Online censorship in the uk starting July 15

I think it is going to force would be porn viewers to sign up to these sites and most likely using a bank card of some kind to register. Who the hell would be stupid enough to do that, whatever the site's content, porn or otherwise?

It will obviously have to be open to being checked ... checked by who .. yet another party with your details or maybe as well as the state. And no idea who is l ooking at your preferences or viewing history

Its wrong on many levels not least that it is back door censorship. If you are over 18 in the UK can join hte military and die for your country you can even be forced to. No one should be allowed to interfere with what you want to do if it does not directly affect others.


And before the question is raised .. no i don't bother with porn but strongly object to some one I do not know so can do respect trying top dictate what I may or may not choose to do .

If people don't want their kids to look at porn they should be supervising and limiting their internet use, checking their viewing history .. they are children so it's clearly justified. They should also stop giving moblie phones to minors.. they do not need them. 18 is plenty young enough to be allowed to have a mobile phone. Also there are kids getting around allsorts of age restrictions via mobile phones.
I can also see loads of kids using their mobile and mum or dads bank card to register for porn watching without getting consent

Why other adults should have their life choices dictated to them by people who clearly are not capable of or are too lazy to be supervising their children? I really don't understand and certainly can't condone.

 

Normally I would strongly oppose any sort of government censorship, or indeed government intervention. One of my favourite quotes is from Milton Friedman (one of relatively few Nobel prize-winning economists to not have a beard!) on government intervention:
"I say thank God for government waste. If government is doing bad things, it's only the waste that prevents the harm from being greater."

But on this subject, I couldn't agree more with @L-u-c-y. I got hooked on porn when I was about 11. Back then, if you wanted a film, even a short one, you'd need to set it to download overnight and hope the connection didn't drop while you were sleeping. By the time I was 13, we had a reasonable broadband connection and I was hooked on porn. I didn't get any sex education at school and two years in an all boys school made me quite timid around girls. My only exposure to women or sex was in porn.

Just like when I watched 18-rated horror movies, I knew what I was watching wasn't real, but unlike horror movies, I didn't have a grounded worldview to anchor what I was seeing. I spent more and more time looking and stronger and stronger porn, feeling less and less comfortable around women and spending less and less time doing things that I really needed to be doing.

Because of government blocks on torrent sites, censorship in schools, aggressive VPN marketing and geo-restricted content (e.g. Netflix), I would hazard a guess that most 15-16 year olds regularly use a VPN nowadays but if this block has a meaningful impact on even a section of young people, I am wholeheartedly for it.

(I don't normally write e-essays but I feel very strongly about this)

 

Don’t live in the UK so no dog in this race but, will this site be considered under the law?

 

thank you for your "thought leadership" Mistress Lucy

 

I'm not a big porn advocate myself and I won't be overly affected by this I shouldn't imagine but I do not agree with it either.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a news story in the not too distant future detailing how some of our MP's have received payments from the company behind these porn tube sites for the rights to be the ones who verify users age.

The truth is kids are smart enough to get around these blocks and those that aren't will know someone who is.
This won't defeat the problem it will only hide it in the shadows so the government can gloat and plan their next censorship.

The answer in my humble opinion is loose the Victorian attitude towards sex education and educate kids properly. I am not 100% sure of the facts I will admit but I am sure I read that Sweden was leading the way in this type of issue by educating children from a young age at an appropriate level and through their years in education.

Just my thoughts.

 

I totally agree with Mistress @L-u-c-y with this one even if it only stops a small % of kids watching it it's a start!!

 

Protecting kids by making porn watchers register in some way is merely an excuse to get hold of people's details and viewing habits. For how little protection for the kids it will provide I can't see how anyone can justify it. The first line of protection from internet content for children is their parents/carers the trouble is too many are too lazy to care.

Other than some extreme stuff I don't agree with, sex coupled with violence, snuff, pedo stuff how to commit various crimes or make bombs or hurt others etc for me generally censorship for adults in any form no matter how its dressed up is wrong. I for one have never given anyone permission to dictate to me anything I might choose to do or not do.

Hell I believe the vast majority of reality TV would be limited to adult subscription only but I would not stop the naive and those that lack imagination from watching what has been deliberately chosen for them... nor do I imagine that they can see the effect it or any mass entertainemnt has on them

There is a hell of a lot wrong with porn and a lot else that could be said about it too... but the discussion is not about porn and its merits or lack of... its about forms of censorship and far more worryingly information gathering.

The performers and producers of porn are not really concerned about copyright..they stay in business and continue to make money...lots of money... despite some of it being watched without cost and without the producers' consent.

People's credit card details or something similar will be required to sign up and I think its wrong. Anonymity for the benign internet users in my view ought to be a legislated for right. Too many people want to know too much and not necessarily for our benefit.

A lot of people may disagree with me on this or at least part of what I've said. Some do hold other opinions for definite which is of course their right. As far as I'm concerned then perhaps its best that some of us agree to differ rather than become alienated over one issue.

 

Thanks for doing the research Lucy.

Who is doing the verifying of age in relation to access to porn and how they do it is not a matter for concern to me I really am not a porn user as such and lack of access to it would bother me not a jot. I just believe we should oppose this legislation before it becomes a thin end of a very unstoppable wedge.

What bothers me is what will we all be asked to provide personal details for access to next. I already will not access sites that ask for my consent to access my computer or anything about me or my contacts, and slowly there is becoming increasingly less sites that don't ask for these things. Who really needed a cookie blocker 5 years ago and who is naive enough to not have one now?

There is definitely a market developing for some kind of method of creating a false ID for yourself in a ficticious name with a non-existent address that is linked to unreal and empty bank accounts and driving license numbers etc to make one's self 'verifiable' whilst retaining your personal safety in anonymity.

 

It shouldn't be a porn site, but in my opinion, the galleries make it one.

 

I would hardly consider that "I am crying about not being able to access porn".I simply don't agree with the system that is being put into place.

I rarely watch it nowadays so as in my original post it won't effect that much if at all.

 

I was not aware of that thank you....although it makes perfect sense.

Perhaps rather than sell their self-respect its time they went looking for proper jobs.
There is probaly enough genuine amateur stuff around to keep all but the most fanatically addicted going.

Then again I suppose what actions one might consider degrading are a very personal thing

 

Aww come on Lucy surely one or two of them are big..

Silliness aside.. you are absolutely right.

Of corse there is the question .. who's 'Ofiicial' definition of pornagraphy is being applied to the judging and surely judging a lot of what is being classed as porn must corrupt judges in time or of course it wasn't porn

 

I think I’ll prove my age and then watch every type of legal porn equally. Then, when the hackers/enemies of the UK try to reveal my sexual preferences, no one can tell what they are. Best place to hide a tree is in a forest. Also it’s a good cover story for the embarrassing truth which is that I like all types of legal porn equally....OR DO I?

Moving on, I’d be interested to learn whether adult women who would otherwise want to watch porn will be less likely to view it as a result of the risk of hacking/exposure arising from these age checks? It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine women’s sexual viewing habits being disapproved of and cracked down on disproportionately by future guardians of morality.

 

Blackmail does not require that material be leaked; it relies on the threat of it being leaked.

This very day an alleged cult leader was alleged in court to keep “collateral” (sexually explicit photos of women) to keep them doing his bidding, or else. I do not know whether the allegations are true.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/07/nxivm-trial-keith-raniere