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.

Today's news is that one ISP will make all parents make a choice - either opt in or out which requires them to take some action. Thankfully it is not my ISP.

We need a "Mothers For Liberty" group. It will campaign against this proposed unworkable measure.

It will champion the cause of home and all other kinds of education.

It will seek to have censorship laws already in place removed.

It will seek to prevent unfair extraditions.

It will hold Cameron to promises of cutting back regulation and in particular school vetting.

It will seek to curb the powers of social workers.

It will aim to ensure no child is removed from its parents for emotional abuse only.

It will fight against the proposals to speed up adoptions.

Animation
"Porn on the internet should be censored, - therefore technology will have to catch up."

That's all well and good, but right now in this version of reality the technology doesn't exist. Saying it should doesn't make it so.

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

Right - how?

"Or we could safeguard all children and uphold censorship by pulling porn off the internet"

Again - how?

Starwisher
"I simply want "tube" sites to become members only as they are far to easy to see the material within seconds."

You unfortunately couldn't enforce that.

amillionyears
"I may be wrong but I thought there was some switch somewhere that can turn off the internet"

Seriously? No.

Starwisher
"The naivety on this thread is amazing. If only we use some special software and sit on guard with them the whole time everything will be ok."

Because trusting that an ISP filter will make it safe is less naive?!

"Dont be daft of course it do able, tube sites havent always existed."

That's because up until recently we were all on dial up and uploading a 3 minute video would have taken a day, and streaming it was utterly impossible. It's got nothing to do with filtering and everything to do with connection speeds. So unless you are proposing forcing everyone back down to pre-broadband speeds that's not applicable.

"If we go down Xenia's line of thinking the goverment should no longer enforce any child to get educated as frankly its eroding the child's freedom and liberal rights."

Not a fair comparison. Xenia's line of thinking is allowing the children an education, your method is filling in the exams for them.

"Your attitude of: You currently cannot do this, which means you never do this is such a defeatist attuide"

No one is saying never. Everyone is saying not now as it is currently not possible.

"By the way if it so impossible for govement to control websites then why are child porn sites taken down?"

Because child porn is illegal internationally. Therefore the web hosts are obliged to remove them from the internet. Normal porn is not illegal, no one is under any obligation to remove it.

^"Why are webites promoting terroisim banned?

Why is websites such as how to make bombs banned?"^

They aren't.

"Why has the goverment made it illegal to download free movies and music?"

It may be illegal but it is still possible. And despite the recent piratebay ruling they still haven't actually succeeded in blocking the piratebay. So that's a perfect example of an ISP based filter not working.

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

It's much easier to put a blanket ban on everything than on selected sites. I refer you to my previous post about the 3 methods of filtering.

"Sites are pulled down all the time."

Individual sites. Yes. The internet is huge though, and even if you could individually block all current porn sites you would still have the problem that
a) About 2.4 million domains are registered a month
b) Porn can also appear on sites which aren't solely porn sites.

"Countries can block other countries- have you never tried to , say get on website to access and American TV show only to have a message saying "this content is available to viewers in the USA only"? "

That's usually put in place by the website itself. Eg. BBC isn't accessible overseas, because the BBC decided not to be available overseas. The overseas governments haven't taken against it.

chandellina
"How do Facebook and You Tube control their content, it is clearly possible to a high degree."

Same as mumsnet, they rely on dodgy content being reported by users. Therefore some content can stay up a fair while until someone complains.
claig
"If a filter is unworkable, then how come a home filter on the PC works?"

Because you have more control over a home filter. You can make it as air tight or not as you wish. An ISP filter would need to be broad enough to keep the majority happy, which means it would not be tight enough for some and too tight for other, with no room for manoeuvrability.

ravenAK
^"You see I think most posters on this thread would vastly prefer their dc not see hardcore online pornography.

I certainly don't want mine to - which is why I'm against this measure. It won't work, as numerous techy types have explained, over & over again.

What might work is educating my dc as to why porn is a (IMO) a Bad Thing, & installing the free, effective filters that I as a parent can already download.

Yes, they may well then see unsuitable material at a friend's house where the parents aren't so bothered or so aware. That's unavoidable, & less of a risk than that presented in a world where we all rely on some crappy government filter that everyone over 8 knows exactly how to circumvent.

Being against this filter isn't a pro porn position, it's an anti unfounded complacency position."^

This. Exactly.

^"If every porn provider out there, globally, was happy to sit round a table with you & agree to make their sites pay-per-view, credit card only, then that would stymie all the teenagers out there with no access to a credit card number to feed in, yes.

They aren't going to do that. You can't make them. The Government of the UK can't make them."^

And this.

^"How does the government go about 'pulling down' a site based in Holland or Indonesia?

If you want a site removed, you contact the hosting provider, who will generally be co-operative if they're reputable & can see that the site is likely to get them into bother for hosting it.

It doesn't mean they have to comply, or that the content hasn't been cached & won't be made available again via another host.

Mainstream porn wouldn't be removed unless the host was in a country that had also decided it didn't want porn to be freely available. Otherwise, why on earth would they remove profitable content that was perfectly legal in their own country?"^

Also this.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine
^"You can say make redtube and similar sign up only...

You can say remove porn from the internet...

You can say censor porn to 18+...

... But it isn't fecking doable"^

And this.

Now that TalkTalk has done it I expect the rest will follow suit and they will soon all do it, something that is easy and should have been done earlier.

Empusa - there was a thread some time back on Site Stuff about how combinations of marks would or would not work.

I think you'd need to mark each "paragraph" and cannot mark for italics all the text from one point to another (same probably true for bold etc).

Hmmm, yes, a lot of posts to look through. Well, I had breakfast at about 1400 so will come back after my lunch and when I've digested the various comments.

I've been looking on the TalkTalk website and can't find any mention of porn-blocking. The Home Safe offer includes something called Kids Safe, which allows the parent to block sites. So it's not really filtering at ISP level at all, or am I missing something?

exoticfruits - if it was easy they might have tried to do it earlier.

The TalkTalk filter allows a user to define a tiny number (10 or 30, I don't remember) of exceptions to allow TT to say it can be 'personalised' by the customer (whereas a home based system would allow inclusion/exclusion of perhaps dozens to hundreds or thousands, and probably be configurable to 16yo can use more sites than 12yo, which is where ISP-based filtering is so 'clunky' - no easy way to do this at ISP level [and I suspect the TalkTalk solution is limited in the number of 'exceptions' because otherwise it would get too slow to do this type of filtering where each household has a different set of sites allowed/blocked]).

Metronet did offer a firewall service to control different types of internet activity so it was easy to block e-mail or web browsing completely (using port numbers) but did not try to do named website blocking.

*> So Internet

IIRC, TalkTalk allows you to define 6 extra sites to block and 6 to allow.

Blimey, is this still going?

MariefromStMoritz 'What does surprise me is your 'I'm alright Jack' attitude. As long as your kids are properly supervised (which actually it doesn't sound like they are!) you don't give a monkey's about anybody else's. Given that you are a teacher, I find that utterly despicable.'

Well, that's a bit ad hominem & uncalled for!

I'm confident that my dc are appropriately supervised, thanks, because I do the supervising myself: they're only allowed on certain sites & when I'm around. Much to ds's disgust, he has no means of using the internet at home without my permission because he doesn't know the password to log onto my or dh's laptop. Simples. When they get to the stage of needing their own computers (ds wants one for his 8th birthday) we'll download a decent filter.

I've no idea on what basis you imagine that I don't care about other people's children. Actually, I happen to know that one of my tutor group is constantly exhausted because he's up all night gaming online, & frankly, it makes me feel like shaking his mum till her teeth rattle. ('Oh well I have tried to stop him' 'Right. Have you tried unplugging the router or just removing the laptop from his room?').

Caring about other people's children doesn't = deluding yourself you can wave a big magic wand & Take Control Of The Internets.

Threefeet

How ironic is you try and excuse me of not reading posts or understanding

How about this-if you read my posts then YOU have failed to understand that I never ONCE said I supported the ban

Basically if your going to dedicate a post to being nasty to one poster it might give you some credence if you actually had read and understood posts yourself or you end up looking quite foolish.

Empusa

Terrorism sites etc are banned- are you serious you dont know that?!

That has already been proven pages ago. Read the thread.

Just to add threeleft

You have also failed to understand not one person on this thread is talking about a ban

Thats a completer failure to understand if you think that

So you think that there aren't any accessible at all? Really?

Also out of all my points you only felt like responding to that one?

I don't think terrorism sites know they're banned, see here. Even where anti-terror laws are strong, there has been no effective eradication of sites, though some have been removed.

Want to learn how to make bombs?

Buy the Anarchists Cookbook from Amazon.

Simples

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

I have already posted this and empusa you havent bought up anything not already covered.

Starwisher I just googled "how to make explosives" and got loads of sites I can access.

Me too. Nail varnish remover & bleach. Who knew?*

*& something else which you will have to google yourself so I don't get accused of promoting terrorism along with porn .

starwisher All that link says is that if websites are reported then they can be taken down (due to being illegal not just here but internationally). This is not relevant to the ISP filter for a few reasons.

1. Porn isn't illegal. Even if it was illegal in the UK you could only remove it if it was hosted on a UK based server. Any content hosted overseas we would have no ability to remove it.

2. It relies on sites being reported which means that plenty of terrorism sites will still be online due to not having been reported. So if you applied it to porn, there would still be porn accessible online. And with around 2.4 million new domains registered per month you'd really struggle to keep up with the constant flow of new sites.

3. The terrorism sites that are reported are removed, therefore no amount of bypasses will allow people to access them.

The ACPO link describes a unit to which the British public can make reports about questionable content. The UK authorities then seek to take action against it, on a site by site basis, which might have some success if the site is UK registered.

I does not attempt to deal with it by filtering or blocking. And the link I posted above (which is to an Australian academic survey of terrorist sites, not an example of one such) shows no measures have been particularly effective.

Actually thats simply not true- some porn is illegal- child and other unmentionable genres

You will get arrested for accessing and downloading material like that no matter where it is hosted from. That is the law.

You are correct. It is illegal to possess "extreme porn".

If a uk citizen is caught with it on their computer then they are arrested.

But what happens to the site the porn came from? It might be shut down. It might not. Either way the same images can be rehosted somewhere else almost instantaneously.

You can punish the people who download the stuff, it is nigh impossible to stop the uploading, hosting.

Ps. I can access Pirate Bay with no restrictions. I take it not all ISPs are blocking?

Oh christ.. ok..

Yes, some porn is illegal. Illegal sites are removed the same way terrorism sites are removed - when they are found/reported. This hasn't removed all illegal porn from the internet (unfortunately :( ).

The majority of porn isn't illegal though, and so will not be removed.

"You will get arrested for accessing and downloading material like that no matter where it is hosted from. That is the law."

Where on earth has anyone said differently?! How is it even relevant to this thread? Arresting people for accessing illegal porn isn't the same thing as blocking porn sites.

You said NO porn was illegal, which of course is incorrect thats why it was mentioned because of what YOU said!

Sigh

Starwhisher having done an advanced search I not you are one of the most active 'christian' posters and have other threads on here where you want o ban swearing and blasphemy on the boards here too.

It seems you were a bit disingenuous earlier that you did not answer when I directly asked you earlier if your views regarding porn were some kind of religious standpoint.

You have freedom to practice your religion in the UK indeed more free now that any time in history. But right wing christian groups dressing up a sponsored study of there views as an independent report, inorder to censor the internet should not be allowed to happen a free country.

What next homosexuality education being banned, banning islamic sites, anti abortion legislation to ban all information for panning pregnancies too?

Even if you filter the net you will not be able to guard against the groomers so YOU must take responsibility for YOUR children's online activity. Even today it is report that sites like moshi monsters and penguin club are used by groomers to attract the vulnerable. Filters will not protect them. The parents must. In the same way many protect there children from the misogynistic intolerant religious beliefs that prevail.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2143562/Warning-paedophiles-grooming-primary-school-children-Club-Penguin-Moshi-Monsters-websites.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

I realise that it is impossible to inform the zealous views of the religious right. and irrational superstition so i doubt you will take on any of the countless reasoned points made about filtering to you.