UK plans to block all porn in effort to 'protect children'

UK plans to block all porn in effort to 'protect children'

www.rawstory.com

The UK's coalition government is discussing a plan that would see all pornographic websites automatically blocked in an effort to keep children from accessing them.

Under the proposed plan, which appears to have the backing of Britain's major Internet service providers, the government would provide ISPs a list of objectionable websites, which the ISPs would automatically block. An Internet surfer would then have to "opt in" to be allowed to see the content.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I will leave it up to the individual to decide whether this is a good or bad thing.

Taking the content out of the equation, I doubt that many would be cheering this type of Big Brother control on.

Is this really about a 'child safety' issue? Or is this another way for 'leaders' to clamp down and impose more control of the net? A proverbial 'foot in the door', so to speak?

My feeling is that the UK gov does not have the best track record as it is with the whole 'nannying' nonsense they subject parents and children to. Some of the horror stories I have read of them taking kids away from parents for ridiculous reasons are flat out alarming. I wonder if this will be ANOTHER way for them to expand those types of witch hunts and draconian implementations.

Another one of these stories to keep a close eye on imho...

www.rawstory.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I think the main question would be what are the criteria that are going to be used to determine 'objectionable content'? In theory they could probably block anything they wanted to 'protect children', or eventually extend it from pornography to other content they dont eant people to see. Also, what would the details on this opting in be?

I honestly dont think this is a good thing.

If parents took better control of what their kids do on the net this wouldn't be necessary. There are ways of blocking sites right on their computer. Seems like their are more important ways of protecting children - how about all the perverts on the street - try rounding those up. Leave the net control to the parents and hopefully they instruct their children not to give out info on the net or get lured in.

-head explodes-

why not just put all kids into some sort of concentration camp and control every single thing..clearly this is a statement from the government saying that the parents cannot parent their own children.

I don't know...maybe they can't...Britons...are you capable of being parents or do you agree the government must raise your children because you simply do not know how...your government seems to think the whole lot of you are unable to

Originally posted by crazydaisy
There are ways of blocking sites right on their computer. Seems like their are more important ways of protecting children - how about all the perverts on the street - try rounding those up. Leave the net control to the parents and hopefully they instruct their children not to give out info on the net or get lured in.

They could simply make net nanny free...but its way more fun to get the citizens used to censorship

I don't look at porn and neither do I agree with it but I defend the right for it to be posted. The moment they curtail one freedom, other freedoms like freedom of speech get banned. Its all a pretext to shut down anything objectional, they announce it as though it sounds like a good idea but the truth is that ATS will be blocked as well as porn sites.

Another nail in the coffin of freedom.

Its obviously the thin end of a wedge. The sad fact is it will work, i guarantee it.

Tyranny clothed in virtue. Wheres 'V' when you need him :-)

we know how well turning something into the forbidden fruit usually works...

it will only boost up the demand and supply, i bet some chavs are already downloading massive amounts, buying/stealing all the blank dvd's they can. so if this goes thru you can soon be approached on the uk's corners like this:

"oye mate, what you want? i got milfs, midgets, fetish, and pure hardcore"

and each one will swear his porn has more quality than the guy on the next corner.

will it eliminate the problem? NO
will it create aditional problems that will need further measures to solve? YES

just the way governments like it...

While it doesn't sound entirely bad on paper, the measure would require the UK government to snoop on pretty much all web traffic, which is highly offensive. Hopefully there will never be support in the US for a lawmaker even to propose such a thing.

Whats worse, is that you would have to report that you wish to see porn to the government in order to actually see it, something I find completely unacceptable.

I dont see anything wrong with pornorgraphy. Parents, parent your damn children. Kids as they grow up and become teens are eventually going to be exposed to this stuff, its a fact of life. To shelter them from every little thing I think is wrong, especially when it comes to sexuality. If parents took the initiative and stopped sheltering their kids this way, when they DO come upon this stuff, there wouldnt be such a risk of it screwing with their minds...in my opinion anyway.

The government should stay out of families raising their families.

The porn industry makes billions of dollars..the industry has been declining for years due to various circumstances. Whether people would like to admit it or not, the porn industry does help the economy. This will just be another blow not only to our freedoms but to an important industry that creates a LOT of jobs and a lot of cashflow.

Actually the porn industry will love this, the internet is killing them. Think of the DVD sales if the internet is locked down.

I'm in a cynical mood today :-)

reply to post by DimensionalDetective


What's the best way to insidiously advance an idea that would be completely oppressive to a population?

Start it where most would shrink away from arguing against it... pornography to "protect the children".
Anyone who would disagree can be painted as a perv.

Agree with posters who state that parents should be the "blockers".
However, in a society where kids under even the age of five ask for and receive cell phones and laptops for their own personal use, the fact that a lot of parents don't really monitor their children's online is an undeniable conclusion.
That still doesn't mean I think that the government should be Big Brother/ Parent.
It means that I think people who allow their kids such items at such a young age better begin to actually
pay attention to said kids, instead of giving in to their every desire and then ignoring what may result.

I was in line at AT&T cellular a few months back and watched a couple in front of me buying iPhones for their 4 year old and 7 year old children ( I overheard the clerk ask how old they were, in an attempt to guide the parents to the "best choices" of phones). I must say I was shocked and the kids were very disrespectful to their parents.

Seeing very young children having these items for their very own makes me wonder why in God's name would these kids need cell phones in the first place, and such expensive ones to boot, with online access readily available on the phones...

Originally posted by justwokeup
Actually the porn industry will love this, the internet is killing them. Think of the DVD sales if the internet is locked down.

I'm in a cynical mood today :-)

no because people will just keep on pirating the dvds and the dvd sales will keep going down as they have been in recent years. The company I work for used to sell tens of thousands of copies of different DVD titles and now its gone down a hell of a lot..the only things that are still making money are live webcam and sex toys, as those cant be pirated.

I can see though if they do this in the UK even webcam profits will suffer, because live webcam sites are generally considered pornography. Not good news for me!

I posted a thread on this earlier DD www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by Xavialune


Thanks for that, interesting. I guess it is possible to be too cynical after all :-)

Better put something in here....

and another thing...

let's pretend it's really really a big issue.


a more effective way(asides spying) would be to simply set by default a type of real time nanny system that would be integrated and block webcams and cellphone cameras and such, because by just blocking websites, what would keep the kids from generating new material...

soon they will outlaw intercourse all together (eugenics comes to mind yeah)

still like others have pointed here, its the parents fault for not raising the kids properly, but its the system's fault for not raising the parents properly..

My personal feeling is that this has VERY little to do with pornography, or 'protecting children' per se, and much more to do with Big brother finding another way to creep in and institute internet policing and control of ANY content.

Start with one subject that many will likely not oppose. Get full control of it. Then onto the next subject, on and on.

This is all about CONTROL.

why is everyone going on about this being a bad thing? The story clearly states that anyone who wishes to vew porn can so by opting in to have those sites unblocked. I dont have a problem with this. I like to watch porn and I can view pretty much anything that porn has to offer for free. Access to porn is easy that even a small child go probably hit a porn site just by having a typo in an internet address. To say parents should be the blockers is laughable unless you are going to peer over their shoulders throughout the time they spend on the net.

Another thing how is this any different than a cable company blocking tv porn channels unless you pay for them? Isps will only be dooing the same type of thing only instead pf paying to view the porn you just ask the isp to unblock your computer.

reply to post by SaturnFX

I don't know...maybe they can't...Britons...are you capable of being parents or do you agree the government must raise your children because you simply do not know how...your government seems to think the whole lot of you are unable to

A lot of them, in my own humble, completely unbiased opinion, are not fit parents. In these cases, though, the grandparents are just about old enough to settle down and start raising children.

Seriously, I don't think that the government raising the nation's children is a good thing. However, somebody has to, and with the number of parents here that have children because they can't be bothered not to, or because if they space their children right they can be eternally on maternity leave, getting paid for a job they spent six months at before the oven went "ding" and out came the bun (so to speak).

And then there are the parents who don't even pretend to have a job, living all day off the money they have because... they're a single parent, unable to afford to feed their children without help and having more babies to pass the time.

So if the government is paying for all these children to be brought up, why shouldn't they decide how to raise them?