Indonesian Politician Who Passed Strict Anti-Porn Laws Caught Watching Porn On His iPad... In Parliament
from the i'm-sure-it-was-just-for-research dept
What is it with moralizing politicians who scream and legislate against some moral "evil," and then are later caught being heavily involved in just such a thing? The latest such example comes from Indonesia, where a politician by the name of Arifinto, who was an avid supporter of a controversial anti-porn law that is extremely strict (it prohibits broadcasting, possessing and storing pornographic material -- along with forbidding kissing in public, exposing a woman's "sensual" parts or showing any erotica), has been caught viewing porn on his iPad while sitting in Parliament and "listening" to a debate about a new Parliamentary building. Arifinto quickly stepped down from Parliament, but I'm surprised no one's blamed the iPad yet...Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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But who's really to blame here...
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Re: But who's really to blame here...
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How could such a thing happen......?
That iPad must have been malfunctioning! Yes, that's it. *nodnod*
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You know what that means?
We all know how much he has crusaded against it.
(While I agree its bad, I think he wrongly targeted tech companies when they are obviously not the cause of it)
After all, he even wanted a big database of it. Seems quite suspicious now.
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Ban the iPad now!
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Re: Ban the iPad now!
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Special Case
Or maybe, just maybe he was being shown the porn so that he see that his legislation wasn't working?
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Re: Special Case
New rule: if your constituency is made up of roughly half men over the age of 16, you don't get to try to pretend that they're in favor of any law reducing the amount of bouncing meat bags and vaginas they can see. Ever.
That is all....
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Re: Re: Special Case
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But....but...but...
I am willing to bet it was illegally downloaded too
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Remember, politicians don't actually lobby for what they believe in. It's who's paying the bills, and how they're going to keep their position that they're concerned with.
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Clarification
It's not simply a matter of politicians trying to prevent others from enjoying what they themselves enjoy. It's that there are people who want to hold themselves to a high standard and discover they can't do it by themselves. In the case of "porn", a person may disapprove of it and want to refrain from looking at it themselves, but the temptation turns out to be stronger than their willpower. These folks need external controls to make up for their insufficient self-control.
When these folks hold political office, I suspect many of them rationalize this way: Porn is bad/wrong, therefore it should be prohibited.
The fact that they disapprove of it, publicly or privately, has nothing to do with their own lack self-control.
From this perspective, their political position not elitism or hypocritical, it's just poor reasoning based on personal values. The problem isn't their personal values, it's their poor reasoning on civil governance.
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AH! That is really awful!
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AH! That is really awful!
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The real comments on the issue
and oh, by the way, watch what you say about Stevie Boy Jobs and Apple, me thinks the device in the photo is not a iPad, so Apple may come after you!:-P
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/04/09/pks-quiz-arifinto-pornography-claims.html
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