UK's block on internet pron: what do you think?

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

Seems like a pretty stupid idea, if I'm honest. Porn isn't some evil, corrupting entity that turns good little children into sex-fiends and rapists. It can provide an outlet to vent the sexual tensions children get as they hit puberty. The only time it really does ill is when porn is that child's ONLY reference when it comes to sex, which may lead to some confusion when they get to the deed itself. The solution to this would be to make children aware of sex and the do's and do-nots by putting a better sex education program in the schools. For me, we had maybe 1 or 2 sex-ed lessons throughout secondary school, all of which had the boys and girls split up to talk about stuff we had already realised in the 3-4 years of puberty we had already been going through. I didn't really get any kind of good sex education until I came across stuff on the internet like Sexplanations on Youtube about a month ago. That is god damn ridiculous! Getting rid of outlets for sexual tensions and refusing to improve the education and understanding of sex will only lead to more problems.

 

[lacktheknack]

As I said before, it should be opt-IN, not opt-OUT.

That said, people are concerned that they're going to be on the "perverts list"... guys, you got on there the instant your IP touched a porn site.

 

[Doclector]

People can insult, and make jokes all they like, but at the end of the day, these things need an outlet. It's only healthy.

I love porn as much as the next....Three or four people, but if you seriously think it's that tied to your emotional well-being, saying "it's only healthy" seems a touch off.

No jokes or insults, but at that point, have you considered you might have a problem?

No, I'm not "addicted". There's no routine to it, I don't jack off whenever I get the opportunity, it's just that, being a human male, I sometimes get the urge, and it seems to go away a lot easier if I jack off while watching porn. Would be preferable if I could just turn my libido off without cutting off equipment to which I'm rather attached, but that's biology for you.

All I'm saying is that anything bottled up for too long is bad, and being an ugly son of a *****, it ain't exactly as if I'm gonna be getting a girlfriend anytime soon.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

The OP has asked that we put aside whether it will work or not, which is fair enough, I think we all know it wouldn't.

I also think that ISPs should ideally be completely free of consequence for what content their users access. I'm all for freedom on the user end and personal choice, to the point where I think in many cases we are unnecessarily restrictive of people's rights to what content they can see, be it pornography or horror movies or whatnot. The only reason the current ratings and age filters system 'works' is because it's so blatantly easy to get around. Even though I'm the legal age for anything in Australia, I still put in an age well over 21 if I'm ever asked for it on the internet, because I know it's about to try and restrict some content, and I've always done that. I think freedom of access to content that may be disturbing to some encourages an attitude of sensibility when it comes to what you do and don't see. If a 12-year-old thinks they can handle a horror movie, fine. There are 12-year-olds who can. If it's too much for them, what happens? They watch dozens more until they're traumatised for life? No, they stop watching horror movies. Rather than be told by nebulous authorities what is and isn't appropriate for you based on your age, not your maturity, people should learn through experience, and have a grounded understanding of why things are appropriate or inappropriate. And it gets rid of the whole enticing illegality of watching a movie you're deemed "too young" to see as well. I'm not saying content shouldn't be labelled broadly as what it is on the box, but I don't think age restrictions should come into it. Although perhaps if couples are taking their 3-year-old to horror movies and it results in psychological damage it could be an issue of negligence.

Basically restricting content before it gets to users takes away agency and responsibility and creates an atmosphere where people don't get a realistic idea of their own tastes.

As for porn in particular, ridiculous. I did a google search and there's studies aplenty both ways, so fuck that. But my personal opinion is that porn probably relieves stress that would otherwise be used for actual sexual acts, leading to more unexpected pregnancies as children mature younger, taken to the logical extremity. Furthermore, a lot of the more social or image concerns some people associate with porn are more an issue of popular media. If anything, ban womens' magazines. As for violent porn and that leading to violence and sexist attitudes, that's basically akin to violence in videogames. I think people have the ability to differentiate between porn and real life, and respect the rights of others in real life thanks to the law. Murder and rape are still formidably not allowed no matter how much media you consume in which they're rampant.

I don't know how my post got so long.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

Everybody quick then, start harvesting porn if you're not doing it already.

I've already got shitloads of it saved on my pen drive. But please, Mr. Cameron, don't put me in jail for looking at breasts!

Also, btw, the sexualisation of children isn?t because of porn. It?s because of magazines scrutinising models for not being underweight and indirectly causing numerous teenage girls to develop body dysphoria and/or anorexia, as well as those pop stars like Lady Gaga and Rihanna who practically rely on sex appeal to sell records. Not to mention we need better sex ed and become more mature about sex as a nation, and then we can lower the age of consent to 13. The Netherlands have, and yet they don?t have countless teenagers popping out sprogs like a gumball machine. Why? Because they?re more open about sex, and don?t instantly condemn it as ?depraved?.

So yeah, Dave, you might get a bunch of incompetent parents, radical feminists, and sexually insecure men to vote for you, but that?s still at the cost of turning away many liberal voters, sex-positive feminists, and single men. Plus, this could just get already tech-savvy kids even more interested in porn because the forbidden fruit is more ripe.

But of course, not many people in the public eye are going to speak against this, because they?ll just look like some pervert who wants to jack off in the privacy of his home freely without being accused of paedophilia. Meanwhile, 9-year-old Timmy is having nightmares about Saw because his parents were in the bedroom not taking responsibility for the bastard they brought into the world and expected everyone else to care for.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Everybody quick then, start harvesting porn if you're not doing it already.

I've already got shitloads of it saved on my porn drive. But please, Mr. Cameron, don't put me in jail for looking at breasts!

I love it we don't just harvest it, we have DRIVES for it.

 

[Milkman Jim]

I'm not sure if I think this is a good idea or not.

As others have suggested, people have their desires so taking pornography away may well lead to more underage sex, and even an increase in sex offenses, God forbid.

Regardless of if it's a good idea or not, there's one thing I believe strongly. They will simply not be able to block pornography! They tried to block PirateBay and other torrent sites in the past. Most ISP's haven't even bothered with that (mine included). Even if the ISP did block these sites, there will ALWAYS be a way of getting to it. Be that incredibly simple proxy servers or anything more sophisticated, they can never stop it completely. People in other countries could easily make proxies and sites that UK residents could easily access. My point being, realistically, it's the internet and even governments will have an excruciatingly hard time telling people which websites not to visit. Whatever thy implement for the porn filters, they will be worked around.

Blocking it though, if it even works properly, would be good in one sense. That young people won't be thinking of sex in the wrong sort of way that porn shows it.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

Everybody quick then, start harvesting porn if you're not doing it already.

I've already got shitloads of it saved on my porn drive. But please, Mr. Cameron, don't put me in jail for looking at breasts!

I love it we don't just harvest it, we have DRIVES for it.

Shite, I meant to say "pen drive" (although a shockingly vast amount of data on my pen drive is porn, I won't lie). But yeah, haha.

I also want to say that I'll be voting for the Green Party in 2015. I'm not that knowledgeable about politics, but I read many of their policies and they seem pretty good. Too bad they won't have a chance of winning anyway, but I just don't think I'll be able to bring myself to voting for any of the main three parties (Labour, Conservatives, and the Lib Dems).

Blocking it though, if it even works properly, would be good in one sense. That young people won't be thinking of sex in the wrong sort of way that porn shows it.

Maybe this is why we should have better sex ed, and perhaps even at a younger age (at least, once the UK matures his attitude towards sex). I mean, are most teenagers, at least, really that retarded that they can discern the difference between porn, which is fantasy, and real-life sex, which is reality and relies much more on relationships than "pizza delivery boy* knocks on door, hot blonde girl pulls him in, they have condom-less sex".

*Bit off-topic, but I've always wanted why that was a fantasy. Most pizza delivery boys I've seen were either plain-looking, or greasy teens.

Even when I was, like, 9 and I watched a video of a man fucking an unconscious woman (btw, I'm pretty sure most "rape porn" is simulated; it's barely a step above the stuff you see on Brazzers and, otherwise, it'd be just as illegal as child porn) with my friend on his computer in the basement, I understood that I'd never do that kind of thing in real life, since my parents brought me up to know doing something to someone without their permission is wrong (especially something as risky as sex). I just found it arousing, and that's all that legal porn is designed for.

 

[Warlock41]

I think this vid sums the argument up perfectly:


This is not about "corroding childhood" as the PM says, it's about control. Nothing more, nothing less. The British people shouldn't stand for this, there's not telling what they'll try and block for our own good in the future.

 

[funnydude6556]

Well, I always knew Cameron deserved to die, so this doesn't change my opinion on him one bit.

However, it does add to the long list of reasons.

For one, we all remember how crap the filters in school were. You need to look up a horror film review for an essay, but they've blocked "bloody disgusting" a popular source for such things, on the asssumption that it's porn. Meanwhile, jimmy at the back of the class is watching some hardcore porn on a site the filter's never heard of, likely infecting the system with a virus in the first place.

For another, well, I'm 22. I'm a virgin. Of course I watch porn, I'd dare say it's crucial to my wellbeing. I'm actually getting a little worried that I may actually go insane at some point in the future if the supply is cut off. Sure, you can "opt out" but who wants to have that conversation with their flatmates, or their parents? And since when has calling your ISP to get anything done been easy?

People can insult, and make jokes all they like, but at the end of the day, these things need an outlet. It's only healthy.

Exactly. I can easily say if they put this into place I'll just have to start punching people and setting things on fire to replace the porn.

 

[Laughing Man]

It won't stop anything and it is a stupid waste of money and resources that could be better spent on

You're not the only person to say this, can I highlight something.

As it stands this is not a law, this is not the government pushing through the agenda so the actually cost being diverted away from other more needed public resources is very little. The worrying thing is that as it stands this is a lot more sinister, because this is actually the government using it's position to threaten the likes of Google and ISPs to implement the block, their is no law as it stands the statement basically amounts to, if you don't implement these blocks of your own accord THEN we will be forced to take action to make it a law and then you will have no choice.

That is a much more scary tactic, you have a government using it's position to threaten legitimate companies to do what it wants with no backing of law.

Right here and right now we need our ISPs to stand up to the government and tell it to go f*ck itself (but don't record it and show it on the internet cause you know, the children.) If you're a customer of an ISP that caves then quit and go with another ISP that hasn't caved and TELL your former ISP that you quit them because they lacked serious backbone.

 

[FireAza]

I think this vid sums the argument up perfectly:

A lot of the plans he mentioned the politicians were making are eerily similar to the rhetoric politicians here in Australia spouted prior to our internet censorship filter plan getting scrapped. Stuff like the filter "protecting children from child pornographers", oblivious to the fact that you need police work to actually solve that problem, and such material isn't just available at a .com address since it's you know, illegal.

The proposed filter list ending up being leaked, and on the list were stuff like homosexuality-themed sites and euthanasia websites. Which really isn't that surprising, you give a bunch of old, white Christians free reign on what they want to remove from the internet, and you've got to expect this sort of thing. Plus there's the usual mistaken blocking that goes on with filters, such as a local dentist who found his website would have been blocked.

 

[shootthebandit]

I think this vid sums the argument up perfectly:


This is not about "corroding childhood" as the PM says, it's about control. Nothing more, nothing less. The British people shouldn't stand for this, there's not telling what they'll try and block for our own good in the future.

This is so true but they will soon learn. The tighter the grip the more you let slip through your fingers. I see the next few years being the equivelant of the punk era of maggie thatchers reign only with A LOT more people

 

[Mister Chippy]

Anyone who thinks this could possibly work is a moron. Even if you totally ignore the fact that the filters simply won't work, or that things like TOR exist and are without a doubt more harmful than pronhub, or that every time something like this has been tried before it's been an abysmal failure, it still wouldn't stop kids getting their hands on this stuff because kids were able to get their hands on this kind of stuff before the internet was a thing.

Also, this would be totally shitty for hotels if it happened, because then they'd basically have to choose to either lose most lone (they don't even have to be single, just traveling by themselves) male travelers or families. Personally I like staying at hotels that cater to families even when traveling alone because the other option normally makes me worry I'll catch something just from using their sheets, but I probably wouldn't want to stay at any place with internet filters in place.

Yeah but https://blog.torproject.org/blog/tale-new-censors-vodafone-uk-t-mobile-uk-o2-uk-and-t-mobile-usa
In the end everything will get blocked so saying you can just use tor(and who runs that?) is little more than a red herring.

It is still possible to bypass that. In fact, someone will come up with a way to bypass anything, even if the UK decides to go the same direction as China and become almost totalitarian in its internet policies (which I doubt it has any plans of doing).

Also, "Who runs TOR?" Ya gotta be kidding me. The kind of people who run something like TOR will never cave to censorship, and even if they do someone else will just pick up their reins. That's one of the reasons I said "things LIKE tor" instead of just saying "tor".

Saying that in the end everything will get blocked no matter what just kinda shows you don't really know how the internet actually works...

 

[Tallim]

Here we go....

sums up a lot of my reaction to it.


Unfortunately there seems to be so much going on with this proposed action and it has exactly nothing to do with protecting children :/ Ugh I hate the government [Hi government list compilers ]

 

[Something Amyss]

No, I'm not "addicted". There's no routine to it, I don't jack off whenever I get the opportunity, it's just that, being a human male, I sometimes get the urge, and it seems to go away a lot easier if I jack off while watching porn. Would be preferable if I could just turn my libido off without cutting off equipment to which I'm rather attached, but that's biology for you.

All I'm saying is that anything bottled up for too long is bad, and being an ugly son of a *****, it ain't exactly as if I'm gonna be getting a girlfriend anytime soon.

So is this one of this "first world problems" I always hear about? Half the population of the world has the problem of being a human male, and mostof them lack access to porn. If it's a convenience thing, that's not really much of a problem. If you're a human male, you'll statistically get off anyway. So the problem isn't porn, and it's not you...what is it?

 

[Doclector]

No, I'm not "addicted". There's no routine to it, I don't jack off whenever I get the opportunity, it's just that, being a human male, I sometimes get the urge, and it seems to go away a lot easier if I jack off while watching porn. Would be preferable if I could just turn my libido off without cutting off equipment to which I'm rather attached, but that's biology for you.

All I'm saying is that anything bottled up for too long is bad, and being an ugly son of a *****, it ain't exactly as if I'm gonna be getting a girlfriend anytime soon.

So is this one of this "first world problems" I always hear about? Half the population of the world has the problem of being a human male, and mostof them lack access to porn. If it's a convenience thing, that's not really much of a problem. If you're a human male, you'll statistically get off anyway. So the problem isn't porn, and it's not you...what is it?

Please don't bring first world problems into this. I hate that phrase, like unless you're homeless or dying, you don't have any problems whatsoever. I gave a crap about the entire world's problems over my own once, it drove me fucking mad.

Honestly, I'm afraid that I'm gonna become one of those creepy, desperate people who follow women around, acting nice for no reason other than trying to get in their pants. I'm not that person now, and I never want to be that person. But human urges just don't "stop" because you tell them so. So I have to just get rid of them when necessary, and when I jack off to something, it tends to stay away for longer than when I don't.

 

[InfinityCubed]

I'd say its a win. Free internet filters.

 

[Lt._nefarious]

They called me a full for downloading all those Faye Reagan movies, they called me mad! But I shall lead Britain into a new era of porn, my porn, and I shall become a millionaire... Still this can only bring badness, blocking regular porn will mean people have to look on weird sites for normal stuff and scar themselves... Apart from me and my portable hard drive of porn and Ryan Gosling movies...