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Russia Blocks Porn Site Brazzers for 'Damaging Human Psyche'
- balabaster 10y agoWhile I might find a lot niches of porn a little distasteful... or a lot distasteful in some cases, I think they're reaching a bit. Surely the kinds of people visiting these sites are already interested in seeing this kind of stuff... and thus are already 'damaged'. I feel like the cause and effect is being reversed somehow. Perhaps that's just me. Edit for clarification: I used the word 'damaged' in reference to the parent post, it was not a word of my own choosing.
- tomjen3 10y agoI am not quite sure what you refer to. There are basically only niches in porn and a lot them a distasteful or even disgusting, but on the other hand reading the article it is not clear to me that porn they specialized in, the last one I saw made by that company was only special in that it did not end in a body shoot.
- cjslep 10y ago"Damaged" is certainly an interesting word choice, given that the American standard of sexuality and sexual expression is already unhealthy. Edit to add: Unfortunately I don't know anything about Russian standards.
- balabaster 10y agoI used the word "damaged" in reference to the headline that it "Damages human psyche", I wasn't using this in terms of my own perspective. We're all fucked up in our own unique and fascinating ways... to the point that I'd say that labeling our tastes as fucked up or damaged almost seems ridiculous. We're all on the spectrum somewhere. Every last one of us.
- nemo1618 10y agoMost children are interested in eating candy. Doesn't mean we should give them unrestricted access to as much candy as they want.
- CaptSpify 10y agoAre you suggesting that a grown adult shouldn't be able to make their own choices?* I find that absurd. *EDIT: To be clear, I'm talking about choices on what sort of media to consume.
- k__ 10y agoThey are suggesting parents should start parenting again.
- dpark 10y agoThis is utterly irrelevant to the topic of Russia blocking porn sites.
- neilellis 10y agoAll societies provide restrictions on human behaviour. Grown adults do make their own choices. To become gambling addicts, to beat wifes, to lie to each other. Not all of our choices are good or correct. We should always have the humility to accept we can make bad choices and that adulthood doesn't confer some mystical ability to make only good choices. The difference is making restrictions through compassion, as a loving parent does to a child. Compared to making restrictions out of a desire for control, like all authoritarian rulers.
- JanneVee 10y agoBy looking at the page it seems that there is a preference on a little more "mature" women on Brazzers. But can't comment on the content otherwise because I have no interest of becoming a customer.
- dajohnson89 10y agoThere is a large amount of anecdotal evidence that pornography has been at least a contributing factor in ruining relationships. Moreover, arguments can be made that even at the individual level, viewing of pornography is (1)habit-forming, (2)distort one's views/expectations of sex & intimacy. I think censorship of any form is very stupid. This one included. However the notion that porn can sometimes be bad is not unfounded. Even vanilla porn, let's leave the sick/twisted stuff aside. Excepting illegal things like child porn & bestiality I doubt any consensus can be reached as to what is considered distasteful.
- scotty79 10y ago> is (1)habit-forming, Tee drinking, coffee drinking, news watching too. > (2)distort one's views/expectations of sex & intimacy. You'd need to define what views/expectation of sex and intimacy are undistorted.
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- tps5 10y agoI agree. You could make the argument that pornography damages people's lives. Of course that doesn't mean the state has the right to censor it. By the same token, I wonder if an argument could be made that the availability of free internet pornography has led to a decrease in sexual assaults/violence/rape. I know of no research into this, but it's not a totally implausible argument on the face of it.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y agoYou are correct. The linked source claims that sexual assault rates have halved since the early 90s. Of course, correlation != causation, but 50% is a huge amount and it overlaps quite neatly with the growth of the internet. https://www.rainn.org/statistics/scope-problem https://www.rainn.org/statistics/scope-problem
- antihero 10y agoIn counter to your anecdotal evidence, I have personal and anecdotal evidence that it can also make relationships way better.
- imaginenore 10y agoIf you think people watching porn sites are damaged, you need some self-reflection.
- balabaster 10y agoI clarified my point. I don't think they're damaged, the choice of words was in reference to the wording of the original headline.
- neilellis 10y agoRepressive regimes are also somewhat damaging to the psyche. Just saying.
- chroem- 10y agoI'm not trying to defend Russia, but the UK is trying to do this too. Well, actually they've already done it.
- donatj 10y agoLike the man said, > Repressive regimes are also somewhat damaging to the psyche
- neilellis 10y agoYep ;-) and they are taking steps towards becoming more repressive, including the new Snooper's Charter. I'm not saying that porn is/isn't damaging to the human psyche - but repressive regimes are. And co-incidentally repressive regimes love banning things. Probably from the logic of if I don't like it you shouldn't.
- thenomad 10y agoNo, they're in the process of doing it right now. The Digital Economy Bill is currently in the Lords. It's actually going to the Committee Stage tomorrow. That's the bill that will force age verification (with security implications subsequently) as well as banning "non-conventional" pornography in the UK. You can read more over at ORG: https://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaigns/digital-economy-bill-hub/ https://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaigns/digital-economy-bi... And if you'd like to write to a Lord on the issue: https://www.writetothem.com/lords https://www.writetothem.com/lords
- tomjen3 10y agoWriting to a politician is already very inefficient, given that the lords have life terms, would they even care?
- jesuslop 10y agoWhy that site and not others.
- revicon 10y agoFrom the article... "The move follows Roskomnadzor’s decision to blacklist adult video site Pornhub in September 2016."
- CaptSpify 10y agoI think the question is still valid though: Why these sites? There are sooo many porn sites out there, that blocking just a couple seems like a waste of time.
- r721 10y agoExplanation from Anton Nosik (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Nosik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Nosik): "To understand the logic behind those obviously absurd and inefficient bans, one should look deep into the very essence of the "checklist system" (палочная система in Russian). Once there's a law in place, requiring the police, the prosecution, the courts, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Communications to find and censor "bad" websites, it means that they have to find and ban some URLs every other month, just for the record. It does not matter much, whether those sites are actually bad, or how many million other sites do carry the same content, but haven't been included in the current version of filtering blacklists. There is only one relevant KPI for every single official in the chain: a checklist, showing how many sites they've blocked in every given month. There is one district prosecutor in Ufa, who initiates the whole judicial process of blocking Russian copies of Hitler's Mein Kampf online, one mirror at a time. For every copy there's ample paperwork, starting from police investigators, who conduct primary finding of fact, then the district prosecutor's office, that petitions the district court to ban the copy in question. The court passes its ruling, citing the URL as stated in the filing. Then the Ministry of Justice in Moscow enters the URL into Extremist Materials' List, and Ministry of Communications updates its Banned Websites' Registry. Even before the cycle is completed (usually takes 2 to 6 months), the process reopens with another copy of same book, on a different URL. Five years since the initial inclusion of Hitler's manifest in the federal Extremist Materials' List, which is today, there are still some 300 copies of Mein Kampf in Russian, freely accessible online, and five years from now, there will probably be 3000. But every single civil servant, involved in the blocking process, duly receives his salaries, promotions and other benefits of government service, as long as he doesn't forget to submit the updated checklist to his superiors. That's how this system works, and there is absolutely no point in trying to evaluate its efficiency in conventional terms of common sense or public good." http://dolboeb.livejournal.com/2843155.html http://dolboeb.livejournal.com/2843155.html
- alex_duf 10y agoBut beating your wife is fine apparently https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/30/russia-decriminalise-domestic-violence-laws https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/30/russia...
- googletazer 10y agoDid you just assume who is getting beaten in the relationship?
- trhway 10y agohe didn't assumed. He just knows it like any person who knows Russia. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-21474931 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-21474931 , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence_in_Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence_in_Russia "... every year. ..., 14,000 die from injuries inflicted by husbands or partners. ..."
- amelius 10y agoProbably both are damaging, but what is more damaging, violent video games or porn?
- JanneVee 10y agoFor an adult that has a fully formed identity and personality. Probably very little damage can be incurred from either.
- gahahaha 10y agoSo what is the implication from the fact that it is impossible to block porn for people who are not "an adult that has a fully formed identity and personality"?
- JanneVee 10y agoIt is called "parenting", people should do more of it.
- gahahaha 10y agoNot too easy if you're working two jobs to provide for your family. By giving all the responsibility to the family you sacrifice those vulnerable children who weren't as fortunate as yourself growing up.
- JanneVee 10y agoSo society doesn't need to fix the "two jobs" problem but society needs to help with parenting instead including filtering porn of the interwebs?
- gahahaha 10y agoI think we both realize that solving the two job problem is much harder. Hands off government and giving people the freedom to fuck up their life is great for middle class kids in super supportive families, but can be disastrous for less fortunate children.
- imaginenore 10y agoAnd unblocks YouPorn on the same day. Source: https://twitter.com/roscomnadzor/status/828984752476651523 https://twitter.com/roscomnadzor/status/828984752476651523
- rm_-rf_slash 10y agoIf you start to debate the merits or costs of porn to the human psyche, you've already lost. Delegitimization and criminalization of vice is an old, old, old, old, old trick in the book to stir people up against a "degenerate" "other" as a means to engineer their consent for their leaders to accumulate power and wealth. It also provides a convenient way for dissidents to be delegitimized or arrested when police "find" (i.e. plant) evidence of drugs/porn/what-have-you. Old trick, works as well today as it has for thousands of years.
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y agoInevitably anti-pornography laws are enforced more harshly against more vulnerable groups.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y agoSame with drug laws under Nixon/Reagan/Duerte.
- reader5000 10y agoIt could be a trick, or, porn could be damaging to the human psyche.
- CaptSpify 10y agoAlthough I agree with most of your point, I do take issue with this: > If you start to debate the merits or costs of porn to the human psyche, you've already lost. I think there is huge value in analyzing the pro's and con's of anything, out of which debates will naturally arise.
- mrweasel 10y agoAt the same time Russia is the go to country for hosting "revenge porn" sites and image forums with stolen nude photos. Because that wouldn't damage the psyche of anyone? Fine if you decide that porn is bad, I don't agree, but that's something the Russians need to work out for themself. It's the blatant lying and use of double standards that annoys me.
- Strom 10y agoIt's standard practice for Russia to do things for one reason and give a completely unrelated official reason as excuse. I'm not too familiar with the specifics of this case, but I can easily imagine this just being a case of nationalist protection. In that they want people to go to local Russian porn outlets that can be better controlled, tracked & monetized. Then again, it could also be something as simple as some Russian official being pissed off and on a personal vendetta mission.
- xentronium 10y agoRussian laws effectively prohibit all kinds of internet pornography. More precisely, they restrict "unlawful distribution of pornography", but never define any "lawful" way to do so. --- That said, if it weren't pornography, small rant about our judicial system: Any judge in any city pop 50000 can issue a country-wide block for any site. Often these resolutions are too far reaching, sometimes they order to block root page (/) instead of specific page (/foo/bar), rendering whole sites unavailable. Sometimes they ban ip addresses of aws services, disrupting half the internet. Another important thing about these hearings is that there is often no defendant. They might call in the site hoster, but hosters are never interested in defending their customers so they simply ignore the subpoena. Site owner would often discover their site was blocked after the fact. Finally, in many cases judges don't even bother writing their own verdict. Instead they copy-paste whatever public attorney cooked up, including all the factual and orthographic errors, and sign it. https://medium.com/@aalien/law-limits-8d733178e158 https://medium.com/@aalien/law-limits-8d733178e158 this is a very insightful post (alas, only available in Russian) from @aalien, founder of lurkmore.ru, which is arguably the most often banned site in Russia, about how this horrible system functions (or rather, malfunctions). I found this excerpt especially hilarious: «Full list of Roskomnadzor-banned pages is available on our site. Unfortunately, that page is also banned by Roskomnadzor, because it contains "textual information about committing suicide". It's in the quoted Roskomnadzor letter, of course»
- crispyambulance 10y agoOK... but since when has Russia been moralistic about anything? Some of the nastiest most immoral webhosts on the planet ever have operated out of Russia for years. Could this be Russian purveyors pulling strings to get "the competition" shut-out locally on some comically absurd moral pretext?
- senthil_rajasek 10y agoAt least since Tolstoy.
- rasz_pl 10y agonot about pron, its about control and making sure everyone breaks some kind of law and can be broken/coerced