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UK Government proposes porn-viewing ID

• mobiuscog 10y ago
  <dons flameproof suit> Something has to be done. It's not just about porn or violence of NSFL etc... but there is a serious problem on the internet, that is always lambasted with the "Won't somebody think of the children" memes. When society has reached a point that anybody with internet access can, simply by 'accidentally' going to the wrong website, be exposed to imagery that really is not going to help them be well-adjusted in life, without any safeguards in place, there is something wrong. Whilst there are privacy concerns regarding any ID situation, nobody seems to be trying to solve the problem in other ways, short of limiting internet access (which causes other outcries). I'm all for a better solution, but nobody seems to be proposing one. (For the moment, as a parent, my young daughter doesn't get any unaccompanied internet access - I am thinking of my child) How do we solve this problem ? Edit: It's interesting to note diminishing points for a post that asks how to solve a problem. Obviously some people feel very strongly that even questioning the situation is wrong.
  • FordPrefectAO 10y ago
    Can you define the problem more pointedly? It sounds like the problem is 'information (and ergo imagery) is accessible ", which I do not see as a probely
    • cyberpunk 10y ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSF82AwSDiU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSF82AwSDiU ^^ This really opened my eyes to this problem for me.. It's really rather worrying, and I guess my generation (early 30s) were the last to avoid this so it's kind of invisible to us because of how awkward it is to talk about such things. We need to do something, perhaps better education and getting more comfortable talking about sex and relationships with young people is a better approach than failed-from-the-outset restrictions... Either way, the points in that video are imo, valid, and should worry everyone.
    • s3arch 10y ago
      In addition to what @cyberpunk pointed out, Check out this website: http://yourbrainonporn.com/ http://yourbrainonporn.com/ There is a pool of resources related to damage the porn has done for this generation from scientific studies, ex and recovering porn addicts and as well as from the partners of addicts.
      • witty_username 10y ago
        Porn addiction is different from just viewing porn. Lots of people watch porn without becoming porn addicts.
        • Freak_NL 10y ago
          Lots? Most I would wager.
    • bobwaycott 10y ago
      Not the op, but it doesn't sound like you're trying very hard to understand. Simply put—and speaking as a person who doesn't care about what adults do and see on the internet involving other adults—there is simply no bulletproof way of reliably ensuring children do not see or experience something online that is inappropriate for their age (or against a parent's personal sensitivities), while preserving a parent's freedom to encounter such things. As one who ardently opposes censorship and supports accessibility to information and material that some may find objectionable, I can empathize and understand why there is a need in people's minds for wanting to have something that works flawlessly, without requiring them to lock down every device and constantly hover over the shoulders of their children when they are using internet-enabled devices. Some parents who feel this way can very well be consumers of material they think is inappropriate for their children, wishing to prevent their children from being exposed to such material until they deem their child has enough maturity to properly understand it and place it in a context for life, while also wanting to avoid being hovering, controlling parents who make their children feel like they're controlled and permitted no freedom to grow and learn and make mistakes. For example, I'm a fan of Game of Thrones, but I wouldn't watch it with an 8-year-old. Extrapolate that to the realm of porn—especially of the BDSM or other such role-playing and kink variety—and we wind up in a place of genuine conflict for some parents, even those who might enjoy such things themselves. Moreover, there is more than a small amount of collected evidence and accounts from people who document how such material is impacting such things as teenagers' views on sexuality and what behaviors are normal, as well as young women encountering what they report as the effects of porn on their teen male peers—with such reports including expectations of sexual acts before they've even shared a kiss. The prevalence of such information and imagery, which the average adult may be able to successfully contextualize, provides a different set of challenges to the inexperienced and less mature adolescent population. So, no, what the parent said wasn't that "information (and ergo imagery) is accessible" is the problem. It's more likely that the problem is there's no shortage of ways that people, young or otherwise, can stumble upon or be introduced to things that can be seriously problematic for their level of maturity and development. Despite all that, just to be very clear, I'm not suggesting that government-issued porn IDs or similar programs are the answer, or that they would even help solve the problem some people legitimately worry about and feel matters for their, and their children's, lives. I see a lot of problems with even suggesting that, and think it's an awful solution. But I think there's value in recognizing there is a problem strongly felt by many people, and the problem isn't merely access to information and imagery. As with many things in life, I find myself mixed between recognizing the value in empathizing with and understanding people's concerns, and unapologetically upholding on principle the accessibility of information (and imagery) some may find objectionable.
  • tednoob 10y ago
    Isn't it better to assume nothing is safe for children and to leave the internet as the wild wild west that it is? Have the Government set up their own CA to sign the stuff they approve of. A child safe web browser would just disregard anything that doesn't have a valid certificate.
    • mobiuscog 10y ago
      That raises some interesting ideas.
  • tachion 10y ago
    Do you seriously think this is a viable solution that doesn't compromise society freedoms and scales well really securing children at the same time? I am really, really sceptical about that. Are we guarding our kids when they play with their friends, who can expose them to all kind of nasty content/ideas/materials/behaviours? Are we censoring ads that are everywhere and are filled with sexual/erotic conotations? Are we keeping kids from interacting with other people in any way (freely available phone line at home?) that could cause them to be exposed to things we wouldn't like them to be exposed to? And in the end, aren't we making them too fragile and unable to deal with things they shouldnt be interacting with, by keeping them in golden safety cage? I am not saying that we should not take care of them, but when I hear ideas like that, I wonder how the hell we've managed to survive our childhood without all of it being there to save us from this dreadful world!
    • cyberpunk 10y ago
      Proper advice/education is really the only solution. We all know how ridiculous any attempts to censor the internet is to people with even a minimal amount of tech savvy, especially if gov.uk are involved... I mean, take the UK's attempt to block e.g thepiratebay.org which is defeated by simply putting https:// https:// infront of it (at least, currently, on virgin media).. The actual issue here though is the progression that some teenage kid goes through by initially looking to find some "HOTCHIX" to... solve an urge.. to 6 months later only getting off to really extreme stuff, being unable to really form relationships, the self destructive mentality porn addiction puts anyone in, and that we have an epidemic of erectile dysfunction in really young people as a result... None of this is good. Censorship will never be the solution, but I think we do need to do something; I have no idea what, though....
      • adrianN 10y ago
        I hear that the censors in China are pretty successful. It's certainly technically possible.
        • tachion 10y ago
  • bcook 10y ago
    So... you're advocating a prohibition of sorts?
  • marketanarchist 10y ago
    If you want to shelter your child from certain sites or content, that is your problem. Take responsibility for your own family, don't ask the entire world to change and give away our freedoms because of your laziness/ineptitude.
    • pbhjpbhj 10y ago
      Do you realise that children become adults and that ignoring problems faced by other people's children means your ignoring what will become the whole world's problems. If the internet fucks up everyone's kids except your own then your own kids still have to live in that world. The idea that future generations are individual families private problems is an insidious wrong. We're in the world together and where possessible should share that responsibility.
      • tombo2008 10y ago
        10/10 Well said.
      • nightspirit 10y ago
        Internet won't fuck up your children half as much as your intolerance of reality and their feelings will.
      • marketanarchist 10y ago
        > We're in the world together and where possessible should share that responsibility. No, I have no obligation or responsibility to your child. You can ask me for my voluntary help, but that's it. I generally don't believe in limiting freedoms because people abuse and/or misuse something. There are exceptions of course, but this is clearly not one of them. Should we limit the amount of chocolate sold in stores because obese people lack self-discipline or because parents cannot control their children? Take responsibility for your family or don't have one at all.
      • scottmf 10y ago
        Really? Then what's the role of the parent?
  • viraptor 10y ago
    > simply by 'accidentally' going to the wrong website, be exposed to imagery Is that a real problem though? You did quote the accidentally after all. Both kids and adults have access to things they seek - whether that's going to be internet, magazine brought to school, or some other means. If they don't seek such content, they won't see much more than what's already available to everyone in the daily mail. I think the internet just made people aware of what's already been going on. My questions would be "does porn prohibition create more good than the very likely government/school punishment for kids who will seek it regardless". (Once it's tracked and officially acted on, it's going to be a sex offender case like sexting became, right?) (Also from my experience, things other kids did/said at school was likely more damaging and plain evil than anything I've seen on the internet so far. Kids have unrestricted imagination and are brutal. And I get the impression lots of parents forget what really happened.) If you want to block porn at home, there are thousands of solutions for that. And they do work pretty well. If you're thinking of a global solution, I think it's just too dangerous.
    • mobiuscog 10y ago
      It's certainly easy to stumble across unsavoury content - I have done so accidentally in the past and was amazed how easy it was. I can't say how much of a problem it is, but then I suspect nobody can. As a parent (and yes, as stated already, I do limit internet access) I know that most parents definitely wouldn't want these things to be viewed early in life - I have no problem with adults viewing whatever they want, although I would suggest that people who constantly search for the NSFL content are possibly not well adjusted. I don't claim to know the answer - I just get the impression that these options are always pushed away due to 'freedom' but there is little alternative offered to help society maintain a healthy mental balance.
      • viraptor 10y ago
        If you want to filter traffic at home, I don't think it's that hard. There's a whole industry trying to solve that problem. Google "internet family filter" and choose one. Your ISP probably provides one as well (my last 3 ISPs did) I'll likely use one as well when I have kids. But I'm absolutely against any government program to enforce the same. But my experience is much different. Apart from sexualised models advertising things, I've not run into anything (by accident) I wouldn't share at a family table.
  • krapp 10y ago
    Outside of, maybe, image searches and 4chan (where there are no filters at all), it's not that easy to accidentally stumble across pornographic images on the web nowadays. Legitimate sites with a vested interest in preventing minors viewing inappropriate content will make that content opt-in. I don't see a problem when you have to go looking for it to find it. At that point it's not the fault of the internet, but someone's lack of discipline and self control.
    • Asooka 10y ago
      > 4chan (where there are no filters at all), Except that's wrong. All forms of child pornography are banned and posting one nets you a permanent ban. Several boards (i.e. everything outside the 18+ section) disallow posting any erotic content and doing so gets you a ban. 4chan was never meant as a free-for-all.
      • krapp 10y ago
        It's not entirely wrong. Child pornography is banned, but because moderators have to see it to ban it, and because the entire site is public, it's still possible for a user to encounter it without wanting to.
  • vertex-four 10y ago
    The thing is, if you want to prevent your children from accessing sites you'd prefer them not to without accompanying them in the future... there's been commercial solutions to that almost since the first porn site existed. Net Nanny's been around almost as long as I've been alive. Combine that with ensuring that your child's computer is in a public place, not their bedroom. Frankly, if people are going to be exposed to said imagery at some point, they probably need to be educated about it. And not just about porn - about people with racist and bigoted views, about the news they'll read about someone committing a school shooting or a bombing. There's no way we're ever going to convince people on the Internet to self-categorise and warn people about what they're going to come across. The only option is to supervise your child's use of the Internet (and other media, tbh) while you try to prepare them for what they're going to come across.
    • Freak_NL 10y ago
      > Frankly, if people are going to be exposed to said imagery at some point, they probably need to be educated about it. That's what this is all about isn't it? There is lots of stuff on the internet that may hurt a child's development, and I honestly doubt porn is one of the bigger bad influences. Kids are growing up watching popular peers give them beauty and fashion tips or perform dangerous stunts and pranks on extremely popular Youtube channels. Of course all you see is the side they want you to see: the successful prank with hilarious consequences, the perfect look by that pretty girl with the perfect figure. But left to their own devices your children won't see that girl's bad hair day, or the stunt that backfired and landed one of the kids in hospital. Your kids won't realize that the brand of lipstick the popular beauty vlogger promotes also sends her plenty of free samples in return for the favour, or that that hilarious prank was staged. It's our responsibility as parents and educators — as adults — to teach kids about this. Now for porn this always gets tricky, because a lot of people would like to stick to just the basic birds and bees (if even that) and just pretend that sexuality is something you receive with your drivers licence. It doesn't work that way, and believing that blocking a vaunted digital commodity will make it go away is an age-old fallacy. There will always be that one kid who can get the goods, with that one app or website that completely circumvents the blockade. Meanwhile you get to register for your approved pervert ID if you actually want to comply with the system and watch porn. It boggles my mind how anyone can think that this will benefit society rather than take another step towards a full Orwellian surveillance state. > I'm all for a better solution, but nobody seems to be proposing one. You are probably doing all right already. The computer and tablets stay in the living room where you can supervise incidentally until they reach the teenage years. And then the smartphones stay with you after bedtime. For the rest, it is up to you to set a good example, and to explain the world to your kids as they encounter it. That means talking about sex too, and that means explaining what they are looking at when they do stumble upon adult content — not acting embarrassed and making them feel guilty as if they've bitten into some forbidden fruit. "Oh this is just adult sex, you'll understand better when you are older. Any questions?" If it really bothers you; install filtering software. Filtering the parts of reality deemed not yet suitable from your children is responsible (just don't pretend it doesn't exist); filtering it from society at large is unbearably sanctimonious.
  • hiisukun 10y ago
    Respectfully, I don't think that something has to be done. While your definition of said problem is fair and reasonable, and I share some of your concerns for children going online, overall I don't agree. I don't think the internet reflects more than the real world offers. It is challenging as a parent (and a school, employer, etc) to govern (!) or monitor how people use your internet access. Certainly much harder than preventing your kids from going to a particular physical place. However, the freely available information that the internet allows humanity to share and access is changing the world. Some things will be better, some perhaps worse and at least more challenging, but I don't support curtailing the freedoms of many. Much damage can be done through things like the proposed ID system, and it will be just that kind of damage - systemic. I suppose what I'm trying to say is - don't be afraid of the world. It's a wonderful and scary place, full of many terrible and beautiful things, and the internet is too. I guess I just don't like the idea of having to turn 18 then get a passport just to Google what's in another country :T
    • asadjb 10y ago
      "I don't think the internet reflects more than the real world offers. It is challenging as a parent (and a school, employer, etc) to govern (!) or monitor how people use your internet access. Certainly much harder than preventing your kids from going to a particular physical place." A thought just popped up in my head about this. Yes, the internet is a reflection of the physical world, but it doesn't have any of the constraints that we have put in the real world. In the real world, you try and select a good neighborhood to raise your children in. This saves them from even coming close to physical spaces we'd like them to avoid. Then in the real world you have signs all over the place that warn you from entering a dangerous situation. Then we regulate access to some of the more dangerous places (places that deal with hazardous materials, prisons, etc). You have things like the "Sex offender registry" which warns you of people to look out for. You have a lot of safeguards in the physical world that nobody bats an eye at because they all make sense. And on top of all this evolution has given you an innate sense of danger. So you naturally stay away from people with knifes, guns, etc. The internet has none of this. So while I'm all for freedom of information, I still think there is a need for some protection. On the internet, adults and kids are some of the time just 1 click away from a NSFL site, except of course that kids can't recognize that; which might be true for some adults as well.
  • witty_username 10y ago
    I saw porn accidentally at around 11 by visiting python.com (I was trying to python.org). I turned out fine, I'm not really sure what's the big danger. It's just sexualized naked humans. Big deal. Maybe people are just uncomfortable that children might like porn.
    • abgawrv 10y ago
      I started regularly viewing porn since 8 or 9 years old. To this day I'm not into "pro" porn or any other type of strange porn, just amateur couples filming themselves fucking. I watched indie European movies with my parents that had full nudity and penetration before that age even. Despite my other character flaws, I don't actually have any sexual hangups, harmful fetishes, etc. I have literally no problem with my future child watching a video of people having sex.
    • yodsanklai 10y ago
      Even before internet, many (most ?) teenagers had access one way or another to sexual contents. Videotapes, magazines and so on... I wonder why it's such a big deal. I think it's the role of the parents, or even school, to educate them about this.
  • s3arch 10y ago
    Sorry that there are very harsh comments out here. You cant solve your problem relying on laws or global restrictions. The damage is already done. The only solution is preparing your child how to respond on her own when she encounters inappropriate content. Not by restricting her. Not by always accompanying her when she uses Internet. You need to educate her by telling her the Truth, ie the nature of the content and why it is inappropriate according to what you believe. This is more than sex education. Be more specific. Explain what happens there. Yes you can and is your responsibility to teach your child to avoid/hate NSFL if you think it harms her physical, emotional and mental well being, no matter what society believes and advocates by telling its all SAFE.
  • JulianMorrison 10y ago
    "my young daughter doesn't get any unaccompanied internet access" - you will discover that you are mistaken about this. Kids do not tell adults about the hole in the fence. The reality is that we have a misogyny problem, not really a porn problem per se but one that's reflective of a society that could, for example, produce Trump. Trying to solve this by blocking porn is basically misogyny trying to protect itself through distraction. Hey look over there, she has her tits out gasp, clutch pearls.
    • mobiuscog 10y ago
      This is fast becoming a new part of Godwin's law.
      • JulianMorrison 10y ago
        It would be intensely surprising if a discussion of porn didn't turn into a discussion of misogyny. Because they relate, obviously.
        • pmlnr 10y ago
          No, they don't.
          • JulianMorrison 10y ago
            Oh? How is it possible for them to not relate at all?
            • nightspirit 10y ago
              If you have something to say go ahead and enlighten us.
  • belorn 10y ago
    There used to be a option here in Sweden and elsewhere in the world, and it was called the national censors. They would look at movies, tv, music, books, and decide if it posed a serous problem where someone could 'accidentally' be exposed and harm the efforts to be well-adjusted citizens. And, in most part, it was not that bad. Sure, Swedes could not watch the Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and the UK banned Monthy Python, and the US banned Show Girls, but was it really so bad? Well, maybe... Okey it was pretty bad and society discarded that system for a very good reason.
    • NLips 10y ago
      Actually the UK hasn't discarded it's system, but you've possibly misunderstood what the system is. Monty Python was rated as suitable for ages 14+ by the BBFC. Some local authorities (which have power over what may be shown in cinemas) banned cinemas from playing it, but buying a physical copy was never banned. Nowadays there are only a small number of films outright 'banned' by the BBFC, almost always due to rape or torture scenes that don't have appropriate context, and the 'ban' only extends to screenings and to selling physical copies.
      • belorn 10y ago
        Well, reading about "Monty Python's Life of Brian" gives a rather strong message that censoring played a significant role in the UK for that movie. But you make a good point that rather than it being national censors, it was town councils. Not sure if the general public or artistic creator feel that its much of a difference. Looking at history of censoring in uk, or looking at examples in other countries, is it a productive, effective and favorable method in keeping citizens well-adjusted?
        • NLips 10y ago
          If the films that have been censored hadn't been, I don't think anyone would be directly be suffering other than the politicians who have some of the public screaming at them. However, if there were no censorship, producers would know they could put anything up and perhaps we would get steadily more and more filth on the screen. Obviously that's hard to be sure about either way. I think the minimal complete censorship they do now (which seems to be entirely sex/violence related) is probably in about the right place - if people and papers on both side are complaining, that's a good sign you might have found the right balance!
  • Kenji 10y ago
    There is no problem. I grew up with the internet. Had full access as a kid. Many people did too. The only problem is that fascists want to control the internet, that's the real problem.
    • mobiuscog 10y ago
      I appreciate this comment, as I know a lot of people who grew up with the internet. I would therefore ask another question: Is it really fascism trying to control the internet, or people afraid to accept responsibility for what they want to do ? (I suspect both) The modern way of entitlement means everybody should be free to do whatever they want without government interfering, which demonstrates that the meaning of the word 'goverment' is lost, especially when the people vote for the prevailing authority. Do you feel reponsible as part of a society, or are you only responsible to yourself ?
      • darklajid 10y ago
        Not the GP, but in my world you're responsible for your part of society - not all of it. There's no consensus on when - for example - kids should be allowed to look at some random.jpg. As a parent, you make decisions for your daughter every day. Whether she gets unfiltered internet access or not is one of these. I think most rational people wouldn't criticize your personal decision, even if they disagree. But handing this responsibility out to the state seems wrong to me on multiple levels. Privacy issues (which are actually HUGE) aside: There's no clear cut answer for the questions - what is considered porn/inapproriate nudity anyway - at which age is my kid allowed to watch porn (this proposal says 18 for some reason?) - what kind of porn is agreeable and what is not The government shouldn't meddle in issues of morality.
        • mobiuscog 10y ago
          Shouldn't a government, govern ? If so, what is their remit, and if not, what's the answer... anarchy ? For reference, 18 is the legal 'adult' age in the UK, hence the age in this proposal.
  • jamesrcole 10y ago
    > When society has reached a point that anybody with internet access can, simply by 'accidentally' going to the wrong website, be exposed to imagery that really is not going to help them be well-adjusted in life, without any safeguards in place, there is something wrong. "is not going to help them be well-adjusted in life" is an extraordinarily weak argument for harmfulness. Eating ice-cream is also not going to help someone be well-adjusted in life.
    • mobiuscog 10y ago
      Indeed. We definitely don't have an obesity problem. Isn't one of the main values of a society, that it strives to help everyone within that society ? What is the 'correct' social attitude towards looking after the welfare of others ?
      • jamesrcole 10y ago
        Given what was being discussed in the context, what you're saying equates to "there's something wrong that the public can get free access to ice-cream". Restricting access is not the only way to address issues in society. In any case, my only point was that the person I was replying to provided a very weak argument that the thing is bad in the first place. Note that this is not the same as me saying it isn't bad in any way.
        • mobiuscog 10y ago
          I will not allow my daughter free access to ice cream, either ;) I see your point. I think that, unsurprisingly, this is a much bigger issue than just 'porn' and everyone sees it from different viewpoints (humans, eh). Thanks for the reply.
  • appleflaxen 10y ago
    > When society has reached a point that anybody with internet access can ... be exposed to imagery that really is not going to help them be well-adjusted in life ... there is something wrong I am really trying to understand your point of view, and am failing. Are you saying that you go online, and are bombarded by images that you don't want to see? Then why do you still go online? Have you taken a community college class about internet access, and how to find information you want (and by extension: avoid information you don't?) You can voluntarily install any number of parent-protection extensions for your browser. Why do you want to control other people's speech rather than doing something simple to block content from your own browser that you don't want?
    • mobiuscog 10y ago
      I suppose my point (which I obviously failed at, as most people are just suggesting an internet filter) was that it has become - thanks to the internet - to be exposed to a lot of areas of life which would not normally be encountered. Many people don't see this as a problem, and many people likely never experience it (either through limited internet use, or otherwise). Perhaps it isn't a problem, but if it is, such that enough interest it pushed in solving it, how can society grow to cope with it ? Or something like that. Perhaps people honestly believe that a child, growing up into their twenties and beyond, constantly watching porn and NSFL content, is a typical example of a well-adjusted member of society. Maybe that's correct these days. shrug Perhaps I'm completely out of touch and my ethics/morality mark is completely on the wrong end of the scale - I'm not sure (hence the flameproof suit). I just think this topic is worth discussion, rather than being instantly dismissed as nanny-state takeover.
  • erkkie 10y ago
    I'm sorry but maybe, just maybe the thought of "be exposed to imagery that really is not going to help them be well-adjusted in life, without any safeguards in place" is a tad protectionist. There are still people (including children) dying and fighting daily just to survive in this world, an "accidental" porn image won't strip your child her future. There's porn in this world, there's violence, if anything, exposure is necessary to actually become well-adjusted to reality.
  • darklajid 10y ago
    My kids are 2.5 and 4 and have no access to devices that connect to the internet. Yet. So remember the 'no battle plan survives the contact with the enemy' thing. Honestly - while the internet makes it easier to get to questionable content and is a unified interface to both lots of good stuff all the way to the really ugly parts: I don't think that changes the responsibilites compared to my childhood. Parents decide what kids are allowed to access. Parents have to enforce their rules and handle infractions. No. One. Else. (We're not talking criminal stuff here, we're talking about morality. If a kid is a cyber bully or sells illegal stuff online: Sure, let the police handle that. But looking at tits et al..?) It might be harder for parents to enforce their prefered world view now - but that's still on them (or us, really. I'm one of them). In my world the only way to ~solve~ this problem - if you feel it is one - is to be open about it, tell your kids that they should be careful, to make them trust you so that they'll reach out to you when they find ... confusing content. There's no way to avoid these contacts. It's also kinda like the "Google has your mail anyway" problem: Protect your kids from things you don't endorse and some other kid, with parents of different standards, is going to share it with your daughter. As a sidenote: Honestly, in my childhood (born '79) it was trivial to get hardcore porn (VHS) and magazines of all sorts and for every fetish were easily accessible. Yes, stumbling upon these things wasn't likely without expressing interest, but then again: Neither was it possible to stumble upon gazillion Wikipedia articles about animals or something positive like that.
    • Asooka 10y ago
      Not arguing against you, but I'd like to point out that using your power to lobby government to create rules and regulations such that your children won't have the ability to step out of line, is a valid way of enforcing your rules.
  • fdgdasfadsf 10y ago
    > my young daughter doesn't get any unaccompanied internet access Problem solved. Parents need to parent their children. They always have and they always will. Whatever surveillance state you install. The bigger problem is that some parents don't have time or energy to do this - and that is part of a far wider socio-economic issue.
  • NLips 10y ago
    I agree with the concept that it would be nice to do something, but that the current proposed solutions aren't good. I'd just like to point out that 'something has to be done' is a dangerous phrase which can easily lead to bad law. 'Something has to be done' leads to 'this is something', which leads to 'we have to do this'. Whenever someone proposes one or more 'solutions' to a problem, they must not only be compared against each other, but also against the status quo. If they don't beat the status quo, then no - nothing 'has to be done'.
    • mobiuscog 10y ago
      But the status quo of today is different to the status quo of ten years ago - should they be compared, or do we just accept society wherever it goes ? (Genuine question, not rhetorical) It used to be (and still is in many countries) that religion directed the people. These days it is more often corporations (through advertising). How should society be directed ?
      • NLips 10y ago
        I don't mean nothing should ever change, just that sometimes doing nothing is better than doing something, and should at least be considered.
  • guard-of-terra 10y ago
    My take is - you don't even have to go to wrong websites to be deeply hurt. A lot of niche sites monetize using shady AD networks which serve deeply disturbing semi-porn ads to shares of audience. Given this situation, I find attention to porn sites misguided. At least a person going to porn hub decided to be there, as opposed to going to a gaming wiki and seeing degenerate ads.
  • adrianratnapala 10y ago
    Here is a simple solutions: porn sites use a .xxx domain or some such, and browsers can trivially be configured to block that domain. I'd be fine with government enforcing such a rule. But years and years after we started talking about such a solution, we don't have it, but instead have intrusive privacy distroying solutions that don't see to even address the problem.
    • Shanea93 10y ago
      This would require international coordination of laws in many different territories. What if I just type in "31.192.120.36", the current public IP of www.pornhub.com?
      • pmlnr 10y ago
        Depending on the underlying webserver and web sw, it may or may not load. ( think of apache virtualhosts and nginx server names )
        • deleted 10y ago
          [deleted]
  • pharrington 10y ago
    I mean, just a few years ago your daughter was literally sucking on titties like it was nothing. You want to prevent her from accidentally seeing some of the more ridiculous hardcore imagery thats out there? Fine, thats reasonable: install uBlock Origin, done. You wanna make sure she doesn't see naked people? You have to explain how that even begins to be traumatic if you expect to have common ground with other reasonable people.
  • notahacker 10y ago
    Sites which spawn porn popups in the face of children involved in innocuous browsing aren't going to respect laws concerning "porn IDs" anyway. Any hypothetical positive consequences of a national database of porn access traced to particular individuals are more than outweighed by the glaringly obvious negative ones.
  • aethertron 10y ago
    1. Sure, the open Internet is not a child-safe network. 2. Changing the Internet to be child-safe would mean adding restrictions such that it changes into a non-open network. 3. People who like the Internet the way it is, don't want this to happen. This explains > some people feel very strongly that even questioning the situation is wrong -- they will cede no point that could support measures that would close up the Net. This is tactically understandable. Unfortunately, it's a barrier to communication and fully-open debate on the issue. 4. I, for one, like the Internet the way it is. 5. My sort of proposal: building an alternative family-safe network upon the existing protocol. Put regulations into this new thing, leave the old one alone. 6. Family-friendly computing needs a whole new paradigm, as I see it. First, put aside the 'personal computer' as a basic unit. All terminals on the famnet will be shared, household ones. Like a a game console that sits in the living room. No personal accounts. No private email that the superuser parents can spy on, just no (fake) privacy at all. A radical re-imagining is needed! 7. Or let some some corporation take care of it for you. Block all sites except Facebook.
    • mobiuscog 10y ago
      Thank you. A good set of points. Except 7. Facebook is a different problem ;)
      • aethertron 10y ago
        Glad you liked them! Despite being childless, the idea of family computing has been on my mind for a while... Yeah, Facebook is a bad example of a family-safe network. But it has some probably-desirable aspects. A central authority that sets rules and enforces them, one place you can send complaints to. And it has aspects the net's openness too, anyone can make a page. But non-curated mass-broadcasted user content is too much openness for a truly all-ages network. And I'm inclined to prefer a more decentralised system. One that lets groups of families, churches, schools, etc. to self-govern their networks.
  • rayiner 10y ago
    This is not a problem that needs solving. It's hard to "accidentally" run across something really harmful on the internet. And run of the mill porn isn't. By the time your kid knows what's going on in those pictures the cat's out of the bag. My wife and I admitted to each other once that we first downloaded porn around age 10-11 (over our 2400 baud modems!) We turned out, by all accounts, normal and well adjusted. So did my friends, who were doing the same thing at the same ages. We're job-holding, child-raising respectable adults ourselves now. My wife and I have a young daughter, and we can't see any reason to control what she does online. Bigger picture: kids don't really need to be protected from the world. They need to be taught right and wrong and how to protect themselves, but it's an enormously bad idea to try to sanitize the world to be more suitable for kids, instead of raising kids that are suitable for the world that actually exists.
    • sebastianconcpt 10y ago
      The chilling part is when this measure "works" in everybody psyche guilt and makes all people feel they are guilty unless proven innocent (of a non-crime, but for social engineering purposes that last bit is irrelevant). It's really hard to believe this is for real.
  • pjc50 10y ago
    There is a serious problem with this stuff on the Internet, but there are existing private solutions you can install either on devices or routers to address this question. Have you tried these solutions and how well do they work? The big problem is: how far do you extend the block? I mean, if you let me write the blocklist I'd put the Daily Mail on it (persistent racism, homophobia/transphobia leading to suicide, and the sexually exploitative "sidebar of shame" commenting on women's bodies). I can't imagine getting universal support for that opinion. Other people might go in the other direction and demand that all material that even mentions homosexuality be banned. If I had kids, I'd definitely want to block them from reddit and 4chan until at least mid-teens. I note that, on my EE mobile phone, there is some URL filtering that blocks NSFW subreddits (and also a few random blogs for no discernable reason). But it only works on http, not https, making it kind of a figleaf. Second real, difficult to address problem: use of social media for bullying. This includes nonconsensual circulation of nudes (tricky one: should be severely punished, but not by putting kids on the sex offender registry). I went to school in an era when, if you wanted to get adult material off the internet, you had to wait for the guy who had the modem to download it to floppy disks and circulate it in the playground. Now consider trying to block "samizdat" porn on SD cards. (Also, wasn't there a thing on HN a while back about attempting and failing to automatically detect people building penises in LEGO's MMO?)
  • DonaldFisk 10y ago
    > Something has to be done. This is something. Therefore, this has to be done. Before internet porn became a thing, we were warned by various people about the harm that pornography does, and in particular, how it increases the incidence of rapes and sexual assaults, and is bad for the status of women in society. It was being proposed that it be banned outright. Now that pornography is widespread, and free, has there been an explosion of rapes and sexual violence? The UK Government which is allegedly proposing this is led by a woman. So are the governments of Scotland, Germany, Norway, and various other countries. I expect the United States will soon have a president who is a woman. I don't think the status of women has suffered. The UK Government now has its work cut out mitigating the harm caused by the EU referendum vote. It should be concentrating on that and mitigating its impact.
    • mobiuscog 10y ago
      This says a lot about society, but possibly not in the way you think, or in the way that the discussion was aimed. This is not a gender issue (there may be gender issues, but this is not one of them).
      • DonaldFisk 10y ago
        If you're worried about harm it might cause to children (whatever that might be), you've already answered your own question: you control their access. Children cannot (or should not) set up internet access themselves.
  • Karlozkiller 10y ago
    I don't know if the Internet is the problem here. When I was a kid me and my friends accidentally found massive amounts of porn-mags in the small woods close to our school. Fun and exciting we thought, not really in a sexual way. doesn't matter. Should we ban porn mags too? Or should we ban urban areas? Or regulate how you legally can dispose of porn-mags? I've also accidentally seen people being too drunk, and people having heart attacks. As a kid.. how should we protect people from seeing things? it's the wrong line of thinking.
    • retube 10y ago
      It's not about banning anything. It's about restricting access to minors. It's never been legal in the UK for minors to buy porn mags or videos in a store.
  • goostavos 10y ago
    >Something has to be done. About what exactly? What is this massive harm being done to children if they see a pair of boobies? Where are these people that at one point saw something disturbing on the internet and became fundamentally broken as a result. Is there anyone struggling to be "well adjusted" because they watched Faces of Death when then were under 18? I just can't wrap my head around this "something must be done" worry. It is so vague, so undefined, and such a pessimistic view of people in general.
  • elcct 10y ago
    You can accidentally cross the street and die - that doesn't mean we should put guards on the pavements and issue pedestrian ids. There is a better solution. How about parents take responsibility for what their kids do?
  • pc86 10y ago
    Nobody accesses the internet and has pornography thrust upon them.
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  • tw04 10y ago
    >When society has reached a point that anybody with internet access can, simply by 'accidentally' going to the wrong website, be exposed to imagery that really is not going to help them be well-adjusted in life, without any safeguards in place, there is something wrong. And what's to prevent the same sort of "mentally broken" person who would host a website with NSFL images, from simply printing them off and dropping pages on the street? How were you planning on preventing your child from picking up a piece of paper on a street corner with NSFL images? We all want to protect our children from the "real world" for as long as possible. But at some point they need to learn to cope with the fact that this world is full of disgusting people and actions.
    • pbhjpbhj 10y ago
      > How were you planning on preventing your child from picking up a piece of paper on a street corner with NSFL images? // Picking it up first and putting it in the bin? I've done this with porn and with images on cigarette cartons. Not always possible, but just because there are problems with "real" life doesn't mean we shouldn't remove problems from online life. Online life magnifies niches that in the offline world would be hidden away - that can be good but also means exposure to things that one is unlikely to ever be exposed to in the real world. One can go on the web property of respected international media companies and be exposed to content that a person IRL would never share with you for fear of it ending in arrest or destruction of their public character. I've seen far worse things online (mostly by "choice", curiosity can be a bad thing) than would ever be printed by a locally identifiable company.
      • tw04 10y ago
        I stumbled upon porn when walking to the park as a 7 year old. I guess if I had a helicopter parent it's POSSIBLE they would've run to grab it from me before I could see it. Of course I would've hated my parents if they had been helicopter parents, and I'd probably be a worse adult as a result. Are you planning on hovering over your children 24/7 for the rest of their lives? Because you can't protect them. And ruining all of society in order to delay exposing your child to difficult things for, at best, a couple of years, is ridiculous. If you don't want your children seeing NSFL things on a computer, don't let them use a computer.
  • Thriptic 10y ago
    Have we actually established that this is a problem? Is viewing porn or violent imagery or whatever on the Internet actually harmful to children or does it just make parents uncomfortable?
  • jsprogrammer 10y ago
    >be exposed to imagery that really is not going to help them be well-adjusted in life How can you judge what will 'well-adjust' someone? What does well adjusted even mean and how could viewing an image prevent someone from becoming it?
  • MisterBastahrd 10y ago
    Sure, sure. This is clearly why we need ID cards to use televisions and listen to radio. Because someone with a radio could accidentally tune into Rush Limbaugh, and someone with a TV could accidentally tune into an episode of Jackass. Clearly we need a government solution for a private problem because we wouldn't want all of these non-well-adjusted people roaming the streets, free to enjoy the banality of their existences.
  • antjanus 10y ago
    <dons my own flameproof suit> I think the blocking should be on your side. The Internet is meant to be free. Want to keep porn away from yourself or kids? Install an extension, or get one of those services that automatically blocks it. The same way, we should block on device/user level. Afraid your kids will watch it on their phones? Okay, cool, let's provide that kind of blocking at a cellular provider level or even at a phone level (I'm sure Safari or Chrome could implement blockers). We should blacklist rather than whitelist. I think the best way to deal with "accidentally" viewing something is require a "popup" (think modal rather than traditional popup) that asks you if you are 18 or above and warn you of the content which a ton of sites already do. Or implement a simple HTTP header that tells your browser that you're accessing a site that's not safe for minors.
  • random1temp2 10y ago
    >that really is not going to help them be well-adjusted in life This is the crux of your argument and is vaguely worded. Saying 'not going to help' is not mutually exclusive with 'not going to hinder'. I'd like to see a proof of a stronger condition than 'not helping', for example 'actively harming' before you are justified in calling for action. Your have not provided any sources to back up your claims. This argument frustrates me because even if uncensored internet access is mentally harmful for a child, the assumption that the correct way to address this is censorship, to me, smacks of denial. Censorship only works on the naive. > How do we solve the problem? Accept that uncensored internet access in a 21st century western society is unconditional, and display appropriate parenting skills to teach your children to mentally cope with anything they might encounter. 'Worked on my machine'.
  • forgottenpass 10y ago
    simply by 'accidentally' going to the wrong website, be exposed to imagery that really is not going to help them be well-adjusted in life, without any safeguards in place, there is something wrong. The worst of the worst content perverting a well-adjusted life come from popular, generally SFW, mass-media outlets. If the goal of web filtering is for a well-adjusted life, put the firewall in front of sensationalism, fear-mongering, outrage-bait and hate-mongering. Or, in other words, block all blogs, news, and clickbait sites. Porn can get through though. Sure it's taboo, but society as a whole is much better at understanding it does not represent reality.
  • fweespeech 10y ago
    > When society has reached a point that anybody with internet access can, simply by 'accidentally' going to the wrong website, be exposed to imagery that really is not going to help them be well-adjusted in life, without any safeguards in place, there is something wrong. How accidental is it really? All the major search engines and social networks have some sort of "safe search" filter system. The porn sites submit themselves and are listed in parental blocking tools to limit Internet access. The answer is, honestly, it isn't accidental. People have tools already to handle this situation in a variety of ways and simply choose not to exercise their free will to utilize them. It is as "accidental" as being offended by walking into an adult toy shop. > Whilst there are privacy concerns regarding any ID situation, nobody seems to be trying to solve the problem in other ways, short of limiting internet access (which causes other outcries). Private, cheap solutions exist already. Why is its the government's job to force you to use them? Why don't you use them willingly? > (For the moment, as a parent, my young daughter doesn't get any unaccompanied internet access - I am thinking of my child) https://blog.opendns.com/2010/06/23/introducing-familyshield-parental-controls/ https://blog.opendns.com/2010/06/23/introducing-familyshield... https://www.netnanny.com/features/porn-blocking/ https://www.netnanny.com/features/porn-blocking/ https://www.nofap.com/forum/index.php?threads/care-to-recommend-a-porn-blocker.4781/ https://www.nofap.com/forum/index.php?threads/care-to-recomm... http://pornblocker-app.com/ http://pornblocker-app.com/ https://www.nofap.com/forum/index.php?threads/good-porn-blocker-for-androids.45153/ https://www.nofap.com/forum/index.php?threads/good-porn-bloc... Use a parent control app + family shield DNS. I'm uncertain why you believe the government would do a better job and honestly, I'm concerned you think that would be the case given the financial incentive in this case clearly works correctly in favor of the porn blocking companies. (i.e. There is no money to be made circumventing them to show porn to people who can't buy adult products. Even the ad revenue is worthless because your advertisers can't sell them anything.) > Edit: It's interesting to note diminishing points for a post that asks how to solve a problem. Obviously some people feel very strongly that even questioning the situation is wrong. Honestly, if you are not willing to exercise your own free will to provide safeguards against accidents, why should the government do so? It isn't like these people are posting public billboards at the side of the road that are impossible to avoid.
  • SCdF 10y ago
    There is a solution: it's installing netnanny (or whatever it's called these days) on your children's devices, and being a responsible parent to the best of your abilities. Please don't let your squeamishness for your children's sake crap over everyone else's freedom to not be put on a leakable list that can be used to further erode our privacy for decades to come. Now you might say "but buying booze has an id check: surely this is the same!". To that I say: - Buying booze is not something you can be blackmailed or shamed about, except in very specific circumstances - When I buy booze I flash an ID that the human can look at and trust, and then they promptly forget who I am when they serve the next person. I'm not sure if that's either implementable on the internet, or even desired.
  • nthcolumn 10y ago
    Self-regulation and announce that from a certain date internet histories will be made public. :P
  • gaur 10y ago
    > imagery that really is not going to help them be well-adjusted in life Citation needed.
  • godDLL 10y ago
    I am of the opinion that your post does not clearly demonstrate the existence of any problem, thereby a necessity of a solution to said supposed problem; or anything at all except maybe some xeno and nimby. But I might be missing something. Perhaps a negative effect in academic studies, or maybe working life was shown by a number of conclusive studies as in recent years? Am I missing something?
  • drvdevd 10y ago
    I think the answer is primarily non-technical. I believe we have to find healthy ways for people to express themselves and especially to communicate what makes them feel "not well-adjusted". Censorship doesn't solve these issues for any age group. Like prohibition, it simply shifts the problems around or sweeps them under the rug, thereby distorting the actual issue (which never goes away): humans have a vast array of choices.. how do we make the right ones? When it comes to porn, I think this is a question of social pressure like anything else: sex exists and it's not necessarily the way it's protrayed in porn. As soon as you're old enough to find your way to this sort of content, someone needs to have that conversation with you. We need more empathy, more listening, more communication - not less.
• BrentOzar 10y ago
  Suddenly, 007 takes on a whole new meaning.
• akerro 10y ago
  Will it replace driving licences or passports?
  • martin-adams 10y ago
    I have to watch porn to drive or travel abroad?!
• Red_Tarsius 10y ago
  Government's entitlement over human life is staggering. It's patently obvious they are going to use the data to shame, blackmail and accuse dissidents at will. 'Think of the children' is not going to suffice. If past behaviour is any predictor of future behaviour, your data is going to be exploited by private citizens as well. What could go wrong? «The case exposed inadequate safeguards against abuse, including warnings to staff not to use the databases created to house these vast collections of data to search for and/or access information ‘about other members of staff, neighbours, friends, acquaintances, family members and public figures’. Internal oversight failed, with highly sensitive databases treated like Facebook to check on birthdays, and very worryingly on family members for ‘personal reasons’.» – https://medium.com/privacy-international/press-release-new-court-judgment-finds-uk-surveillance-agencies-collected-everyones-e3f037a0b901#.bh5cibx3u https://medium.com/privacy-international/press-release-new-c...
• retox 10y ago
  Parents are not responsible?
  • mobiuscog 10y ago
    They should be. As should everybody else, in a society.
• akerro 10y ago
  New and modern instant messengers download and show preview of websites automatically. Any ideas if this can be somehow abused? https://theantisocialengineer.com/imessage-preview-problems/ https://theantisocialengineer.com/imessage-preview-problems/
• another_account 10y ago
  First they came for the Socialists...
• the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
  I find it impressive that the UK people trust their government so much even to the point where they are happy to leave the EU to give it more power. That seems questionable.
  • mobiuscog 10y ago
    That's more about mistrust of the EU 'government'.
    • the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
      I trust my own government less than the EU. Ibfind it surprising it's different in the UK.
    • topspin 10y ago
      It's not about 'trust' at all. The typical brexit supporter doesn't 'trust' any of these people any farther than they can throw some ministry building. The brexit supporters are convinced they'll have more influence over a sovereign UK government that answers to UK votes, whereas they have learned through long experience that they have next to no influence over Brussels, by design. This straw man the_mitsuhiko setup with brexit dunderheads that "trust their [UK] government so much" is a fiction that exists inside his/her head; a sad self-delusion people indulge to demean things they don't like.
• jonnys1 10y ago
  This is quite disturbing to say the least. Seems like everyone learns from china and starts build great internet walls!
• pmlnr 10y ago
  > "all the porn sites operating in Britain" So... only .co.uk, or full 3/4 of the internet, including Tumblr? This is, of course, is a question for what counts as "operating in Britain". A site that is running on servers in Britain? A site that is owned by a British company? A site that happens to be available on the greater internet? Gosh, countries and borders became relics when the internet got spread wide enough.
  • Kenji 10y ago
    It doesn't matter which sites are targeted. What worries me is the authoritarian mindset. That the state becomes the nanny of all the people. That responsibility for oneself and one's children is no longer the norm, but discouraged and deferred to the state. And the justification for these forceful invasions into our lives is relentless moralizing akin to that of extremist religious people. That is the conclusion I draw from this.
    • pmlnr 10y ago
      In Europe, the state _is_ responsible for their people; this is how it's been for a long while. Don't get me wrong, I'm seriously against regulation like this because the line of what counts as (porn|extreme|violent|whatever) is too blurry and is too easy to be used to censor whatever the state declares unhealthy, and this is not good. /going rather offtopic afterwards What's also not good is how ugly the internet became. Even in the 90s it was rather easy to stumble upon unexpected material; a prime example would be if you'd searched "Spice Girls" somewhere in ~1996 on Altavista - the results were definitely not showing the pop band. I'm well aware how formerly extreme things, like in fashion or in porn is slowly merging into the mainstream, and so the dark pits of the internet are becoming more accepted. It's also true that bullying, tweet wars, doxing, etc, due to the lack of critical mass of internet users, were not present, and that they are actual, existing issues which should be addressed, but no one knows, how. So no, I'm seriously against a porn database; it's not helping anything, not solving any real problems. The "protect the children" is bullshit; I'm guessing many who are supporting the idea would get a heart attack should they learn how aware "kids" are compared to them, and this is not just due to the internet. These people are the same by the way who grew up in the 70s... Anyway, there are problems which needs attention and regulations, but that's not porn.
• jlebrech 10y ago
  way to criminalise porn and make it go underground.
  • mobiuscog 10y ago
    I believe it's already there - that's often a very different problem though.
• amelius 10y ago
  Shouldn't we restrict/control the consumption of violent movies and video games first?
  • mobiuscog 10y ago
    There are already laws in place for this in the UK. Whether parents or others follow these is a different issue.
  • Zenst 10y ago
    Well Religious books have yielded more violent actions than all the movies and video games ever, if you want to take that approach. Certainly puts things into context don't you think.
  • Grishnakh 10y ago
    Can you provide any evidence that violent movies and video games actually cause real, statistically significant problems in society? Same goes for porn BTW, or anything that you want to restrict or regulate.
• ascendantlogic 10y ago
  Every time I think about the insanity going on here in the US, I just remind myself that the insanity in the UK is worse.
  • kraftman 10y ago
    Really depends which insanity you're referring to.
• dintech 10y ago
  Government, this is VPN. VPN, meet government. You guys aren't going to get along but I thought you should know about each other.
  • nightspirit 10y ago
    VPN hosting country, these are drones. Drones, meet the VPN host country... Or heck, just strong-arm them into adopting think-of-the-children laws one way or another.
    • godDLL 10y ago
      So, drones meet China? How many would you send?
      • nightspirit 10y ago
        The Great Firewall blocks porn so China probably isn't the country parent would use.
    • Grishnakh 10y ago
      Here in the USA, we don't block internet sites. We have no "great firewall" here. (We do have to worry about our IP addresses being associated with torrenting copyrighted content and getting sued however.) So if you're in the UK and you want to use a VPN to access adult content (but you don't want to distribute copyrighted movies and music), the USA is an excellent VPN host country to use. If the UK uses drones on the USA, the results will not be pretty for the UK. The UK will be squashed like the little bug that it is to us. And given our near-religious devotion to freedom of speech, we're not going to be "strong-armed" into adopting such blocking either.
• titzer 10y ago
  Download as much as you can now and put it on an encrypted harddisk. Or move.
• p333347 10y ago
  Not sure of the (technical) feasibility of this, but I have some social observations. It seems the motivating factor, ostensibly, is to protect children. However, the primary concern of those who don't like this seems to be with leaks and possible ensuing shaming. So, if the stigma attached to watching (non illegal) porn is done away with, the fear of leak becomes irrelevant. If protecting children is paramount then society must do away with silly witch hunts and being so anal (no pun intended). While we are at it, why restrict to porn and why not extend to all things abusive to kids, including violence, racism, stupid stunts and pranks etc referenced by many other posters? Seems porn gets targeted almost always! imagine if porn were a person in the west, they would have sued the heck out of everyone.
  • MrSourz 10y ago
    The telecoms already have that type of data that could be leaked to an extent. In 2013 British Telecom enabled porn filtering [1] that was on by default, so when setting up your account you'd have to opt out. [1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet-security/10520537/BT-forces-porn-filter-choice.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet-security/1052...
    • pmlnr 10y ago
      This was present on mobile networks for a long while. The honest and real reason I had it disabled was when it listed the ThinkPad knowledge collector http://thinkwiki.org/ http://thinkwiki.org/ as adult site... ( I'm not joking. ) - this is probably also a prime example lists like this are complete and utter jokes.
      • hfsktr 10y ago
        But do they have a record of the reason you disabled it or did they just change a flag and lump you in with everyone else? A bit more paranoid. If they do this tracking for porn, maybe in the future they add other types of content they want to track. I know it sounds silly but it's not like the data is going to go away and likely will only ever increase the amount of tracking. Sadly I know many people who see no issue with this.
• dajohnson89 10y ago
  Does anyone have any ideas how likely this will actually become law? Crazy laws get proposed here in America all the time. From what I've seen by watching the Prime Minister's questions every now and then, lots of far-fetched proposals are made across the pond as well. But they never get far, and not worth getting bothered about.
  • mobiuscog 10y ago
    Highly unlikely, tbh.
  • marcoperaza 10y ago
    "The government" in a parliamentary system, in this context, refers to what we would call "the administration" in the US, i.e. the Prime Minister and his ministers. And almost by definition, the government controls a majority in parliament ("almost" because it is possible to have a minority government) and has a high likelihood of passing its agenda. But the proposed laws do change a lot as they go through consultations and committees, and intra-party negotiations. There is a sizable libertarian wing of the Conservative Party.
    • mobiuscog 10y ago
      And we have the House of Lords, which ... well, let's just say it's not really like anything else.
      • marcoperaza 10y ago
        As archaic as it sounds on paper, it's the best functioning upper house in the world. It provides actual substantive research into government policy, and a temporary restraint on changing long-time status quo, being able to delay legislation but not stop it altogether. I really hope you guys don't change it any more.
  • noir_lord 10y ago
    They float this stuff all the time and it often gets beaten down quickly, frankly its a distraction compared to the other stuff they already do.
• pmlnr 10y ago
  The more I think about it the more I'm starting to think that this is how you make an army of generic hackers. Want $X? Learn to circumvent the system!
• abdias 10y ago
  Why don't UK government leave that responsibility to the parents which are to decide what their children are allowed to watch or not. In the old Soviet the communists very much wanted government to replace both parents and God - seems like that idea has gotten new fuel in the UK.
  • Zenst 10y ago
    Indeed the move to remove accountability from parents and burden everybody else is lamentable. Be that the sugar tax on soft drinks coming about just as a way to cut obese children as well as many other measures. Perish the thought they made the parents accountable. But certainly a trend and perhaps an excuse to tax and track people more. Still without such laws we would not of got a beer like this: https://www.brewdog.com/item/61/BrewDog/Nanny-State.html https://www.brewdog.com/item/61/BrewDog/Nanny-State.html Which sums things up about as well as any.
    • zerognowl 10y ago
      +1 for the Nanny State reference. In typical UK surveillance state fashion they pander to base fears and unforgivably overlook how bad censorship is in places like China. Where it not for censorship I think the thrill of surfing the Open Web would be dampened, just like when drugs instantly become more exciting when they are outlawed and regulated. I am certain outlawing base primal urges, like the right to ingest what one desires into one's own body makes such primal urges even more favorable, often to the point of detriment to the State who then have to feverishly invent something inverse to people's actual needs like Alcohol, or bromides like Sugar to pacify their citizenry.
    • Grishnakh 10y ago
      Taxing soft drinks is not like removing accountability from parents. It's really quite similar to taxing tobacco. Cigarettes cause huge public health problems, resulting in massive costs to the government eventually (plus loss of productivity). Taxes are used to discourage the use of cigarettes, and it's worked: here in the US, smoking is at an all-time low I'm pretty sure. Smokers are pariahs now: they have to go stand outside in the rain (50 feet from the building entrance, away from any canopies) to get their fix. It's really great IMO: I don't have to constantly breathe that crap like I did 30+ years ago. Taxing soft drinks is no different. Soft drinks are making the whole population (not just children) obese, so discouraging people from consuming them improves public health. This isn't a parenting issue any more than having your local health department do free STD screenings is. It's a public health issue, which affects people of ALL ages. It's entirely appropriate for the government (at whatever level) to enact policies to try to improve public health, whether it's positive (STD testing, free condoms) or punitive (taxes on undesirable things). It's entirely valid for a government to have extra taxes on things which cause disproportionate costs to society, such as alcohol, cigarettes, and soft drinks, and to attempt to encourage positive behavior (such as how many US states have lower or zero sales taxes on (some) groceries, in order to reduce the burden on the poor and encourage people to prepare their own low-cost food instead of eating fast food). If you want to complain about the State interfering with parenting and being a nanny, the laws in some US states basically forcing parents to be "helicopter parents" and forbidding children from walking around outside without adult supervision should be your target. Fundamentally, my belief is that the government has a responsibility to provide for the general welfare of society, but in order to do so it needs to use evidence-based thinking. It also needs to balance this responsibility with the human rights of its citizens and the desire for freedom. There's mountains of evidence that tobacco is extremely bad for public health, and there's plenty of evidence that alcohol is also bad (except here, it seems to be OK and harmless in small quantities, like a glass of wine with dinner, but is a real problem when someone is addicted or drinks and drives), so regulating and taxing these things is justifiable. There's plenty of evidence now that soft drinks are associated with obesity, so the same applies here. There's zero evidence that having kids walk around by themselves at the age of ~8-10 is associated with a statistically significant risk of kidnapping, so there's no justification for the helicopter parent laws. And there's zero evidence that marijuana is as dangerous as cocaine or heroin, or any more dangerous than alcohol or tobacco, so there's no justification for criminalizing it instead of just regulating it the way we do those two things.
• throw2016 10y ago
  The puritans are back. Here is a better idea, implement a vote-id so responsible adults can dismiss such inane ideas and recall offending MPs without delay so matters of the state can be attended to. There only way we can realistically rehash the debate on pornography and entertain the idea that sufficient controls don't exist and are in some cases not practical or reasonable is by being intentionally obtuse and disingenious. The idea that we can even consider implementing an adult-id for an entire population before considering its use for more effective democracy is telling of our current priorities and the complete reduction of the enlightenment of western democracy to a crude form of corporatocracy and control systems.
• lostforest 10y ago
  I have long thought it would be a great idea to force all pornographic material into a porn TLD, say .xxx To access .xxx, you would submit your name, address, proof of age to whomever runs the regime and be given access. Sharing pornography should be a crime, especially if shared with minors. In a perfect world... Since we don't live in a perf3ct world, I'd be happy to see a forced TLD. Violators lose rights to any and all domains in perpetuity and are forbidden to start new ones. A 1M fine should suffice. It's a proven fact pornography harms everyone involved. Men who are chronic users suffer impotence issues with real women. Pornography demeans women and lowers them to the status of sex machines, there only for the enjoyment of men. Women that are lured into the industry suffer horrendous self-esteem issues, die young, suffer from diseases, some fatal, and are reviled if/when they escape the industry. Not a good scene no matter how you slice it.
  • chronolitus 10y ago
    Or maybe people could get off their high horse and not impose their moral values on everyone else? I'm all for regulating the industry if and when practices get distorted, same as any other industry dealing with humans. But if we ban porn for being generally harmful to its actors we should also ban: -American football -Boxing -Extreme Sports -.. And feel free to eventually add in everything someone doesn't like, as anything can be shown to be harmful in some extent.
  • marketanarchist 10y ago
    Nah, some of actually want to be free. You and people like you are free to avoid pornography if you so choose, but don't try to impose your idiocy on everyone else.
  • SCdF 10y ago
    > It's a proven fact pornography harms everyone involved. No it's not.
• eonw 10y ago
  this didnt work for germany, wont work for the UK either. most of the "porn" companies in the UK are only there to make use of tax advantages and billing, they are just shells that allow the parent company to move money through the UK to tax havens and mitigate risks. very very few porn companies are truly based in the UK, which means none will follow the rules.