Pornography, children, the internet and Ed Vaizey.

[Rakomu]

If you're in the UK, you will have no doubt heard of Ed Vaizey, member of parliament for Wantage & Didcot, who proposed the abolition of net neutrality. Now he wants ISPs to block all pornography from their customers unless the customers express a desire for the block to be removed. This is apparently to protect children from the evils of the internet. However this idea has raised several questions in my mind and I'd like to hear your opinions on the subject too.

1. Does 'normal' pornography actually harm children? Or is it only violent, torture videos? Most of the sites I have seen about this seem legit at first, but then start talking about 'changing a child's sexuality' and 'damaging the institution of marriage', which smacks of the Christian right.

2. Is it even possible to block pornography without either blocking loads of non-pornographic stuff or letting lots of pornographic stuff through?

3. Who decides how explicit something must be for it to be blocked? Aren't values like this a personal thing?

4. Surely it's the parents' responsibility to install a porn block in the home? What happened to personal responsibility?

 

[AdmiralPeacock]

Only people who do not understand what the internet is and what it's potential is suggest such idiocy.

 

[SpaceCDT]

4. Surely it's the parents' responsibility to install a porn block in the home? What happened to personal responsibility?[/color]

Absolutely right, but when has the govt ever been in favor of citizens taking responsibility? Eg, banning drugs, making seatbelts compulsory.
Here in australia we call it the "nanny state", I don't know if the term is used elsewhere but it pretty much sums it up.

 

[Prolescum]

Yeah, Vaisey's an idiot, like most ministers. I think it's a prerequisite for a position in government.

This is the kind of thing that'll block stuff that has even a whiff of an adult theme and probably beyond. A website I own that only has some of my crap on it (nothing pornographic at all) will probably fall foul because it has the word adult in it.

My MP (a n00b and a Tory) is probably getting right pissed off with me writing to him every month with a different cause for complaint. Still, that's what the bastard is paid for...

 

[australopithecus]

(a n00b and a Tory)

Tautology :lol:

 

[ImprobableJoe]

1. Does 'normal' pornography actually harm children? Or is it only violent, torture videos? Most of the sites I have seen about this seem legit at first, but then start talking about 'changing a child's sexuality' and 'damaging the institution of marriage', which smacks of the Christian right.

Possibly, for a given definition of "harm". It all depends on the age, frequency of exposure, and the child's innate tolerance for it.

2. Is it even possible to block pornography without either blocking loads of non-pornographic stuff or letting lots of pornographic stuff through?

No.

3. Who decides how explicit something must be for it to be blocked? Aren't values like this a personal thing?

The most obnoxiously prudish will be the ones to try to set the standard. And yeah, these things should be left to responsible adults.

4. Surely it's the parents' responsibility to install a porn block in the home? What happened to personal responsibility?

There's no problem with governments regulating some things for the general protection and welfare of the citizenry. For things that are as easy as flipping a switch on or off, it seems like people can handle that for themselves.

 

[Prolescum]

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/12/21/who-is-behind-the-porn-block-campaign/

Typical.

 

[Mapp]

Sounds like he's trying to pass the British version of the Comstock Laws. The problem is, he's about 9 decades too late to get away with it. There's simply no realistic way to hold IPs responsible for the behavior of their customers. It's not going to be possible. This is moralistic posturing. It's the kind of moral posturing that seems to come from the morally bankrupt on the left. On the right, the morally bankrupt settle for things like jingoism and flag burning. On the left it invariably runs to luddite attacks on the internet or videogames, or whatever terrible new bogey man makes them "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!"

 

[lrkun]

If you're in the UK, you will have no doubt heard of Ed Vaizey, member of parliament for Wantage & Didcot, who proposed the abolition of net neutrality. Now he wants ISPs to block all pornography from their customers unless the customers express a desire for the block to be removed. This is apparently to protect children from the evils of the internet. However this idea has raised several questions in my mind and I'd like to hear your opinions on the subject too.

1. Does 'normal' pornography actually harm children? Or is it only violent, torture videos? Most of the sites I have seen about this seem legit at first, but then start talking about 'changing a child's sexuality' and 'damaging the institution of marriage', which smacks of the Christian right.

2. Is it even possible to block pornography without either blocking loads of non-pornographic stuff or letting lots of pornographic stuff through?

3. Who decides how explicit something must be for it to be blocked? Aren't values like this a personal thing?

4. Surely it's the parents' responsibility to install a porn block in the home? What happened to personal responsibility?

Neat. I do hope it comes into fruition.

 

[Jotto999]

4. Surely it's the parents' responsibility to install a porn block in the home? What happened to personal responsibility?[/color]

Absolutely right, but when has the govt ever been in favor of citizens taking responsibility? Eg, banning drugs, making seatbelts compulsory.
Here in australia we call it the "nanny state", I don't know if the term is used elsewhere but it pretty much sums it up.

I've seen and used it a few times. The term does sum it up. I assume parents have enough responsibility to either do something about it themselves, or to not worry about something that isn't a big deal. I know not all of them are, it's just that ideally, they would be.

Damn nanny state, we don't need you holding our hand to cross the street.

 

[Netheralian]

4. Surely it's the parents' responsibility to install a porn block in the home? What happened to personal responsibility?[/color]

Absolutely right, but when has the govt ever been in favor of citizens taking responsibility? Eg, banning drugs, making seatbelts compulsory.
Here in australia we call it the "nanny state", I don't know if the term is used elsewhere but it pretty much sums it up.

It's called duty of care and the government certainly has one towards it's people, just like any work environment has one towards it's employees. E.g.. seatbelts and their wearing must be enforced not just provided in cars for the safety of people with them given the choice of wearing it or not. Also because in this case there is a cost benefit for enforcing seatbelts in a country that operates around social health care.

The question is whether or not the government has a duty of care to protect its people from Porn by more than just classification.

 

[nemesiss]

If you're in the UK, you will have no doubt heard of Ed Vaizey, member of parliament for Wantage & Didcot, who proposed the abolition of net neutrality. Now he wants ISPs to block all pornography from their customers unless the customers express a desire for the block to be removed. This is apparently to protect children from the evils of the internet. However this idea has raised several questions in my mind and I'd like to hear your opinions on the subject too.

1. Does 'normal' pornography actually harm children? Or is it only violent, torture videos? Most of the sites I have seen about this seem legit at first, but then start talking about 'changing a child's sexuality' and 'damaging the institution of marriage', which smacks of the Christian right.

2. Is it even possible to block pornography without either blocking loads of non-pornographic stuff or letting lots of pornographic stuff through?

3. Who decides how explicit something must be for it to be blocked? Aren't values like this a personal thing?

4. Surely it's the parents' responsibility to install a porn block in the home? What happened to personal responsibility?

1 question, can ANYONE find a peer-reviewed paper to proof that WATCHING porn harms children..?

not talking about child-pornography, because children who had been abused are physically and mentally hurt.
but thats a different subject.
however, almost ANYONE will agree that pedophelia is wrong and that preventing spreading of such content should best be made impossible.
One could make the argument that this is being hypocritical about net-neutrality, however no possible benefits for pedophelia are known (to me).

even if it was somehow possible to block porn completely, people will ways to get it anyway.
perhaps it'll help the dvd/blue-ray market if downloading/watch porn becomes too difficult.
but this way porn will still enter the house and still be (readily) available for children, shifting the problem in a different direction making the attempts thus far taken futile.

 

[TheGreekDollmaker]

1. Does 'normal' pornography actually harm children? Or is it only violent, torture videos? Most of the sites I have seen about this seem legit at first, but then start talking about 'changing a child's sexuality' and 'damaging the institution of marriage', which smacks of the Christian right.

Yeah, surely exposing our child to our biological imberetive and purpose in life will scar them so much that they will almost immidiatly become homosexual lustful pederasts.(There should be a sarcasm botton in this system goddamit).
I never understood the mentality of not exposing your child to porn, as if to say that learning about their body and hitting puberty is something of a taboo.Also apparently a child seing a dick on screen will of course change his sexuallity instantly turning him into a homosexual.

I always personally thought that in the bases of all of us, we are really bisexuals.The moment we see something that reminds us of sex regardless of gender, we hit up.The human mind is just like that, hardwired to think of sex and all of our desicions are based around that or death (biologically).

Too deny that would be too deny your own sexuallity.Thats why you see teenagers going around fucking everything up.Some of them are sexually supressed and cannot have sex or view pornography.

2. Is it even possible to block pornography without either blocking loads of non-pornographic stuff or letting lots of pornographic stuff through?

Considering the whole fucking Zetabytes of content in the Internet, blocking each and everyone of them is IMPOSIBLE without atleast blocking a shit ton of other non-pornographic stuff.

3. Who decides how explicit something must be for it to be blocked? Aren't values like this a personal thing?

Good point.I mean is sofcore porn still Pornography?
What about showing tits?
Is gay Softcore banned even if its softcore?
What about Artist material?
Im an artist and sometimes i need to see real naked people on the internet to improve my artistic skills.
Do i need to get tampered, just because little billy might see a vigina, the same fucking this his organism is designed to mate too?Really?

4. Surely it's the parents' responsibility to install a porn block in the home? What happened to personal responsibility?

The UK goverment thinks that their citizens are too fucking stupid to actually take care of their children, effectivly making the situation worse.

The internet is the only network of things that has gone uncontrolled.TV, Music,Movies,Comics and Videogames recently have all been the subject of use and cencorship/propaganda by the Goverments to effectivly spread fear about anything they didnt like.First it was Communists,than it was Deliquents,now its Terroists.

The internet through has remained the only network where no goverment can control it.Thats why shit like 4chan can go uncontrolled.

The death of all of us will be when Internet 3.0 rules around and anomisity will be eradicated.That will be the true fucking death of freedom.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

1 question, can ANYONE find a peer-reviewed paper to proof that WATCHING porn harms children..?

I know I've seen a couple, but it is hard to find one because you have to wade through mountains of nonsense to get to one of the relatively few decent papers out there. From what I recall from reading though, the harm comes from tons of exposure at a very young age along with parents not helping put things in perspective. I've never read anything to suggest that a 13 year old seeing a couple of porn mags is somehow harmful.

 

[Giliell]

Well, before I'm hit with a wall of flame, let's make it clear first that I find the proposed law ridiculous on all possible levels.
But I find it kind of ausing that you'll get the same stereotype reactions whenever porn is mentioned from both sides of the debate. Conservative christians will blame it for every evil in this world including draughts and heavy rainfalls while the pro-porn side will never find any fault with it.

1. Does 'normal' pornography actually harm children? Or is it only violent, torture videos? Most of the sites I have seen about this seem legit at first, but then start talking about 'changing a child's sexuality' and 'damaging the institution of marriage', which smacks of the Christian right.

Any age-inappropriate content is bad for a child, that's why people bother to figure out what's age appropriate in the first place. This is true for any media-content, not just porn. People seem to forget that children are not small adults. Their level of understanding isn't that of an adult, their ability to differenciate between TV and reality has to develop over time. Small children cannot understand at all that TV isn't real. When they become older they learn that cartoons aren't really happening, they learn that dragons only exist in fantasy and so on. Now movies playing in "the real world" are the most difficult thing. Because often they show stories that could happen that way. And it is hard for them to figure out which ones are the possible, the probable and the very unreal stories. And, since I'm not really into porn and have only seen a few examples you can prove me wrong here, porn usually doesn't depict very probable or real scenarios and this is where the danger lies for adolescents who are finding out about their sexuality: they're getting the wrong message.
There's usually nothing about STDs, teen-pregnancies, or sexual problems of any kind except the problem of "I can't get enough sex" in there. I don't know any studies but I know that charities here in Germany that work with kids from very bad social backgrounds are alerting that those kids have at the same time a very irresponsible sexual behaviour and a lot of access to porn (most of the time with parental consent because they fall into the group of "it's the most natural thing in this world").

2. Is it even possible to block pornography without either blocking loads of non-pornographic stuff or letting lots of pornographic stuff through?

No idea, but you could look at the avaible programs that parents can install on their computers to block pron from their kids.

4. Surely it's the parents' responsibility to install a porn block in the home? What happened to personal responsibility?

<i></i>

I don't buy this argument in general when people are talking about kids because it somehow implies that children are the property of their parents and that if the parents are fucked up the child can be fucked up, too.
You see, the ones not carrying out their duties aren't the ones being hurt by it.
Nobody has a problem with protecting adults from harm other adults might inflict on them, being by buildings bombs in their basements or polluting a river with dangerous chemicals. But whenever the state wants to tell parents what and what not to do with their children people freak out.
Is it the parents' responsibility to make sure their kids are sitting in an age-appropriate seat wearing a seat-belt? Yes!
Is it the parents' choice to decide whether such actions are necessary at all? No!

And you can't just take away the children because their parents fail in one area but are generally ok in other areas and have a good relationship with them. There are way too many kids in foster homes and institutions already, they don't generally promise a good outcome.

 

[Demojen]

Not to derail this post too much but I just wanted to respond to one individual comment for clarification.

"almost ANYONE will agree that pedophilia is wrong and that preventing spreading of such content should best be made impossible."

By anyone are you saying anyone on this forum or in the world?
On this forum, maybe, but in the world, absolutely not. Maybe even in most of North America, but there is a huge disparity between countries throughout the rest of the planet on what constitutes child abuse.

What's more, due to the inflammatory nature of the subject matter for extremists, the debate over this issue is rarely ever brought into a civil arena to be discussed.

If you or I or anyone even whispered that there is still something to discuss on the subject matter, it often is the case that the one raising the issue is labeled and strung up with very little consideration for their position or arguments.

But back to the subject of this post:
That seems to be how a lot of politicians in the UK treat their own people on anything they don't agree with. "If you don't agree with me, you're evil and that only makes me more passionately want to kill you."

1. Does 'normal' pornography actually harm children?

I'm going to say no, but this largely depends on up bringing. There is a right way and a wrong way to teach sex education. Exploiting children is not conducive to producing a child with a full awareness and appreciation for the nuances of human behavior in such a way as to educate them to be prepared for and deal with the dangers inherent in the world beyond their front door. Of course, I always believe too much of a good thing is a bad thing.

2. Is it even possible to block pornography without either blocking loads of non-pornographic stuff or letting lots of pornographic stuff through?

No it's not possible. If one thing is for certain, pornography distributors are a determined bunch. They will adapt and go underground or deceive and install to computers through back doors hidden in non-adult sites.

3. Who decides how explicit something must be for it to be blocked? Aren't values like this a personal thing?

While I'd love to say parents decide, ultimately giving this sort of authority to a government body means that some interest group is going to decide for you.

4. Surely it's the parents' responsibility to install a porn block in the home? What happened to personal responsibility?

Personal responsibility is thrown out the window in favor of securities guaranteed by interest groups. Happens all the time. Wake up and smell the Gestapo.

 

[nemesiss]

Not to derail this post too much but I just wanted to respond to one individual comment for clarification.

"almost ANYONE will agree that pedophilia is wrong and that preventing spreading of such content should best be made impossible."

By anyone are you saying anyone on this forum or in the world?
On this forum, maybe, but in the world, absolutely not. Maybe even in most of North America, but there is a huge disparity between countries throughout the rest of the planet on what constitutes child abuse.

What's more, due to the inflammatory nature of the subject matter for extremists, the debate over this issue is rarely ever brought into a civil arena to be discussed.

If you or I or anyone even whispered that there is still something to discuss on the subject matter, it often is the case that the one raising the issue is labeled and strung up with very little consideration for their position or arguments.

indeed it was with focus on the forum, but also the western civilization ( western europe and north america) where pedophelia is frowned upon.
the reason i added it to the conversation was to broaden it, because most people wouldn't immediantly think about it, certainly in regards of net neutrality.
but it pornography people (here) would like to have block, which also make people think on what they mean when they are talking about sex.

 

[Hedley]

The question number 1 seems to be interesting!
HOWEVER it is illegal to expose little children to porn!
The science DO NOT care if something is illegal or not, however the scientist will have problem whether they are discovered doing some stuff!

 

[MineMineMine]

the fun thing is the web is too big to manually block sites so you have to use an automatic filter. Those filters will block also anti- pornography sites because they use the word porn and adult and whatnot a lot.


And why do these people believe that porn is so evil it must be banned?