Bad news if you're in the UK

14 posts / 0 new

Mon, 07/22/2013 - 12:34

carnatic

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23401076

The upshot is that while pornographic material won't be banned, it will be opt-in... so people will have to ask to be allowed to view porn before they can access it. There's a lot of arguing going on at the moment, along the lines of how the government is deviously stopping people doing something there is nothing wrong with by taking advantage of people's natural shame; of how paedophile rings will still find a way of operating and of how this could be a milestone towards banning porn outright.

Already it is illegal to posess pornographic depictions of rape. I have no interest in owning this porn, but I'm slightly worried about the fact that it means that there are now things in the UK that it is illegal to think, that someone could be locked up for writing a story that the government don't like... not to mention the fact that to many outside this fetish, the fact that no 'normal' person would want to be inflated means ergo this is a rape fetish.

Secondly the logic surrounded this is some of the dumbest I've ever heard. Basically this whole thing has sprouted up around a recent child murder. I don't mean to disrepect the family of the dead girl, but logical conclusions can't be drawn from emotional responses. The fact that police found that the murderer had looked at (legal I might add) pornography in the days before the murder does not mean that pornography will turn a normal human being into a child-killer. It bothers me that lunatics like the politicians who kickstarted this drive are allowed to run around unchecked.

Apparently there is no legislation proposed, yet. Cameron claims to have reached an agreement with the ISPs. So smaller ISPs won't be forced to filter but legislation may happen if not enough of the ISPs and search engines start to filter. Not to drone on about politics but I can imagine there being some kind of backlash over this from the Liberal Democrats, who are Cameron's coalition partners and whose support would be required for any kind of legislation; and if current polling is anything to go by he'll be turfed out of office in 2015.

But to me for now... This comes in by the end of the year. I currently live with my parents and we have one of the major ISPs, so if I'm still living with them by then, I probably won't be able to come to this website unless I can find some kind of workaround.

Tue, 07/23/2013 - 13:27

Yrrall_Dlok1

darn... in the same situation as you...

Tue, 07/23/2013 - 21:35

nineteenthly

I think maybe what will happen, and i'm being uncharacteristically optimistic here, is that it will slip under the radar due to being unusual enough not to be noticeably suspect to them. I also think it's unlikely to be enforceable. However, it also strikes me that they've made a concession on the gay marriage thing and then just stopped, so it's like there's been this permeable barrier which has been gradually extended from missionary position lights off sex within marriage which all of a sudden stops and becomes impermeable.

http://www.youtube.com/user/nineteenthly

Wed, 07/24/2013 - 00:47

LutherVKane

Moral panics make for great sound bites and terrible policy.

I doubt this goes very far. If it does, it'll be quite musing to see how the filters deal with inflationists. The vast majority of material on this site is lacking both sex and nudity.

In the worst case scenario, if such filters became widespread and effective (and I have doubts about both), then this site could still continue in a modified form. Earlier incarnations of bodyinflation.org didn't have any material that would qualify as conventional porn. I could always go back to that.

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Wed, 07/24/2013 - 16:31

(Reply to #4) #5

carnatic

Totally. The two enemies of good society at work here are seeing cause and effect everywhere you look, and 'common sense'.

Whenever something bad happens, people can't accept that sometimes circumstances just take people down a bad road, that they may be caused by problems that go to the root of society and human nature, or that sometimes the causes are more subtle and indirect than they would like. They want to have a nice direct cause. Video-games cause shooting sprees and porn causes sexual abuse, simple!

Once this is established it becomes 'common-sense'... No such thing, either something makes logical sense and is supported by evidence or it doesn't, and if it doesn't then it has no place in deciding such important things as government policy.

Wed, 07/24/2013 - 07:30

big-gas-balloon

Don't forget the fact this is an opt-in thing, so its not like we don't have a choice.

Wed, 07/24/2013 - 16:09

carnatic

Well many mobile carriers already require an opt I'm to view porn, and block this site.

I'm aware we have a choice to opt in, but you can only do this if it is your own Internet connection, which is where my problem lies, but I've just become aware I could still use the opt in on my mobile phone.

Thu, 07/25/2013 - 02:47

deleted_20180328 (not verified)

Simple workaround for any of you still living with parents. Purchase a VPN connection or go through a proxy.

That's the issue with policies like this, they're very easy to work around, just look at Saudia Arabia, they have a huge firewall and ban a lot of the 'seedy' internet, they're also one of the biggest users of VPNs in the world, same with China, go figure.

Thu, 07/25/2013 - 12:18

carnatic

There's a bit more info on this available, and it's not just about pornography.

https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2013/sleepwalking-into-censorship

The list of things that will be filtered out by default also includes violent material, alcohol and smoking, which are pretty standard for parental controls already available.

However, more worrying, the list includes 'web forums' and 'esoteric material'.

It also includes filters to keep information about how to get around the filters from being seen, so presumably people who haven't done their homework before the filter comes into effect will find it difficult

On an individual level, since you have the option to turn the filters off, or find another way around it, you can't really complain that this is an invasion of civil liberties. It will be irritating to those people who will find that a web forum they like to visit about gardening will be blocked or to those who can no longer get their porn, and those people should have paid more attention to the options they were given rather than doing what most people will do and assume it is some new annoying pop-up screen, just accept the defaults and get rid of it.

But at the society level, due to the range of material that can be blocked (esoteric could describe almost everything you find on the internet) and the number of people who will inevitably blindly walk into censorship, it suddenly gives the powers that be the ability to limit the spread of information, even if it is by cleverly using people's own ignorance or laziness against them without actually banning anything it still has the same effect. Should an environmental campaign group's website be classified as 'esoteric'? What about a website that criticises the government? Small business owners like myself could even find that we suffer a downturn in business because our websites might be 'esoteric' or contain a web forum and therefore are no longer visible to the majority of customers.

It's no coincidence that this new idea has sprung from a government that are keen to talk-up how they use 'nudge theory', techniques to influence people's behaviour without using laws to compel them to change their behaviour.

It might seem a tad far-fetched to say at the moment, but this is how oppressive regimes start. Maybe not a Stalinist or even modern-China level of oppression but certainly something like mid-century America, Senator McCarthy, the HUAC and Hollywood black-list isn't outside the realms of possibility.

Fri, 07/26/2013 - 02:34

#10

deleted_20180328 (not verified)

The other issue with this is that it's not legislation, it's our dear PM asking the ISPs to volunteer to do this. You could just choose an ISP which doesn't have the censorship block. It may mean a shift from the big ISPs to more local ones.

If it was legislated, then there would have to be an independent body that controls what exactly is part of the censornet.

If you're in the UK write to your MP complaining.

http://www.writetothem.com/

Wed, 08/07/2013 - 17:04

#11

jonathan856

its only a matter of time before US politicians do something like this.

living in a way that is too safe is a fate worse than death.if a person never takes a risk then they never lived at all! the freedom of speech is the freedom to resolve all problems & differences without violence. usconstitution.net NSA.gov1.info

Fri, 08/16/2013 - 09:46

(Reply to #11) #12

eljacko15

I don't think they could actually pass legislature on this for constitutional reasons, but I wouldn't be surprised if ISPs made some kind of deal with the government, off the record.

Sat, 08/17/2013 - 10:42

(Reply to #12) #13

carnatic

That's the thing, they'd struggle to get legislature like this through parliament in the UK. By the time they'd prepared it all the furore over porn would have died down. It's more worrying that those in power are looking for ways to bypass democracy.

Thu, 08/22/2013 - 18:02

(Reply to #13) #14

jonathan856

mite want to look at this http://nsa.gov1.info/

Bad news if you're in the UK

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