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> Every household in Britain connected to the internet will be obliged to declare whether they want to maintain access to online pornography These declarations

• cskau 13y ago
  > > The possession of "extreme pornography", which includes scenes of simulated rape, is to be outlawed. > Video footage of two consenting adults, acting out a scene, will be illegal to own. With this on the books, it seems a short hop to outlaw videos of simulated murder. Even without such an extension, aren't there plenty of Hollywood movies which include "scenes of simulated rape"?
  • rodgerd 13y ago
    I can't speak to Hollywood, but this presumably means it will be illegal to watch "Irreversable" online. Still, it's a handy way to tar anyone complaining about online survellience as a rape-loving pedophile.
    • yenoham 13y ago
      I'd forgotten all about Irreversable - I purchased the DVD, then later on sold it on eBay... does this now mean I'm a 'user' and distributor? We'll have to see for sure, but it seems to suggest that the legislation only applies to videos that couldn't even get R18 (sex-shop only) rated - but I would have thought possession of those was illegal anyway. There are a ton of films, legally classified as 18 in the UK, that have scenes that graphically depict simulated rape, torture, murder, and so on.
      • chii 13y ago
        i always maintain that the classification is merely suggestions. I would propose that anything not classified should not be illegal to sell - just illegal to sell to minors (ie., same as the 18+ classification).
    • MarcScott 13y ago
      I'll have to dig out and destroy my copy of Death Wish.
    • paganel 13y ago
      Forget "modern" cinema, they should go all the way back to banning stories coming from Ancient Greece: > Leda and the Swan is a story and subject in art from Greek mythology in which the god Zeus, in the form of a swan, seduces, or rapes, Leda. According to later Greek mythology, Leda bore Helen and Polydeuces, children of Zeus, while at the same time bearing Castor and Clytemnestra, children of her husband Tyndareus, the King of Sparta. From here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leda_and_the_Swan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leda_and_the_Swan
      • amboar 13y ago
        Might as well ban the Bible while they're at it for stories of rape, incest and sodomy.
    • deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  • sspiff 13y ago
    I have a copy of A Clockwork Orange, so I would be an abhorrent pervert owning illegal extreme pornography?
    • jacquesm 13y ago
      These are 'Strange Days'.
    • marshray 13y ago
      A bit of extreme nahstiness, yes?
  • tehwalrus 13y ago
    IIRC, the UK's existing pornography laws make a distinction between, for example, partial nakedness (page 3 of the sun - not regulated) and sexual nakedness (what you think it is - regulated, restrictions on who can buy, what a licensed shop is, etc). There is also a separate rating above 12, 15, 18, which classifies films as subject to pornography controls or not. Internet sites are completely unregulated compared to video tapes/DVDs, under these laws, which is why they're updating them. I suspect that films (girl with the dragon tattoo springs to mind) would not be subject to it because they aren't presenting the rape as sexual; it is seen as a crime in the film, which isn't primarily a film about rape/sex (obviously I can't speak for all films.) The grey area and line drawing are a problem with laws like this, though, as several people have pointed out - I am sure there are films (horrible ones that I haven't seen) that come close to glorifying rape, or depicting it as desirable/sexual - whether those would be part of the law would be up to either parliament to specify, or up to the courts to decide later in case law.
    • Nursie 13y ago
      A Clockwork Orange springs to mind. Most folks I know who have actually watched it think it's horrific (at least in parts). It was banned for a long time due (IIRC) to the fact that you could watch it 'straight' and see it as glorifying all sorts of stuff. Especially when you take into account that the second half of the film is about government conditioning and then un-conditioning our anti-hero, so that by the end he's once again able to commit atrocities.
  • chalst 13y ago
    This is a large category. There are tricky cases of defensible portrayals of sex involving children, e.g. Schlöndorff's adaptation of The Tin Drum (which was banned in Canada as child pornography), and narratives that document the child sex industry, but they are rare by comparison. With artistically and morally defensible portrayals of rape, the range is huge. sspiff mentions A Clockwork Orange; even Jeffrey Archer (former senior Tory politician) wrote a novel with a rape scene. I also recall that when Virginia Bottomley (another former senior Tory politician) was asked to name her favourite film, she named Hitchcock's Rear Window, which is quite voyeuristic, and Hitchcock has filmed what I would class as morally indefensible rape scenes. The idea that moral guardians go about forbidding various classes of transgressive art forms that they themselves admit to enjoying is quite ironic. For the sake of having some sort of a list: Bandit Queen, Deliverance, and Leaving Las Vegas all have hard-to-watch, defensible, and narratively necessary rape scenes. The victim in Bandit Queen I think was supposed to be prepubescent. And didn't Slumdog Millionaire have a child rape scene?
  • FooBarWidget 13y ago
    The solution to this problem is DRM! The article says it will be illegal to own such scenes. With DRM, you don't own anything. </sarcasm>
  • gingerjoos 13y ago
    In Bollywood (the Hindi equivalent of Hollywood in India) pretty much any mainstream commercial movie used to have at least one rape scene [1]. The formula had variations : villain tries to rape heroine and hero saves heroine, villain rapes hero's sister and hero takes revenge etc. [1] http://health.india.com/diseases-conditions/international-womens-day-2013-rape-rises-on-streets-fades-from-bollywood-screens/ http://health.india.com/diseases-conditions/international-wo...
  • e_proxus 13y ago
    The Sopranos come to mind.
  • mcintyre1994 13y ago
    The BBC's censored cut of The White Queen includes a scene that would pretty obviously fit the bill, and while it's not explicit it's based on history and she would be classified as a child too.
• cskau 13y ago
  > > The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) is to draw up a blacklist of "abhorrent" internet search terms to identify and prevent paedophiles searching for illegal material. > A single search can now land you on a government list of accused pedophiles. Also, I foresee a sudden rise in rickrolling along the line of: <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=kiddy+porn">Funny Cat Video!</a>
  • cinquemb 13y ago
    Or 0x0 iframes injected into well trafficked of sites/forums.
    • gojomo 13y ago
      Play nice! Only inject the IFRAME when you detect a visit from a government IP address.
      • harrytuttle 13y ago
        Good plan. Perhaps it's time we started blacklisting government addresses?
        • cinquemb 13y ago
          Dragnet as a Service? Sounds like it has potential.
        • lightyrs 13y ago
          Best idea I've heard since PRISM broke.
        • yread 13y ago
          we can use this list: http://www.peerblock.com/ http://www.peerblock.com/
      • InclinedPlane 13y ago
        I call this sort of thing a "singing frog".
• Sven7 13y ago
  I think they have taken a good step in the right direction. Kids are exposed to too much crap these days. Kids growing up with involved parents and teachers turn out alright, but there are a whole lot of kids who aren't that lucky.
  • carb 13y ago
    That's not a government issue. You're welcome to control your own children's internet use, but it is not your right to control how any other family deals with these situations. Edit: You're free to cite examples of children who "aren't that lucky" and had their upbringing maliciously altered by viewing internet pornography.
    • Sven7 13y ago
      Do you have kids?
  • nitrogen 13y ago
    If governments want to protect poorly parented kids from obscenity (which is not an ignoble cause in itself), there are ways of doing it without building lists of everyone who wants uncrippled access to the Internet.
  • conroy 13y ago
    These laws will not help. Outlawing content will not make it suddenly disappear, it will just be a bit harder to find. Any attempt to filter content will be circumvented. Australia's attempt failed miserably back in 2007[1]. I agree that children are exposed to too much "crap" today, but using children as an excuse to censor material is a political move. [1]: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/08/australian_porn.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/08/australian_por...
    • Sven7 13y ago
      Do you have kids?
    • saljam 13y ago
• droopyEyelids 13y ago
  I wish he would have at least nodded his head to the idea that creating censorship infrastructure today, even for the right reasons, might lead to problems tomorrow. Also I wish whatever reporter wrote the story had asked his take on that.
  • Sven7 13y ago
    Hilarious. In which fantasy land is every outcome of a law predictable before it gets issued.
    • harrytuttle 13y ago
      The land which the politicians don't want. They're not ignorant to the outcome here - it's exactly what they want and has been planned that way. This is a serious fucking power grab.
      • chalst 13y ago
        I think this is an attempt to please the party base.
        • harrytuttle 13y ago
          Which is never an excuse...
      • pyre 13y ago
        > This is a serious fucking power grab. Better explanations: * They realize it could be used for bad in the future, but they have delusions of, "bad things couldn't happen here." [ Sort of like the idea in America that, "Fascism could never happen here." ] * They are more comfortable with creating said power because they are currently in control of it, and are short-sighted enough to not realize that this won't always be the case (i.e. the 'government' will control it, but they aren't guaranteed to be a part of the government).
        • 13y ago
• yk 13y ago
  And on top of this, they want to create a database of all of child porn. ( What could possibly go wrong?)
  • Yver 13y ago
    Most law enforcement agencies have something of that sort. From what I understand, what they distribute is a database of hashes to identify files. I don't know if the original material is preserved.
  • UnoriginalGuy 13y ago
    We already have that in the UK. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanfeed_(content_blocking_system) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanfeed_(content_blocking_sys...
    • yk 13y ago
      If I understand the link correctly, Cleanfeed operates at the http level, while the proposed new system would work on the content level. ( Granted this is speculation based on a non technical article, which reports a speech of a politician.)
  • astrange 13y ago
    American ISPs have such a shared database through NCMEC. It's not widely advertised because they'd like to claim such a thing is impossible, to avoid the music industry.
  • conroy 13y ago
    If the database just contains hashes of offending images, I don't see the harm. Similar databases exist for copyrighted movies, television shows, and music. Edit: The harm is combining such a database with broad internet surveillance. Also, since the database is only hashes, false positives are likely. YouTube, who probably has the best content matching algorithms, can't even get it right all the time.
    • Raticide 13y ago
• Yver 13y ago
  > A single search can now land you on a government list of accused pedophiles. The other day I used Google to find info about a movie called "How to Make Money Selling Drugs"[1]. As I typed the words, I thought to myself "I hope that doesn't get me on a government list." I can't imagine having to think twice before Googling "Lolita"[2]. [1]: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1276962/reference http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1276962/reference [2]: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056193/reference http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056193/reference
  • chmodd 13y ago
    I now do searches like this using Tor Browser. Just in case.
    • weavie 13y ago
      That probably doubles your chances of making it onto some list.
      • wfn 13y ago
        Now see, that's why everybody should use Tor now and then! :) That way this unique characteristic will become common enough for a generic filter on Tor users to become ineffective (by their measures). If you don't want to be seen connecting to Tor directory authorities and to relays directly, use a Tor bridge. Better yet, run one yourself! If you are using obfuscated bridges, you can (as of now) fool even pretty sophisticated DPI boxes which won't be able to fingerprint your traffic. (cf. continued Tor developers' battles with China's intense DPI infrastructure) https://cloud.torproject.org/ https://cloud.torproject.org/ https://www.torproject.org/docs/bridges#RunningABridge https://www.torproject.org/docs/bridges#RunningABridge Honestly though, "Tor user" will probably remain an interesting / valuable (by their standards) enough heuristic for a long time to come.
        • bigiain 13y ago
          Can I suggest next time you have a perfectly normal and mundane need to access any government website - you fire up TOR Browser first? Go look up your local representative's name, or the garbage collection days for your suburb, but do it over TOR, and leave the trails in their logfiles.
• Wingman4l7 13y ago
  > it seems a short hop to outlaw videos of simulated murder. Which includes pretty much every action movie these days. Maybe the irony will be that Hollywood will step up with a campaign to fight this, because they see it as an eventual threat to their bottom line.
• hackerboos 13y ago
  > The possession of "extreme pornography", which includes scenes of simulated rape, is to be outlawed. Can we expect films such as "I Spit On Your Grave" and "Once Upon a Time in America" to become illegal also?
• zimpenfish 13y ago
  It's weird how pornography is "corroding" but the endless streams of horrific behaviours shown in reality shows is A-OK with the Daily Mail and Cameron.
• flexie 13y ago
  As if Britain didn't have real problems to deal with: - Long term unemployment is at a 17 year high. - Government debt is at 90 percent of GDP. - Violent crimes is worst in EU. For years Britain has feared loosing sovereignty to the European Union. To me it seems like they should maybe worry more about American influence with all the wars they fight, the spying on their citizens and now the neo puritanism.
  • johnchristopher 13y ago
    > - Violent crimes is worst in EU. Why would that be Britain's problem ?
    • T-Winsnes 13y ago
      I think you read that wrong. That Britain has the worst violent crimes in the EU is definitively Britain's problem.
      • johnchristopher 13y ago
        Indeed, I read "worse" instead of "worst". My bad.
    • thisishugo 13y ago
      You should parse that sentence as "Britain has the highest occurrence of violent crime in the EU," which is very much our problem.
    • weland 13y ago
      I think what OP meant was that Britan has the highest rate of violent crimes in the EU. This was all over the news a few years ago, and it's still fairly high, but it's important to note that the UK is very lax in what it considers "violent crime". Whether that's a good thing or not is another matter.
    • bornhuetter 13y ago
      He means that Britain has the worst level of violent crimes of any country in the EU.
• jlebrech 13y ago
  I take it noone will get raped on eastenders then.
  • harrytuttle 13y ago
    Well Eastenders gets away with it by putting a helpline number at the end of the program with the text "If you've been affected by the issues in this program, contact 0845...". Perhaps they could do that with blue movies :) "If you've been fucked in the eyesocket"...
• petercooper 13y ago
  Video footage of two consenting adults, acting out a scene, will be illegal to own. With this on the books, it seems a short hop to outlaw videos of simulated murder. I'm no lawyer, but it already is, if they're in a pornographic "context": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_63_of_the_Criminal_Justice_and_Immigration_Act_2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_63_of_the_Criminal_Just... This 2008 act outlaws possessing or publishing explicit and realistic imagery of acts that threaten life, would cause serious injury to certain genitals, etc. So fisting, simulated murder, or simulated necrophilia.. already illegal. Rape, borderline allowable, although if I were a lawyer testing this act in court, I'd say that rape is quite clearly an act that is "likely to result" in "serious injury to a person's anus, breasts or genitals".
  • rmc 13y ago
    > So fisting ... already illegal. Actually there was a case in 2012 of someone tried under this law for having fisting videos. They weren't convicted. This is strong evidence (and precedent) that fisting per se would not fall under this law.
    • petercooper 13y ago
      I read a story like that and it seems to be the usual British approach of actual convictions coming down heavily on judges and juries' sense of what's wrong and right rather than what the law says or suggests. (A good thing IMHO!) :-) That it even made it to court meant there was a case to answer but the actual outcomes seem to be more sane and based on the context than the law itself.
      • rmc 13y ago
        Well that law, like lots of laws, is open to interpretation by judges/the legal system/etc. That's how laws and judges and trials are mostly supposed to work. The judges/jury didn't ignore the law, they merely had to interpret the law and see if the facts of the case fit it or not. I believe the crux was that the law said it was illegal to have porn that showed damage to the anus, so does fisting fall into that category or not? The outcome was no, fisting doesn't count as damage to the anus. The "stupid law" wasn't ignored, it wasn't a case of "people using their own moral compasses", it was a jury & judge interpreting a law, like normal. That it even made it to court meant there was a case to answer The cynic is me notices that the accused was a lawyer who helped prosecute corrupt police officers.
• coldarchon 13y ago
  >A single search can now land you on a government list of accused pedophiles. Send a photograph of your young baby at the beach to your partner who is working to share a nice moment of the family and you land on a list of people who share child porn because of automated programs.
• rmc 13y ago
  > These declarations will only be used to shame public figures once the list is leaked. Actually it's the common person I'm more worried about. Applying to work as a teacher? They might ask you (or the Government body with the details) if you watch porn. "We can't let someone who watches porn teach 5 year olds!" will be the excuse. > Video footage of two consenting adults, acting out a scene, will be illegal to own. This is already the case in the UK, with violent and extreme pornography, a new law that (I don't think) has any convictions yet. > it seems a short hop to outlaw videos of simulated murder. Again, other way around. They made porn of that technically illegal a few years ago AFAIR,
• antninja 13y ago
  > These declarations will only be used to shame public figures once the list is leaked. LOL. On my Twitter account I have a public list for porn. It used to be a private list but most of those girls are pretty cool so there's no reason to be ashamed. I'm not a public figure of course but I think this shame toward sexuality is a generational thing. It's only taboo for older people.