to pleased that something is being done about online porn.

[mootime]

Don't get me wrong, I am not totally anti porn. Each to their own. I have been reading more and more articles about the impact of online porn on our children due to it being so easily accessible and frankly it scares me.

I have nieces who are 18 and 16 and they constantly post pictures of themselves on FB pulling "porn pouts" and basically posing provocatively. I also know that they have been active for a good few years. I know that when I was that age I was no angel (far from it) but I'd seen one porno (by accident at a friends boyfriends house) and was horrified by it. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to be viewed in that way. It seems like its now considered the norm.

I genuinely hope that restricting access makes it less "normal". Its a bit like an online version of having to go to the newsagents to buy it. It doesn't ban it, it just makes it something you deliberately have to access.

[SinisterSal]

Not really. My kids need no one else to parent them - I do that. But it's other people's kids I worry about.

It's not perfect at all. But neither is the situation we have. Would it be worth trying? Would it change attitudes? It might. People won't die from lack of porn, that's for sure

[ChipsNKetchup]

Its not just a wee bit difficult GloucesterGirl it's damn near impossible without mass censorship of the entire internet.

Blocking certain URL's is out as there are too many and new ones will be set up immediately so you need to filter certain words like cunt therefore blocking every site that mentions Scunthorpe. There are millions of pages of content and more being published every second, how is it physically possible to police it?

It is unworkable and utter bullshit and can prove dangerous as it'll lull some people into a false sense of security that their children are protected. The world has changed and censoring the internet is not going to make things magically better.

[Snorbs]

Those who are in favour of this proposal, what would you do if Mumsnet ended up being blocked?

(This isn't scare-mongering; some mobile networks already block it by default.)

[TabithaStephens]

How did parents deal with their children being shown porn on the school bus, at their mates house etc before the intenet?

[MurderOfGoths]

"I can't believe that some people think that because porn is hard to regulate on the internet that nothing should be done about it."

Not what anyone is saying at all.

There's a vast difference between saying that this will not work and not to try. There are other options.

"As for all this, it's up to parents bollocks. My Dc don't have open Internet access, but that doesn't mean they aren't shown all sorts of porn on the school bus, at their mates house etc etc, how do you parent that?"

How do you parent that with the porn block? You have no control over who opts out for a start. Neither does the porn block guarantee your kids safety online, it will not catch all the porn, neither will it purge the internet of all the other stuff that isn't suitable for kids.

Plus ISP's can't block what gets sent via email or P2P, your kids will probably still get shown stuff on the school bus.

[TabithaStephens]

Where does an 11 year old get a phone with internet from if not their parents?

[Technotropic]

Where does an 11 year old get a phone with internet from if not their parents?

And therein lies the problem. Almost every child has a smartphone nowadays. A phone used to be for security but now that's not the case, otherwise all kids would have are those naff £10 phones that only make calls and text.

I'm mixed with all this. On the one hand you want to give kids the freedom to make value choices but at the age of 12+ it's not an easy concept for them to grasp. Hence all the sexting problems from this age upwards. It's no coincidence that all this occurs at a time when kids are all getting the latest smartphone for Xmas.

We have mac address filtering in our house so only main devices can be used. We also monitor everything to make sure the sites visited are appropriate.

We are currently trialing TalkTalk's security filter. This can be switched on/off via their website so no akward phone calls. I've had mixed results with it as it does block most porn sites but is useless against P2P. It also blocks loads of other valid sites so am on the cusp of removing it and going back to old fashioned monitoring.

[attheendoftheday]

I have 2 problems with this proposal.

1. Parents will think their children are prevented from seeing porn when they aren't. It is very, very easy to set up a proxy so you can access banned sites.
   

1. It's a step down the road towards having an internet where we can only access government approved sites, a la China. Not something I want.
   

I not at all a fan of porn, but I monitor my kids at this end. I don't want it used as an excuse to limit the internet.

[FobblyWoof]

I honestly don't understand why people are calling it a nanny state issue. Porn is illegal for under 18's to purchase, but they can consume it on the Internet with no age checks etc. Before the internet kids couldnt just walk into a shop and buy this stuff. Just because it's online doesn't make a difference. If kids as young as ten were able to order cigarettes online people would be in uproar, same with alcohol.

Now I get that this, in part, is down to education from the parents, but kids are still curious and they will still look/find a way to look.

And let's remember the sheer amount of very hardcore stuff that is so readily available it barely needs searching for. For young people who haven't embarked on any real life sexual experiences, this will shape what they think is normal/acceptable. I have very personal experience on this.

I believe that if you were to ask teenagers about what is expected of them once they become sexually active you'd be shocked at their answers. The problem isn't solely boys (and I wouldn't suggest that for a minute) but asking boys "would you expect a girl to do x,y,z or feel its acceptable to ask a girl to do x,y,z when you first start seeing each other" they would think that an awful lot of things that should be reserved for those in trusting, long term, well established relationships is perfectly acceptable to not only request but expect with someone their own age.

This combined with a culture of boys will be boys (an attitude that both encourages teen porn consumption, and also means that boys sexual "conquests" are celebrated) means that some girls feel like they have to say yes to these things. That these things are normal and if they say no then they're "stiff", "frigid" or a "prude".

Porn also teaches the less experienced viewer that sex is purely for self gratification. And I think there's a lot of people who have experienced this as a problem.

I once went out with someone who had an extensive stash of fairly hardcore porn he'd managed to swipe off his older brother (was in the days of the Internet but before it was so readily available, so no Internet consumption here) and during one of our first sexual encounters he asked if he could cum on my face. We were both 16. He was otherwise very caring and sweet. I'm not prepared to go into more details of my personal experiences but you get the idea.

He got the idea for that through porn and the more he saw the more he believed that was a normal way to behave. Now, if he'd been 18 when he first saw all of those things he would have had some sexual experience behind him. He'd have known what real sex with a real person was like and would have been able to saparate what is a fantasy from what is a reality. He would have realised that sex isn't about personal gratification but mutual gratification. I wouldn't have been treated like like more than an object. As I said, otherwise he was a perfectly decent, very caring guy. He just honestly thought this was all normal. And he can't be the only to have been affected in this way.

And remember, that was all with magazines, not the copious extreme stuff that's so readily available online. And the thing is, it's not a blanket ban-you can opt in if you like and that's fine. But something needs to be done about what our teenagers have access to and this is one way of doing that. Education is also key and I'll be teaching my DD and DC2 how to be respectful etc etc and monitoring Internet usage. But we all have Internet on our phones now and it's hard to monitor.

[MurderOfGoths]

Fobbly Agreed, which is why they need a solution that actually works.

[MsSilkShirt]

I have quite a few resources on this to share. The first, I've seen linked to on on facebook and I'm going to copy/paste as I can't see how to do a link:

The proposed filters will do nothing to prevent access to child porn, and will block access to sexual health, LGBT, and support group information. How do I know this? Because the filters which exist already on an opt-in basis do this.

If you get a mobile phone and want to access, for example, Facebook, it's entirely possible that the mobile provider will require you to prove you are over 18. Here is T-mobile's take: www.t-mobile.co.uk/help-and-advice/phone-support/content-lock/ - note that social networks are blocked by default. Here is EE's take help.ee.co.uk/system/selfservice.controller?CONFIGURATION=1016&PARTITION_ID=1&secureFlag=false&segment=consumer&TIMEZONE_OFFSET&CMD=VIEW_ARTICLE&ARTICLE_ID=19997 - again, social networks are blocked on account of them potentially containing dubious content.

Both of these acknowledge that it doesn't block all content. If you're on WiFi, it'll be the WiFi connection's filter. These are often quite strict, but then again, they're often in public places where the connection is being provided for free. If you get email, no filter - the proposed content filter does nothing to stop child abusers from emailing pictures to each other. If you have encrypted traffic, either you break the encryption, thereby making online shopping insecure (this would be possible - it's just a massive man in the middle attack. It's not exactly easy, but it's not impossible), but can filter, or you leave the encryption in place, and have no idea what is being transferred. I suppose you could make using encryption illegal, but that would kill online shopping completely...

What stops child sexual abuse is making an environment where abusers are spotted early on, and stopped. What stops rape is not stopping people watching acted out scenes of rape, but making an environment where rape victims are able to come forward, be taken seriously, and for the rapists to be stopped. A consistent message of being against rape would help - it's never the victim's fault. People should always be able to say no and for that to be respected. The only way to get to this point is to talk about sex. Rape victims shouldn't feel ashamed, but furious. Rapists shouldn't feel all-powerful, but like scum. Child abusers shouldn't be allowed to abuse children. If no children are getting abused, you need to block a whole lot less. And that has to be a good thing.

[MsSilkShirt]

Some more information on the technical side is here: blog.dave.io/2013/07/the-proposed-uk-porn-filter-is-a-threat-not-a-safeguard/ and it's worth noting that every technical person I know is against it because it's going to have disastrous consequences. Those are explained in that link.

[MsSilkShirt]

Here is a child abuse survivor's perspective on this issue:

milenapopova.eu/2013/07/porn-blocking---a-survivors-perspective.htmly

[MsSilkShirt]

Even the feminists I know who are against porn are against this measure. There is a petition here:

submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/51746

[Technotropic]

He would have realised that sex isn't about personal gratification but mutual gratification

Sadly even before the internet there were (and still are) millions of men who view sex as personal gratification.

Sadly the main issue is parents giving kids a carte blanche to do what they want. No parent has to buy their kids iPads or smartphones yet we mostly do because everyone has a swanky phone nowadays.

It's not the online porn that's the problem. It's giving kids the key to the sweet shop and expecting them not to go on a feeding frenzy.

No amount of education or discussion can realistically dissuade children from not doing what they're not supposed to - hence the huge problem we currently have.

[Snorbs]

Snorts that argument s pretty weak, as all they have to do is unblock that website, so of course there will be glitches, you can't just say, oh this is hard to do so fuck it lets just leave it all open access.

"What would you do if mumsnet gets blocked" is not a weak argument at all. It cuts to one of the fundamental problems with this proposal.

a) Mumsnet is already blocked by more than one mobile phone company's default Internet filters. This is hardly surprising as Mumsnet Talk isn't a site that's appropriate for children. That's not a "glitch", that's a deliberate policy decision.

b) Who is the "they" in "all they have to do is unblock that website"? The Internet Service Provider? How do you propose you persuade them that Mumsnet, with all its swearing and sex talk, is family friendly?

c) Or is the "they" the end user? The proposals are that by default everything not family-friendly will be blocked - possibly including Mumsnet - unless you deliberately opt to not have any filtering. There isn't anything about being able to select which sites are filtered and which aren't.

Any blanket non-family-friendly filter will block inevitably block access to lots of non-porn sites that lots of adults want entirely legitimate access to. So the filter will get in the way and the adults will then turn it off and so we're back to square one except that the ISPs have had to buy millions of quids worth of kit that is sitting there unused but will still need to be paid for.

No-one is saying that it's too hard to do so lets just not bother. What we're saying is that a blanket filter at the Internet Service Provider is the wrong way to approach this because it creates more problems than it solves so everyone will likely just turn it off.

Filtering needs to be user-specific (so you put it on the device, not the network connection) and monitoring and education are of critical importance.

[glenthebattleostrich]

I want to start by saying I am anti porn industry. I am also anti censorship.

These proposals are unworkable bullshit, another piece of Cameron rhetoric. And yes to the PP, where will it stop, who will decide what is appropriate for us (adults) to access in our own homes. My family will also opt out - not because we want to access porn (though if DH wants to, that's up to him because he is a grown up) but because I will not have the government telling me what legal sites I can access in my home.

Because it is my job as a parent to protect my DD from inappropriate images / videos etc I will do that.

I think what Cameron needs to look into is the oversexualisation of our society, something which has be going on for far longer than internet porn has been available. I object to my DD being able to wander into a sex shop on the high street, page 3 and other forms of 'traditional' sexism. These need to be tackled and we need to talk to our children not expect someone else to raise them for us.

[FobblyWoof]

technotropic

I agree, it is a problem not exclusive to porn. I just can't help but feel that porn does play a major in that.

On a technical note I do think it needs to be looked at in far greater detail and that any law on the subject should not be rushed through but careful considered. It will be bloody complicated and hard to do, but I personally really think it's something that needs to be done.

[BeyondTheLimitsOfAcceptability]

Of course you do all know what will be next don't you. All the perfectly valid points about still not being able to restrict what your kids can access at other peoples houses, means they'll introduce a way to find out who has their filter turned off, and you can choose not to send your kids to a friends house who wants to access "porn" mumsnet

[StillSeekingSpike]

'He would have realised that sex isn't about personal gratification but mutual gratification'

Believe me, you can't blame that on internet porn - that's something it has taken men throughout history years to learn, if they ever do......

[Technotropic]

FobblyWoof

I agree with you too. It seems to be a rush job from the gov but don't think it's been thought about enough.

Something definitely needs to be done. I just don't know what can be done technically.

Parents definitely need to start being proactive about it but there are so many parents that are completely bamboozled by the tech that they are themselves helpless.

[SaucyJack]

Yes, heaven forfend our daughters should grow up thinking there's a place for pubic hair removal or cum facials or (clutches pearls) anal in healthy normal adult "lovemaking".

That sort of filth is strictly for nasty slags or crackwhores.

[Snorbs]

The government has been talking about this for two or three years now and it was hardly a new idea even then. Despite the ISPs and a variety of experts telling them that default filtering at the ISP level is not the way to approach this it seems that it's still being pushed through.

Which all makes me suspect that there is a different motive behind this. What are the chances that websites such as wikileaks and others that contain information that is critical of the government might just end up on the "not family friendly" list?