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UK Government proposes porn-viewing ID

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Re: UK Government proposes porn-viewing ID

#111

Post by pmlnr »

Kenji wrote: post #81
pmlnr wrote: post #42

> "all the porn sites operating in Britain" So... only .co.uk, or full 3/4 of the internet, including Tumblr? This is, of course, is a question for what counts as "operating in Britain". A site that is running on servers in Britain? A site that is owned by a British company? A site that happens to be available on the greater internet? Gosh, countries and borders became relics when the internet got spread wide enough.

It doesn't matter which sites are targeted. What worries me is the authoritarian mindset. That the state becomes the nanny of all the people. That responsibility for oneself and one's children is no longer the norm, but discouraged and deferred to the state. And the justification for these forceful invasions into our lives is relentless moralizing akin to that of extremist religious people. That is the conclusion I d…

In Europe, the state _is_ responsible for their people; this is how it's been for a long while. Don't get me wrong, I'm seriously against regulation like this because the line of what counts as (porn|extreme|violent|whatever) is too blurry and is too easy to be used to censor whatever the state declares unhealthy, and this is not good.

/going rather offtopic afterwards

What's also not good is how ugly the internet became. Even in the 90s it was rather easy to stumble upon unexpected material; a prime example would be if you'd searched "Spice Girls" somewhere in ~1996 on Altavista - the results were definitely not showing the pop band.

I'm well aware how formerly extreme things, like in fashion or in porn is slowly merging into the mainstream, and so the dark pits of the internet are becoming more accepted. It's also true that bullying, tweet wars, doxing, etc, due to the lack of critical mass of internet users, were not present, and that they are actual, existing issues which should be addressed, but no one knows, how.

So no, I'm seriously against a porn database; it's not helping anything, not solving any real problems. The "protect the children" is bullshit; I'm guessing many who are supporting the idea would get a heart attack should they learn how aware "kids" are compared to them, and this is not just due to the internet. These people are the same by the way who grew up in the 70s...

Anyway, there are problems which needs attention and regulations, but that's not porn.

Re: UK Government proposes porn-viewing ID

#112

Post by DonaldFisk »

belorn wrote: post #32
mobiuscog wrote: post #2

Something has to be done. It's not just about porn or violence of NSFL etc... but there is a serious problem on the internet, that is always lambasted with the "Won't somebody think of the children" memes. When society has reached a point that anybody with internet access can, simply by 'accidentally' going to the wrong website, be exposed to imagery that really is not going to help them be well-adjusted in life, wit…

There used to be a option here in Sweden and elsewhere in the world, and it was called the national censors. They would look at movies, tv, music, books, and decide if it posed a serous problem where someone could 'accidentally' be exposed and harm the efforts to be well-adjusted citizens. And, in most part, it was not that bad. Sure, Swedes could not watch the Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and the UK banned Monthy Pytho…

I don't think Monty Python (presumably you're thinking of Life of Brian?) was ever banned in the UK. I certainly saw it in a cinema in England shortly after its release. There were a few protests by some religious groups.

Re: UK Government proposes porn-viewing ID

#113

Post by pmlnr »

MrSourz wrote: post #109
p333347 wrote: post #103

Not sure of the (technical) feasibility of this, but I have some social observations. It seems the motivating factor, ostensibly, is to protect children. However, the primary concern of those who don't like this seems to be with leaks and possible ensuing shaming. So, if the stigma attached to watching (non illegal) porn is done away with, the fear of leak becomes irrelevant. If protecting children is paramount then…

The telecoms already have that type of data that could be leaked to an extent. In 2013 British Telecom enabled porn filtering [1] that was on by default, so when setting up your account you'd have to opt out. [1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet-security/1052...

This was present on mobile networks for a long while. The honest and real reason I had it disabled was when it listed the ThinkPad knowledge collector http://thinkwiki.org/ as adult site... ( I'm not joking. ) - this is probably also a prime example lists like this are complete and utter jokes.

Re: UK Government proposes porn-viewing ID

#114

Post by mobiuscog »

Kenji wrote: post #69
mobiuscog wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate this comment, as I know a lot of people who grew up with the internet. I would therefore ask another question: Is it really fascism trying to control the internet, or people afraid to accept responsibility for what they want to do ? (I suspect both) The modern way of entitlement means everybody should be free to do whatever they want without government interfering, which demonstrates that the meaning of…

Thank you, I don't want anyone to feel responsible for me. I want to be FREE, first and foremost. If other people feeling responsible for me is conditioned on them owning my body in ways of e.g. banning what drugs I can take and what porn I can watch, then no thanks. I will never push my feeling responsible on people in forceful or even violent ways because I respect liberty too deeply, and I don't want that to be do…

Thank you for your reply.

It's interesting to see how people vary in their expectations regarding Freedom and 'Liberty', based upon country etc.

Re: UK Government proposes porn-viewing ID

#115

Post by hfsktr »

pmlnr wrote: post #113
MrSourz wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The telecoms already have that type of data that could be leaked to an extent. In 2013 British Telecom enabled porn filtering [1] that was on by default, so when setting up your account you'd have to opt out. [1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet-security/1052...

This was present on mobile networks for a long while. The honest and real reason I had it disabled was when it listed the ThinkPad knowledge collector http://thinkwiki.org/ as adult site... ( I'm not joking. ) - this is probably also a prime example lists like this are complete and utter jokes.

But do they have a record of the reason you disabled it or did they just change a flag and lump you in with everyone else?

A bit more paranoid. If they do this tracking for porn, maybe in the future they add other types of content they want to track. I know it sounds silly but it's not like the data is going to go away and likely will only ever increase the amount of tracking. Sadly I know many people who see no issue with this.

Re: UK Government proposes porn-viewing ID

#116

Post by Bartweiss »

pmlnr wrote: post #42

> "all the porn sites operating in Britain" So... only .co.uk, or full 3/4 of the internet, including Tumblr? This is, of course, is a question for what counts as "operating in Britain". A site that is running on servers in Britain? A site that is owned by a British company? A site that happens to be available on the greater internet? Gosh, countries and borders became relics when the internet got spread wide enough.

In this case, every site they can identify.

Broadly, UK law is restricted to UK companies for material which is illegal to post. So libelous sites hosted outside the country aren't censored, because the libel isn't 'located' in the UK (yes, this is a tortured analysis).

But the UK has more recently established a China-style firewall that restricts access to sites hosted anywhere, based on where you view from. Originally, it was implemented to block access to torrent sites. And of course, at the time everyone swore "it's just the torrent sites, there will never be a slippery slope!"

But now it would age-gate pornography viewed from any UK IP address. Well, the content they can find anyway - they'll have to either run a blacklist (catching only large, paid sites) or a blocking filter with a whitelist (blocking all kinds of legitimate content - usually this ends up blocking sexual health sites). And yes, Tumblr is hopeless, there's really no way to know what a given page will have on it.

So it's the authoritarian, cut-off-access bit, but it still won't work.

Re: UK Government proposes porn-viewing ID

#117

Post by goostavos »

mobiuscog wrote: post #2

Something has to be done. It's not just about porn or violence of NSFL etc... but there is a serious problem on the internet, that is always lambasted with the "Won't somebody think of the children" memes. When society has reached a point that anybody with internet access can, simply by 'accidentally' going to the wrong website, be exposed to imagery that really is not going to help them be well-adjusted in life, wit…

>Something has to be done.

About what exactly? What is this massive harm being done to children if they see a pair of boobies? Where are these people that at one point saw something disturbing on the internet and became fundamentally broken as a result. Is there anyone struggling to be "well adjusted" because they watched Faces of Death when then were under 18?

I just can't wrap my head around this "something must be done" worry. It is so vague, so undefined, and such a pessimistic view of people in general.

Re: UK Government proposes porn-viewing ID

#118

Post by pmlnr »

hfsktr wrote: post #115
pmlnr wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was present on mobile networks for a long while. The honest and real reason I had it disabled was when it listed the ThinkPad knowledge collector http://thinkwiki.org/ as adult site... ( I'm not joking. ) - this is probably also a prime example lists like this are complete and utter jokes.

But do they have a record of the reason you disabled it or did they just change a flag and lump you in with everyone else? A bit more paranoid. If they do this tracking for porn, maybe in the future they add other types of content they want to track. I know it sounds silly but it's not like the data is going to go away and likely will only ever increase the amount of tracking. Sadly I know many people who see no issu…

It's not silly and it's not paranoid, the Great Firewall of the UK is a troublesome thing already. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_blocking_in_the_United_Kin...

At that time, I was probably listed as requested access to mature content; reasons were not required but a few years ago they were already asking for identification, eg. passports.

What's frightening is how silent everyone is about this.

Re: UK Government proposes porn-viewing ID

#119

Post by PietdeVries »

p333347 wrote: post #103

Not sure of the (technical) feasibility of this, but I have some social observations. It seems the motivating factor, ostensibly, is to protect children. However, the primary concern of those who don't like this seems to be with leaks and possible ensuing shaming. So, if the stigma attached to watching (non illegal) porn is done away with, the fear of leak becomes irrelevant. If protecting children is paramount then…

Well, let's extend even further - why restrict to things abusive to kids, why not extend to all things abusive to anyone?!? Like news shows that obviously have "wrong" news or different opinions, history-channels that focus on the less glamorous sides of say the British in WWII, etc...

This is a slippery slope that one should not enter. If your kid encounters porn then banning porn will not fix the kid. Educating will fix your kid...

Re: UK Government proposes porn-viewing ID

#120

Post by dajohnson89 »

Does anyone have any ideas how likely this will actually become law? Crazy laws get proposed here in America all the time. From what I've seen by watching the Prime Minister's questions every now and then, lots of far-fetched proposals are made across the pond as well. But they never get far, and not worth getting bothered about.
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