UK Government Changes Tack and Demands Default Porn Block 163
judgecorp writes "British Prime Minister David Cameron is set to reverse a policy announced last week, and demand that ISPs filter adult content by default. This system would require users to actively opt out of a filter designed to block adult content and material about self-harm. Last week, after consultation with parents, the Department for Education had said that an opt-in system would be sufficient and no default porn block would be required, but the Daily Mail has announced triumphantly that Cameron will be presenting the policy in the paper. MP Claire Perry, who has argued for the block, will be in charge — and freedom of speech campaigners have branded the sudden change of mind as 'chaotic.'"
Re:Wow! The UK is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Orwell was a brit. Stands to reason....
Orwell was a bloody optimist.
Re:Wow! The UK is... (Score:4, Insightful)
things have become untenable.
Oh gods, I have to tell that that I want to be able to view adult content! This position is untenable!
Despite the US being far from perfect, at least I have the freedom to do pretty much whatever I want as long as life and property are respected.
I live in the UK, and I also have that freedom. I also had a few freedoms a lot earlier than I would have had them in the US:
UK public drinking age: 18
US: 21
UK public smoking age: 16
US: 18
UK age of consent/adulthood: 16
US: 18
Tell me, which is closer to being a "totalitarian state".. the country with an opt-out porn filter, or the one where the government can do whatever the fuck it wants, whenever it wants - without telling anyone - via the PATRIOT act? How can you be so hypocritical?
RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
none of this is true....
Morons (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking as a British citizen, one with two small children (aged 7 and 8), my take is that my government is acting like a bunch of morons. They're allowing themselves to be led by the Daily Mail - a newspaper that has a long track record of spouting an ultra-conservative line that includes rabid xenophobia and plain and simple hatred of a significant proportion of the UK population. This move is not about making a rational choice, it's simply all about securing votes - the Daily Mail's readership are exclusively Conservative party voters, David Cameron's party.
I'm strongly against net filtering. Implementing mandatory filtering is the thin end of the wedge. It will not be long before there's complaints and campaigns by the likes of the Daily Mail complaining about inappropriate material that is not being filtered. How long will it be before Wikipedia gets banned? That site is packed full of very adult material that some will find objectionable. And what about the BBC News covering stories about pedophilia? And all the swearing in YouTube videos? Google searches can link through to objectionable material, complete with previews, so shouldn't that be banned too? Even without such encroachment into areas that rational people can see as being innocuous, filtering still ends up being a blunt weapon, filtering out sites that deal with issues such as contraception and abortion since they fall under the label of "sex". If kids can't do research into such things then the problems we have in this country of teenage pregnancy can only get worse.
As an example of such blunt filtering, I recently used a wifi network at a local church that had filtering enabled on their connection. They wanted to prevent childrens groups that met there from accessing things they deemed as being objectionable material. The end result was that almost every single link off of the church's own website was blocked. They saw the light after a few weeks and disabled the filtering.
If this move happens I will be opting out of the filtering. That in itself makes me nervous - some people will assume that because I've done that I must be a bad parent. That sadly is exactly the kind of false conclusion that an average Daily Mail reader will reach.
Re:And (Score:5, Insightful)
My point is that it's difficult to define pornography because it always comes down to one's own perspective. Someone might find some fetish work to be art because of some characteristic of the fetish that requires skill to wear or display or carry out, while others will simply see it as pornography without any consideration for the craftsmanship. Even basic nude photography without any hypersexualized intent can fall into this, where some see an image of a naked person as pornography, while others look at the composition of the photograph for focus, lighting, lens selection, background content or props, the work put into the model in hair and makeup, posing, even the particular selection of the model as being able to have artistic merit. It's also possible for those same characteristics to apply to an image or a work that is of something sexual.
Do I believe that parents should have both the right and the responsibility to control their children's exposure to content? Absolutely. Do I believe that it's the State's job to do that? No, I don't.
Re:And (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe because there's a strong correlation, when speaking in terms of population, between how religious one is and how likely one is to be offended by the sight of a nipple. Or in some cultures, an ankle.
Now remember, correlation causation! But in this case, I'd put my money on "sure it does", if I were a betting man.
Re:And (Score:3, Insightful)
Man, I WISH I could default block all religious content.
THAT stuff is offensive.
Re:Morons (Score:4, Insightful)
Nail. Head.
The very MINUTE a celebrity turns 18 (sometimes even earlier), they're hung on the Daily Mail's wall of shame, often with a headline in the vein of: "Ooh! Look! Celebrity X is all grown up! Here's some hawt pix!!!".
You can practically hear the heavy breathing in articles like this [dailymail.co.uk] where the young age of the actress is the focus of the article. Seems odd for a newspaper that claims to campaign against the sexualization and commercialization of childhood, right?
Then there's the straight up porn stories. I mean.. wtf? [dailymail.co.uk]
Just have a scroll down the "FEMAIL" column on the right of any page. The "articles" listed there really say it all.
They're hypocritical bastards of the worst kind.
Re:And (Score:5, Insightful)
from times where the human body was the sculpture of God incarnate.
Hahahahhahahahhahaha!
You are in good fooling today, sir.
Either that or you are _amazingly_ and I mean AMAZINGLY ignorant of history. Or, indeed, the human condition. I'll let you in on a little secret about people:
nothing is new.
Lest you leave this thread believing that people in ye olde days were somehow less interested in sex, porn and all else, let me hand you a few links.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Hill [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma,_Lady_Hamilton [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caligula [wikipedia.org]
And do you really think those nude paintings are for some pure, religious perspective about how the human body is god incarnate? My god that's naive.
I'll bet you believe people when they read Playboy for the the articles, too. Or read the Sun for the sports.