UK Government will not block porn

Parents can enforce this on their kids, by controlling their devices, educating their kids and being vigilant. There is no reason to get government involved.
This is aside from the fact that content blockers are ineffective at their best and violation of privacy at their worst.
The more accurate you want this blocker to be - the more it has to understand the content you are requesting to see.
Perfect blocker has to know everything about you and understand what you are watching. This means everything you do has to be analyzed and interpreted - basically a description of total surveillance if there ever was one.

 

There is already some mobile phone providers that automatically do this. Basically if you buy a new mobile phone with a new sim card the first time you turn on the phone and go online pornographic content will be blocked. But then if you want to turn that off you make an account online and can turn it off with ID, using a passport, driving licence or provisional. This wouldn't be much hassle at all to turn it off if you didn't want it, and at the very least it stops a lot of very young kids from automatically being able to stumble across it online.

I see no reason why this can't work for all mobile phone providers and internet service providers. It keeps the majority of very young eyes stumbling across pornographic content online, and if you're over 18 it isn't much hassle at all to turn it off if you don't want it.

 

Blockers like these are kind of "a security theater" they make you feel safer about your kids, but do nothing to prevent exposure to pornography.
When you leave your house, you lock the door and it is also "a security theater".
Yes you may feel like your house is safe but we know it is not, it would take seconds to get in to pretty much any house. So we monitor them with alarms, because we know they are not safe.
Same goes for kids, they go to school, you check under the bed, in the closet, you check their browsing history - you monitor and engage them all the time, then you will be able to discover use and take action.
Its a responsibility, it needs work and commitment and it requires establishment of trust with your kid.
But people want the blocker to do the job of proper parenting, Just block it! Then they feel good - I have an blocker it is protecting my kid...
Kids need responsible parenting, blockers can be part of that but parenting is 90% of success.
Making pornography illegal, or adding blockers is an attempt to remove responsibility from people, same way school system removed responsibility from parents to educate kids.
They expect kids to be educated by the school, they do not expect to educate their kids - government is responsible! And if the kid does not do well - its his fault - he is not working hard.

Danger is that blocking efforts, remove responsibility form individuals. They then begin to say, you are blocking but you need to do more, we are still getting exposure in X, Y Z ways!

Lets skip all that here is you - here is your child - talk.

 

Proper parenting doesnt work with regards to porn, sure you can educate your kids on the consequences of porn use, but when absolutely all of their mates at school watch porn and post clips in group chats and swap videos, and all of mainstream society says its healthy, and feminists inexplicably regard it as empowering to women, you're fighting a losing battle. God himself couldn't have stopped me watching porn at 16, he could have literally personally visited me and threatened me with eternal hellfire and the first thing I'd have done when he left is jack off. Porn is hijacking young peoples brain and currently the only solution to this is to try to convince teenage boys not to jack off, good luck with that. Something has to be done, parents are not policing internet use as they should, and children are suffering as a result. How bad would it have to get to justify government intervention?

 

I understand what you're saying. But all these mobile phone providers are doing is having it on a setting automatically, and if you're over 18 and want to turn it off using some form of ID you can do so.

Why do you think it is better that pornography is automatically accessible straight away on every device you go on?

Some children won't be lucky enough to have good enough parents to block them from being able to access these kind of things. So do these kids simply deserve to suffer later in life because their parents weren't good enough to block them from pornography when they were at such a young age? Is it just a case of ah well tough luck?

 

There is no reason for the government to be involved in most of what it does. But this is actually one of the few things government should be involved in. Pornography in the west has never been considered free speech but has always been in the category or content that can and should be illegal. If the government is going to do ridiculous things like effectively ban incandescent lightbulbs then at least it could block vile porn.

Sure, older and more motivated kids can get around measures. But that doesn’t mean that blocking content never helps.

 

Pornography exists in such huge amounts because there is high demand for it.
Putting a ban or even controlls on something that is in high demand does not make that demand disappear, it reshapes the market.
We only need to look back to our recent history to see this fail.

Education programs do work however, we can see it in action with sexually transmitted diseases.
Huge educational effort pushed use of condoms and safe sex, and in matter of years had massive impact on proliferation of diseases like HIV.
Why did we not just Ban Sex for pleasure instead?

 

Any tech savvy kid will get around the blocks if they want to. But that doesn't mean it won't stop the majority of very young eyes stumbling across pornography.

The thing is these measures aren't even blocking pornography. They're on a setting, and if you're over 18 and have access to the account you can change it. But obviously if you have kids your going to prefer to have this setting kept switched on on their device.

I just think it would be better this setting is automatically switched on with every new smart phone, laptop or other device you buy, and if you're over 18 and are the account holder then you can turn it off if you want. I don't understand why this is such a problem for some people?

The pornographic content isn't even blocked. It would just automatically be on a setting, and you can turn that settings off if you're over 18 and are the account holder.

 

All I'm saying is doing what some mobile phone providers are already doing. Having a setting automatically switched on when you get a new smart phone/sim card, and you could have the same system for everyone when they first become a new customer with an internet service provider.

All this would do is have pornographic content automatically blocked, but if you're over 18 and are the account holder you can change that setting on your smart phone, laptop ext. But if you had kids then you would not turn this setting off on their device.

It's not really blocking porn, it's just automatically on a setting that you can switch off if you're over 18 and the account holder. If it was actually blocked then you wouldn't be able to access it at all.

At the very least this would stop very young eyes accidentally or even deliberately stumbling across pornographic content on their device.

 

You said something very important - "good enough parents".
If parents do not care, nothing will help.
This is where money and effort should go, educating parents to be good parents. Parents are in a position to actually prevent abuse of porn, government is not.

 

I going to give up, no one cares about research, no one reads history books everyone wants the government to protect them and to protect their kids.

On final note, I would estimate that high quality blocker will block maybe 20% of the available content.

 

There is too many people in the world who have kids who shouldn't have kids. Parents who are drugs addicts, alcoholics, or simply just don't give a damn for their kids.

So these kids wouldn't get that education from their parents, and if they could get on pornography on their device they would probably just use it.

Even kids who have good parents, how many kids in the world disobey their good parents? How many randy young boys would go on the pornography even if their parents told them how bad it was and told them not to use it?

I personally don't think children under 16 should have a smart phone anyway. But these days very young children have smart phones, their own laptops, Ipads ext. Kids as young as 9 or even younger who are able to stumble across these kinds of websites. It simply shouldn't be able to happen at all.

What you're proposing might work for many kids, but there is also many kids it's not going to work for, or even get the chance to have parents educate them and prevent them going on it.

 

I guess I just don't see what the big problem is with your mobile phone provider and internet service provider automatically having it on a setting for every new customer, and you can switch it off if you're over 18 and the account holder. I don't see what the big issue is with that.

Maybe they should just sell alcohol to people under 21 or 18, because I mean if they're able to get the alcohol elsewhere anyway then why don't the shops just sell it to them? Maybe they need educated, and that will stop every teenager under 18 going against their parents wishes and drinking alcohol.

 

You are making irrational and false arguments.
You argue that getting information online is comparable to walking to a store to buy physical objects, and because it is much easier to control access to physical objects - it is as easy to control access to information.
Physical objects can be controlled, because you can physically restrict access to them, information can not be controlled, because you can not physically restrict access to it, despite what you think.
People that sell to minors are also punished by the law, with fines and jail time, they can be physically located, you have no such enforcement with information.
And finally it is illegal to sell alcohol to minors, and it is not illegal to have a website with pornographic content.
You are trying to prevent people from going in to "stores" websites, where they can legally go?

Looking at governments that attempt to block and filter content their citizens see, they employ the best available technologies and have no concerns about human rights and they fail.

The issue is not that its good or bad rather that - it is ineffective to try to control access to information. As investment of money, money is better spent elsewhere.

If you want to compare porn blocker to ability to buy alcohol then you should consider realities of these technologies, they are incapable of blocking even half of content we want them to, when they fail no one knows and nothing is done.
So that is same as having laws that prohibit sale of alcohol but doing absolutely no enforcement of those laws

 

I dont understand what your argument is? You say parents educating kids is the answer, but you acknowledge that they dont. So to deal with that we just cross our fingers and hope that parents do start educating their kids, and if they dont just cross your fingers some more and wait. All the while children's social and academic lives are being destroyed, if a 11 year old kid starts watching porn, by the time hes taking exams hes 5 years into pmo addiction and will likely fail, which will have a negative impact on the rest of their lives, and hamper their ability to form personal relationships with women and prevent them from achieving their potential. The solution you're offering doesnt work, if it did then we wouldn't be here having this conversation

 

As a pmo addict I went on holiday to Bali, porn is illegal in Indonesia, I couldn't find a way to bypass the government block, I tried vpn's, non porn sites that users sometimes post porn on, like 4chan and reddit, no luck. I gave up, that was as a 24 year old porn addict with 7 years of multiple times daily use. When implemented properly, blockers work

 

Yes I've been to countries with effective P blockers too. Also many people here use their own blockers, and find them helpful. The fact is that the harder it is to access this material, the fewer people will do so, and those that do will visit them less often. It will never be completely eradicated, but we can definitely take measures to prevent and minimise its use.

When I first stumbled across P as an early teenager, it was a genuine accident - think I was searching for 'download film' or something - although pretty soon afterwards I was searching for it deliberately.

 

Of course porn blockers aren't the solution. The disease needs to be healed at the source: There is no sensible reason why porn should even exist. It should be outlawed entirely and porn producers should be put in jail. End of story. Not to speak of the numerous women who could be saved from this "career" and start a healthy family instead.

And yes, this works perfectly. With porn addicts getting repelled into the darknet where other already illegal stuff roams around, the chance of minors stumbling over it by accident is close to zero.

 

I’m old and I grew up in the days way before internet P. I was exposed to P around the age of 4. I spent my entire childhood surrounded by P. We had it in our house. I saw it over my friends houses. It was at my grandmothers house. It was at my aunt and uncles house. I went to house parties as a teen and it was on the tv. The neighbors had it. Every kid I knew got into their father’s P stash and showed it to their friends. It was never hidden well enough.

And no one thought that this was a problem. At least, none of the adults ever talked about it. Ever. But it was all around us. We could see it but we couldn’t talk about and everyone pretended it wasn’t there. It was bananas.

I’ve heard that growing up looking at internet P is worse.

I don’t know what the answer is. It’s always been around. Everybody watches it. No one under 21 should ever be exposed to it but what about when it’s already in the home. And being brought into the home by parents. Lots of parents are negligent.

 

Porn has been forced into Western people's minds starting with the "sexual revolution" together with casual sex dating to destroy the nuclear family. This is why nobody did mind. Obviously it didn't start with the Internet age. Both signs of degeneracy together with others are banned in most traditional-conservative countries with a healthy birth rate.