Why Do Politicians Continue To Insist That A Magic Button Can Make Porn Disappear Online?
from the collateral-damage-on-the-way dept
It appears that UK Prime Minister David Cameron is announcing that any place in the UK that provides WiFi to the public must block porn. This is wasteful and pointless for a variety of reasons. Of course, it's being pushed under the "for the children" banner, but that's rarely true or accurate. The problem, of course, is that (1) such filtering tends not to actually block plenty of porn and (2) it regularly leads to collateral damage, including plenty of legitimate sites being blocked. Plus it's just costly.The Prime Minister said: “We are promoting good, clean, WiFi in local cafes and elsewhere to make sure that people have confidence in public WiFi systems so that they are not going to see things they shouldn’t.”But that's not what they're doing. The internet won't be clean. It'll just be a nuisance. Furthermore, is the unexpected appearance of porn on computers in public places really that big a problem? I've yet to see any serious data suggesting that this happens very often. Most people sitting at a computer in a public space aren't likely to be surfing porn anyway.
In the US, we've actually had something similar. Of course, we're not allowed to make filters mandatory by law, so grandstanding US politicians tiptoed around the issue by just saying that they would deny funding to public internet access providers who don't block porn. But, the end result was that many libraries, for example, stopped taking federal funding to avoid the issue altogether. This really seems like the worst kind of grandstanding: it gets plenty of attention, attacks a problem that probably isn't a problem but which involves "the children!!!!" and it attacks the "problem" ineffectively. It's the trifecta of useless grandstanding.
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Filed Under: david cameron, uk
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If I'm not mistaken, in order to access porn, I have to actively engage the search for it.
I may be off my rocker here, but I think fining people who get caught viewing porn using open WiFi would be a better deterrent than trying to block it.
Especially if the fine is very heavy.
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Personally, I couldn't tell if someone was watching porn or streaming the latest episode of Game of Thrones, from what I hear of it.
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Why the hell is it societies job to parent the children? Where the hell are parents?
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While "where the hell are the parents" might fit most, it does not fit all, and the rest are battling not only a growing child, but the government that wants complete autonomous control over said child because "they know better".
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The only good idea would be to slap the fuck out of the moron that thinks it's a good idea to try and block porn.
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Now, if the UK decides to create some "Anti-porn Officer" (China style) I'll certainly apply for the job =D
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Are you TRYING to give a troll a heart attack?
First it was "Pirate Mike".
Now it will be "Porno Mike".
What will you do to top that?
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Re: Are you TRYING to give a troll a heart attack?
We will never hear from any of them again.
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B) There is just something wrong about someone named Ninja being interested in pirate porn.
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> place, because of rhe embarrassment factor, and the risk of
> being caught.
Also I suspect most children WOULD view pr0n in a public
place, because of the embarrassment factor and the shock
exhibited by nearby prudish adults.
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It's about appeasing people, making them feel safer, and making them think the Government is DoingSomething™.
It's not about "protecting children" (otherwise they'd be implementing that recent recommendation in the UK that children be taught about porn in school, as part of sex ed, from a young age), it's about making parents and the religious right feel that their children are being protected.
It's also being done on an entirely voluntary basis (as with the nationwide child-abuse-image filtering). Probably because doing it through law would be illegal.
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It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
* Props to "Teach" above.
Take a loopy tour of Techdirt.com! You always end up same place!
http://techdirt.com/
You've found the site of Internet Quipper Mike "Streisand Effect" Masnick!
01:53:04[b-810-4]
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Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
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It is not as easy as a hosts file mod.
Do you have a list of all porn websites on the net?
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Re: Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
And if so, can I have a copy? Ummm, I need to do some... reasearch, yeah! Research! I need a list of porno sites for my research!
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Re: Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
Is it art or is it porn?
Is a naked man/woman (not necessarily together) art or porn?
What about all those old statues and/or paintings?
What about a man/woman with body paint?
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Baby, don't **** me, don't **** me, no more?
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> emotional reaction from people. Porn certainly
> is that.
That's ridiculous. Merely eliciting an emotional response is hardly the sole qualificiation for artisitic expression. If it were, then those bombs that went off in Boston a few weeks ago qualified as performance art on a grand scale.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
I call it art because it is a creative expression that exists for its own sake (the very definition of "fine art").
All I know is that literally every explanation of what art is that I've ever heard, whether I agree with it or not, applies equally well to porn.
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We could say that it's a case of good art and bad art maybe? Even though good and bad is highly subjective ;)
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I think he is right, the main intent of an artistic work is to elicit some sort of reaction from the public.
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> a villian in it called Deidara who is a bomber,
> who believes that explosions are the greatest
> works of art.
Yes, and Hannibal Lecter thought there was artisitic expression in cannibalism, too.
The people who think that way do it because they're *insane*.
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Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
So by your own admission, you're not disagreeing with Masnick. Shock horror, I know. I understand that disagreeing with Masnick to you is far more revolting than scatolotacle pornography.
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Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
That statement right their proves beyond a doubt that you have no clue what your talking about. Nice try with the tossing around technical words you picked up though. Trouble is it means nothing.
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1) The vast majority of the world's population does not run Linux.
2) Saying free and Linux in the same sentence is superfluous. Most software on Linux is free and open source, given the open source nature of the OS itself.
3) To block porn through a Hosts file means you would need to know the website address of every porn site in existence. What about sites that aren't themselves devoted to porn but nonetheless have a subsection where there is porn? What about user-content generated sites?
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Erm, I don't know the stats, but many routers do (among many other devices), so most people using it probably don't realise it. However, that's as far as blue's technical correctness goes, of course. Windows also supports host files that can be used as a crude blacklist in the same way. However, as you rightly note, nobody can possibly have a complete list. So, another useless suggestion by someone too busy attacking this site to understand the technology he;'s talking about.
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Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
Presuming, boy...
1) You're using Linux (Many wi-fi setups DON'T)
2) You know how to code/implement the "hosts file"
(And feel free to present a step-by-step example, oh learned one, to demontrate "how easy it is".)
3) You give a damn.
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4) Have a list of all porn site in the world
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Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
Who knew it was so easy?
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What about pr0n stored on the hard drive?
Solution: Filter WiFi. (at someone else's expense)
Problem: Hard drives are responsible for pr0n appearing on screens in public places. OMG!
Solution: Filter and inspect ALL hard drives brought into public places, or crossing borders such as national borders, state lines, county lines, city limits, precincts, and property boundary lines. Being within one hundred miles of any such boundary line should be subject to search without a warrant.
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The government, like any business or individual is free to implement whatever filtering they like on their connections. There are lists of porn sites available for those who want to implement the block.
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FTFY
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There will be sparklers, party poppers, confetti, dancing and music and then a couple of them will walk up onto stage behind the politician and unfurl a large banner behind them that reads GRANDSTAND!
It would be a grand event. You could even say a grandstanding event.
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Because to them the internet is not logic and reason but a magical place filled with magic.
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Because they are ignorant to the facts of the technology, simple.
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My guess is that at some point the government will require one or more of these buttons be employed. For the children of course.
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MY EYES!!
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I have a feeling his party has lost the will of the voters. But most voters fail to see a difference between the three parties we have.
Shame there is no PP in my area, its either blue or blue.
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Even though this would never work, it would sure seem that way eventually when everyone is viewing their porn on google glass style HMDs... I'm not the only one who thinks thats all people are doing with it right?
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One of the most vulgar disgusting shows on TV is one of the most accepted.
What is that?
Any US Baseball game.
What?
How dare they put a spitting contest where someone constantly upchucks on TV.
For gosh sakes thank of the children.
They are are glamorizing one of man most filthy actions.
The only hope is that TV networks do not start glamorizing other forms of body waste.
Filth is filth. Enough is enough.
It is best to leave piss and shit in the appropriate place, the bathroom, and not glamorize it on TV, the internet, and all sports stadiums.
Thus to eliminate on-line porn and filth Major League Baseball should be banned from TV, the internet, and all sports stadiums and 20 year jail sentences of solitary confinement should immediately be imposed on all participants with out benefit of trial or appeal.
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Wait! Oops! I have this confused with gun control.
My bad.
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:P
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I hate these Greasy Palmed POS Politicians.I am very unhappy at the US Government.
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(Haven't they heard of water-based lube?)
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Actually, the American Library Association credo is strongly anti-censorship, and member professionals guard Internet freedom like pit bulls. Even if it means that they have to occasionally clean up certain... fluids... left by their male patrons at the public access computers.
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Lenny Bruce nailed this DECADES ago
[Holding up a pin-up nudie photo]
These are bums. This is an indecent woman. The Paul Malloy culture would call this lady indecent.
Ohhhh, no! Are you kidding? Indecent? How can that sweet, pink-nippled, blue-eyed, goyisha punim be indecent? Are you kidding? Indecent? God damn Paul Malloy, man. I love that lady. And she's religious--see the beads?
If you believe that there is a god, a god that made your body, and yet you think that you can do anything with your body that's dirty, then the fault lies with the manufacturer.
My concept? You can't do anything with anybody's body to make it dirty to me. Six people, eight people, one person--you can do only thing to make it dirty: kill it. Hiroshima was dirty."
I note with interest that this proposal -- like so many others before it -- does NOTHING about the most horrific images of torture and murder and death and war...the things that, as Lenny Bruce pointed out, are truly obscene. CNN is free to show, over and over and over again, graphic footage of human beings being blown apart by bombs in Boston, but oh dear, a breast? A penis? Well, we just can't have that, now can we?
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dog damn, i'm about sick of the pron hysteria...
this, from a 'justice' (sic) dept who had to drape THEIR OWN statues of nekkid liberty/justice in their (actually, OUR) own house ! ! !
i mean, really, does ANYTHING more need to be said about how fucked up a society we lived in that has to pull idiotic shit like that ? ? ?
and, now, one of the greatest artists IN THE HIS STORY OF THE UNIVERSE gets the 'naughty bits' of his statuary on display in yemen or abu dhabi, or camelstan, whatever the fuck, has to be removed and/or have 'modesty' drapes put over them...
i'm sorry, i just have ZERO sympathy, patience, or even have a hard time justifying such 'people' be allowed to live as human beans...
PLEASE blast off to your own crappy planet and let us semi-normal nekkid apes alone...
dog damn, i hates me some authoritarian 'do-gooders'...
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof
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That's how I used to get around the blockers at school so I could browse gaming websites.
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As we are told copyright is a great, great incentive for creation right?
Remove copyright for porn or anything that can be construed as porn, this may also include some other forms of art, but that is not a bad thing now is it?
Go after payment systems too, they already laydown the rules of how its done with pirate sites didn't they?
Do the same thing with porn then.
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OK, now for the rest of the porn that isn't created for economic reasons. Any suggestions for that?
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If copyright is so important for creation surely anything that is left will be of no consequence since nobody ever will create porn for free right?
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There's already a magic button that can make porn disappear
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Control
> public WiFi systems so that they are not going
> to see things they shouldn't."
Notice how he says "shouldn't" instead of "don't want to".
That tells you all you need to know about him-- that he's just another nanny-statist control freak who can't let grown adults decide for themselves how to run their own lives. He's going to decide for you, because he knows better than you do what's good for you.
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"Clean wi-fi", what a joke. Is there an epidemic across the UK of people setting up their laptops in cafes and watching porno in the middle of the day? Textbook grandstanding.
What he's suggesting is censorship and an infringement on network neutrality. When will people learn that on the internet, it's pretty much all or nothing(or whitelisting, in which case I'd probably still prefer nothing) in terms of access. This is especially true for something as prevalent as pornography. That's about as possible as blocking people from reading news online.
As to blue's comment here, I'll say this: "You're out of your element, Donny! Shut the fuck up!"
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Because their staffers setup a key combination the politicians can hit to hide what was on their screen.
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Give them the button
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