There is a proposal by what is supposed to be an intelligent minister to ban houses with children from viewing Internet pornography unless they sign some kind of list asking for porn.
See here.
Oh where to begin.
First things first, children should be protected from pornography. With the sheer amount of really extreme pornography out there you have to be careful about what children see on the Internet. I have fond memories of glimpsing a nudey person on TV or print, even on the 'tinternet, whilst I was growing up. But those were more innocent times. Now you are talking about some horrible stuff being out there. The world has most definitely changed.
The problem is definition of what is pornography. There is porn which I find disgusting and offensive. But they are legal. But this goes beyond that. What
is the government's classification of pornography to be used in this context? Is it hardcore? Softcore? Is films or TV with a sexual content to be banned? Is it topless images of women?
Who says?
If it is the films, TV, and the Sun newspaper, then the media aren't going to be happy about it. All these big businesses make a lot of money out of such content so they are not going to allow their product to be banned without a fight.
When one wants to ban things it is the unintended consequences which cause the problems. The most violent porn is easy to ban, but what about educational sites that seek to teach about sexually. Are they to be banned if they have nude images or explicit descriptions of sex? If so a much needed resource for young people coming to terms with their bodies, sexuality, or desperate for information will be lost. That would be terrible.
The last time such bans where done in the US rape crisis centres where banned, as was breast cancer support sites, etc, because they fell foul of the censoring system. This proposed ban will effect more than just porn sites.
What I find worrying is the usurpation of the state of the rights of parents. Parents need to monitor and control what their children do on the Internet. This includes cyber-bullying, extreme politics, violent images, as well as porn. The state, which is famed at being useless at everything, should trust parents to look after and protect their own children. They work for us they don't own us. We have freedoms and duties. We have choice. This proposal undermines these things.
Worst of all I find the lack of understanding about how the Internet works astonishing. The easiest way to ban porn sites is to have a list of the porn sites and stop browsers from visiting these sites.
For that to work you'd need a list of
ALL the sites which contain pornography in the whole entire world. This is not Playboy and its ilk, its studios, forums, hobby sites, blogs, and god knows what else. This is a massive job. Such sites are huge in number. They disappear quickly. And more importantly, they grow in number by the second.
Who is going to compile this list and keep it up to date? It would take a team of tens of thousands to compile it, it would take years, would cost a fortune, and would be out of date when it was compiled. It's unworkable.
Just to complicate matters there are sites which store files. These files could be holiday snaps, music, business records, or porn. These files can be protected by password and no one without the password, including the host site, can have any idea of what the files contain.
How do you be sure that they don't contain porn?
You cannot ban them as they tend to be non-UK based, and they have many legitimate uses.
You could set up a site and have a list of pornographic files stored in such sites and they would not be banned by the new proposal.
Even if every site needed to be vetted by government there are other options which will escape them. Torrents and Dark Nets spring to mind. Such techniques will allow pron to escape the ban.
The Internet is not for children. It can be horrible, extreme, offensive, dangerous, and worse. It is also brilliant. It proves us all with a chance to let our voice be heard. It gives us access to information. It's a modern wonder and wealth generator. It works because it is free.
Censorship of the Internet, and what we can use it for is dangerous. Free expression is a right. If anyone breaks the law, either by phishing, or illegal pornography then they should be prosecuted. But that's it. You shouldn't censor everyone.
We have seen governments being embarrassed by the Internet. The Americans by Wikileaks, Iran by Twitter, amongst many others. Governments would love to control what we see and do. They'd love to censor the Internet. And that's why the mustn't be allowed to.
This proposal seems modest, but once the principle of Internet censorship is established governments will push it. First porn, then racist sites, then politically embarrassing ones. Then you.
You think I'm exaggerating? Well the UK under labour introduced harsh anti-terror laws after terrorists set off bombs and murdered people. The law was supposed to target only terrorists. It didn't stay that way though. These laws are used to stop legal protests. Photographers. Indeed to arrest an elderly man who heckled a labour minister.
Governments and bureaucracies always abuse and pervert any power the are given. The same would happen here.
This censorship would lead to the same curtailment of our rights and worse abuses.
We must not let the politicians and their minions take away our freedoms.
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