It’s perfectly reasonable for the owners of computers to be expected to make an active decision about whether porn is available on the computer, not whether it isn’t. At the moment things are set up so that the consumption of pornography is made as passive and easy as possible. But that’s not right – because it flies in the face of a robust consensus that says porn is for adults only, adults who should be actively aware, when they’ve got next door’s 11-year-old in their house because their mum’s late home and it’s raining, that their computer is primed for anal.
I’ve read some claptrap in my time – and the Groan is certainly the place for it. I mean, what Orr fails to realise – or decides not to acknowledge – is that porn doesn’t just pop up on your computer. You have to look for it – that is, it is already opt-in. And consenting adults should be able to do just that without telling the state about it.
And on the rather stupid example above – next door’s little sods don’t get near my front door, let alone inside, so what is on the Longrider computer is not going to be of any concern for the chillldreeen. And if they did get into the house, I wouldn’t be letting them within a parsec of my technology anyway. The Longrider household is an exclusively adult household, so we don’t need any government filters. There are no children to protect.
And what the fuck is “primed for anal” when it’s about anyway?
But, you see, that libertarian outrage that Orr dismisses so lightly isn’t about porn, it’s about the bigger picture. It’s about the state deciding what is okay for the citizen to look at or read. Porn today – because no one will defend the pornographer without sullying himself – but tomorrow, it will be something else. It will always be something else because the beast is never sated. The puritans always come back for another bite, because they know best and we don’t. Once the precedent is set – that the state may decide what we view – it will decide on our behalf to protect us from other undesirable content.
That is the point. Porn is simply the Trojan horse. Orr is too fucking stupid to see that – or she is simply a disingenuous useful idiot.
“Orr is too fucking stupid to see that – or she is simply a disingenuous useful idiot.”
I’m not convinced The Guardian’s not just a more subtle Daily Mash.
I’m not convinced they are that clever 😉
Ever since journalists/politicians discovered the internet they have pushed the idea that all content is somehow ‘broadcast’ when, of course, it is broadcast in the same sense that an obscure academic paper held in the deep archive of a national reference library is somehow ‘publicly available’. Technically that is correct in both cases and in both cases the ‘public’ has to do a heck of a lot of searching, it is certainly not ‘News At Ten’ or front page of the ‘Sun’ stuff.
Indeed the parallel with a library is, I think, a good analogy, one has to know what one is looking for, getting the search terms right is a knack that needs to be mastered if the index is to be one’s friend. However there is a problem here. English certainly contains a lot of words that are used in different ways and acronyms are a minefield for the technical researcher unaware of alternate meanings.
You are certainly right about not letting next door’s kid near your computer. The chances are that a) he will install a toolbar that you can’t get rid of; b) download the porn that he is not allowed to look at at home.
You are also right regarding the creeping demands. It was remarkable when the subject of smoking in cars had been brought to the top of the pile a few months ago how many people on phone-ins came out with the line “well we ban mobile phones, don’t we?” as a justification for further controls.
XX when they’ve got next door’s 11-year-old in their house because their mum’s late home XX
FUCK OFF! Sit on the door-step and wait you little bastard! AND BE BLOODY QUIET!
Quite.
Libertarians seemed to a have missed the more serious threat to civil liberties. Cameron is intending to extend the “extreme porn ban” to cover pornographic simulations of rape. I do not like the proposed opt-out from the anti-porn filter but it small beer in civil liberties terms. Being sent to jail for watching consenting adults acting out fantasies is an appalling civil liberties issue. Not surprisingly, economically liberal Cameron sees no problem with it, and given the lack of negative chat about it in right wing libertarian circles, neither it appears, do libertarians.
A lack of evidence is not evidence of a lack. I object to it, but have not commented. There is only so much i can talk about. This is a hobby, not a job after all.
Hear hear I agree with your post 100% and as I have already had several heated debates with some very narrow minded Daily telegraph readers on the Telegraph’s own site I best keep my mouth shut 🙂 (I should add NOT all Telegraph readers are narrow minded, my mother and father take the Telegraph, but the ones that debated with me were) It’s another personal choice that apparently we are all too stupid to make for ourselves and as we know this Government like many previous governments are going down the nanny state rout deciding none of us “Mere mortals” are intelligent enough to think for ourselves. Well leaders of the UK if you had not dumbed the country down to the point of sheer negligence maybe we would not all NEED telling what we can and can’t do. I for one do not need telling I can’t watch porn if i so choose, it’s a matter of personal discretion, and another waste of public funds on something that A/ does not need fixing. and B/ the government has absolutely no chance of stopping as the people they are aiming at will find ways around the blocks put in place anyway, just like the pirate sites have with movies and software.
My mobile phone had adult content filtered by default. I left it on as I considered there was a remote chance my daughter (who is five) might find something she shouldn’t – although she isn’t allowed unsupervised access to the thing (she plays an occasional game on it). I do use the phone for internet and there’s a blog I read quite a bit – but it was blocked. When I rang Vodafone they explained that because the (female as it happens) blogger had once used a naughty word, if I wanted to read the rest of her blog, I’d have to lift the entire content block. I agreed to this and it made me think – I only wanted to read one blog, now I can get as much porn as I like on my phone.
I will be opting into porn, not because I have a great love of it, but so I don’t miss anything else the puritans may have accidentally decided I’m not allowed. Cameron was asked on Woman’s hour how a bloke could now get the porn block lifted without telling his wife – and had no answer. I’m not married or co-habiting so I won’t be having that tricky conversation, but plenty of people will.