Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think porn should not be easily accessible to children?

142 replies

Iggypoppie · 26/03/2019 14:42

Apologies if there is already a thread? But I'm so pleased that a check and balance is being proposed re making porn only accessible to over 18s.
Bizarrely, On politics live today a young woman was laughing about how absurd the idea was, while an older conservative dude was for it. Strange times we live in.

www.google.com/amp/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/porn-websites-to-check-uk-users-ages-as-law-passes-11604331

OP posts:
MeAgainAgain · 27/03/2019 21:55

Try hanster

See what happens

New ISP on "hanster" gives plenty thumbnail porn but doesn;t allow clickthrough.

My feeling is, searching mis-spelling hamster shouldn't give thumbnails / dicks in women

That's my feeling.

Google + mainstream porn sites could minimise this sort of accidental stuff.

Know this opinion is not popular.

Seems obvious to me.

MeAgainAgain · 27/03/2019 21:57

You're not actually reading my posts are you BBJ.

Bit dull tbh

BoneyBackJefferson · 27/03/2019 22:00

MeAgainAgain

its called cross posting

But you are right this is getting dull as we are going around in circles, so I will leave you to it.

Chouetted · 27/03/2019 22:02

I searched hanster and got this

Showing results for xhamster
Search instead for hanster

No results containing all your search terms were found.

Your search - xhamster - did not match any documents.

Suggestions:

Make sure that all words are spelled correctly.
Try different keywords.
Try more general keywords.
Try fewer keywords.

MeAgainAgain · 27/03/2019 22:20

That's good.

I assume you have content controls on? And of course that's one result.

You see what I'm getting at, is it wouldn't it be good if the default was that

And, content controls worked. - Note they can be bypassed. Get that. Issue meant ISP switched them off. With no warning etc. Just a bug....

Not good enough.

Chouetted · 27/03/2019 22:22

I have no content controls, as I live alone.

I just use SafeSearch (which, if I understand, you were implying was inadequate?). My ISP has no control over that.

MeAgainAgain · 27/03/2019 22:24

weird

swirtched to bt controls on

hamster = cute animals

hanster = less so
can't click through so router stuff seems to be working
but still on search get massive list of porn with categories etc

i think this is avoidable

i really do.

MeAgainAgain · 27/03/2019 22:26

safesearch is a browser based thing i think

Pertinent but useless

You can just switch it off in settings! So , not much cop, tbh.

EmperorBallpitine · 27/03/2019 22:34

Safesearch works well to prevent innocent googling turning up things nsfc.
If you are trying to prevent children who know enough about the internet to go looking then well.... That's when a combination of supervision and discussion is required.

MeAgainAgain · 27/03/2019 22:52

No-

Kids who go looking is another question.

First port of call is little kids who aren't looking.

IMO.

Obviously, that is just my personal opinion.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 27/03/2019 23:49

The main objections that I've read regarding this issue is that it actually has very little to do with blocking access to pornography for children. Most people are concerned that it's a way to introduce mechanisms to censor the internet or even worse to track people's personal sexual foibles as possible ammunition against dissenting voices. I have no particular interest in pornography but this really is a small step towards authoritarianism.

I agree with this.

Apart from anything else, I'm guessing that Mumsnet would find its way on to a whole load of blacklists because of the copious swearing and a lot of the 'frank' subjects discussed.

My son likes TV gameshows and related info/trivia. He looked up Stephen Mulhern's Wikipedia page after watching Celebrity Catchphrase and even that fell foul of the parental controls as 'gambling' and was blocked. What's the betting that many harmless clothes retailers selling 'nude' tights, shoes or whatever find themselves blocked by sophisticated algorithms with no human common sense.

Assuming that you want to keep using MN, you would maybe then have to pay £4.99 to prove that you're an adult.

Meanwhile, you're now on a list of people who view porn. Don't bother protesting that you only want to use MN - don't you think it's, um, 'convenient' that you can now access all adult material under the 'guise' of only wanting to use an online parenting forum?

Yes, you've made it 'clear' what kind of person you are - and now you're on that list which will doubtless before long be made available throughout all government departments, including child protection - as well as any half-decent hackers/spammers/ransom-seekers, or just people who find a 'lost' government laptop of memory stick on a bus.

I wouldn't at all put it past certain companies to deliberately set up 'gatekeeper' sites - ostensibly reasonable legitimate weighty adult-orientated sites (such as, say, politics or economics as opposed to CBeebies) - which 'unfortunately' fall foul of the censors and so require you on a technicality to register your details as an adult - which then subsequently lets you into whatever filth on other sites that you fancy.

Conversely, if the ruling is sites that host a minimum of a third porn, there will be immense amounts of boring/randomly-generated filler content produced for the sole purpose of constituting 70% of a website, albeit 70% that 'astonishingly' happens never to get any traffic.

This quite probably happens naturally anyway with many huge, comprehensive sites that are completely above board. How many people actively look for Val Doonican songs on Spotify as opposed to those wanting Taylor Swift tracks? MN itself has loads of specific categories, yet I bet that at least 70% of the traffic rarely leaves AIBU or Chat.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 27/03/2019 23:59

As for people with the noble intention of protecting tiny kids who supposedly won't know how to circumvent basic controls or settings, I think there's a difficulty here in that those of us who were already adults by the time the Internet was really 'a thing' for most people outside of military intelligence can have a tendency to assume that a 3yo in 2019 is the same as a 3yo in 1969.

My generation will never truly know from first-hand experience what it's like to be a so-called 'digital native'. You only have to look at a tiny child trying to 'swipe' a book instead of physically turning the pages to see that they have no fear or reticence whatsoever in getting to grips with what modern technology can do and how to use it - it's just another mundane part of everyday life to them; it's simply 'what you do'.

Iggypoppie · 28/03/2019 08:57

So if a six year old hears the word sex and googles it? What images/videos will he/she currently see?

OP posts:
FormerlyFrikadela01 · 28/03/2019 09:02

First 4 pages of normal Google search results for the word sex are all information sources, newspaper articles, self help type thing. HOWEVER the image and video searches are porn

Chouetted · 28/03/2019 12:17

With SafeSearch, I don't seem to have any porn, mostly just images of a man and woman in bed, staring at each other.

Which, to be fair, look a bit creepy out of context, but I don't think a six year old would make much of them.

Videos are mostly news stories where the word sex is mentioned. I wouldn't particularly want kids watching them, but they're definitely not porn.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 28/03/2019 12:45

So if a six year old hears the word sex and googles it? What images/videos will he/she currently see?

Indeed, yes - horrible

Another angle to this is a lot of pop songs, which include the word 'sexy' in the lyrics. Not many people would consider Gangnam Style at all offensive, but this represented one of a very few English words in the whole song. As a concept, it seems to somehow be considered a fun, family-friendly word, but it's not a great leap for kids to lop the 'y' off and explore online - or even to unwittingly use it very inappropriately, if they're told it means 'attractive' or 'pretty'.

I have the same beef with certain songs that include lyrics that are very inappropriate for children to hear but which have bowdlerised 'radio-friendly' versions which bleep, remove or replace the offensive words. I saw an advert for something called Kidz Bop which looked to specialise in child-friendly song versions and performances. All very well, but what young child is even going to realise that the version they know isn't the original one, let alone know/think to go searching for ' CLEAN version' ?

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 28/03/2019 12:51

With SafeSearch, I don't seem to have any porn, mostly just images of a man and woman in bed, staring at each other.

Is it Mr Cholmondley Warner's 'Guide to Conjugal Unpleasantness' ? Grin

New posts on this thread. Refresh page