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Original poster

Any thoughts on the porn ban?

215 replies

Lula1998 · 23/04/2019 00:59

Hate the Tories but I think this is the one thing they've done that I agree with. I know kids can get round it with VPNs etc, but some of the younger ones won't. Porn is a cancer imo.

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MonkeyToesOfDoom · 23/04/2019 18:31

And therefore....14 year olds should be sold porn mags because they're only going to get hold of them anyway? Should this principle apply to alcohol and tobacco products too?

And it's logic like this that leads to 'Bans' that never work and actually.makes things worse.

Have a think about a few bans in the past.. how have they gone? Prohibition was a roaring success...

MockerstheFeManist · 23/04/2019 18:37

Under 16s were always banned from buying cigarettes. Did that work?

GoodyMog · 23/04/2019 19:15

No one on this thread is arguing that kids should get access to porn, and you know that.

A more accurate analogy based on your top shelf magazines idea is, paying a company who produces porn mags to set up a block at the entrance to the shops that sells some sleazy but fairly tame magazines, while ignoring the shop next door selling hardcore porn while luring kids in with sweets - said store also being funded by the same company paid to limit entrance to the less harmful shop.

Yeah it's a fix, of sorts, but it's not solving the root issue and is causing other vulnerabilities.

Original poster
Lula1998 · 23/04/2019 19:18

If you all really identify as feminists you should be ashamed for siding with pornographers over children.

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LangCleg · 23/04/2019 19:19

This thread is nuts.

Nobody is saying "Just chuck the porn at them."

The law that is being brought in will not stop kids watching porn. Rather, it will direct them to watch even worse porn than the stuff they're currently accessing.

Original poster
Lula1998 · 23/04/2019 19:20

GoodyMog, what kind of state regulation WOULD you approve of then? Give an example.

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Original poster
Lula1998 · 23/04/2019 19:22

LangClen, I ask you the same question. If this regulation is ill-conceived, what kind of regulation of the porn industry in the interest of children would you prefer?

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pikapikachu · 23/04/2019 19:34

You don't understand. The UK government can only legislate against the UK porn industry. The Internet means that people in the UK can get hold of porn made in any other country in the world.

pikapikachu · 23/04/2019 19:36

The other countries will not be interested in "helping" because they will see legal porn as a Freedom of Speech issue plus capitalism reigns supreme.

Original poster
Lula1998 · 23/04/2019 19:40

So in other words, the internet cannot be regulated and we are just going to have to get used to kids being exposed to porn with themes of incest, rape, coprophilia and god knows what else from an early age - blaming only parents. What about child porn? We legislate against that even though lots of it is being distributed from other jurisdictions. Maybe we should just stop trying to block access to that too? If the web cannot be regulated, why are we bothering at all?

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Original poster
Lula1998 · 23/04/2019 19:42

But surely, if the web cannot (and should not) be regulated, the very concept of 'legal porn' would not make sense? Legal porn only makes sense in opposition to illegal porn.

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pikapikachu · 23/04/2019 20:02

The Internet can only be regulated if you take the China approach and monitor people's downloads. I don't know how people with child abuse images are apprehended but I assume it's with undercover people penetrating groups and getting info about individuals over time. Then those individual's computers might lead to data on others and so on. Or they are apprehended as a result of someone finding the images on somebody else's hardware and them reporting it. There are probably countries where possession of such images aren't even covered by law so by legal I meant UK law.

Original poster
Lula1998 · 23/04/2019 20:04

So should the state attempt to block child pornography or not? You seem to be saying not..

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pikapikachu · 23/04/2019 20:06

Banning or restricting something new is increasing the work of the police who are so stretched resource wise that knife crime is out of control.

It's weird that they've picked pornography over other threats to children like drugs, gangs and knives but I suspect that the person who said that it's a data collection exercise is spot on.

It's very twisted that pornographers will benefit if the government proceed with a porn ID system.

Original poster
Lula1998 · 23/04/2019 20:08

No doubt there are new child pornography sites popping up all the time. Are you seriously suggesting that the authorities should make no attempt to block access to them? Because if so, that is an insane opinion.

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pikapikachu · 23/04/2019 20:11

I assume that the places with these images are on the Dark Web so untraceable.

Prawnofthepatriarchy · 23/04/2019 20:12

The police often catch people downloading child abuse images by tracking the files. But it's incredibly labour intensive. Dedicating people to monitor online porn in general is entirely impractical.

Sad to say but online porn is one of the evils of the internet. We have to warn and protect our children. We can't stop the flow.

Original poster
Lula1998 · 23/04/2019 20:13

Would you say the same of prostitution Prawn?

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HarveySchlumpfenburger · 23/04/2019 20:16

If the web cannot be regulated, why are we bothering at all?

Because voters and threads like this. This isn’t anything to do with regulating the porn industry. It’s about reducing children’s access to porn and this law does nothing to change that. The government’s own impact assessment says that it’s likely to make things worse. But that doesn’t actually matter because people are only reading the headline and thinking the government are tackling the issue.

The fact is that this can only really be tackled by parents. If we’d put as much effort into educating parents over the last 5 years as we have in trying to pass an unworkable law we might actually have had fewer children exposed to porn online.

GoodyMog · 23/04/2019 20:18

Lula I'm not convinced you want a genuine answer, however there are multiple things that the govt could be doing instead..

  • educating parents about the risks online and the multitude of ways children are likely to come across inappropriate content (eg. Whatsapp, YouTube, Reddit)
  • educating children what to do if they come across inappropriate content
  • better oversight of non-porn media that normalises a pornified image (eg. advertising)
  • harsher punishment for men caught sharing stuff like upskirting photos
  • harsher punishment for men claiming sex game gone wrong as a defence for violence against women
  • stopping companies using strip clubs for meetings

And so on.

We need to change society, make it shameful to watch porn, make it easier for women to see themselves as people not object, make it less profitable for porn producers and sellers.

There's no point just trying to pull a curtain over it when it's much too big and insidious to contain. We need to tackle it at source. It wont be easy, and it wont be quick, but that's the real solution.

ps. if you are going to pull the "you're siding with the porn industry" line you might want to remember that this govt initiative is literally working with the porn industry and therefore supporting it is legitimately siding with them.

Here's a hint, if it actually harmed the patriarchal porn system then the patriarchy would be fighting it, not using it to win easy votes

Original poster
Lula1998 · 23/04/2019 20:23

I actually cannot believe what I'm reading here, I imagined mumsnet fc to be frequented by left-wing feminists; instead you lot all for cutting back the state, stressing family responsibility and giving free rein to porn barons and data capitalists just cause, that's the way the world is so what can you do?

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HarveySchlumpfenburger · 23/04/2019 20:29

How do porn barons have less free rein with the new law?

pikapikachu · 23/04/2019 20:32

In a similar vein to the porn ban I think that the government can do more to protect kids in

  1. Clamping down more on kids who demand nudes from others.
  2. Recording sexual assaults in schools. (No requirement to do this yet)
  3. Having a clear cut policy for schools to follow when a sexual assault occurs. Victims should not have to be in the same class as the person who assaulted them etc
  4. Channel resources so that the police can tackle drugs, gangs and knives.
  5. Zero tolerance on sexual harassment in schools. A staggering proportion of girls experience this.

And so on

TooTrueToBeGood · 23/04/2019 20:33

You need to bear in mind that the web is world wide (the clue is in the name). The reason child abuse images/videos are relatively well controlled is because they are very much illegal in the vast majority of countries. Porn is very much not. So the UK govt can enforce legislation and regulation on uk-based publishers but they're really just pissing in the wind because they can't do anything about publishers in all the countries where porn is legal. They can try and put legal pressure on ISPs but so far that has failed miserably as a strategy for tackling pirating of movies and other commercial media. It would be great if something meaningful could be done but practically it's just not going to happen.

Original poster
Lula1998 · 23/04/2019 20:33

But not clamp down on the companies that profit from all this?

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