Why Do Politicians Continue To Insist That A Magic Button Can Make Porn Disappear Online?

from the collateral-damage-on-the-way dept

Wed, May 1st 2013 5:25am — Mike Masnick

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

87 Comments

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Akari Mizunashi (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 3:54am

I have WiFi set up in my house, and it just sits there, passing only its identifier in the signal. There's no porn on it at all.

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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Christopher Best (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 5:26am

Re:
Or you could try not care if people look at porn...
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silverscarcat (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 5:30am

Re:
Actually, you don't need to engage a search for porn to find it. It's pretty easy if you know the websites already.
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Edward Teach, 1 May 2013 @ 5:44am

Are you TRYING to give a troll a heart attack?
OMG! Are you trying to earn a new troll-applied nickname?

First it was "Pirate Mike".

Now it will be "Porno Mike".

What will you do to top that?
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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 5:49am

Actually this will not stop someone determined to view porn in a public place, they can simply play downloaded movies, or show downloaded pictures. Also I suspect most children would not view porn in a public place, because of rhe embarrassment factor, and the risk of being caught.
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out_of_the_blue, 1 May 2013 @ 5:54am

It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
Now, disclaimer, I don't advocate it as vital, but in public, sure, and main point, it's EASILY DO-ABLE with a hosts file in your free Linux firewall, so Porno Mike's* anti-moral panic is just his typical blather to gin up fanboys with a sort of false flag saying their fun is under attack.

* 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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DannyB (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 5:54am

What about pr0n stored on the hard drive?
Problem: WiFi is responsible for pr0n appearing on screens in public places. OMG!

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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Zakida Paul (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 5:54am

It is because porn and child safety go hand in hand, and child safety is such an emotive issue that politicians will say anything to get favour with the public, no matter how implausible.
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gnudist, 1 May 2013 @ 5:54am

Bringbacktheporn.com
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DannyB (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 5:56am

Re:
> Also I suspect most children would not view porn in a public
> 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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Zakida Paul (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 5:56am

Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
Dunbass
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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 5:56am

Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
OOTB

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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DannyB (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 5:57am

Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE TROLL.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 5:58am

My parents run a small free WiFi hotspot in their pub as a service for their customers. Who is going to pay for this filter that Dave wants me to implement?
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Rikuo (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 5:59am

Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
Question: What is porn? Can you define it? Remember, a while back, a woman flashing her ankles in a photo was considered porn. Is the government going to say bare breasts is porn? If so, what if I'm looking up sexual education material?
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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 6:00am

We need a Grandstand flash mob that goes to these events and any time a politician tries to Grandstand, the mob will roll into effect.
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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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 6:04am

"Why Do Politicians Continue To Insist That A Magic Button Can Make Porn Disappear Online?"

Because to them the internet is not logic and reason but a magical place filled with magic.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 6:05am

Re: Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
Is it porn or is it art?
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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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 6:06am

Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
Only in public spots? That wouldn't be a problem - except that when defined by performance rights organisations and the RIAA, everything done online constitutes as a public performance.

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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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 6:09am

Why Do Politicians Continue To Insist That A Magic Button Can Make Porn Disappear Online?

Because they are ignorant to the facts of the technology, simple.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 6:10am

It's easy enough to filter stuff like extremehardporn.fap but what about places that don't have tags or even words? What about image hosting websites or cloud storage services?
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Rikuo (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 6:14am

Re:
What about Google Image Search? Just type in hentai into the search box and there you go.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 6:14am

Re:
I'll agree there. The government shouldn't force people to use filters, and the filters themselves should be at the discretion of the owner. The tricky part is when it involves government owned property such as schools, prisons, offices, etc.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 6:26am

no but he does believe it will get him some votes in local elections next week.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 6:34am

Re: Re:
The tricky part is when it involves government owned property such as schools, prisons, offices, etc.

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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Lord Binky, 1 May 2013 @ 6:40am

If he thinks the worst or most offensive pictures that can be found on the internet and viewed in a public space then that proves he is absolutely clueless about the internet.

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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Machin Shin (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 6:42am

Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
" it's EASILY DO-ABLE with a hosts file in your free Linux firewall"

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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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 6:44am

Re: Re:
Still the point remains. Just like drugs, cigarettes, and alcohol, if a teen/kid wants it bad enough they can get it. Simply blocking it on an open Wifi network won't solve anything.

Why the hell is it societies job to parent the children? Where the hell are parents?
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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 6:47am

Re: Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
Question: What is porn?

Baby, don't **** me, don't **** me, no more?
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Rikuo (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 6:49am

Re: Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
Here's the amount of things wrong with blue's sentence.

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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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 6:53am

Re:
The business can just politely tell them to leave instead of laws/fines/society intervention.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 6:53am

Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
"... it's EASILY DO-ABLE with a hosts file in your free Linux firewall.."

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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Oblate (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 7:01am

Re: Are you TRYING to give a troll a heart attack?
The trolls will unintentionally do a search simultaneously containing the terms "porn" and "pirate".

We will never hear from any of them again.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 7:06am

What is porn?

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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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 7:08am

Re:
+1

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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Machin Shin (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 7:13am

Re: Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
You forgot the

4) Have a list of all porn site in the world
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silverscarcat (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 7:14am

Re: Re: Re:
Watching Dr. Phil because the soccer moms don't want to be parents.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 7:20am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
And here I figured they were all 'Teen Moms' working on selling their sex tapes...
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Duke (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 7:20am

Re:
You're missing the point if you think this is about stopping people from viewing porn in public places.

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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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 7:27am

In certain urban areas porn is completely out of control, with children and minorities being affected disproportionately. We must do something, even if it saves only one child from being injured by the filth. Yes, obscenity is already illegal, but we must go further. After all, the First Amendment is not without limitations

Wait! Oops! I have this confused with gun control.

My bad.
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gorehound (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 7:35am

Simply put:
I hate these Greasy Palmed POS Politicians.I am very unhappy at the US Government.
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Leigh Beadon (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 7:36am

Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
Guys it's true! At least it worked for me in OSX. Just do sudo nano /private/etc/hosts then add the line "BLOCK ALL THE PORN!"

Who knew it was so easy?
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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 7:55am

Re:
Dave is the UK prime minister, nothing to do with the US gov.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 7:58am

has this 'magic button' been applied in the physical world by these same fucking idiots? did it work? did porn publications cease to be? of course not!! and it wont happen with the net either! they think that because they are politicians, whatever they say will happen. the trouble is, the people who think they can stop anything and everything have got big mouths, big ideas and powers but haven't got the brains of a rockin' horse!! and they haven't thought about the collateral damage or the consequences!!
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Angel (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 7:59am

If people want to look at porn in public, the best deterrent is embarrassment of getting caught, and in some cases even that might not work. (ever heard of Exhibitionists?) Honestly I don't think its such a big deal that tax dollars need to be wasted on it.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 8:00am

The real question is why do they care? Yeah, I get people watching porn in public isn't a good thing but I'm pretty sure that would fall under some kind of indecency law like peeing in public or running down the street naked.
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Vidiot (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 8:02am

"... many libraries, for example, stopped taking federal funding to avoid the issue altogether."

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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Chosen Reject (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 8:25am

Re:
No, it's true. There is a button that will make porn disappear. It's on the back of the WiFi access point. If it's not there, there is probably a little switch on the surge protector it's plugged into. If a surge protector isn't being used, you might find the switch in a box with a lot of other switches that look similar (only some of those switches turn off the lights in the kitchen).

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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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 8:27am

Lenny Bruce nailed this DECADES ago
"Paul Malloy, who's sort of Christ in concrete, he's got a thing going, it's "Decent-Indecent"--you know, "What is Good?" And Good is God is Danny Thomas. So, I want to show you some pictures of tramps.

[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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chore, 1 May 2013 @ 8:29am

Re:
Can we not use references to greasy palmed politicians when porn is being discussed?

(Haven't they heard of water-based lube?)
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art guerrilla (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 8:35am

dog damn, i'm about sick of the pron hysteria...
...or *ANY* hysteria: could you delicate prudes, moral scolds, and authoritarian kreepazoids please blast off to your own (fascist, boring) planet ? ? ?

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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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 8:38am

An attempt to censor porn crippled in one easy step. Use an online site translator like babelfish, etc, to 'translate' the site from some foreign language like Chinese to English.

That's how I used to get around the blockers at school so I could browse gaming websites.
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DOlz (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 8:47am

Re:
On internet you don't find porn, porn finds you.
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Akari Mizunashi (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 9:12am

Re: Re:
I don't care, frankly.

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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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 9:13am

I don't get it, if they don't want porn, just remove all economic incentives for it to be created.

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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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 9:19am

Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
Says out_of_the_bluedobear
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John Fenderson (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 9:26am

Re: Re: Re:
"There are highly inaccurate and incomplete lists of porn sites available for those who want to implement the block."

FTFY
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Chris-Mouse (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 9:28am

I'd suggest that any politician trying to regulate porn be required to come up with a mathematical definition of porn, but I'm afraid they might try.
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John Fenderson (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 9:29am

Re: Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
In my opinion, all porn is art. Art is something designed to elicit an emotional reaction from people. Porn certainly is that.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 9:36am

Re: Re:
{Testing..}

MY EYES!!
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Rikuo (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 9:52am

Re: Re: Re:
Why are you freaking out over that? That's the TAME stuff. Compared to what is out there, what you say barely qualifies as porn at all.
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Dave, 1 May 2013 @ 9:58am

Sex? No thank you, we're British.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 11:13am

Re:
Gun control would be the Second Amendment though.
:P
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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 11:15am

Re:
You're crazy a fine for porn on open WiFi? What if I own the open network? I leave my network open because I can and because I live close to the hood and not everyone there can afford it. They're happy to be able to get online and I have no problem letting them. I don't give two shits about what they do because frankly it's none of my business.

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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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 11:28am

There's already a magic button that can make porn disappear
It's called the "close tab" button.
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technomage (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 11:54am

Re: Re: Re:
why is society (CPS,Government,etc) butting their nose into my parental duty?

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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btr1701 (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 11:58am

Control
> "to make sure that people have confidence in
> 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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btr1701 (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 12:04pm

Re: Re: Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
> Art is something designed to elicit an
> 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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Connor Clawson, 1 May 2013 @ 12:20pm

why do they insist a magic button exists? better yet, why do these congressional folk like to make issues out of things that aren't issues?
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John Fenderson (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 12:56pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
Well, yes, I oversimplified. But porn clearly seems to be art to me. Perhaps not good art, but that's a subjective call.

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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John Fenderson (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 12:58pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Spoken like a true internet veteran. :)
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That Crazy Freetard (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 3:04pm

So, what it looks like this issue boils down to is that the pols in the UK are worried about people looking at porno in public places.

"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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nasch (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 4:46pm

Re:
I don't get it, if they don't want porn, just remove all economic incentives for it to be created.

OK, now for the rest of the porn that isn't created for economic reasons. Any suggestions for that?
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 1 May 2013 @ 5:45pm

"Why Do Politicians Continue To Insist That A Magic Button Can Make Porn Disappear Online?"

Because their staffers setup a key combination the politicians can hit to hide what was on their screen.
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Edward Teach, 1 May 2013 @ 6:03pm

Re: Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
> Do you have a list of all porn websites on the net?

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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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 8:34pm

Re: Re:
Suck it up and learn to live with it?

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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Ninja (profile), 2 May 2013 @ 4:14am

Re:
Why impose fines? If I'm looking for porn what's the problem again? And honestly if I'm really determined no amount of block will stop me from acquiring.

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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PaulT (profile), 2 May 2013 @ 4:22am

Re: Re: Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
"1) The vast majority of the world's population does not run Linux."

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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Ninja (profile), 2 May 2013 @ 5:52am

Re: Re:
Checkmate. Those damned amateurs!
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Ninja (profile), 2 May 2013 @ 5:53am

Re: Re: Are you TRYING to give a troll a heart attack?
10 bucks everybody who read this comment will try it. I will when at home.
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Ninja (profile), 2 May 2013 @ 5:58am

Re: Re: Re: Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
I may be lynched for what I'm about to say but... Isn't it heavily dependent on the point of view? If you were some sort of Bin Laden wouldn't you find it a great work of art? Or if you were the Govt trying to remind people of what fear is after 9/11 in order to pass more Constitution-violating/privacy-eroding laws? (yeah, conspiracy nutty I know)

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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Ninja (profile), 2 May 2013 @ 6:01am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
I'd say that there are porns that are worth watching regardless if you are planning to fap or not. I tend to like those x-art like material. There was that porn Red Hood parody that was quite funny (although the focus was the sex scene not the story in general).

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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edinjapan (profile), 2 May 2013 @ 8:54am

Give them the button
Give the politicians the button and then list every politician's website as a porn/paedophile site
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Rikuo (profile), 2 May 2013 @ 9:15am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
Clearly btr has never watched Naruto. There's a villian in it called Deidara who is a bomber, who believes that explosions are the greatest works of art.
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btr1701 (profile), 2 May 2013 @ 10:36am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
> Clearly btr has never watched Naruto. There's
> 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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Ninja (profile), 2 May 2013 @ 12:03pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It's not "Make Porn Disappear Online", only in public spots.
Maybe yes but my point wasn't to say those psychos are right but rather that it's nuanced and something we don't like may still be art (and maybe the artist WANTED to elicit that feeling even though it's not some marathon finale blast).
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Oblate (profile), 6 May 2013 @ 6:10am

Re: Re: Re: Are you TRYING to give a troll a heart attack?
A) And user Ninja was never heard from again...

B) There is just something wrong about someone named Ninja being interested in pirate porn.
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