Why you shouldn't support legislation blocking internet porn

[Andrewjh]

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.

Sites are pulled down all the time.

people are also arrested for accessing illegal material online

Your not nearly as free as you think in the first place

claig - I posted a link the other day concerning the >* Daily Mail

Yes, but the Daily Mail is not porn

Yes, sites are pulled down all the time, & material which is illegal is illegal & quite right too.

None of this reduces the availability of pornography on the internet one iota, or makes an 'ISP filter' any more effective. It just isn't.

The government cannot protect you from the internet for the exact same reasons that they can't protect you from the weather.

No one knew of or was there an internet then and helicopter parenting hadn't been invented. BBM were a tiny part of the scene back then and very very few people had modems that connected to a computer At the time it cost about 300 pounds extra. I think they were happy I was not trying to emulate Mandy Smith.

open.youyuxi.com/

This is a good link that demonstrates how you are already have your internet censored, you probably are not even aware of it.

So you see all this hysteria about some censorship leading to our inevitable loss of freedom is nothing but alarmist behaviour, and even quite paranoid.

You are already censored online- and even offline, yet inspite of this for a majority of the time you have freedom.

Freedom,as lovely as the connotations of the word are, can come at a cost to others.

In this case, you may say freedom for porn users, but the cost is the rights of children.

I would say the later is far more important.

Come on, controls are possible if imperfect. Online gambling sites are offshore but they still can't tap the world's biggest markets because those countries don't allow their citizens to participate. How do Facebook and You Tube control their content, it is clearly possible to a high degree.

Shutting down a UK jihadi or kiddy fiddler ring or fraudster criminal site is not the same as censorship. It's takes a legal act from the Home Office and/or judiciary to do so.

I agree Chandellina.

Novack Im still interested to know why you asked about naked children under 4?

I don't think anyone's said anything hysterical about loss of freedom, though.

This measure would be highly unlikely to impact on anyone's abilty to access the internet freely. What with it NOT BEING WORKABLE.

It'd just be a bit inconvenient, slow everything down quite a bit, cost us all lots of money & instill misplaced complacency.

amillionyears - 14:13 "turn off the entire computer network?"

I doubt there's a simple switch but there are relatively few connecting points in each country, without which the internet could become "national" only rather than international, or even more restricted.

There are a few data centres around London without which the bulk of UK citizens could not get online (as BT and others route most traffic there, and even if your ISP is based in Exeter or Sheffield, they will (generally) have equipment in London.

A US computing lecturer was banned from discussing some of his research because he identified the major switches across N America which are "key" to the internet working for the US and Canada. 7 bombs would be enough to not just 'break' the net for the USA, but many other countries too, because the majority of links are to/from USA (as most web hosting is located there and demands for traffic are higher to/from USA than most other countries (at least for the English-speaking world).

It's easy to see the links with a trace command:

Quick traces to a couple of USA web sites

C:\Users\webman>tracert www.imdb.com

Tracing route to us.dd.imdb.com [207.171.162.180]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 192.168.1.191
2 172.30.132.74
3 te-4-2.car1. Manchester1 .Level3.net [195.50.119.9]
4 ae-4-4.ebr1. London1 .Level3.net [4.69.133.102]
5 vlan104.ebr2. London1 .Level3.net [4.69.143.98]
6 ae-43-43.ebr1. NewYork1 .Level3.net [4.69.137.74]
7 ae-10-10.ebr2. Washington12 .Level3.net [4.69.148.50]
8 ae-5-5.ebr2. Washington1 .Level3.net [4.69.143.221]
9 ae-62-62.csw1. Washington1 .Level3.net [4.69.134.146]
...

Trace complete.

...
4 ae-4-4.ebr1.London1.Level3.net [4.69.133.102]
5 vlan104.ebr2. London1 .Level3.net [4.69.143.98]
8 ae-1-100.ebr2. NewYork2 .Level3.net [4.69.135.254]
10 ae-6-6.ebr1. Chicago2 .Level3.net [4.69.140.190]
11 ae-3-3.ebr2. Denver1 .Level3.net [4.69.132.61]
12 ae-2-2.ebr2. Seattle1 .Level3.net [4.69.132.53]

Now to AUSTRALIA ABC radio/TV service

(goes across USA)

C:\Users\webman>tracert www.abc.com.au

3 te-4-2.car1. Manchester1 .Level3.net [195.50.119.9]
...
8 ae-72-72.ebr2. NewYork1 .Level3.net [4.69.148.37]
9 4.69.135.185
10 ae-71-71.csw2. SanJose1 .Level3.net [4.69.153.6]
11 ae-12-70.car2. SanJose2 .Level3.net [4.69.152.76]
12 TELECOM-NEW.car2. SanJose2 .Level3.net [4.59.4.94]

links next to New Zealand...

13 ae0.sjbr2. global-gateway.net.nz [203.96.120.73]
14 ae1-3.labr5.global-gateway.net.nz [203.96.120.93]
...
18 aapt-int.sebr2.global-gateway.net.nz [202.50.238.214]

Then to Australia

19 te2-4.sglebdist01. aapt.net.au [202.10.14.6]
20 te2-1-110.sglebdist02. aapt.net.au [202.10.12.131]

ends up at ABC gateway

24 DABC12345-1.gw.connect.com.au [210.8.2.253]

and another, this time to Singapore
(again, goes across USA)

C:\Users\webman>
C:\Users\webman>tracert www.singaporeedu.gov.sg

Tracing route to www.singaporeedu.gov.sg [160.96.1.185]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 192.168.1.191
2 172.30.132.113
3 te-4-2.car1.Manchester1.Level3.net [195.50.119.9]
4 ae-4-4.ebr1.London1.Level3.net [4.69.133.102]
8 ae-92-92.ebr2.NewYork1.Level3.net [4.69.148.45]
...
12 STARHUB-LTD.edge5. SanJose1 .Level3.net [4.53.28.6]

California direct to Singapore, or so it seems...

13 vlan905-an-cat6k-ts2-r1. starhub.net.sg [203.118.3.153]
14 gi8-1-0-an-ats-loc04.starhub.net.sg [203.118.7.11]
...

So you can see that Australia/NZ would continue to see websites locally, but if San Jose link went down, might be "cut off" as far as the internet, not just from USA but perhaps bulk of the world, too.

"It's takes a legal act from the Home Office and/or judiciary to do so."

Which means... the goverment have power!

"I don't think anyone's said anything hysterical about loss of freedom, though."

Maybe you missed Xenia's posts

Online gambling is shut down in the US markets by threats of lawsuits if the credit card processing companies process funds leading to these companies.

It is closed as a protectionist measure to allow the the legalised gamling areas in Nevada/Atlanta etc. to have no competition whist they still also benefit from 0% corporation tax in Nevada. Makes you wonder how big the politicians donations are to vote against online gambling which would provide tax revenue in favour of a bricks and mortar industry that does not pay corporation tax at all If they were trying to save people from gambling they could simply close down McCarron airport

open.youyuxi.com/

"This is a good link that demonstrates how you are already have your internet censored,"

No, it explains that some body says the internet is censored even in the UK, without being specific. AFAIK, the only sites currently blocked (perhaps now adding Pirate Bay depending on your ISP) are on the IWF "child porn" block list.

If there's more actual information, such as a list of web sites we cannot access (apart from ones on IWF list), then I'd like to see that, to know if there is anything further being blocked.

I have no qualms about IWF blocking child porn (but they put their foot in it when they blocked Wikipedia some time ago, and it damaged their credibility).

If there's any proof of other "blocking" then I'd love to see it.

Network guy

www.acpo.police.uk/ACPOBusinessAreas/PREVENT/TheCounterTerrorismInternetReferralUnit.aspx

"If certain countries can ban the entire internet networkguy then regulating porn sites is small fry."

Regulating within one country may be attempted, Starwisher, but the blocks that even China has put in place are not watertight.

You wrote "You would have to make it compulsory under law to restrict material to over 18s only with sign up sites."

How will you do that with a site like redtube ? They're outside the control of the UK, and are going to ignore any UK legislation, aren't they ?

You seem to be thinking on similar lines to Animation wanting to make policy for the world that is unworkable (unless I've misunderstood you!)

I skimmed them!

Look, it's two separate arguments:

'Should we censor the internet in this country so that porn is opt-in only?' - maybe. I'd say no, but I can see persuasive arguments in favour.

'Do we have the means to censor the internet in this country so that porn is opt-in only?' - definitely not. Can't be done. Ask any IT person you like.

Starwisher: *"It's takes a legal act from the Home Office and/or judiciary to do so."

Which means... the goverment have power!'*

Yes, they can shut down a site hosted in the UK. Now extrapolate from that to: a)most, if not all, porn sites aren't hosted in the UK - they're elsewhere where the UK govt. has no say whatsoever & b) how many porn sites do you think there are, worldwide?

UK legislation is not frozen though Networkguy, things can be done to evolve the way porn is accessed.

Before the Children and Young persons act in 1933 was passed Im sure there were people arguing just along the same lines as you are now.

Butyou seem to be expecting UK legislation to somehow magically exercise some sort of control over the way the entire planet uses/publishes/accesses porn.

Nobody mentioned the entire planet.

Simply putting one more barrier in the way of CHILDREN, (not adults) accessing porn is not hardly a major ask. I genuinely am baffaled why people dont support this one simple move, in theory at least- even if our current legislation or technology cannot support in practice right now, today.

The porn that's produced by the planet as a whole is the porn that you're trying to reduce access to, by relying on UK legislation. I'm equally baffled that you can't see that this is utterly futile - you can 'take down' every UK based porn site tomorrow without reducing the total amount of porn available by even 1%.

& the thing is with this 'barrier' idea, it's not a simple move. If we're doing this as a thought experiment: 'If it were actually to become possible to block pornography from all PCs etc based in the UK, unless you opted in to receive it' then that'd open up a discussion about censorship.

But that's not where we are. It isn't do-able. There's no point arguing about whether there should be barriers between children & pornography (& no argument from me for that matter, I agree with you).

The measure proposed in the OP is bloody stupid & wouldn't work.

It's like saying you're baffled that people don't support a cure for AIDS, say. We might agree that that'd be a jolly good thing, but that doesn't mean I've got to take someone seriously if they suggest that wart-charming is known to be highly efficacious against the HIV virus.

I have not said "take down" the sites. I think all porn should be restricted through credit card sign up to ensure the viewer is over 18.

OK. I'm a porn mogul based in West Germany, then, & I say nuts to what you want. I'm not going to make my website credit card sign up. & you can't make me, because I'm not subject to UK legislation & nothing the UK government decide is taking down my rather fruity website.

Now what?