During my lifetime, I’ve witnessed a shift from an adult-centric society where children were subservient to their parents to a child-centric one where everything revolves around children. Every little piece of nannying uses the justification of protecting children. Never mind that it is parents who are responsible for their children and it is their role to protect them where they can. Mine exhorted me before going out not to talk to strangers and I followed that instruction. I lived. I am still here. None of the horrors the state seeks to protect children from affected me. These days, parental responsibility is being usurped by the state and in doing so the whole population becomes infantilised.
Unfortunately, these things are often heralded under the banner of some good moral cause – something that only the wicked would object to and to the detriment of something no one would openly admit to supporting. Thus it is with pornography. First they came for the pornographers and I said nothing, for I am not a pornographer…
Pornography has taken the world wide web to its heart, making its product more available than it has ever been. It is a multibillion dollar industry. But, but, but think of the children, after all, that is what Ed Vaizey is doing.
Internet service providers are to be asked by the government to tighten up on website pornography to try to combat the early sexualisation of children.
Ministers believe broadband providers should consider automatically blocking sex sites, individuals being required to “opt in” to receive them, rather than “opt out” and use the available computer parental controls.
Ed Vaizey, the communications minister, is to meet internet providers, including BT, Virgin Media and TalkTalk, “in the near future” to discuss changing the way pornography enters private homes, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills confirmed.
Is there a huge problem with children looking at porn sites? Really? And if parents are so incapable of monitoring their childrens’ surfing habits to the point where they are looking at porn, why should those adults who wish to look at it be penalised? And, if it is porn today, what will it be tomorrow that ISPs will have to block for the sake of the children? And, frankly, what business is it of the government? It is interesting that Vaizey sees no irony in his wording “…enters private homes”. The operative word here being private; i.e. nothing to do with him.
“This is a very serious matter. I think it is very important that it’s the ISPs that some up with solutions to protect children,” Vaizey told the Sunday Times.
It is not a serious matter at all. It is a matter of parents being left alone to manage their children without nanny taking over. It is a matter for adults to make their own decisions about what they watch without having to go creeping to their ISP asking for access.
“I’m hoping they will get their acts together so that we don’t have to legislate, but we are keeping an eye on the situation and we will have a new communications bill in the next couple of years.”
Yeah, right. Of course they will legislate. The beast is never sated, the righteous never go away, they merely change their overcoats once every five years or so. A binge legislator’s thirst is never quenched. There is always room for one for the road.
Bear in mind, of course, that the idea of having to ask for access to adult material – even if it has been wrongly flagged as such – isn’t new. ISPs have been doing it for a while now.
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Edited to add: Notice the nice twist in the use of language. When Vaizey talks of “opt-in” what he is talking about is opting-out of state control of one’s internet access. Nice.
My arse its for the children, Its purely for blackmail or besmirchement of character that they are after. If and when they need it.
These so called MP’s are despicable.
Disclaimer: I’m 50 years old now so not much porn arrives on my desktop or my lap as it happens, but ffs this is control where it is not needed.Looking at porn is a natural thing to do when growing up, anyone remember going straight for the bra’s in the catalogue , and they were drawn on ffs lol
My first exposure to porn would have been the summer of 1969 or thereabouts. I used to hang out with a couple of friends from school and one of them had an older brother. My friend knew where his brother’s stash of “rude mags” was kept. So we looked. We were about ten or eleven at the time. It was normal curiosity, frankly, and none of us came to any harm. I did learn that my mate like tits – the bigger the better, so Vaizey would be right up his street.
You know, it makes me wonder about the coalition’s priorities. The economy is in the tank and they waste government time on this?
It’s not a waste of government time, to them nothing could be more important.
It’s not about porn or children, its about control, as always. In this case control of the internet, which has been a thorn in the side of The Party since it was first invented.
There’s nothing they won’t do to record and control access to it, or better yet destroy it altogether.
When they remove the responsibility of parents to watch their childrens internet activity, what happens when some porn slips through the net? Sue the ISP for compensation. It’s inevitable.
Oh give me strength. Lard this puritanical nastiness on top of the (still unrepealed) Harman law about possession of images of an ‘extreme nature’ (which would cover most Renaissance paintings of St. Sebastian and the Crucifixion) and we can see where we’re all headed. No sex please, we’re citizens of the British Republic of Censorship.
Given my academic research interests, I have a hard drive full of ‘obscene’, ‘extreme’ and pornographic images. But I doubt that ‘justification’ would make a difference to Plod, even in a house where no children ever cross the threshold.
See, that’s why I come here, properly calm deconstruction. I’m afraid I tend to lose my rag.
This is probably the most ill-thought out nonsense I’ve seen in a decade. You know it’s excruciatingly bad when they can’t even throw a few junk science stats into the mix and even Mail readers think it’s pathetic.
We are in an era of the most appalling governments in UK history. If this is going to be the norm for the future, we really do have to think about the safety of our children. From the state.
“Bear in mind, of course, that the idea of having to ask for access to adult material – even if it has been wrongly flagged as such – isn’t new. ISPs have been doing it for a while now.”
And a few years ago, Sky moved from ‘here’s how you set a PIN under the parental control option so the kids can’t watch stuff without your permission’ to ‘all our non U-rated films can’t be watched before the watershed UNLESS you put your PIN in – yes, even if you recorded it!’.
I wonder if they watched to see how many people cancelled out of principle, and then said ‘Well, we know they’ll put up with it…’?
Working as a Saturday boy in a local haulage companies garage, porn was difficult to avoid, especially with all those drivers coming back from the continent. Fill up with over 50 litres abroad and the driver was given a few one handed magazines in much the same way as green shield stamps were handed out here.
Heading towards 50 fast and still haven’t managed to rape any kids, so I guess it never harmed me either.
Now what did the Who sing about those pictures of Lilly…….
LR,
I like, “Internet service providers are to be asked by the government to tighten up on website pornography to try to combat the early sexualisation of children.”
As opposed to government mandated early sexualisation of children through curriculum related ‘sex education’ at primary school age.
FFS.
We did sex education in 1971, when I was 8. I seem to remember having far better things to do at the time than becoming sexualised and wasn’t on my own.
I think the problem of early sexualisation might be more the fault of marketing. I’m thinking of magazines aimed at young girls, kids fashion etc.
Does anyone know if a repeal of the ‘extreme porn’ ban is scheduled for the so-called ‘freedom bill’? Given this idiocy about internet censorship, I suspect not.