, and then decides to act that out. How do you feel now? Or what if a sexual predator lures him away and then assaults him. You okay with that? Because that is what is happening on an unregulated Internet.
Allowing children to freely surf the Internet and view all the extreme, dark and disturbing pornography they want to is no different thay handing them a bottle of Jack Daniels, some heroine and a loaded firearm, and then say, "Just don't hurt yourself."
Are you kidding?
Today on the Internet, there is nothing any one can do to stop a minor from accessing pornography on the Internet--short of placing the kid in a cryo chamber long enough until he becomes an adult.
I applaud COPA, which only requires pornographers to take measures--that are similr to the real world--to ensure kids can't access the porn.
Wrong, wrong and wrong. Although pornography might not affect everyone the same way, there are those people who will become addicted to pornography, the same way as a person would drugs. Allowing children to access pornography is no different than handing them a beer or needle and find out which one becomes a alcholic or junkie.
Furthermore, allowing developing children to access pornography that depicts deviant behavior can hard-wire them to respond to that form of sexuality.
Lastly, if you think pornography doesn't hurt children, tell that to thousands of children who are abused in the production of child pornography.
Imagine if people had the same attitude towards food that many do towards sex. Can you imagine cookbooks being published? What about the food channel? Rachel Ray would be as infamous as Xaveria Hollander and Emeril would be Hugh Heffner.
That's a great example. Why don't you drink a gallon of crude oil and get back to us on that. Some things are good for you. Some things are not.
The truth is that porn is not something anyone needs to be protected from. Porn is harmless, and while I'm certainly not going to go out of my way to show kids porn (I think porn is tastless when not repugnant), neither do I lose any sleep over the fact that most of them do in fact see it. I can in fact prove that porn is not harmful.
The truth is we are about to find out just how harmful pornography can be. Never before in the history of mankind have humans had such readily available and immediate access to pornography via the Internet. It is the eqivalent of keeping alcohol, drugs and loaded fire arms in every household in America and waiting to see what happens.
And not harmful. Like I said tell that to the victims of sex crimes where the criminal was edged on by pornography. Or the person who is now getting a divorce, serving jail time or has acted out due to pornography.
Wake up!
If it were harmful then we would be a nation of damaged people since there are very few minors who manage to make it all the way to their 18th birthday WITHOUT seeing porn. Most adolescent guys seek it out. I saw my fair share between the ages of 13 and 18. If it had actually harmed me in some way I think I would know it.
The nation is full of damaged people. Divorces due to pornography are on the rise and Pornography addiction is the new catch phrase on TV. If pornography was good for us, we would all be healthy by now--and we are not.
"The whole business of protecting society from porn is predicated on the lie that porn is harmful to society."
No. To some people pornography can be very harmful even deadly. We legislate against alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs and firearms. Pornography really is no different.
Keep it out of the hands of children and make the really dangerous stuff illegal.
Define Porn ..... Has anyone seen just what it is your congress defines as pornography? I couldn't see if anyone else had asked this very basic question. I for one can get off on a well turned ankle as much as well defined cleavage. Which is porn and where does it begin? As a male I know where it ends for me :) (Is that statement porn for its imagery?) Byeeee
The mystery surrounding the "what is porn" debate has more to do with misconceptions about the First Amendment and current "anti-pornography" laws than it does have to do with the actual pornography.
Defining pornography is simple, and those definitions already exist and are widely accepted by the public. The real trick is to understand that there are two type of "pornography" that need to be defined.
The first is obscenity, or those forms of pornography that are deemed illegal in the US, for example Child Pornography, Beastialiy, and other extreme forms. These forms of pornography are NOT protected by the first amendment.
The second form is "legal pornography". Legal pornography is everything from what is not appropriate for a minor to obscenity. This form of pornography is protected by the first amendment.
What is appropriate for a minor? There are several widely accepted standards such as motion picture rating system, television rating system, parental advisory, and the video game rating system.
So you see, defing pornography is easy. We just need more concrete legislation. For example, the existing Obscenity law is broken due to the subjective nature of its Miller Test. The Child Pornography law is very effective, because it uses percise language to identify the type of pornography that is offensive.
Show me the hundreds of thousands of dead people then.
Your kidding, right. What, do you own stock in tobbacco or something?
It may be the case that it is addictive, it may not. The point is that you cannot just say that and get away with it nor could you say the same thing about smoking.
Here's an idea. Prove that is not. Why do you thing that you can just say that pornography is not addictive and get away with it.
The difference w.r.t. smoking is that a) 50 years ago there was discussion about the health of smoking and b) general acceptance of the health risks were founded on data, not just anecdotes.
Are you suggesting that all the people who died of smoking related cancer before medical evidence proved that it deed in fact cause cancer don't count?
I don't need someone to prove to me that jumping out of an airplane without a parachute is dangerous. It's just something that my good common sense allows me to take for granted.
And when I hear about case after case of people who say they are addicted to porn, and sociologists and therapists are saying that it is addictive, well I think there is something there, more than just an anecdote.
Oh, so the sword is more powerful than the word. I always thought it was the other way around.
No. I want someone to tell me why a minor cannot purchase a loaded fire arm but he can access all the pornography he wants to?