Seriously, a pubic morals campaign under the banner of "think of the children" looks antiquated in the 21st century.
And if anything it will make abuse harder to identify and track down - instead of sharing online it will be shady deals out of the boot of a car. The NSA can't intercept that (or can they??).
Only in Great Britain. A stuffy, red faced PM whipping up a righteous moral panic because images of this awfully taboo and horrendous thing called human sexuality are freely available to all.
Is this the beginning of a return to the Victorian era, with it's forceful sexual repression and the insidious forms of abuse that came with it?
Sad. Not the actions of an enlightened, open society.
Tony Blair and friends had already kickstarted an attempt at restoring Victorian values. Didn't get very far, but bad ideas never die. I can understand how this sort of thing looks good to a politician, tbh.
Cost: zero.
Support from press: great (the Daily Mail has been campaigning on it for months already).
Support from senior citizens (i.e. people who actually get their ass to the ballot box every time): good.
Possibility of blowback in polite society: none (who's ever gonna discuss porn at dinner parties?).
Negatively affected in a direct way: nerds (don't move votes), kids (don't move votes -- in fact, if they protest, senior citizens will support it even more, so it's a win-win).
Economic benefit: likely net positive, since somebody will have to maintain these filters, these captive portals, these opt-in/opt-out forms, right?
What is not to like ? Ah yes, that "open society" thing. You see, this government is run by old money people; they were running the show when "open society" didn't even exist, and will likely keep running it for the foreseeable future. Openness and freedom were a necessary evil to win the Cold War. Now that XX century utopias have been dealt with, we can all go back to the old way of doing things, what what?
I think they have miscalculated completely. Everybody in the internet generation looks at porn, not only is it normal joking about it is and while one might not want to discuss this over the dinner table much politics have started in bars or over alcohol - here attempts to ban porn would be discussed and laughed over.
Seriously, a pubic morals campaign under the banner of "think of the children" looks antiquated in the 21st century.
And if anything it will make abuse harder to identify and track down - instead of sharing online it will be shady deals out of the boot of a car. The NSA can't intercept that (or can they??).
Only in Great Britain. A stuffy, red faced PM whipping up a righteous moral panic because images of this awfully taboo and horrendous thing called human sexuality are freely available to all.
Is this the beginning of a return to the Victorian era, with it's forceful sexual repression and the insidious forms of abuse that came with it?
Sad. Not the actions of an enlightened, open society.