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Why you shouldn't support legislation blocking internet porn

899 replies

Andrewjh · 07/05/2012 00:21

Ed Vaizey and Claire Perry and a number of other politicians are trying to force ISPs to block adult content under the pretence of "think of the children", however this will have the opposite effect and could lead to children being exposed to far greater problems.

  • Children these days are very tech savvy, especially with regard to the internet. And they need to be - the UK is the largest internet economy in the world. To succeed in the UK in the future, you'll need to know your way around a computer and around the internet from an early age.

  • What happens when ISPs block sites is something called the Streisand Effect. Basically by banning it, they generate a huge amount of publicity and support for the sites. The Pirate Bay site last week got blocked in the UK, and it received traffic increases of 12 million users downloading millions of pounds worth of software, music, films and games. Blocking something increases its internet traffic, its exposure, and suddenly 30 times more people know about it than did before.

  • What also happens when you block these sites is a huge amount of internet users figure out free and easy ways around the blocks. ISP's don't have the resources to stop this, and in most cases, it is impossible for them to do so. anyway. The Pirate Bay blocks can be got around within 20 seconds, and that is just googling "how do I get around pirate bay blocks".

  • Many of the methods employed by users to get around the Pirate Bay blocks so they can illegally download files will also be posted as guides to get around porn blocks. These are accessible through any search engine (google, bing, yahoo).

  • The problem is that tech savvy children (it only takes one to find out how from the internet or an older brother, then tell his friends, who tell their friends etc) can easily find out how to get around it. I mean it is as easily as it is to look up something for their homework, if not easier.

  • The other more dangerous issue is that whilst once they've gone through those guides, they can easily find links to far darker sites which host horrific viruses, hackers, as well as references to drugs, drink and other adult content. They can also find links to anonymous chatrooms where they could meet anyone without you knowing.

  • This is the danger that opt in and blocking poses. They will give you a sense of security when there is none.

  • This is also based on the assumption that the block actually blocks all porn. They rarely ever do, and sites posing as sex education sites which don't get blocked get through with adult content. So you'll be under the illusion that the internet is safely blocked when it isn't.

Think of it like this. Imagine the internet is a cliff, and we are having a picnic at the top of the cliff. It's a mostly beautiful view, but if you let your guard down, you could fall off. You wouldn't let your child play near the edge. Installing the opt in system is like putting a strong looking but flimsy fence in place. You could be fooled in to thinking it was safe but left to their own devices your child, could easily fall through. We can't put a brick wall there otherwise it spoils the natural beauty of the view (the educational benefits of the internet).

So what to do? Firstly don't support legislation calling for blocks. It doesn't work, its been shown not to work in the past as well as more recently. Children can easily find a way around it, and in doing so find a far darker side of the internet.

Secondly: If you are concerned, use censoring software on your computer, but don't be content with just that. Use Browser tracking software like this - www.any-activity-monitor.com/free-browser-history-recorder.html so you can accurate tell what your child has been viewing, even if they delete it off the browser. There are also many simple, free and easy tutorials written online on how to better protect your computer and your child.

Thirdly: Take some time to talk to your child about internet use. It can be an amazing tool but it can be dangerous. They need to know that right and wrong, safe and risky, they all still apply online (something easy to forget I assure you). They'll avoid things if they know its wrong. They will be curious about things if its only blocked.

Lastly, don't be fooled by people using the "think of the children" line. It's an alarmist appeal to emotion. There is very little danger so long as you use your common sense and only allow a child a sensible amount of time on the internet. As a politics student, I have to question whether this has been saved up till now to gain support for the government after an miserable turn in recent polls.

Thanks very much for reading, I hope you'll consider your position.

OP posts:
MarieFromStMoritz · 12/05/2012 08:27

So instead of imposing big brother blocking, let's educate people.

That would be like disbanding the police force and teaching us all self-defence instead. You seem to forget that technology changes all the time, and people find ways around things. Most parents would simply be unable to effectively keep up with all the changes. Not everyone is technologically-minded.

Animation · 12/05/2012 08:48

"The way I look at it is this as an analogy... I am arguing for the 'adults' mags to be kept behind the counter in the newsagents, out of the reach of children. You (those who are against Opting-in) are arguing that the adults mags should be on the middle shelf, in full view of kids, and it is up to us as parents to ensure our kids don't look at them. If we don't supervise them every second we are in the newsagents, we are negligent. Your argument is effectively that keeping the mags behind the counter does not protect children, because they can get around that, for example by asking another, older, child to buy them, or stealing them, for example"

Marie - great analogy. Exactly!

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 12/05/2012 08:55

mariefromstmoritz but what happens when you leave your laptop opewn one day and your 7 (?) yr old clicks on an explicit bumsex thread on MN which you left open.

Or another example I used to play Neopets (hangs head in shame). (a v popular kids site). The message boards constantly had links put up to porn sites as described above (ie an image pinched from somwhere, innocuously named on seemingly innocent site). Ofthen kids were sucked in by promises of free neopoints etc.

Obviously these links were removed within seconds by the mods, but how many could click through in those seconds.

PlentyOfPubeGardens · 12/05/2012 09:19

The adults mags analogy: it's more like everybody agreeing that the mags should be out of reach and sight of children while at the same time anybody in the world can publish their own mag and place it wherever they want on the racks. The mags might get moved or removed altogether if they are reported but there is nothing to stop the perpetrator simply publishing another mag, perhaps with a different name, and again, placing it wherever the hell they want on the rack.

flatpackhamster · 12/05/2012 09:54

MarieFromStMoritz

Your analogy doesn't work because the internet isn't like a newsagents where you can hide stuff.

My argument is that there are two issues here. The first is one around Liberty. Governmental control of the internet is dangerous to Liberty and giving government the power to censor the internet, even in an apparently good cause, is wrong.
The second is technical. The people drafting the law and the people supporting it have no actual understanding of the way the internet works. What you're trying to do won't work.

MarieFromStMoritz · 12/05/2012 11:08

Governmental control of the internet is dangerous to Liberty and giving government the power to censor the internet, even in an apparently good cause, is wrong.

So, flatpackhamster, you don't believe in censorship at all? What about child pornography? What about right-wing neo-nazi sites promoting the killing of blacks/Jews/gays? What about terrorist sites publishing bomb making information? Do these not deserve to be censored?

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 12/05/2012 11:18

What we think about censorship is irrelevant. The point is that it is teechnically impossible to effectively censor the internet.

MarieFromStMoritz · 12/05/2012 11:30

ItsAllGoingToBeFine, you are wrong, it is possible to effectively censor the internet. To a point. I live in a country where the internet is censored. Sure, there are ways to see banned stuff if you wish, but it is not easy and it outside of the capabilities of most children.

evilgiraffe · 12/05/2012 11:42

Attempting to censor the internet is just one more step along the road to waiving your civil liberties. Parents can and should protect their children themselves - it is the parents' duty to decide what is or is not appropriate for their child, not the role of the state or the ISPs. I think the technical difficulties have been pretty well discussed further up thread. I am absolutely against this sort of Big Brother legislation.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 12/05/2012 11:49

If a child actively wants to find porn then they will censorship or no censorship.

It is very rare to accidentally stumble across porn. I have been using the internet since invented and have NEVER accidentally come across porn.

Also you live in UAE, is that correct. TBH, that is great for you, you live in a country with restricted access to information and that is fine.

Some of us absolutely would not want to live somewhere that presumes to decide what information its citizens can access and the humans rights abuses that often occur in such countries.

Free access to porn may have some disadvantages, but the implications of state controlled access to information are far worse.

So in summary

  1. you technically can't filter porn.
  2. even if the government could put in a system (of questionable efficacy) like UAE, I wouldn't want it. Freedom of information in the UK is one of the things that helps stop us becoming like e.g UAE.
Animation · 12/05/2012 12:03

"What we think about censorship is irrelevant. The point is that it is teechnically impossible to effectively censor the internet."

Porn on the internet should be censored, - therefore technology will have to catch up. Technology on the internet and on i phones is improving daily - and will continue to advance.

Snorbs · 12/05/2012 12:09

...and the technology to circumvent any and all censorship will also advance. It's a technological arms race that's been going on for so long that John Gilmore said "The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it" damn near 20 years ago.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 12/05/2012 12:22

Technology cannot catch up. It is impossible. None of the people who keep saying this have come up with any suggestions on how it could be done.

Posters who have technical knowledge have said that it CANNOT be done. Is that so hard to understand?

Animation · 12/05/2012 12:24

PORN HAS TO BE CENSORED.

Somehow they're going to have to find a way.

That's my focus - and I'm sticking to it!

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 12/05/2012 12:28

Thats as rational as saying "I don't like the dark, make the sun stay up"

IT CAN'T BE DONE!

If you want to restrict you and your family's access to the Internet install filtering software on your computers. It genuinely is the only way. Sorry.

Animation · 12/05/2012 12:34

The filtering argument quite frankly seems to be a convenient distraction from the fact that PORN MOVIES SHOULD STILL BE CENSORED !!!

Images of adults having intercourse HAVE TO BE CENSORED like any other 18 movie.

If they can't do it - then take porn OFF the internet!

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 12/05/2012 12:41

Not possible.

Tell me how you think it should be done, and someone will explain why it can't.

I'm not being defeatist. It genuinely isn't possible. The horse bolted a long long time ago and it isn't coming back.

NetworkGuy · 12/05/2012 13:36

Animation - I am sorry, but you're clearly sticking your head in the sand when you suggest making some policy that would affect everyone worldwide, from the standpoint of "this is what I think is right".

The filtering argument is not a distraction, and almost anywhere you look (read that Guardian article) you will time and time again see comments that it isn't possible or practical to do the type of filtering which has been proposed.

Exactly what UAE does, I don't know, but for the UK, with strong ties to both Europe and North America, where many of the "freedom of speech" arguments are taken further than here and therefore include the filming of porn, then without the UK effectively cutting ourself off from the rest of the world's internet connections (not sensible economically, at the very least) there'd be no means to do the level of restriction you seem to wish for. Frankly, I'd expect to see Hell freeze over before someone changes the internet such that porn, drugs, violence, gambling, and so many other categories of site are blocked by the ISP.

When I took a further look at the filtering offered by Netintelligence for schools, the number of tick boxes (for blocking Social Networking, etc, etc, categories of sites) was massive. OK, I don't gamble, as it happens, nor use Facebook or Twitter or many other 'social media' sites, and I can see why, in a school environment, restrictions such as those would be in place, but in the home, it is just part of parenting to explain the "DOs and DON'Ts" of social etiquette, pass on moral values so a youngster knows right from wrong, and that extends further into being a balanced individual.

In parallel with relationships and sex, porn surely gets some bit of the discussion (so many issues to consider, whole new website to discuss that one!) and if not, then IMHO, it should, along with many more aspects of an "Online presence" such as e-bullying, and how it could be detrimental to fill a Facebook account with photos of someone out with their friends, getting drunk, running wild on holiday, etc, etc, because it might be seen in future by an employer (or university even).

Let's face it, even the term pornography is barbed, because how can someone judge (yes, even a judge or magistrate) what is likely to "deprave or corrupt" someone else. I think that so long as material doesn't include children, animals, torture/death, then HM Customs and Excise are quite relaxed about what is now allowed into the UK, in most part because European countries don't have the prudish sensibilities that some Brits do (and I suspect that it was a result of the Victorian gentry having a very two-faced attitude - the rich did what they wanted behind closed doors, with each other, and perhaps some of the servants, while at the same time passing draconian laws which would impact on the lower classes far more).

We've moved on, for better or worse, and have Ann Summers and Private shops in many towns and cities, and slowly there have been adjustments in what is accepted by the BBFC, and importantly, by HMC+E.

I don't buy or sell porn, I'm on the sidelines like many other people, but am as far against censorship as you seem to be in favour of it.

Animation · 12/05/2012 13:50

NetworkGuy

Don't want to talk to you about flltering anymore. We've done all that.

Tell me this, why should Porn Movies and Porn Images on the internet get away with NOT being censored?

Should it be above the law because it's too difficult to enforce?

Starwisher · 12/05/2012 13:51

The internet is already censored to a certain extent, so claiming it cant be is simply not true.

Thank goodness really.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 12/05/2012 14:07

Animation: above who's law? Most of "the internet" won't fall under uk jurisdiction.

Also lots of porn isn't illegal.

Also, again, it's not too difficult to enforce, it is impossible to enforce.

Again, can you suggest how you think this might be done?

amillionyears · 12/05/2012 14:13

Am I right in thinking, that in the event of a national disaster, or somesuch, that the Government can turn off the entire computer network?

Animation · 12/05/2012 14:27

"Also, again, it's not too difficult to enforce, it is impossible to enforce."

Or we could safeguard all children and uphold censorship by pulling porn off the internet - until someone comes up with something.

That would mean adults going without viewing porn on the internet until a solution was found.

WidowWadman · 12/05/2012 14:43

animation - How would you do that? Where would you draw the line of what is porn and what isn't? What about resources on sex education, advice on homosexuality, transsexuality, well pretty much anything to do with sex. Would you want to see that go too?

Starwisher · 12/05/2012 14:49

I see sex education has been mentioned.

See this is partly what fuel my POV.

I want my dc's sex education to be a good one, and a proper one teaching them sex is wonderful and natural.

I dont want their first "education" to accidently be some horrific porn movie either found by themselves (accidently or not) or shown by a friend.

I have heard quite a few MN say their first experience of anything sexual was a horrific porn movie and they felt quite disturbed by it.