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| British Government Abolishes Freedom of Speech |
| By Thom Holwerda on 2011-10-11 15:22:36 |
| "BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin will be asked to offer customers the option to block adult content during subscription According to new measures to be announced by Prime Minister David Cameron, online pornography watchers will have to place a special request with their Internet Service providers (ISPs) to watch pornographic or sexualised content online. The prime minister is holding a summit at No.10 today with 30 media and retail executives, including broadcasters, magazine editors, trade bodies and advertisers, said the Daily Mail. Cameron is expected to announce the crackdown after Mothers Union charity chief executive Reg Bailey submitted a report on the matter after six months of study." The fact that this can happen in Great Britain just goes to show how brittle concepts like freedom of speech really are. Where people in the Arab world fight for the kinds of freedom we have, we in the west just hand them over to extremists. Un-frakking-believable. Any British folk in here? How on earth did you guys let this happen? |
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| Comment by sagum |
| By sagum on 2011-10-11 16:23:34 |
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There was never actually freedom of speach in the UK. But yeah, it think this is just one more step into being charged for different web access or controlling other sites not deemed fit for consumsion. How about Mothers Union's Reg Bailey take that 6months research into how to be a responsable parent and teach their kids how to use the internet rather then just bitching about their kids looking at adult stuff because they can't do their parenting job right. The fact that Cameron has backed this just goes to show how bad the youth of today are going to have it. I mean, who serously thinks they can block sexual content from kids on the internet,.. but to be honest, they might want to start by blocking all the skimpy women and men on the media and songs about sex that kids are freely allowed to watch and listen to. |
 - Score: 5 |
| RE[3]: Um? |
| By brucedjones on 2011-10-11 16:33:05 |
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@Thom Please do your research, the link you provided is to a random news outlet. So I will link to a different random news out: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-152... Specifically read paragraph 8. This is something that concerned parents have to activate. If anyone can find the original announcement it would be much appreciated. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[3]: Um? |
| By Vanders on 2011-10-11 16:40:18 |
| If that sort of information was easily available and interesting, we'd already have seen leaked proxy logs, or leaked telephone bills showing who called expensive sex lines. Except we haven't. |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE: Um? |
| By phoudoin on 2011-10-11 16:45:24 |
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"... and that ISP's will have consumers opt-in to access adult material. " Which should be opt-out, not in. Otherwise, sorry, but yes that's by default institute Internet censorship. Today it's presented as legetimate thanks to the fight against child pornography flag, but who could warrant you that it wont expand tomorrow to illegal downloads sites, then wikileaks like sites, and so on? In fact, I bet it will expand *exaclty* this way, because it's already written on the wall. The wikileak story show it, with absolutely no legal ground either for PayPal, Amazon, the swiss bank, it's mirror french hosting company. But you could bet that may this *feature* where there, they'll have use it as crisis control, and still outside any legal ground. Any opt-in ISP censorship/filtering is de facto the proof that by default you don't have anymore access to Internet, only Internet but all Internet. Regarding child and pornography specific issue, I fail to see why an opt-out would not work as fine: parents will be fine I guess with that. And explain me how this *feature* in a family with both adults and kids, kids could be protected from porn while adults living there too could still access it (and don't tell me that parent have no right to watch porn :-) )?! This opt-in is a Troy horse. Dressed in a moralist cover. Best solution is that all new subscribers ask systematically for opt-in, which will goes back to square one this madness. Edited 2011-10-11 16:51 UTC |
| - Score: 5 |
| RE[3]: Um? |
| By sagum on 2011-10-11 16:45:30 |
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> Consider this: A leaked list of subscribers who have opted out (or neglected to opt out) of the ability to access porn is not very interesting. On the other hand, a similar list of people who have opted *in* would be real juicy stuff. I wonder who you could find on that list. Politicians? Memebers of the "Mothers Union"? I wonder what your tabloid press would be willing to pay for something like that... (edit: typo) To be honest, if they opt in to access the internet .. or rather parts of it, then they're removed from the filtering system so your account or logs of sites you visit shouldn't be there anymore. What I'd be more interested in is the logs of the blocked site that members of the mother's union, cameron etc have tried to access. These logs will have to be kept so to prove that the filtering system works. I'm sure that'll get leaked soon enough. Edited 2011-10-11 16:46 UTC |
| - Score: 1 |
| Question |
| By aplkorex on 2011-10-11 16:52:48 |
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Do you have kids Thom? Not that I want to know, but it may change your view, or at least open it up a little... Edited 2011-10-11 16:53 UTC |
| - Score: 0 |
| RE[4]: Um? |
| By Kivada on 2011-10-11 16:57:14 |
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> If that sort of information was easily available and interesting, we'd already have seen leaked proxy logs, or leaked telephone bills showing who called expensive sex lines. Except we haven't. Thats because this isn't 1970, nobody of any importance or wealth is going to waste time and money on a POS phone sex line when they can just as easily find an "escort" or "massage" online. Blocking porn will also block these sites. Then again, what if they find that they're into tentacle guro hentai or are into water bondage or I dunno, milk enemas. Theres far weirder stuff then that these days because, lets be honest with ourselves, humans are nasty, creepy and horny critters that can get off to damn near anything. |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE[4]: Um? |
| By boofar on 2011-10-11 17:01:25 |
| The proxy logs probably wouldn't tell you much unless you can map ip-addesses to subscribers. The telephone bills are interesting, though. Seriously, why aren't they leaked? Any ideas? |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE: Question |
| By Thom_Holwerda on 2011-10-11 17:07:26 |
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> Do you have kids Thom? Not that I want to know, but it may change your view, or at least open it up a little... No, but I probably know more about developmental psychology and how to raise children than even some parents do. I have a rather... Complicated past, you see (none of your business ;) ). In any case, my point is not that parents should not be able to block their children from seeing porn (although some porn won't harm any child - especially not when compared to the kind of government-sanctioned violence kids get to see). My point is that it's not the government's job. If you want to block your kids off from the world until they're 21 - fine (it's a bad idea, but your prerogative). However, you can do so client-side - not server side, and ESPECIALLY not with the government forcing it down everybody's throat. I'm glad this kind of thing is against the law now in The Netherlands (we recently enacted an unconditional net neutrality law). |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: Question |
| By Soulbender on 2011-10-11 17:08:23 |
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As someone who has kids (but is not british) I would have a problem with this. I don't think people should have to make a "special" request in order to watch "porn" (what exactly IS the definition of "porn" anyway?). Maybe we should also require those who read The sun and watch the Page 3 girl to register with the government? How about people who check out "pornographic" books at the library? Or those who order porn videos? Come on, lets register them all. While we're on it just require everyone who reads anything subversive to register. What's the harm? Edited 2011-10-11 17:08 UTC |
| - Score: 3 |
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