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<meta age-restiction="18+" region="uk"> I think introducing something like the optional meta tag above would be a more productive measure. I don't believe that
by tomelders 14y ago
<meta age-restiction="18+" region="uk">
I think introducing something like the optional meta tag above would be a more productive measure. I don't believe that porn-creators want to peddle their material to kids. Or at the very least, it's be easy to criticise them if they failed to implement the meta tag.
It's worth a shot, before we start introducing the sort of bat shit crazy stuff this article talks about.
- jgrahamc 14y agoThere was PICS http://www.w3.org/PICS/ http://www.w3.org/PICS/ which has now been replaced by POWDER http://www.w3.org/2007/powder/ http://www.w3.org/2007/powder/
- reader5000 14y agoYeah I'm sure those upstanding pornographers always have the kids at heart first.
- dsr_ 14y agoWhat they usually have is a business model that includes reduction of legal risk. If a minor change such as including specific tags or keywords can keep them out of court, that change will be made.
- reader5000 14y agoHow many times have pornographers been brought to court for distributing to minors? Getting minors addicted at a young age would be very important strategically for the porn industry, ensuring both future customers and cultural mainstreaming. Compare with the tobacco industry.
- jlgreco 14y agoSubstance addiction and physical attraction to other members of your species are wildly different topics. (With rare exception,) physical attraction is something you acquire during maturation through natural brain chemistry changes induced internally. Even if we reject that, you are still failing to take into account a very important difference between tobacco distribution and online pornography distribution: accurate age verification is far easier in meatspace where lies about your age have to have some semblance to reality. In fact, the meatspace sale of pornography provides a nifty little counterexample to your thesis: guess how fast a minor would get kicked out of a sex shop. (answer: faster than you could possibly believe.)
- reader5000 14y agoPornography is a (digital) substance that induces comparable if not identical neurological changes as traditional addictive substances such as nicotine. It has already been established the internet generally is sufficient to induce addiction-related neurological changes. I don't disagree that it is easier to implement age-based restrictions in real life versus online, but the fact remains that every single porn site distributes to minors, with obvious benefits to the industry.
- jlgreco 14y ago> Pornography is a (digital) substance What a silly thing to say. > induces comparable if not identical neurological changes as traditional addictive substances such as nicotine Show me the peer reviewed studies. Nicotine is a drug which alters brain chemistry, pornography merely facilitates naturally occurring brain chemistry phenomenons. It absolutely defies reason that these could be identical. > but the fact remains that every single porn site distributes to minors Already refuted bullshit.
- jlgreco 14y agoI would need to see some evidence suggesting that pornographers don't before I was willing to make statements like that. I think adults caring about the welfare of children is a rather reasonable default assumption.
- reader5000 14y agoEvidence: every single porn site is currently directly accessible to minors.
- jlgreco 14y agoAbsolute rubbish, I wonder if you have ever even viewed pornography online... Just about every (maybe just every?) porn site which I am aware of verifies the users age before allowing them to proceed. Furthermore, a very significant portion of the pornography industry does not give their product away; in those cases payment walls prevent involuntary and voluntary viewing. Futhermore, I reject the assertion that a site which is accessible to minors who chose to lie about their age is run by somebody who does not care about them. If they are attempting to trick minors into visiting then that is one thing but merely failing to preventing minors from voluntarily accessing the site by lying is not enough to assert that they do not care about children.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- fusiongyro 14y agoKids can't make purchases, so they are at best leeching. This isn't much like Photoshop; they don't stand to gain much by getting people hooked early in the hopes they'll convert monetarily later because this market has perfect competition. This is on top of the PR disaster it would be to be caught intentionally giving it to minors. So it looks to me like there are more and better incentives to participate in age restrictions voluntarily than to give it away to kids.
- reader5000 14y agoThe evidence against this theory is that every single porn site distributes to minors.
- andypants 14y agoI'm not sure you understand how the Internet works. Any publically available website is open to... well, the public. At best a public website can ask the user to verify their age, which is hardly reliable.
- tomjen3 14y agoThe porn companies I frequent all have big warnings that it is 18+. The most hardcore even had a 'here is how to block us in netnanny (and other software)' page with extremly prominent links from the front page.
- jlgreco 14y ago"Or at the very least, it's be easy to criticise them if they failed to implement the meta tag." Would it be? I imagine the standard response from those who did not would be something along the lines of "Screw that, I'm not British. Why should I change my site because they refuse to be parents?", or something along those lines. Kind of hard to fault that reasoning. There are a lot of different cultures with dramatically different views on what constitutes pornography and who is allowed to view it. Placing responsibility of keeping track of all of that on site owners is asking too much.
- rmc 14y ago<meta age-restiction="18+" region="uk"> The age of consent for sex in the UK is 16.
- arethuza 14y agoBut "adult" content is given an "18" rating in the UK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18_certificate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18_certificate
- petepete 14y agoI could have joined the British Army at 16 but wouldn't have been able to buy Robocop on DVD for another two years.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y agoYou can have sex in Britain at 16 (my age!), but you can't be filmed doing it (illegal), see someone that age doing it (illegal), or watch older people doing it at that age (also illegal). Which always seemed ridiculous to me.
- dazzawazza 14y agoThis is why everyone in the UK has sex in the dark with their eyes closed. Just to be safe.
- andyjohnson0 14y agoEvery tcp/ip packet should have a 'porn bit' that can be set to indicate that the packet contains pornographic content. Then screening such content at the router level becomes trivial. (Sarcasm, btw)
- philbarr 14y agoDon't start giving them ideas...
- skymt 14y agoOh, like the "evil bit." https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3514.txt https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3514.txt
- andyjohnson0 14y agoYep. Its already a standard! What could possibly go wrong! Seriously. Solving purely social problem with purely technical means is just doomed.