UK government to consider porn filter - again Pages PREV 1 2 3 4 NEXT | |
Pornography isn't going to teach children to make informed decisions about sex. Most of it is filmed without condoms. Another thing is that underage teen's experiences with internet pornography is something these watch groups have been surveying for some time. It isn't artsy romantic erotica flicks with slow-burning candles that they're watching. It's stuff where it helps to have a proper understanding of how real sex works as a frame of reference. We're also talking a larger segment than one might expect of 10 and 11 year olds supposedly watching this stuff. Watch group's chief concerns are the distorting effects it's having on teen's expectations of sex, sexual relationships, bullying etc. and the numbers of people at these ages who are suffering addictions to hardcore pornography. If you'd vehemently want to argue that kids can manage this stuff without responsible guidance and the possibility of them coercing each other into stupid experiments at the wrong ages really isn't an issue; you'd might aswell join a pedophile ring. | |
Yeah i'm not sure how vanilla and mainstream porn could harm children either. If they were below the age of 10 i'd imagine it would confuse them more than anything. Hardcore porn could well mentally harm kids, especially if it's violent. But hardcore pornography isn't something your going to find by chance on the internet unless you know which sites and search terms to use. But, in my opinion children who are pre-pubescent shouldn't be on the internet unsupervised anyway. Not only is there the risk of them stumbling across porn, but they could go on some website and click on a dodgy link which infects the computer. It's bad parenting to let young children on the internet unsupervised full stop. And as for kids 13-17...Well when i was a teenager many of my friends had porn on their phones and it would get passed around. It might even be more prominent today, now that many kids will have smartphones with 3g internet access. I don't think this was any more or less harmful than in the days before the internet when schoolboys would gather round and oogle at a porn mag some kid had stolen from his dad's private collection. Once kids become interested in sex, you can't really stop them getting hold of porn, especially now when we have the internet. If anything, with ISP's blocking porn it's only going to make kids more computer literate and more predisposed to sharing what they find with friends. | |
Playboy TV. You do NOT need to opt-in to Playboy TV through Sky or Virgin to watch porn. You just give Playboy your money, the same as giving web porn sites your money. People speak of parents being technologically imcompetant and unable to filter their children's internet: get competent. We live in 2012, learn how to use the very simplest blocking programs around. Fuck, learn to just ask Google and just blindly follow the instructions if you don't want to learn why it works. It is not hard to outsmart a child, especially if you're still the one owning the computer they use and have the admin account. A child smart enough to get around that is smart enough to use a proxy server. That's not even accounting for the fact that "unlocking" porn for the adult(s) of a house would also enable it for the children, anyone with the most basic knowledge of how the internet works - though I guess that does exclude most of our fuck-stupid MPs - would know this. Of course, we could always embrace the alternative. After all, protecting children from sex is good, right? Let's not inform them about it and let them live enlightened lives, let's just throw on blinkers and shield them from it. And there are other things to shield them from too, like violence. And the people who are violent. So let's keep them insde all day every day, that'll protect them from the germs too! But there are dangers inside as well as outside the house; electrical sockets and sharp objects abound. And of course, adults can also be injured by these things, so let's have the govornment come round to everyone's house, strap them to a chair and drip-feed us all our meals through an IV. Yes that's extremeist hyperbole, but there's no single cutoff point between blocking porn and drip-fed imprisonment. There's no clean cutoff between safety and liberty, but as a little practice of the afore-mentioned "asking Google" I'll let you look up that quote yourself. It's by Benjamin Franklin if you're having trouble. Basically what I'm trying to say is: fuck off you out-of-touch, over-protective, censor-happy, holier-than-thou, hypocritical nanny state. Fuck. You. | |
2 girls 1 cup was a playground fad that this kind of research got wind of. Also, pornography is not a good educational tool; so all the hyperbole ought to stop right there. Curiosity and education purposes are the reasons teens are citing for searching out the stuff in the first place; which is why these groups want to do something about this so they can get a proper education first. Now, I don't think this proposal is a good idea. I'm not even sure if anything official ought to be done unless it's light-handed and has the effect of parents getting on top of this stuff. But I want to at least acknowledge why it's seen as an issue that people are trying to do something about; rather than proclaim there is no issue becuase I don't like the proposal. | |
Whats the point? Is it really just "Think of the children"? I cant see any hidden agenda behind this, which is unusual these days.
I dont know what fucking porn sites you were visiting as a kid but I never stumbled upon anything like that. Hell, even now, when I regularly watch porn, I wouldnt know where to go if I wanted to watch simulated rape. Motherless maybe, but visiting that site in Germany is like asking the police to show up at your house. | |
*GASP* You mean politicians have sex drives? Who would have thought! | |
First the Pirate Bay, now pornography, what next government? Are you gonna start blocking websites that disagree with you? | |
Dont say that! They might block this one if they see you... | |
Kids can't be expected to manage this stuff. I think you missed the point I was making. Pretending it doesn't exist won't help them when they do discover it. Job of the parent is to explain things. Besides, forbidding porn to children will just make it more appealing if they find it fascinating. The government is trying to assume the role of the parent and if I was a parent I would be pissed off that someone was trying to do my job for me. What would be better would be to educate the parent in a non-condemning/undermining way. | |
Pornography (particularly hardcore pornography) and genuine sex are different things; so pornography can go straight out the door in that regard. I don't agree that kids want to do stuff explicitly because they are banned. I think it's more a matter of them wanting to de-mystify and experiment in the stuff that only the adults are allowed to dabble in; so a good rundown on the subject matter will suffice. A child would fly in the face of your guidance if you're not a good parent or they have reason not to respect your guidance. I think we can agree that proper education is the answer; and that ideally the parents should be doing this. (signs show the sex ed our institutions deliver is pretty weak sauce) However, we arrive at the question of what's to be done in the event that the parents are lazy, incompetent or simply don't give a ****? | |
Probably just bad luck for me I guess. | |
Teenagers will find porn, its natural to be inquisitive about sex. When I was growing up there were always low rent jazz mags like Razzle doing the rounds at school. I'm a parent now and this wont bother me unless they start blocking sites I use, Like the ecapist for example, because an image on the site has too much flesh tone for the filter. Having said that there are far more harmful things on the internet than tits. Viruses, right wing extremist propaganda, selfharm support groups, crazy women, farmville, twighlight clips... So quite simply the PC is in a common room of the house and will never be in my sons bedroom. Mobile devices are harder to police but short of contacting the mobile provider and passwording the hand set I dont think much can be done about that. I'll cross that bridge when he's old enough. | |
I find this bit hilarious. The -independent- inquiry was led by an elected member of Government who is actively campaigning against online porn. I really do get the feeling that the House of Commons pumps something into the air that makes everyone in the place act a bit loopy and not-quite-sensible. | |
"We need to acknowledge there's a problem" My ass. Stuff is working fine. I stumbled across lots of scat porn as a kid, and look at how I turned out. | |
Sigh... When will politicians learn? | |
Why not legislate that every service can have the option to call up and choose TO block porn? | |
I should fucking emigrate. | |
Almost everyone by the age of 16 has seen porn at some point, blocking it just encourages it to be spread, which in most cases will change nothing other than more kids get yelled at by parents. | |
If a parent is so concerned about their child finding pornography and can't regulate it themselves, they're crappy at their job. The UK government doesn't need to be so concerned about parenting their citizens. There are a lot bigger fish to fry right now. | |
I have a a 10 year old half-brother. Which is why the family computer is situated in the main room and has filters to block certain sites. Hes never left unsupervised for long. On the other hand my 11 year old cousin has his own laptop and spends most of his free time on it in his bedroom. Bad parenting is the problem. This is just an excuse for the government to further assert their power over the internet. They wont stop until its castrated like radio and tv. | |
stupid,that really is the only way to sum this up. | |
Yeah, I certainly don't think porn should be blocked for 16 year olds. When I was talking about my own experience though, what I meant was that I and some friends used to visit sites like shitcity back when we were 10. I don't really see a problem with underage kids stumbling across porn. | |
No doubt the Daily Mail somehow connected 'people exposed to porn during their teenage years' with an increased chance of gaining cancer. They love their 'Everything gives you cancer' stories. In all honesty, i do not believe there is anything particularly wrong with a teenager getting their fill. However, i think it's understandable why some people want to protect children from more brutal elements of the porn industry. After all there is some wierd, nasty stuff out there that kids (and adults) shouldn't be looking at. The problem comes when trying to manage these things. Teenagers are incredibly inventive when it comes to breaking the rules. | |
Just so some Americans know, TalkTalk is vastly considered one of the worst ISPs in the UK, on multiple levels.. so it isn't really surprising that they would advocate this. This is frankly a terrible idea, it will get abused more and more by the government and there are already measures parents can take.. y'know, like... shock horror, setting up word filters to block sites with certain words.. Yeah, parents HAVE the tools, so frankly it's still the parents fault for allowing their children on something without making sure the safe guards are in place, and if the parents don't understand then they shouldn't let their children use it should they. | |
Have they actually said what this harm is, that's supposedly being done to children? This remind of an article I read last year. It stated that countries with access to pornography had a lower rate of rape than countries with a more conservative society. That's of course the extreme end of this story. | |
For all the people saying the government can't raise kids. The biological ability to have children doesn't make you a good parent. Thusly saying the the government, teachers, or any other entity cannot know better how to raise/educate children than parents is wrong. Each idea must be judged on the merit of the idea alone and not this false notion that by sheer act of spawning people know how to raise well adjusted children. Plenty of parents have irrevocably scared their children with horrendous parenting choices. Individuals may be well equipped to raise children but that is not true across the board and so should we seek to protect and enrich the most vulnerable who, by no fault of their own are born into bad situations. Every time a curriculum change is proposed or there is talk of trying to stop bullying this same argument gets trotted out. It needs to stop. There are good parents and bad parents. It happens. Let's except that and move forward. *steps off soapbox* Now as to this particular issue, I disagree with how Parliament wants to handle it. I'm judging this idea on the merit of the idea basically for reasons already mentioned: determined kids can probably get around it just as easy, therefore it provides a false sense of security. More "bad" or simply overworked parents would be wiling to just leave the internet to watch their children. | |
Why do people in civilized countries in the 21st century have such a big problem with sex? It's ridiculous. If you don't like porn don't watch it. Just because you don't like something doesn't give you the right to censor it, filter it, ban it or whatever. I don't like Justin Bieber for example. But would I run a campaign to ban all of his songs and prohibit people from listening to his stupid "music"? Of course not. I think people are capable of making their own decisions about things like that. | |
They should stop trying to nuke the internet and educate parents on how to set up filters on their own. Honestly, the amount of money wasted on this needless campaign could be put to much better use elsewhere. | |
I'm...not really seeing the problem. Maybe I've missed something, but everyone seems to be banging on about how the government is taking away certain rights and whatnot, but you can ring back to have porn if you so want it. What's so wrong about that? It's not really trying to do your job for you, it's a parenting aid. You can remove it whenever you want. | |
Basically this^^ Seems like it gets that annoying treatment of being demonised without much objective thought actually being put into it. People assume it's bad because of prejudices, general opinion etc, and because they assume it's a bad thing they never really deeply think about it. | |
I remember reading in the super saw away Sun a few weeks back about a woman who's son constantly watched porn online. She said he was out of control, and there was no way she could stop him. I've got an idea take away his fucking laptop. If you're bothered about kids watching porn go to the fucking effort of installing parental controls. People don't want their ISPs and government to know that they'll be 'spanking the monkey' on a Tuesday night, it's an invasion of privacy but the government don't care about your privacy unless you slip them a brown envelope. | |
I'm sure that blocking pornography is gonna do wonders for teaching kids about sex. | |
I'm curious to see how they possibly think they could make the distinction between 'pornographic websites' and the rest of the internet. A site like Tumblr is used for several different things but a large majority of the users post nudey men and ladies on a regular basis and there's no filter for what gets posted; do they just block the whole domain? Same with sites like Photobucket and Flickr. And while we're at it, why not just block Youtube, because there are f-bombs and c-charges getting dropped left, right and centre over there. Granted you can filter videos that are age apporpriate, but you can't auto-block the rampant hatred and bigotry you find in the comments of literally every video on that site. If we're talking about incompetent parents wanting to protect kids here, I'd rather we keep them away from people's racist bile than a picture of some titties. Also, every time someone mentions that bullshit about being 'addicted' to porn I can't help but be reminded of those classic drug PSA's where someone smokes one joint and is a junkie five minutes later. | |
I've always wondered this. I saw porn multiple times when I was a kid and it didn't fuck me up. I actually laughed at it because it was so silly to me. The Amazing Atheist made a video the last time this happened that pretty much sums up my opinion on this whole mess. | |
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That he may be but I can't really offer a more detailed explanation until he actually tells me more about how got the porn in the first place. If he quotes me again then I'll grudgingly dig out some sources to back up my point but I do despair somewhat if people need proof that young children and sex shouldn't mix.
Edit: And of course as J Tyran mentioned, aside from anything-else porn can be used by sickos to groom children.