Any thoughts on the porn ban?

Banning or restricting something new is increasing the work of the police who are so stretched resource wise that knife crime is out of control.

It's weird that they've picked pornography over other threats to children like drugs, gangs and knives but I suspect that the person who said that it's a data collection exercise is spot on.

It's very twisted that pornographers will benefit if the government proceed with a porn ID system.

The Internet can only be regulated if you take the China approach and monitor people's downloads. I don't know how people with child abuse images are apprehended but I assume it's with undercover people penetrating groups and getting info about individuals over time. Then those individual's computers might lead to data on others and so on. Or they are apprehended as a result of someone finding the images on somebody else's hardware and them reporting it. There are probably countries where possession of such images aren't even covered by law so by legal I meant UK law.

The other countries will not be interested in "helping" because they will see legal porn as a Freedom of Speech issue plus capitalism reigns supreme.

You don't understand. The UK government can only legislate against the UK porn industry. The Internet means that people in the UK can get hold of porn made in any other country in the world.

This thread is nuts.

Nobody is saying "Just chuck the porn at them."

The law that is being brought in will not stop kids watching porn. Rather, it will direct them to watch even worse porn than the stuff they're currently accessing.

No one on this thread is arguing that kids should get access to porn, and you know that.

A more accurate analogy based on your top shelf magazines idea is, paying a company who produces porn mags to set up a block at the entrance to the shops that sells some sleazy but fairly tame magazines, while ignoring the shop next door selling hardcore porn while luring kids in with sweets - said store also being funded by the same company paid to limit entrance to the less harmful shop.

Yeah it's a fix, of sorts, but it's not solving the root issue and is causing other vulnerabilities.

Under 16s were always banned from buying cigarettes. Did that work?

And therefore....14 year olds should be sold porn mags because they're only going to get hold of them anyway? Should this principle apply to alcohol and tobacco products too?

And it's logic like this that leads to 'Bans' that never work and actually.makes things worse.

Have a think about a few bans in the past.. how have they gone? Prohibition was a roaring success...

This not only won't work, it will make things worse.

I talk to my daughter and I talked to her about porn.

@Lula1998 no they shouldnt be sold porn mags at all no one is saying that! They are saying that how things are currently is actually a better set up than the one that is being rolled out.... for all the reasons people have listed!!
It's not really comparable to a newsagents at all tbh... but you tried to make that comparison!

The only way to stop children accessing porn is not to give them the devices in the first place.
Of course they will still be able to access it, and it changes nothing.

@MonkeyToesOfDoom exactly. It makes things much worse.

All it does it make some mums feel like their morality is being acknowledged in order to win their votes. It also collects very sensitive data that is worth a lot of money.
And these mums its pandering to are the ones who probably monitor their childs internet usage as much as possible anyway.... so who is it actually helping?
Not the truly vulnerable kids who's parents dont give a shit because they are now being placed in even dodgier situations.

Imagine, pre-internet, someone arguing that top shelf mags should be on the bottom shelf and kids should be allowed to buy them. That would have been considered an insane viewpoint, but when it comes to the web the equivalent argument becomes credible. Why?

Actually, use your pre internet imaginings and think of it this way.
A 14 year old can't buy Playboy that features nude women, but he can get a hardcore full penetration magazine from that bloke behind the gym.
That's what this block will do.

Read the information.
It will insist all "commercial" websites have this block.. commercial being the businesses that.profit from porn. It won't have to be on niche sites that don't work to make profit.
It's pushing users away from restricted and into unrestricted and niche pornography.

Teens are going to wank, they're going to find stuff to wank over.. if they can't access sites with moderated and controlled content like PornHub they're going to go to darker corners of the web, they won't just give up and pull their puddings over the lingerie section of the Next catalogue.

But the internet does not work like those porn mags on the top shelf!! Essentially what is happening with this ban is they are putting playboy on the top shelf of the newsagents and then just scattering loads of bestiality and child porn photos around in the bushes for kids to find instead!!

You cant turn back time. You cant put your fingers in your ears. This ban is a sticky plaster, a political show pony with absolutely no real value at all...
Porn is already filtered on the internet if you use parental blockers. And you would use parental blockers and supervision if you were a parent that gave a shit... and if you arent a parent that gives a shit you are not going to notice when your child turns to encrypted messaging sites or Tor to download porn with absolutely no blockers on it not even Google levels of filtering!! And that is what the kids of those parents will be inclined to do when they cannot access the porn as they could previously.
Its putting them more at risk.

You cannot compare it to something like banking at all.

What you could compare it to is making prostitution illegal. Again a political show pony that actually puts women at more risk of harm than it protects them.
The war on drugs is another... ridiculous vote winning rhetoric that actually does more harm than good because it pretends that you can 'ban' things you dont like and that alone will protect everyone.

GoodyMog

Yep, MindGeek, maker of AgeID also owns, at last count, 24 of the top porn sites on the net.
But if you look on MindGeek website they're not mentioned, it's only when you really look into them you find that info.

Here is something that I think could be done, a restriction which could be put in place:

We could pass a law which makes it illegal for hotels etc to have porn on their tv screens. Pay per view or whatever it's called. Small step. Wouldn't solve the whole problem. Would send out a message though? That we as a society regard porn as something awful? Making it available in hotels just normalises it. (Even more)

I bet we could come up with more suggestions.

Like OP I too regard porn as a cancer.