Porn, why is nothing being done???

[Sews230]

Good afternoon peeps, those of you who are concerned about your children seeing porn might have heard that last November the government banned a big list of sex acts that could be shown in UK Porn:
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-porn-legislation-what-is-now-banned-under-new-government-laws-9898541.html

Great, you might think, it's a start you might think, unfortunately you'd be wrong, the UK Porn industry is tiny and to view any of its content you have to pass an age verification process and have a credit card, not something that most children can do and why would they even try? If they really want to look at porn all they need to do is go to free "Tube" sites that have all the hardcore porn you really don't want to imagine, for free!!

I've been talking to a few computer geeks (an affectionate term) on my course and they tell me that nobody pays for porn anymore, all the porn people want is free and extremely easy to find, all the sex acts now banned in UK porn are there and more, rape, forced sex, choking, school girls, revenge porn etc, all on tube sites like Xhamster, youporn, pornhub, porn-spider (don't look at them unless you are made of really steely stuff, those sites are really repulsive).

What the government has done with these laws is like banning cigarettes whilst letting people stand on street corners giving them away for free, it makes no sense, when are they going to do something about the free sites??? Articles like this scare the bejesus out of me, what are these sites doing to our society, our children etc, I shudder when I think about my two looking at this stuff... www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/most-young-people-agree-that-porn-creates-unrealistic-views-of-sex--but-they-still-admit-watching-it-9679160.html

www.independent.co.uk/news/people/anne-robinson-watches-porn-for-the-first-time-he-could-really-be-pounding-some-pastry-10180656.html?icn=puff-3

In my opinion the government need to ban these sites, block them from entering this country (they are all from oversees) force the ISP's (internet service providers) to block people from seeing them, you might have heard recently that various illegal download sites (for films and music) like Piratebay have been banned in this country (following lobbying from big business), and while there are ways of getting around these blocks, what I'm told these bans do is make going to these sites a hell of a lot more difficult, and if you don't have the computer know-how you simply can't visit them anymore.

Now I know that this government is always keen to help big business but this is a more important issue than film and music copyright, this is about our children/nation being corrupted, children thinking that the attitudes displayed in porn are the norm, I heard on the new a few weeks back that it's common place for children as young as ten to send naked pictures to each other before they start dating, sickening, how has it been allowed to get this bad???

I'm new to this site but have heard in the past that it carries political clout, is there a way that I could start a petition to try and get something done about this issue?

Thank you for listening...

Object have been campaigning against the porn industry for some time. We believe there needs to be stronger regulation of the industry, and consistency across all media platforms while putting in safeguards to address unintended consequences such as censorship of materials based on 'taste' rather than 'harm'. The parental restrictions are a good start but, unfortunately, we know that not all parents and carers are sufficiently IT savvy to override young people's ingenuity. Also, unfortunately, some abusive adults use pornography to normalise abuse by showing it to the children they are abusing as part of the abuse. There are broader issues as well as the impact on children and young people. We think the next government needs to look again at how pornographers have been able to use their money to buy power and influence in media and the impact this has had on mainstream media sexism. If you are interested in campaigning follow us on twitter @ObjectUpdate for details.

Also if Site blocking has zero effect, less than zero according to some on here, why are media companies so keen to get them blocked, shelling out money on expensive court orders etc? You'd think they'd know a bit about media and the net after all it's their business...

The media companies know very little about the net, which is why they keep doing things that have companies that do know about the net putting their heads in their hands. They spent most of the last twenty years hoping that it was a passing fad which would go the way of hula-hoops and skateboards.

The legal theory that the media companies were sold was that they would be able to go after people downloading pirated content, at scale, and make money out of it. By blocking the sites, it would force people to use some circumvention mechanism, and that would instantly remove the "I didn't know it was illegal" defence. It's a variation on the nonsense (which you still see touted today) that if your timesharing system circa 1986 said "Welcome to VMS 4.5" the Computer Misuse Act didn't apply as "Welcome" implied permission; strangely, no burglar has managed to escape prosecution on the basis that they broke into a house with a "Welcome" door mat. The ISPs, who know about this stuff and employ both engineers and lawyers to make sure, told media companies, repeatedly, that the blocking was completely ineffective and the legal theory was entirely spurious,

The theory led to all sorts of crazy, culminating in the UK in the ACS:Law debacle involving speculative invoicing of people against whom there was flimsy evidence of pirating ("pay us now, or we'll go to court"). By the time the music had stopped the solicitors involved had been struck off by the SRA and made personally bankrupt. Since then, such schemes have gone rather quiet. You can read the hideous saga here:

Here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACS:Law

"The media companies know very little about the net" I find that hard to believe, but it's your opinion and I respect that...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31832137

OK so they've been using this blocking tactic for a few years now and yet they still persist with it, I guess they think the stats show it's worth doing...

sews that blocking stops accidental access and access by unsavvy people. 20 mins reading on the net will allow you to bypass them, but most people do not bother, so the media companies keep blocking. Does not stop an intelligent 10 year old bypassing it if they want.

The cynical view is that the Government knows that porn blocking will never work, but it gets them good publicity among their own supporters. The depressing view is that they are technical morons who wilfully ignore expert advice.

Why such a media frenzy about porn? Sure some of it bad, but how would you, as a parent, rate it compared to seductive images of extremist religion? How many teenagers will die from porn related injuries compared to ones who never return from Syria?

Part of the solution is education. This can be done without showing a single explicit image. Explain that porn is just as unrealistic as a popular TV show or the latest blockbuster action movie, and illustrate that by taking apart one fight or chase sequence. Then list common porn tropes and explain why they are fantasy. Women always being available. Men always being able. Casual no strings sex. No emotional attachments. STDs. Explain that sex is not an automatic end to a date. Yes, there are different sexual practices, but some are disliked by many people.

Explain that in reality some sex acts are painful, uncomfortable and/or unsatisfying. Explain that there is no need to jump into super-advanced techniques, simple missionary will provide a lot of happiness (when they are over 16). Even better, say that kinky stuff is popular with people their parents age, that will really put them off.

Schools need to do this. Parental skills differ widely, and kids have a nasty habit of believing something Sir or Miss tells them first time that parents have been trying to drill into them for years.

Blocking porn sites has unintended but totally predictable consequences. You can have millions of people openly accessing well known foreign porn sites, or put them on the banned list. Then millions of people have a strong motivation to bypass the strongest controls possible, creating a thriving and well funded market. That aids the very small number of people who want to access highly damaging content like terrorism manuals, sites glamourising extremist religion, child porn, cults, and the ever popular financial scams.

Prohibition in America pushed the respectable middle class into the arms of organised crime.

It is also next to impossible to ban porn sites for the simple reason that there are billions of websites and millions being added daily. The big porn businesses, and the filthy scum who operate the highly profitable but small scale vile stuff, think nothing of creating a hundred alternative names a day. The only way round that is to ban everything by default, and only let it through if the Government approves it. That's the Chinese, Egyptian and North Korean way.

Fine but the chances are you would not be able to read anything about fine upstanding Establishment figures like Cyril Smith, Jimmy Savile or Lord Janner. (For the record there are unproven and disputed allegations that have not been tested in court).

Educate kids.
Make porn filters opt-out, not opt-in. There are ways round, but they help.
Make it easier to access "good porn" than "bad porn".

And for crying out loud, drop the stupid credit card verification system. That is nothing more than an admission that previous credit card verification systems have failed. Mobile phones have adult blocks. Known extreme porn sites and even web searches are already blocked.

But it sounds good in the papers in an election year.