Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

David Cameron cracks down on online pornography

guardian.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 369 posts

Re: David Cameron cracks down on online pornography

#321

Post by mcintyre1994 »

Mr Cameron tells us that he's terrified of what his children can access online. You'd think with access to some of the UK's most intelligent brains he'd be able to master parental guidance of internet usage without legislating it.

Isn't this just telling parents that the internet will suddenly be safe, a government sanctioned message to that effect is quite a bit stronger than your ISPs salesperson. Of course, the filter will either resemble China or have holes so assuming the latter any responsible parent will still want to monitor their children's usage.

The effect of this law seems to be constrained to making David Cameron (and other not-very-technically-knowledgeable parents) feel that he's a responsible parent, but to be honest I'd rather taxpayers pay for a nanny for him than for this ridiculous law - cheaper and much more effective.

Re: David Cameron cracks down on online pornography

#322

Post by desas »

infinita740 wrote: post #154
_mulder_ wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accessing the Pirate Bay?! We can't allow that... if only there was a compulsory National filter where we could block access to these corrupt sites.

Actually I think they started with th Pirate Bay and then pornography. A quick google search: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-ways-bypass-uk-pirate-bay-blo... (screenshot of the blocking page) I believe protection against pornography has to do with education, it's more the problem of the parents than the problem of the government. "Childs" will always find a way to view some adult content, they just need to be educate…

They started with paedophilia, then piracy, and now pornography.

Re: David Cameron cracks down on online pornography

#323

Post by desas »

ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #247

Wait, this just went through parliament without any problems? I may have lived under a rock, but this is the first time I ever hear about this. Is this just a proposition from the English government, or is the new legislation already accepted?

It's not been through parliament. The last time more concrete details were leaked, No10 were pressuring the ISPs into voluntarily doing it. They've not yet released any details saying they're now passing legislation.

Re: David Cameron cracks down on online pornography

#324

Post by lobe44 »

I think society as a whole is a bit too hard on pedophiles. Even rapists have an outlet to relieve their sexual frustration and can go to counseling without still being called a monster.

Pedophilia is just like any other sexual orientation. It is not something you just turn off, pedophiles need counseling and ways to relieve their sexual frustration. Things like CG porn and Lolicon for example should be legal. It is just not realistic to tell pedophiles to just stop and then put them in prison for the rest of their lives when they act on their desires, they will most likely be stabbed because even among criminals pedophilia is the worst of the worst and you are more likely to be stabbed if you raped a 15 year old than a 16 year old.

And this whole argument that watching fake rape porn will turn you into a rapist is bullshit. It is just like the argument that violent video games turn you into a violent person.

Re: David Cameron cracks down on online pornography

#325

Post by amboar »

paganel wrote: post #264
rodgerd wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak to Hollywood, but this presumably means it will be illegal to watch "Irreversable" online. Still, it's a handy way to tar anyone complaining about online survellience as a rape-loving pedophile.

Forget "modern" cinema, they should go all the way back to banning stories coming from Ancient Greece: > Leda and the Swan is a story and subject in art from Greek mythology in which the god Zeus, in the form of a swan, seduces, or rapes, Leda. According to later Greek mythology, Leda bore Helen and Polydeuces, children of Zeus, while at the same time bearing Castor and Clytemnestra, children of her husband Tyndareus…

Might as well ban the Bible while they're at it for stories of rape, incest and sodomy.

Re: David Cameron cracks down on online pornography

#326

Post by mseebach »

petercooper wrote: post #313
mseebach wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDP is a measure of the size of the economy to allow comparison between different years and different countries. Putting things in fractions of GDP allows the same comparison to be made meaningfully. > Putting it mathematically correct "11 months" sounds much less scary. Yes, and for exactly this reason it's dishonest: It implies that you could, if you wanted, repay the debt in 11 months - which is impossible. Anyway…

100% agree with your last sentence. Now, I'm not really replying to you as such, but I don't quite understand the alarmism over, say, a debt of 100% of GDP. UK tax revenues are 39% of GDP (so, very naïvely, the government's "income") and with a debt of 90% of GDP, that's 2.3x income. Or a typical £25k earner having a long term debt, like a mortgage, of £57.5k. I confess this is an extremely naïve analysis since perso…

What you're missing is the fact that having a mortgage implies having an asset (a house) worth something more than the mortgage principal. The government does spend on investment, but the vast majority of the budget in sunk into running costs. Then, the more appropriate comparison would be a £25k earner with £57k in credit card debts, which is obviously a lot more scary - but again not completely comparable as the guy would be paying 20-30% interest while the government pays close to 0%, mostly because they have the power to raise their income on demand if they need to in order to service their debts.

Re: David Cameron cracks down on online pornography

#327

Post by ulrikrasmussen »

desas wrote: post #323
ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #247

Wait, this just went through parliament without any problems? I may have lived under a rock, but this is the first time I ever hear about this. Is this just a proposition from the English government, or is the new legislation already accepted?

It's not been through parliament. The last time more concrete details were leaked, No10 were pressuring the ISPs into voluntarily doing it. They've not yet released any details saying they're now passing legislation.

Ah, okay, thanks. That eases my mind a bit!

Re: David Cameron cracks down on online pornography

#328

Post by e_proxus »

cskau wrote: post #35
conroy wrote: post #12

> Every household in Britain connected to the internet will be obliged to declare whether they want to maintain access to online pornography These declarations will only be used to shame public figures once the list is leaked. > The possession of "extreme pornography", which includes scenes of simulated rape, is to be outlawed. Video footage of two consenting adults, acting out a scene, will be illegal to own. With t…

> > The possession of "extreme pornography", which includes scenes of simulated rape, is to be outlawed. > Video footage of two consenting adults, acting out a scene, will be illegal to own. With this on the books, it seems a short hop to outlaw videos of simulated murder. Even without such an extension, aren't there plenty of Hollywood movies which include "scenes of simulated rape"?

The Sopranos come to mind.

Re: David Cameron cracks down on online pornography

#329

Post by betageek »

flexie wrote: post #261
betageek wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some perspective: Rates of murder and violent crime have fallen more rapidly in the UK in the past decade than many other countries in Western Europe http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22275280 Homicide rate is less than loads of EU countries (and Canada!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...

Murder rate is one of the best proxies for comparing violent crimes in different countries because it's usually defined more similarly than other violent crimes. At 1.2 the UK still has higher murder rate than most of its neighboring countries: Germany (0.8), Denmark (0.9), Norway (0.6), the Netherlands (1.1), France (1.1). In that end of Europe, only Belgium (1.7) and Ireland (1.2) is doing worse or equally bad. The…

Your original comment was "Violent crimes is worst in EU." This is clearly not true.

If you'd like to reword your comment to "UK violent crime is worst in an ad-hoc collection of countries I've decided on" I'll withdraw my comment.

Re: David Cameron cracks down on online pornography

#330

Post by GeneralMayhem »

willyt wrote: post #221
pyre wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the reporter has no responsibility to uphold journalistic ideals? Good to know.

There's a whole seperate article in the opinion section on why the law doesn't make sense http://m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/21/david-came... The 'quality' UK papers generally try to seperate opinions from factual reporting. Maybe the NYT WSJ etc do this as well?

There are plenty of criticisms of this law that are perfectly factual, like "Cameron doesn't have a God damn idea how the Internet works," or "No censorship scheme on the Internet has ever remained effective against the dedicated for more than a few minutes," or "Cameron has entirely failed to describe what he means by 'violent pornography' in a way that is specific enough to be legally actionable or differentiable from pornography/the Web in general." Not including any such facts in the main article is dishonest.
Post reply on HN