To think the internet should be a little more controlled...

[jobhunter7]

It shouldn't be possible to access hardcore pornography so easily...
It shouldn't be so easy to troll people...
There should be more controls before things go live to the entire universe...

@jobhunter7

You can create an almost infinite number of identities on these websites.

Yes, but they are still "real" people apart from the bots

Let us know who runs the internet and we will drop them a line.

You still haven't answered the questions about who you think should carry this out and who decides what is to be censored and how.

Let's start with the basics. What is the internet and how does it work? If you can answer those you might start to understand why this is a ridiculous idea.

The internet is controlling us more than we are controlling it. That's the problem.

@jobhunter7

You can create an almost infinite number of identities on these websites.

So? What’s wrong with that?

You still haven't answered the questions about who you think should carry this out and who decides what is to be censored and how.

The UK goverment for the UK.

And how do they control websites overseas or the fact that people can disguise where they are located?

I'm not saying what you want is completely wrong in all ways, just that it's totally unrealistic.

I think the OP should move to China or North Korea and see what it is like to live under a controlled internet society.
I categorically do not want the U.K. government to control the internet. How would they begin to decide what is appropriate? That is a dictatorship....
Anything that challenges them would be shut down and we always want to be able to challenge those who govern us.

@jobhunter7

>You still haven't answered the questions about who you think should carry this out and who decides what is to be censored and how.

The UK goverment for the UK.

The UK government for the UK? Oh fuck no. Politicians deciding what I can and can't access? Can't possibly see how that could go wrong, can you? That would put what little democracy we have left right down the toilet.

I think the way we protect children is very poor to be honest. So many simple things could be done. One example is You Tube restricted mode. It cannot be locked with a PIN on android phones.

China might feel more comfortable for you OP because that is what they do, control the internet.

The majority of the rest of us are able to have self control.

The Chinese spend far more on their firewall then we ever would in the UK and its still easily dodged around. When I lived there I paid for a vpn, had it on all my devices problem solved.
What you are asking for isn't really viable.

Do you know where every website you use is hosted?

And how would you stop people using VPNs to disguise their location?

@jobhunter7

>You still haven't answered the questions about who you think should carry this out and who decides what is to be censored and how.

The UK goverment for the UK.

Oh you sweet summer child.

@jobhunter7 it doesn’t really make two hoots of a difference what UKGov do. You can almost certainly get around what ever block they put in your way if you wanted.

I categorically do not want the U.K. government to control the internet. How would they begin to decide what is appropriate? That is a dictatorship....

We've always had laws on the press in this country and I think most people wouldn't consider the UK a dictatorship.

There's a huge difference between press laws (most of which are not very effective in the UK anyway) and the government being allowed to control what content we are allowed to access from across the world. And while the UK may not yet be a dictatorship, there's been a steady erosion of democracy over the past 10 years. Parliamentary oversight of legislation has been shrunk, the prorogation of Parliament passed without nearly enough protest, the government is permitted to lie and shunt billions to their cronies. Do you really think this will get better if they are also allowed to control what we see online? You're incredibly naive.

And of course there is the little issue of VPN, which anyone with an ounce of sense will invest in heavily.

I don’t think the web is all good and the changes it has brought.

Good:

Online banking. Email. BBC i-player. Property websites. Online shopping. Ebay.

Not good:

Nasty-trolling. Revenge porn. Lack of moderation on message boards. If the cost of going to the movies, concerts has gone up down to Youtube and illegally streaming websites.

Nobody is saying the web is all good. It's not inherently good or bad; it's technology which can be used for different purposes.

Handing control of it over to national governments - now that would be all bad. Lots of people have pointed out how the Internet is controlled in places like China and North Korea - is that what you want? Because it's what you would get.

I am not sure we would have the same controls as in China or North Korea. Am old enough to recall life before the internet and admittedly I could be being naive, but I don't feel particularly any less or more oppressed as a person living in Britain at least.

I am also old enough to recall life before the Internet. And I'm old enough to have learned that governments cannot be trusted with this kind of power. Not Tory governments, not Labour governments, not any governments. If we hand over control of the internet to national governments, that control will be abused. More than anything else, the internet is a tool that facilitates protest and starts movements for change. Stifle that at your peril.

Pornography isn't illegal. Its down to parents to monitor internet usage, not the government. FFS do we expect everything to be controlled for us, minimum common sense required?

@QuitMoaning

I think the OP should move to China or North Korea and see what it is like to live under a controlled internet society. I categorically do not want the U.K. government to control the internet. How would they begin to decide what is appropriate? That is a dictatorship.... Anything that challenges them would be shut down and we always want to be able to challenge those who govern us.

Yet we already have thousands of sites blocked at ISP level with thousands more to follow in the next 18 months. The Bill to enforced this passed without a whimper.

You are naive. The internet isn't a thing. Nobody can control it. Have you never heard of the Dark Web? If you think what little you see of the internet is out of control, you truly have no idea what is out there. And totally uncontrollable. The genie is out of the bottle, and for every genie you catch there will be five others.

OP - the internet is much better now than it was back in the late 90s. I remember searching for something totally innocent on a search engine, and porn results showed up quite high on the results. Nowadays, you just toggle "safe search" on and it gets rid of that crap for me.

As for people who want to view porn, then it's their prerogative. I put freedom before censorship.

And i'm writing this as someone who hates porn with a passion. I can choose not to like porn, just as much as someone else who chooses to like it.