So, those of you outside the UK will probably not be aware of this but here in Blighty our esteemed leader Mr Cameron has announced that he has got the internet service providers to agree to implement an opt-in porn filter on our internet system. What this means is that everyone in the UK will receive a letter sometime in the next 18 months (I think) which will give the billpayer the option to opt 'in' to being able to access porn. If the billpayer does not opt in then your account will be filtered and porn will be blocked on your server.
I'm sure this is well intentioned... it's being sold on the idea that we should be protecting our children from seeing porn, and on the face of it you can't really argue because it's undeniable that children can access some pretty bad stuff on the internet these days. Yes their parents should implement filters on their PCs, but the kids aren't stupid, they'll probably find a way to turn them off and what about on their iPhones, tablets, etc, etc, etc?
Where I work we tend to have the radio on and today on Radio 2 there was a phone in about this very subject, or rather the 'difficult' conversation that's going to have to happen when this letter arrives on the nation's collective doormat. Their take on it was something like this:
The letter arrives and the 'wife' wants to keep the filters on (curiously there was no mention of children in this argument) because she doesn't want to watch porn and the 'husband' says he doesn't watch porn... this then leads to the husband protesting on the grounds of freedom of speech/expression or whatever and eventually having to confess that actually he wants the filters off because he does indeed watch porn.
Now, leaving aside what this says about the state of their relationship, I can see that this scenario will not be uncommon amongst the wider vanilla community. But interestingly, the feature threw up many more scenarios and unexpected problems with this scheme.
Firstly, the presenter was surprised to find a lot of women calling in saying that they are watching porn and they don't want their husbands to find out. Then there was a woman who called up to say that she lives with her mother (she's 23 and with housing the way it is in the UK there is a lot of people living at home well into the twenties these days) and she wants to be able to view porn and her Mother does not want to opt-in.
Then there was a scenario where several couples living in a large shared house with one internet provider would have to agree one way or the other, and what about people who rent... what if their internet service is provided by the landlord?
It really does seem that this is set to stimulate an awful lot of arguments and to my mind, with severely limited success. Humans are incredibly curious and inventive, and if you try to take something away from us you will find people will go to incredible lengths to beat the system, you only have to look at prohibition to see that. I can well imagine the most Googled phrase on the internet being 'how can I beat the internet porn filters?', and of course if you look hard enough you will find the answer.
The other thing that crossed my mind is that even a semi-luddite such as myself has worked out how to use an app to download content from the internet, and in particular 'You-tube' and similar sites to be able to watch later with no internet connection. Surely the kids will soon establish just who's parents house has the filter free internet and they will all be regularly visiting with their tablets to stock up on porn for viewing later at home? I know that's what I would have done when I was a kid, as it was in my day I made friends with a guy on the market and he loaned my VHS tapes in return for minding his stall for a few hours every Saturday.
The other thing that crossed my mind was that surely, this will provide a welcome boost for the hard hit Porn DVD companies, because you can bet your bottom dollar that the 'husbands/wives' who lose their internet porn will soon be looking for alternative ways to feed their need. So if anyone knows how to set up a webstore... now's probably the time to do it!
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