Internet porn to be blocked in UK

[Craig_J]

Simulated rape obviously. Actual rape is not even needed to be mentioned for the reasons you stated.

Simulated rape is also wrong imo. Yes they may be actors portraying scenes that they both agree to but the viewer finds a form of fantasy in a person being forced into a sexual act which they do not want to participate in.

It's encouraging a persons fantasy which should not be encouraged at all as rape is wrong on all accounts and to even find it appealing is sick imo.

Games like GTA may portray violence but these games are for audiences of 18+ and by that age you should be able to differentiate a game from reality. Difference is there's no sexual motive being the driving force behind the entertainment.

Unless you pick up a hooker, let her do her thing, kill her and get your money back of course.

 

[Richie]

File-sharing websites EZTV and YIFY Torrents are likely to be made inaccessible in the UK following a ruling by the High Court.

British internet service providers (ISPs) were ordered to block access to the services following legal action by the Federation Against Copyright Theft (Fact) and the Motion Picture Association (MPA).

Both the MPA and Fact claim that they attempted to contact both websites to warn them that they are in breach of copyright laws before taking legal action, TorrentFreak reports.

EZTV and YIFY Torrents are the latest in a string of torrent websites that the High Court has clamped down on, with the likes of Kickass Torrents and The Pirate Bay now restricted by the UK's major ISPs.

The bans are part of a broader initiative to combat piracy online, which also includes cutting off offending websites' revenue stream by preventing them from running advertisements.

It is expected to take around two weeks for British ISPs to implement the blockade

This is so frustrating, IT DOESN'T WORK. The Pirate Bay has been "blocked" for months and all it means is using one extra mouse click to get there. Just google 'Pirate Bay' and the second result is a list of over 100 proxies to get around the so called block.

 

[Richie]

Simulated rape obviously. Actual rape is not even needed to be mentioned for the reasons you stated.

Simulated rape is also wrong imo. Yes they may be actors portraying scenes that they both agree to but the viewer finds a form of fantasy in a person being forced into a sexual act which they do not want to participate in.

It's encouraging a persons fantasy which should not be encouraged at all as rape is wrong on all accounts and to even find it appealing is sick imo.

Games like GTA may portray violence but these games are for audiences of 18+ and by that age you should be able to differentiate a game from reality. Difference is there's no sexual motive being the driving force behind the entertainment.

How do you square this with the science though? As I posted earlier, 40% of women fantasise about rape. I actually urge everyone to read the paper analysing the current literature (from 1973 to 2008), the pdf can be found here . I read it yesterday and found it fascinating. Since it is clear that the prevalence of such fantasies has remained constant over 45 years, it is reasonable to infer that this internet content has had no effect at all.

The research on the topic describes two kinds of 'rape fantasy', erotic and aversive. To quote the aforementioned paper,

'Erotic rape fantasies contain low to moderate levels of fear with no realistic violence. In these fantasies, women typically are approached aggressively by a dominant and attractive male who is overcome with desire for her; she feels or expresses nonconsent and presents minimal resistance; he over-powers her and takes her sexually'.

'Aversive rape fantasies come closer to representing
realistic rape. In these fantasies, the male is more likely to be older, unattractive, and a stranger. These fantasies contain coercive and painful violence, and little or no sexual arousal'

I don't see how stigmatising such a common fantasy amongst women (and men for that matter, as the paper mentions briefly) is to the benefit of anybody.

Also re: The GTA comment, you say it's ok because it is aimed at users over 18 (although I played 18+ games throughout my teens), but still support a ban on other such material for adults.

 

[Richie]

i disagree entirely - children will not be looking for it so won't be inundated with graphic images every time they use a computer = good thing

Let's make this clear, people are massively overestimating what this kind of block can achieve. If you are talking about children "accidently" seeing pornography, this is easily accomplished already. I use AdBlock and I honestly can't remember the last time I saw an advert for anything online, sexual or otherwise. If I am on 'kid friendly' websites, i.e. GG, I will never see anything inappropriate for a child by accident.

This kind of block WILL NOT stop children getting those kind of pop up ads, you need to do that in software. The worst part is that parents will assume that it will, so won't install the kind of software that is needed.

 

[Richie]

And ANOTHER problem, how would this work for a website like Tumblr.com? ISPs can't ban such a legitimate website, but pornography blogs of all sorts are abundant. Again, parents will assume that because the website isn't blocked it is safe, which is most certainly isn't for children. The Vice Den on here is another example.

Such a foolish, foolish idea. It's going to stop parents supervising their kids which is the only measure which will work.

 

[The Moonlit Knight]

Always amused by the storm people have about censorship. People who don't want censorship are usually stuffed full of double standards and that is what I find amusing the most. They don't want censorship....but they are also anti being spied on and don't want CCTV etc. Bit like their attitude towards freedom of speech. They are all for it unless it's something they strongly disagree with like racism and then speech should be censored. The Government's primary responsibility should be to protect its people. And the thing most people need protecting from, is themselves. To be honest, the Government does a lousy job of even that.

As for this? I think its a sledgehammer to crack a nut. I don't think they should ban porn, but it's so readily available that it's a disgrace. An average 13 year old kid should find it almost impossible to find porn on the internet, or at least have access to it. Instead it's almost impossible not to stumble across it by accident. They need to work with ISP's so that rather than a porn page coming up, it comes up with an ISP's page with a warning. On that screen you have to enter a predefined PIN code, just like you do on a Sky box before the watershed.

Naturally an industrious kid will find porn still, but that's unavoidable if they are actively seeking it. But the vast majority of kids wouldn't be that industrious.

As for porn itself, I think surely there has to be a limit on what should be allowed and that limit is obvious. If it's illegal to actually act out, then it should be illegal to own. Of course the conundrum there is the age of consent is 16......

 

[Richie]

Always amused by the storm people have about censorship. People who don't want censorship are usually stuffed full of double standards and that is what I find amusing the most. They don't want censorship....but they are also anti being spied on and don't want CCTV etc. Bit like their attitude towards freedom of speech. They are all for it unless it's something they strongly disagree with like racism and then speech should be censored. The Government's primary responsibility should be to protect its people. And the thing most people need protecting from, is themselves. To be honest, the Government does a lousy job of even that.

As for this? I think its a sledgehammer to crack a nut. I don't think they should ban porn, but it's so readily available that it's a disgrace. An average 13 year old kid should find it almost impossible to find porn on the internet, or at least have access to it. Instead it's almost impossible not to stumble across it by accident. They need to work with ISP's so that rather than a porn page coming up, it comes up with an ISP's page with a warning. On that screen you have to enter a predefined PIN code, just like you do on a Sky box before the watershed.

Naturally an industrious kid will find porn still, but that's unavoidable if they are actively seeking it. But the vast majority of kids wouldn't be that industrious.

First of all, I'm afraid to say your proposal is impossible. It works with Sky because Sky broadcasts all the content, this is in no way similar to how the internet works. I also think you are miles off base if you think kids won't be that industrious. I think a) you overestimate how difficult it will be to actually find porn and b) underestimate how industrious teenage boys would be.

As for your freedom of speech comment, I hope I don't fall in to that category. Personally I believe in the freedom (under the eyes of the law) to say absolutely anything, whether it be considered racist, sexist, homophobic etc... That person will have to deal with the consequences of doing so, but it should not be illegal.

The example I use is the Mohammed cartoons. They caused offence to billions across the arab world, riots and even deaths, should those cartoonists be in prison? Put simply, causing offence should never be a crime.

 

[The Moonlit Knight]

Never heard of websense? The tools are already out there in corporations that block the vast majority of these sites. At the beginning, yes it a lot would creep through. But as they became reported and added to the black list they'd soon start to dwindle.

I don't believe in full freedom speech. It only leads to hate and worse than that, it gives the ignorant the right to preach nonsense and have other lap it up as fact.

 

[Richie]

Never heard of websense? The tools are already out there in corporations that block the vast majority of these sites. At the beginning, yes it a lot would creep through. But as they became reported and added to the black list they'd soon start to dwindle.

I don't believe in full freedom speech. It only leads to hate and worse than that, it gives the ignorant the right to preach nonsense and have other lap it up as fact.

Well I disagree on the freedom of speech issue, but I can at least see and understand the other view.

Back to the topic, you mention software like Websense, I personally have no experience with this kind of software as I don't have kids but I agree with you that there is excellent software available to parents to implement. The reality is that this cannot be done in an opt-out basis from the ISP.

I don't want to get in to the nitty-gritty of how the internet works, but think of it like the postal service, with the user and the website sending letters to each other. The ISP is like the Royal Mail, it only sees the delivery address and return address, not the content of the message. This proposed system will simply stop letters between porn websites and the user based on the addresses.

User installed software can read these "letters" (known as packets in internet lingo) and filter out content based on keywords. This presents an entirely new set of problems, because keyword blocking in very indiscriminate, for example it often blocks sexual health articles. While this could be partially (but not fully) recreated at the ISP level (although would be an outrageous invasion of privacy and would slow UK broadband exponentially), it would still be trivial to avoid with encryption. An example of this kind of encryption is when you order things with credit cards and the little padlock symbol appears, users don't even notice it.

This kind of system is much more powerful when installed by the end user, and again comes back to parental responsibility and supervision. These systems work pretty well in general, but still have their faults. Simply put, it's not something than can be implemented at the ISP level.

 

[Papercut]

Why this fear if kids/teens can't access porn? They'll have to go to mail order catalogues and use their friggin' imagination like anyone use to pre-internet! That or stumble upon some kid's dad's secret porno mag.

Crikey, If I had homework and needed to do research, I had to sometimes visit more than 1 library! you know, make the effort and not just rely on Google. What I'm saying is - if he want to knock one off, go to the library... 8-[

 

[The Moonlit Knight]

Well I disagree on the freedom of speech issue, but I can at least see and understand the other view.

Back to the topic, you mention software like Websense, I personally have no experience with this kind of software as I don't have kids but I agree with you that there is excellent software available to parents to implement. The reality is that this cannot be done in an opt-out basis from the ISP.

I don't want to get in to the nitty-gritty of how the internet works, but think of it like the postal service, with the user and the website sending letters to each other. The ISP is like the Royal Mail, it only sees the delivery address and return address, not the content of the message. This proposed system will simply stop letters between porn websites and the user based on the addresses.

User installed software can read these "letters" (known as packets in internet lingo) and filter out content based on keywords. This presents an entirely new set of problems, because keyword blocking in very indiscriminate, for example it often blocks sexual health articles. While this could be partially (but not fully) recreated at the ISP level (although would be an outrageous invasion of privacy and would slow UK broadband exponentially), it would still be trivial to avoid with encryption. An example of this kind of encryption is when you order things with credit cards and the little padlock symbol appears, users don't even notice it.

This kind of system is much more powerful when installed by the end user, and again comes back to parental responsibility and supervision. These systems work pretty well in general, but still have their faults. Simply put, it's not something than can be implemented at the ISP level.

I know how to configure IIS and Apache servers, and I disagree with you. The ISP servers are not much more than DNS routing servers, that also cache sites which is why you can update your website and if you don't press Ctrl+F5 you may well see an old picture for a few hours.

Just like on a webserver you can block IP addresses from a certain country to ever be able access your site, the ISP's could use a tool like Websense or McAfee Gateway to block access to certain traffic for users without the right access levels. Websense isn't a client based technology, it's server side and it really wouldn't be a hard thing to implement the technology. The hard thing is creating, and maintaining, an accurate up to date database of all the sites you want blocked by default. But that's not that hard either because those databases are already out there. You'd never be able to block them all, but you'd block the easy ones to find so to find others people would have to dig around. If those underground sites then started to get popular it wouldn't take long for them to pop up on the radar and be blocked also.

A lot of standard web hosters don't allow adult content either, and most adult sites are hosted specialised adult hosting networks. Again a simple way would simply be to block all traffic coming from the IP range assigned to the particular hosting company.

 

[Richie]

I know how to configure IIS and Apache servers, and I disagree with you. The ISP servers are not much more than DNS routing servers, that also cache sites which is why you can update your website and if you don't press Ctrl+F5 you may well see an old picture for a few hours.

Just like on a webserver you can block IP addresses from a certain country to ever be able access your site, the ISP's could use a tool like Websense or McAfee Gateway to block access to certain traffic for users without the right access levels. Websense isn't a client based technology, it's server side and it really wouldn't be a hard thing to implement the technology. The hard thing is creating, and maintaining, an accurate up to date database of all the sites you want blocked by default. But that's not that hard either because those databases are already out there. You'd never be able to block them all, but you'd block the easy ones to find so to find others people would have to dig around. If those underground sites then started to get popular it wouldn't take long for them to pop up on the radar and be blocked also.

A lot of standard web hosters don't allow adult content either, and most adult sites are hosted specialised adult hosting networks. Again a simple way would simply be to block all traffic coming from the IP range assigned to the particular hosting company.

I'm afraid you're both right and wrong. You're right when you say its just like banning IP addresses from a certain country accessing content on a website, but you're naive if you think that is any sort of significant obstacle.

There are a multiude of very simply ways around these measures. I use the modify headers extension to set the X-FORWARDED-FOR value in the packet header to watch US Only content on websites. I believe some upstairs use proxies or VPNs to watch country restricted Al-Jazeera football.

None of this is difficult to setup and takes mere minutes.

Again, look to the Pirate Bay for how this is working in action, its been IP blocked since December. A simple Google search will reveal over 100 proxies across the world set up to access it.

If they can't make it work for a single website, they can't make it work for thousands of porn sites. And even if they could, you can still use the Pirate Bay

 

[The Moonlit Knight]

I'm afraid you're both right and wrong. You're right when you say its just like banning IP addresses from a certain country accessing content on a website, but you're naive if you think that is any sort of significant obstacle.

There are a multiude of very simply ways around these measures. I use the modify headers extension to set the X-FORWARDED-FOR value in the packet header to watch US Only content on websites. I believe some upstairs use proxies or VPNs to watch country restricted Al-Jazeera football.

None of this is difficult to setup and takes mere minutes.

Again, look to the Pirate Bay for how this is working in action, its been IP blocked since December. A simple Google search will reveal over 100 proxies across the world set up to access it.

If they can't make it work for a single website, they can't make it work for thousands of porn sites. And even if they could, you can still use the Pirate Bay

I agree that proxies will help get around the issue but what I am saying is that 90% of people won't know how to use them. The government will be well aware that they won't stop everyone, and they won't stop the determined either, but what it will stop is kids randomly chancing upon sites.

You chat on a forum because you are tech savvy. Most Spurs fans don't even know forums exist. The same will apply to using proxies to access other sites.

 

[Richie]

I agree that proxies will help get around the issue but what I am saying is that 90% of people won't know how to use them. The government will be well aware that they won't stop everyone, and they won't stop the determined either, but what it will stop is kids randomly chancing upon sites.

You chat on a forum because you are tech savvy. Most Spurs fans don't even know forums exist. The same will apply to using proxies to access other sites.

It is very simple already to stop children accidently accessing these kinds of websites, any parent can do that in 5 minutes. And honestly, I don't think I've ever accidently stumbled on to a dedicated porn site.

What this measure won't do is stop porn (or gambling, alcohol etc...) ads from popping up, and that is far more of a concern for parents. That needs to be done by parents as the end user, and leaving them to think the government will take care of it is exactly the wrong message to send. Again though, this only really happens if you're on a dodgy website to begin with.

As for your 90% figure, I just don't agree. Teens looking for porn are perfectly capable of following a few instructions to setup a proxy even if they don't understand what or why they are doing so. Even that may not be necessary, there will be proxies/mirrors that they can use like normal websites.

I think we both agree this won't stop anyone who really wants to find porn, and letting parents think it will is going to make the situation worse not better. Parents need to set up software filters and supervise thier children, and this proposal will result in thousands if not millions of parents not realising it, simply assuming the government has taken care of it.

 

[Baleforce]

dont get bogged down with the details, this isn't about industrious 13 year olds, its about innocent 5 year olds

(not that i think this is the right solution, but I don't think this is meant to be a catch all)

 

[AuroRaman]

Why this fear if kids/teens can't access porn? They'll have to go to mail order catalogues and use their friggin' imagination like anyone use to pre-internet! That or stumble upon some kid's dad's secret porno mag.

Crikey, If I had homework and needed to do research, I had to sometimes visit more than 1 library! you know, make the effort and not just rely on Google. What I'm saying is - if he want to knock one off, go to the library... 8-[

:ross:

 

[Richie]

dont get bogged down with the details, this isn't about industrious 13 year olds, its about innocent 5 year olds

(not that i think this is the right solution, but I don't think this is meant to be a catch all)

The only adult content that anybody gets exposed to when not looking for it (as presumably 5 year olds won't be) is through pop up ads. This proposal will do exactly nothing to combat that problem.

 

[Spursalot]

dont get bogged down with the details, this isn't about industrious 13 year olds, its about innocent 5 year olds

(not that i think this is the right solution, but I don't think this is meant to be a catch all)

How many five year olds do you know that regularly browse the internet?

 

[Rock Strongo]

How many five year olds do you know that regularly browse the internet?

Here are the statistics for general internet use among children in the U.S.:

23% of parents of children between ages 0 and 5 in the U.S. say their children use the Internet
82% of those children use it on at least a weekly basis
At age 3, about one-quarter of children go online daily
By age 5, about half of children go online daily
By age 8, more than two-thirds use the Internet on any given weekday
In a typical day, about 30% of 3-to-5-year-old children use the Internet, compared with about 50% of 6-to-9-year- olds
Children ages 5 to 9 average about 28 minutes online daily
In 2009, children ages 8 to 10 spent about 46 minutes on a computer every day (more than double the 19 minutes this group spent online daily in 2006)
Children are using multiple forms of media at once – a 2010 Nielsen study suggests that 36% of children between the ages of 2 and 11 use television and the internet simultaneously