Porn: do we really want internet providers to be our censors?
To which, the answer is “no”. As John Naughton goes on to point out:
Not surprisingly, nobody in the industry likes this idea. Apart from the extra costs it would impose, it also places companies in the uncomfortable position of deciding what their customers can read and view. And it would effectively put the UK in the same boat as China, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan and other countries whose governments decide what citizens can access.
Indeed. Although there are those who reside within our shores who want just that.
Not sure I like the implication of the headline, it seems to be saying that the problem isn’t censorship but that it’s the ISPs doing it.
Reading on confirms my suspicions: when the censorship comes directly from our masters it “seems reasonable to me”.
It doesn’t matter who is doing it. In this case, though, government is trying to get the ISPs to do its dirty work for it.
It does matter who’s doing it. If an ISP is doing it, purely by it’s own choice, that’s absolutely fine. There might even be a market for a puritanical internet.
But when the state’s forcing the industry to censor, then it’s most definitely not fine.
But if an ISP is planning to market that idea, why not just give the consumer a locked-down service by default, with the option of enabling the ‘free’ (well, after IWF et al. have finished with it anyway) Internet by use of a special passcode?
You’re saying, if one company is planning to launch something, why not force it on everyone (after all, they can opt out)?
Because if everyone wants it, they can sign up to those offering it. Forcing people to buy approved groceries, or drive an approved car is wrong, so is forcing people to access an homogenized internet.
But Andrew, they can opt out?
“Raise your hand if you’re a grubby, child-molesting, old pervert, and are drooling at the thought of naked underage flesh… and we’ll give you a special pass-code”
Then you’ve got to hope that the list of pass-code perverts remains private (BNP and EDL membership lists have been leaked so that’s doubtful) and isn’t used against you (for example when applying for a job).
And it also requires you to believe that the sole aim of censorship is to protect “the children”. But we can see from where it’s already being used that’s not the case. In this country, Tim Worstall’s site is classified as unsuitable by at least one mobile ISP, and he’s just a UKIPer, hardly a radical.
Ultimately if someone wants something, they can buy it, if they don’t, leave them alone.
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
The growing demand that pornography be curtailed, whether on the internet or not, is because it is deemed to be obscene – something which is likely to deprave and corrupt – and we must all think of the chiiiiillllllldreeeeeen. The fact that pornography, in one form or another has been around for several thousands of years suggests that all previous attempts to curtail it have failed. It may be a class thing, where the belted earl has a collection of ‘tasteful and educational erotica’ in his library, while the bloke in the council house just has a load of ‘tasteless w*nk mags’ shoved under the sofa. It may even be that the educated ones are able to better cope with exposure to such material than the lower social classes (one of the greatest collections of porn – or erotica, if you will – is said to be in the Vatican library where various Popes through the ages commissioned engravings, books and sketches from the artists and publishers of the day. How many people (but not me, your Worship) have visited the Pompeii and Herculaneum exhibition in London hoping to view ancient porn rather than pieces of urns or petrified men, women and dogs? The worrying thing is that pornography is not just about sexual images. The ability to deprave and corrupt also falls to promoting extreme political or religious themes – Nazi publications and posters showing Jews as thieving, scheming, baby killing untermensch (more recently supported by publications and posters from the BNP), while Islamic texts,just as anti-semitic, are prevalent in certain bookshops in London and some midlands towns, but for some strange reason are not classed as obscene, possibly because those who read them are already depraved and corrupt. There may be those who remember the witch hunt against ‘video nasties’ in the 80’s which showed extreme violence, some sexually based, and horror scenes in fictional films. One ‘right on’ organisation surveyed a certain number of school children and gave them a list of videos which purported to show extreme scenes and asked them to tick against those they had seen. This survey was then used to force the Government of the day to take action and ban them (the videos, not the children). Following that, another group surveyed even more children using the same technique, only adding a fair number of titles of films that didn’t exist. Many of these non-existent film titles had ticks beside them which showed that the first survey may have been flawed. Nowadays, not only are many of these video nasties found in bargain bins in video shops (if you can find one) or on DVDs, but some have been remade or had sequels to them! You can’t try and ban pornography, any kind of pornography. It won’t work. If parents don’t want their children to access porn then they should do what caring parents do and vet their childrens’ viewing themselves, instead of expecting someone else to do their job for them. They are supposed to be the moral and ethical guides for their offspring, so make them responsible for it. A more dangerous result of censoring what can be available on PCs, smartphones, iphones or whatever, is that if Governments can say one thing should be banned because it’s obscene then what’s to stop them saying something else is obscene (centre based political views in an ultra left or right wing Government, for instance). You only have to look at the furore over internet censorship in China where any suggestion of criticism of the Government or its policies is classed as obscene. Be careful what you wish for. It may just come true.
Plus its not such a big deal anyway. The internet is not filled with porn, only a small percentage is. 4%