141–150 of 162 posts
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I confirm, their mobile blocking in the UK does not work very well, sometimes it also even blocks non-porn websites randomly.
Off topic but if you're using Three I suggest you use the "3internet" APN - it has no effect on billing but you bypass any filters and get a direct connection with your own IP address (no NAT) and no filtering proxy in between.
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I've never heard a peep from anyone about the site I admin which still doesn't have one of those cookie-naggers. Hopefully, when the UK leaves the EU, the one good thing that might come out of it will be getting rid of that silly legislation.
If you're getting this kind of idiotic legislation in return, the net result does not appear positive.
I understand this is unpopular on HN and I don't think this is the right approach either but what is the solution? Or do you think there's no problem at all? I think it is a potential problem where some young people don't realize that some fairly disgusting and extreme sex acts are not the norm and start dating thinking that is what you do instead of loving someone, that would cause them serious issues in developing…
Porn is paradoxically minor. Most people are familiar with the arguments about the negative effects of porn (even if they don't believe the arguments), and reflects the way society already has a paranoid always-on-guard attitude towards porn.
We have first-pass mental filters regarding porn. If anything deserves to be made harder to access for it's negative repercussions, the prime targets are those we haven't yet (or can't) built mental filters against.
I won't even bother reiterating all the well known and widely accepted reasons half-baked social interventions are destined to fail, and likley make things worse.
I don't think this is the right approach either but what is the solution?
Maybe work on making a society that isn't outright terrified of sex? There will never be an adult conversation with the youth about sex until adults can have an adult conversation among themselves.
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety
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These firewalls are traditionally viewed as censorship from a free speech perspective. And I don't disagree with that. But I have started to wonder whether the Great Chinese Firewall, the Turkish one, and what seriously looks like a budding British firewall shouldn't also be viewed as import regulation like any other: China wants to sell cars in the US: The US imposes import duties on the cars. The effect is that the…
It's not clear to me what you're trying to say here. The goal of this bill is certainly not a strengthening of the UK porn industry against perceived unfair foreign competition. If the bill had anything to do with import regulations, it would not concern UK porn sites. The opposite is the case.
While WTO negotiations in the Doha round largely failed, China perfected its firewall.
When Turkey's negotiations with EU failed, Turkey tightened its firewall.
When it becomes increasingly likely that Britain will crash out of the common market, British censorship emerges.
Whether a firewall is justified by concerns with pornography or terrorism or something else, those concerns tend to be kept at bay as long as economic forces wanting to keep society open are stronger. When those economic forces collapse, political forces that want censorship find it easier to prevail.
Also, import regulation consist of many measures and countries don't just impose those measures on products that compete with domestic products. Countries impose tariffs on wine even if they don't produce wine or competing liquors themselves.
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You still cannot effectively block every adult site even at an ISP level. There will always be smaller sites on the fringe that get missed. It's basically the same problem as preventing online piracy.
They don't need to block 100% of all sites for it to be effective. It's the same with the lock on your home, the password on your phone, the lack of a fence or wall along the length of the border. It's "good enough".
"good enough" here isn't good enough.
I'm going to draw parallels with online piracy again, where countless DRM and legal (both through legislation and litigation) efforts are made to curb piracy yet rarely make a dent on the numbers of people who access copyrighted content illegally via one means or another.
I understand this is unpopular on HN and I don't think this is the right approach either but what is the solution? Or do you think there's no problem at all? I think it is a potential problem where some young people don't realize that some fairly disgusting and extreme sex acts are not the norm and start dating thinking that is what you do instead of loving someone, that would cause them serious issues in developing…
This has probably very little to do with porn and is most likely the first step in the UK's government attempt to track more closely who is accessing what on the internet and even have the power to blacklist and make inaccessible areas of the internet they deem inappropriate or inconvenient. The enforceability of this is hugely questionable (they have heard of VPN right?) and the societal benefit of less porn is also…
These firewalls are traditionally viewed as censorship from a free speech perspective. And I don't disagree with that. But I have started to wonder whether the Great Chinese Firewall, the Turkish one, and what seriously looks like a budding British firewall shouldn't also be viewed as import regulation like any other: China wants to sell cars in the US: The US imposes import duties on the cars. The effect is that the…
(The outcome of the last round of ""extreme porn"" regulation was the opposite: local producers were closed down, but of course people can still import the stuff)
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or just going to non-commercial sites for their porn...
They are targeting all porn sites, commercial or not.
"This, she explained, was because the Act does not tackle the fact that services including Twitter and Tumblr contain hardcore pornography but will not be required to introduce age-checks. "
It's only commercial porn sites that are being targeted. Sites that happen to host pornographic content (e.g. tumblr, reddit etc) aren't included
This has probably very little to do with porn and is most likely the first step in the UK's government attempt to track more closely who is accessing what on the internet and even have the power to blacklist and make inaccessible areas of the internet they deem inappropriate or inconvenient. The enforceability of this is hugely questionable (they have heard of VPN right?) and the societal benefit of less porn is also…
This is primarily a kneejerk political reaction by a shambles of a Conservative party looking to be seen to be doing something on a "moral issue" by its party members.