To paraphrase Pastor Martin Niemöller, "They came first for Wikileaks. But I didn't speak up because I hated politics. Then they came for pornography. But I didn't speak up because I didn't look at porn..." Porn is everywhere on the Internet. Why? Many people want it. Porn on the web is one of the most profitable businesses around. But just as with the fraudulent "war on terror," which is not meant to be won but to be continuous, the government now is preparing for another continuous war - the war on porn. Of course, the claim is to protect our children. After all, everything the government does is to protect us, right?
FTA:
In a move that smacks of the draconian Internet laws in place in countries like Australia, the UK government has plans to ask ISPs to block all pornography from home Internet connections by default, it's reported today. Under the plan, customers would have to ask the ISP for access to pornography...
Quoted in the story, Conservative MP Claire Perry describes the current Internet as the "Wild west". "We are not coming at this from an anti-porn perspective. We just want to make sure our children aren't stumbling across things we don't want them to see."
...Does this sound insane to you? It does to us. While most people probably don't want children exposed to porn, the idea of blocking it at source is hairbrained on a number of levels:
How do you define porn? Sure, some sites are obviously explicit but what about sites which cover the academic study of pornography? What about message boards like 4chan which cover a wide range of topics including porn? Where is the line?
If you do block sites which cover porn among other subjects, where do you stop? It's potentially letting Internet censorship in through the back door.
Adults shouldn't be stigmatised for viewing porn. Forcing them to contact their ISPs for "permission" does that.
All Internet porn "To be blocked" in the UK
DISCUSS!
Original posting by Braincrave Second Life staff on Dec 22, 2010 at http://www.braincrave.com/viewblog.php?id=412
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