[PLUG-TALK] Porn on the Net...

Michael Robinson plug_1 at robinson-west.com
Sun Oct 25 06:40:15 UTC 2009


is very easy to find if you aren't filtered.

Why?

I know that people are going to say freedom of speech is why, 
but let's ask some questions first and look at the nature of 
porn a bit.

Well, I shouldn't be using the term porn without a definition.

Porn is anything that is likely to cause the average man or 
woman to be sexually aroused where it is not socially acceptable 
for them to be so.  I hope we can all agree that being aroused 
by your wife is not porn.  Let's leave chance arousal where
you have no control over it and you don't do anything to
perpetuate that response out of our definition of porn.

Pornographic sites generally offer free samples without
doing anything at all to identify who is surfing them.  These
sites often try to charge for further viewing, though one 
could argue there is nothing missing in the samples.  This 
is a business tactic known of as give a taste of something 
and then charge for it.  Is it a fair business practice?  I 
guess that depends on whether or not you think that 
manipulating the base human impulses is fair.

Let's look at the pornography is harmless camp for a moment 
and test it a bit.  Is pornography satisfying?  Does anybody 
feel satisfied after viewing the sex act reduced to a base 
mechanical act with absolutely no meaning at all?  Does 
anyone look at pornography for an hour or longer and then 
never go back?  Does this cut into other important activities 
that that person could be engaged in?  How hard is it if you 
are one of the people that pays for porn to stop future 
charges?  How many people a day are there that get ripped off 
who are too embarrassed to come forward?  How many of the 
"models" are forced into this business?  I hear in Alaska 
that selling children to the porn industry is a common 
occurrence.  Even in our area, sex rings get busted once in 
a while.

Of all the people that go to porn sites, how many will be 
identified before they are allowed to view porn?  Are there 
very many sites on the Net that make an attempt to warn 
people that their content is porn before they show some?
What percentage of pornography is literally a mouse click
away if you are on a normal unfiltered Net connection?

What would happen if anything that fit my definition of porn
was not accessible via the Net to anyone without a credit card?
Could such a law be enforced?  I would support a law using
my definition of porn as the standard that requires identifying
oneself to see pornography.  I'd like to see porn banned from 
the Net entirely, but that is asking a lot.

The pornography is harmless camp ignores the fact that porn is
addictive, that there are higher crime rates when you introduce
porn to a community, and that porn can tear apart families.  
Even if you don't believe in looking at porn, it can show up 
in unusual places and it can be difficult because of the nature 
of it to leave it alone.  There are billions of dollars being 
made by porn producers.  I expect that these people are going 
to fight any attempt to restrict how they do business.  Is porn 
the number one money maker on the Net?  If it is, that is very
unfortunate.

Procon Latte is not an effective deterrent because anyone can bypass
it via safe mode.

Dansguardian isn't effective because one needs to be able to download
stuff sometimes where Dansguardian generally denies that.

A server that provides the Internet connection which blocks between
certain hours is a good idea, if you aren't the administrator of it.

Sadly, there is no time of day that is safe for a person who is not
behind a filter of some kind.  At least with television one knows
to turn it off after 10:00 pm and that's pretty effective.

There will be responses and possibly they will be negative.
I'm taking a risk talking about this on a public mailing list.  
I only ask that people not go out of their way to make me 
regret raising this topic.

I do not endorse porn in any way.

BTW:  Is there any way to fix firefox so that it can't browse web 
      pages on other hosts?  I want it on a server for reading 
      documentation and using local web based tools.  I might want
      to be able to access RFC1918 networks.  I want a version of
      firefox that one can't run in safe-mode to get around the
      security.




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