Playboy fined £100k by Blighty watchdog for FLASHING SMUT at kids Playboy - the world's best-known porn brand - has been fined £100k ($160k) by Britain's communications regulator, after the publisher failed to prevent children from accessing smutty material on its websites. Ofcom said that Playboy TV and Demand Adult had "allowed users to access hardcore videos and images without having …
So does this apply to ANY website that lets you go to pornography without putting in a credit card number.
Because that must be, what? 20-30% of the Internet? Alright, most won't have a UK base to be fined in the first place, but hell - that's a very, very lax interpretation that affects millions of websites.
I don't know of anyone who uses pornography regularly who actually PAYS for it at all, let alone would even trust their card to be used on the sites they visit. And yet, they are not breaking the law in doing so themselves, but the websites are for not demanding a credit card number?
Just seems like a way to cut all pornography being accessed from the UK worldwide, and getting a lot of people scammed when they MUST enter their credit card details "in order to verify their age".
Honestly, that appears to be something far more overreaching that it at first appears.
I tend to agree with you that there's more to this than meets the eye. This is just the start of them coming for the porn.
If anything, they should be relaxing the draconian UK laws on R18 content, not increasing them. In the UK, the only way to legally buy R18 porn is either from licenced sex shops in person or to import it yourself from abroad. Yet, it has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe, despite other countries in Europe having a much more relaxed attitude towards R18 content. So it's obvious that they're barking up the wrong tree and censorship is a waste of time.
You can see pretty much anything which is legal to see (ie: Not animals or underage) in r18 porn. I'm not sure that it should be supplied outside of sex shops, it's available from web sites by streaming or delivery in UK/EU and the world over, so I don't really see that as a problem. However, I'm not sure why you think that supplying porn will have any effect, particularly a positive effect, on the levels of UK teenage pregnancy. I would have thought, if anything, the availability of "consequences free" sex, ie: kids see sexual images and activity, albeit not too explicit, everywhere, they don't see people getting pregnant, getting STIs, being upset because of relationship breakup, etc.
"I'm not sure why you think that supplying porn will have any effect, particularly a positive effect, on the levels of UK teenage pregnancy."
Studies in the 1970s showed that various European countries had much lower rates of teenage pregnancy than the UK. The kids in those countries also had a better attitude to doing well at school. The other correlation was that Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, and Germany had liberal attitudes to sex education and also porn.
When formulating the 2003 Sexual Offences Act the body of Westminster MPs, and "morality" vested interests, decided to ignore European liberal examples - and took USA repressive attitudes as "best practice". The USA actually had a worse teenage pregnancy rate than the UK.
"Studies in the 1970s showed that various European countries had much lower rates of teenage pregnancy than the UK. The kids in those countries also had a better attitude to doing well at school. The other correlation was that Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, and Germany had liberal attitudes to sex education and also porn."
How many of those give free money and houses to pregnant teens though,like the UK. I would suggest that the reason we have a higher then average teen pregnancy rate is also as much because we reward getting pregnant, and we are well known to accept the dregs of OTHER societies as our own, including lazy ass scum with nothing to add to their community except babies.
@ MrZoolook
How many of those give free money and houses to pregnant teens though,like the UK. I would suggest that the reason we have a higher then average teen pregnancy rate is also as much because we reward getting pregnant, and we are well known to accept the dregs of OTHER societies as our own, including lazy ass scum with nothing to add to their community except babies.
So much fail, so little time.
The irony is that these are countries with much more liberal social policies as well.
As for the EBIL IMIGRANT PREGGERS HOWZING TEIFS, well, that is also largely a myth as well.
It is just another coöperation between the banks and government to force everybody to pay for a credit card. I dont want one and have no use for one, so I am degaded to a second class citizen with fewer rights then those who pay their credit card "tax"
commercial items should never be a tool for identification or an age check. besides I predict a fast black market economy for credit card details among the youngsters who want to see the modern day equivalent of the rags we used to read before we were 18.
no justice in this ruling once again, the banks dont need pron to be creaming after this one
Little Johnny can find hardcore stuff that makes Playboy look tame using Google in three seconds flat.
Type your perversion in, turn safe search off, select videos or images and suddenly all the smut you could ever watch in a life time at your fingertips.
Just shows what a total waste of time these watchdogs are...
It's not even one month's salary of Hugh Hefner:
http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-businessmen/ceos/hugh-hefner-net-worth/
When I were a lad I was approached by a taxi driver asking if if I wanted his smut collection - I was on my morning paper round at the time and eagerly stashed the grot mags in my delivery bag.
Back then things were easier, I wouldn't be able to access this sort of filth now as I don't own a credit card.
How lucky young boys are... when I was younger you had to go looking through the woods for magzines left behind by some kindly sole... I even knew someone who went to through bins near golf courses... apparently the amount of porn around such locations was so immense that the embarrassment was worth it.
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"You can get a gun licence at fourteen, but you can't buy a porno magazines until you're eighteen... ...I'd much rather a fourteen year old lad was locked in his bathroom causing no harm to anyone than sat on a roof with a high-powered rifle and an erection he can't get rid of"
- Bill Hicks
The other comedian this article brings to mind is Al Murray 'Pub Landlord', on the subject of asking a young person their data of birth "the test our whole system of age restriction is built upon". I think the film Hot Fuzz riffed upon the ridiculousness of the same idea .
Recent anecdotal evidence has shown that young people who are exposed to porn develop a skewed conception and expectation of sex.
Lets be honest most porn on the net is less about sex then it as about "control" as a form of gratification (after all it is simply prostitution with a camera plonked in front). For most adults this is bleeding obvious but for the less uninitiated this is not. For such youngsters, I fear, it will have a lasting impact on their sexual relationships.
Sorry tried to find the link to a guardian news article that summarised a phenomenon were young people involved in rape or underage sex reported that they were copying what they had seen online. But there js a number of news articles about individual incidents. just google.
Recent anecdotal evidence has shown that young people who are exposed to porn develop a skewed conception and expectation of sex.
My anecdotal evidence is that young people today have the same ability to separate fantasy from reality as previous generations and porn is looked at with that in mind.
Interestingly, less anecdotal evidence shows that despite netpr0n corrupting every young mind, people are generally better disposed to each other, relationships are more equal and sexual assaults are no more prevalent now then they were 20 years ago (and in some UK regions have dropped significantly).
That said there is still an unacceptable rate of offence and woefully inadequate system of dealing with reported offences, but that isnt anything to do with teenaged boys cracking one off to grot. (and amazingly, it seems even some women watch porn as well..... even before we get started on the crap that is 50 Shades of Gray).
"skewed conception and expectation"
What? They get the expectation that they might enjoy it? They get an idea of mechanically what to expect and how to go about it (I mean more than the crap videos we got at school)?
Conception is another way to say opinion, so is the young peoples opinion skewed or is it yours?
jesus man!? did you take a course in being an idiot or just some kind of natural savant?
your definition of conception is plain wrong.
If you ask someone with a decent command of english they might point out to you that this discussion is about pornography (staged, artificial, fictitious, stylized representations of the concept of sexual intercourse) as opposed to sexual education material. Then you might understand that my point about the impact that staged, artificial, fictitious, stylized representations of the concept of sexual intercourse has on young people who have little alternative experience to act as a reference point for reality. This has nothing to do with opinion whatsoever.
Unless of course you live in a world where your partner is happy to offer anal intercourse to every delivery man that visits your house. Then yes my opinion is skewed and pron is a great reference tool.
The average teenage kid does not know where his parents' credit card(s) live...
Given that it is incredibly easy to access megatons of porn of an endless variety *absolutely free* with at best a warning you may enter a site that could possibly contain adult content, I really wonder about the actual competence of the busybodies doling out those fines. Or what planet they live on, for that matter.
It is a given fact of nature that any reasonably healthy lad* will get interested in tits 'n ass from roughly the age 12 and up. It is also a given fact that said healthy lads *will* find a way to get their hands on materials that will provide a relief for this quite healthy and natural urge. It is also a given fact that any repression of availability of those materials will, in fact, make them seek it out even more, as it coincides with the rebellious streak that is associated with their developing personality, and having access to "the Forbidden Fruit" gives extra Cool Points at that age.
So really, what's the point....
* anecdotal evidence points to girls starting earlier, but with a different focus (in the UK seemingly provided by Boy Bands), but as a male I'm (still) not really fluent enough in Female Reasoning to have a confident opinion in this matter.
One approach might be to allow younger lads access to respectful and tasteful trouser-arousing material, rather than leave them to stumble across the objectifying 'gonzo' stuff.
Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen was on the radio yesterday, saying he used to draw copies of the erotic drawings of Aubrey Beardsley (whose life the programme was celebrating) and sell them to his classmates- and he surely wasn't the first. There are worse artists for a young man to be acquainted with when making conversation with a certain type of young woman. Alphonse Mucha is good, too.
>* anecdotal evidence points to girls starting earlier, but with a different focus (in the UK seemingly provided by Boy Bands),
Or, by making advances at boys their age who haven't quite developed their romantic/sexual feelings yet, leading to mutual confusion. But hey, confusion is what teenage years are for.
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"Oh, BTW, Porn sites, bit of a waste of time having thos share on facebook widgets don't you think?"
You misunderstand the function of the widget. It is not to share - it is to allow advert brokers who use FB to correlate your browsing behavior. As long as you are logged into FB going onto a site with the widget ends up in FB "snoop" files (ditto for other similar Web2.0+ lowlife). So an advertiser can after that use that to try to peddle you stuff.
Again with the 'sex is bad' slant and over reaching 'we must protect the children from smut at all costs' bollocks. Seriously. Humanity is really dumb sometimes (I'd argue most of the time). Children snigger and laugh at sex not because sex is funny (well I do find it amusing but only because others find it offensive). But because we as a species have put it into the category of something that is to be hidden away and ridiculed. That it is something we only talk about behind closed doors. This obviously filters down to our ever so curious children.
I thought we got rid of this silly stigma with the AIDS stuff and sexual education years. Now it seems we are back to prudish moral crusades led by those who have nothing better to do.
Do gooders and prigs the lot of them!
Oh and they should take notes from countries like the Netherlands.
There is a big difference between sex in a loving relationship, general sex with a "fuckbuddy", softcore and hardcore porn, especially the sort of hardcore porn hosted on many Internet sites.
I wouldn't really give two tosses if my kids were seeing the sort of porn that I found in a hedge as an early-teen, however I would be very concerned if they were looking at the sort of porn that has a row of guys fucking a guy/girl several at a time, often slapping them verbally abusing them, pretty much exclusively without any protection. If that's the sort of thing you like, that's fine, but I don't see how it's ok for someone who isn't old enough to drive a car or vote to be able to understand what they are seeing is not "normal" and that there are subtleties to sexual activity which they will learn about in later life. Specifically: Some people like to be degraded, tied up, gang banged, whatever, but this is by no means everyone and certainly not to be expected from someone.
"I don't see how it's ok for someone who isn't old enough to drive a car or vote to be able to understand what they are seeing is not "normal" and that there are subtleties to sexual activity which they will learn about in later life. Specifically: Some people like to be degraded, tied up, gang banged, whatever, but this is by no means everyone and certainly not to be expected from someone."
And I don't see how a country with representatives that find porn so immoral as this seems to indicate, can give serious consideration to allowing kids to vote in a general election at 16, consume alcohol at 16, 'learn' to drive at 16, and do a whole slew of other things that can be deemed in some way wrong or harmful at 16... yet the one thing they actually care about enough to try and stop outright, is watching actors on screen having sex. An act which humans have been doing since the dawn of our time on Earth. And which, if viewed by some speccy loser in his own room, will have no long term damaging effects to him, or - and this is the important part - unlike learner drivers crashing into pedestrians, alcoholic fuelled outbursts of violence, and ruining an economy after voting in the next cool dude politician into office based on his haircut... will harm nobody else!
Now, I'm not claiming that trying to protect minors from more grown up subjects is a bad idea, absolutely not. But I am reaching a point where I'm getting a little fed up with the fact that its always the other people's problem and responsibility, NEVER of the kids or parents themselves.
I know this is not fully comparable but here in Holland its illegal for kids under the age of 16 to own alcoholic beverages. So far so good; I'd say that if you spot a kid drinking alcohol then he or she will get fined, most likely resulting in the parents (who are legally responsible for minors) to cough up some bucks.
But no; that's not the way we do it. We force supermarkets and other shops who sell alcohol to make sure that they don't sell it to minors. If they do they can be fined pretty hefty because this is obviously a very bad thing to do; shame on them! And the kids themselves who bought the alcohol? Well; that's usually way too much effort to bother with. Instead certainly agencies sometimes get a few minors to help them "protect the children" (or put differently: get minors to perform illegal actions by purchasing alcohol, then fining the supermarket for selling it to them).
As said before: having some kind of protection for those kids isn't a bad thing at all, but to fully and whole shove the responsibility onto other people is IMO. Whatever happened to taking responsibility for ones own actions?
Amazing; if you go to the playboy website then chances are high you'll get into contact with adult material. I think almost everyone who has an Internet connection knows that. So if you don't want your kids to get near that; why not block it or (*gasp*) actually talk to your kids about these subjects so you'll know they can deal with it.
But no; we'll just blame it on the others for not blocking it. That's much easier and better. As if those kids know that if you fill in 1960 as the year of birth you'll get access to adult contents no matter what.
not usually, I drank pretty much every week from when I was 15 until I was legally allowed to buy alcohol at 18, (I didn't stop then but that's beyond the scope of this comment). My parents would have been outraged if they had known but I would go out and stay with friends or come back late after they were in bed.
If you have a law that says it's illegal to sell alcohol to minors then it makes perfect sense to test and prosecute shops that don't comply with that law.
so basically thats saying its ok to punish someone for not knowing the age of the person - which always seemed wrong to me and at the same time not punish the underage person who knows full well he's commitining an offense - its got so bad here that my wife who is 34 years of age needs to carry her passport to buy alcohole etc.
If you have a law that says it's illegal to sell alcohol to minors then it makes perfect sense to test and prosecute shops that don't comply with that law.
I suspect part of the point was that the wording of the law is also mistaken.
You are basically saying here that despite you being aware what you were doing was wrong to the point you went to lengths to hide it from your parents, the shop should be punished for your behaviour not you - or your parents (who, arguably, should have supervised you more at that age, given your obvious inability to control yourself).
But yeah, its all the shops fault, isnt it. If they had been better at not selling you alcohol, you wouldnt have found other things to do, would you?
Determining you age over the internet is a joke and will remain so, credit cards or not. I have no solution to this, but porn, how the hell could you get rid of that, and I seriously wonder if there is any sense in even trying (unless you are out for the money, of course).
My last attempt to find the answer to how to determining the age over the internet is some sort of an quiz. Is Lincoln a car or very rich man or a dead president, Is Elvis a cat or a song or man living on the moon.
Might help but I have been wrong sometimes too.
> My last attempt to find the answer to how to determining the age over the internet is some sort of an quiz.
Ah, so you do remember the "age verification" in the old Leisure Suit Larry games :) Is Pia Zadora: a) short b) sexy c) a singer d) all of the above
Though nowadays that probably only tests googling prowess, so that rather defeats the object :)
Icon compulsory
"Came to think of it, kids in demand, will find their share even reading the bible."
"Song of Solomon" was quite erotic for a 1950s generation raised on the totally airbrushed body detail in windblown "Health and Efficiency" magazines. The activities of King David rivalled "Peyton Place". Another source for teenage curiosity was the library's large foreign dictionaries. The Modern Hebrew dictionary scored highest for phallic slang terms.
The local charity shop has a separate book section for kids. Yesterday there was a copy of "Bored of the Rings" alongside the Enid Blyton tales. Someone had obviously read the small paperback's synopsis about elves and thought "lampoon" just meant humour. If they had flicked through it they would soon have realised it is a parody of "Lord of the Rings" - with the "missing" sex scenes. It would certainly have widened a child's vocabulary.
I'm not aware of any sex scenes in Bored of the Rings, unless Schlob complaining about her ex-husband qualifies. I would have assumed it was put there by someone who, like me, thinks the Tolkien output is largely barely readable dreck, and wanted to inoculate kids against believing that, just because it has long words in it and goes on about elves, it's some kind of literature.
Some protective parents like it because, even in the middle of a battle, nobody ever registers the slightest emotion.
In Terry Pratchett's books elves are evil little bastards who would kill you as soon as look at you, which is about what they are like in the original legends.
Simples. The viewer must have a working webcam so their 'age' can be checked by an 'appropriate person'. Said webcam to remain all at all times to prevent the use of a still image to fool the checker, this will also provide instant feedback as to how good the 'performance' is......
I do, don't let kids access the internet unsupervised, until you are confident that they are old/mature enough to understand that there's shit on the internet they'll wish they'd never seen, that it's not how normal people treat other people, and no matter what, they need to treat others with care and respect.
It's that simple.
And I guess, 'allowing' your teenage son to find your stash of Razzle would probably divert their interest from the internet anyway.
It's pointless to try and stop kids accessing porn, they want to and were telling them not to which pretty much guarantees they will give it their best shot (no pun intended). As kids are generally pretty tech savvy they will probably succeed. Even if we were to manage to restrict access to porn to most kids it will only mean lots of nerdy kids driving Porsches as they make a fortune selling porn to their class mates.
"Credit cards, unlike debit cards, are not available to under 18s"
This statement by OfCom is extremely misleading. Pre-paid credit cards are purchased by over 18s and given to under 18s all the time. They serve a very useful purpose, but there is almost no way to tell which numbers are pre-paid and which aren't. The whole "selling knives online" debacle which fell at the first hurdle after gaining so much attention in Parliament touched on the subject, and it would have been the perfect time to address this issue.
A simple solution would be to enter the credit card number and name on card along with a separate over18-pin set up by the card holder. Pins can only be set up on non-pre-paid cards. You don't enter the CVV or expiry date, so no charge can be taken. The three pieces of info supplied are then checked against the card issuer's DB and access is granted. If you're purchasing knives (or other age restricted goods) then CVV and expiry/start date ARE required to complete the transaction.
I'm sure there are holes in this, but you get the idea!
A credit card's first line of defence is to check that the card number is a Luhn number. These are not hard to generate. Since no twelve year old is dumb enough to use any but a stolen card number at a porn site it would be a nice little business for the mathmatically inclined child to supply such numbers for a small fee.
So commentards don't think this has any connection whatsoever with the UK's proposals for ISPs to be required to provide compulsory "opt in" for over-18 content?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/27/childline_calls_on_opt_in/
Nobody?
OK. It seems it's true, too much does wreck your brain.
;)
Porn? People fucking on film?
"Playboy was accused of repeated, serious and reckless behaviour by failing to protect children from accessing the sites. Ofcom explained:
There are a number of controls that websites can use to verify the age of users. This includes asking for credit card details before any adult content is made accessible. Credit cards, unlike debit cards, are not available to under 18s. Playboy TV and Demand Adult had breached UK rules by having no effective systems in place to protect under 18s from unsuitable free and paid-for content."
Oh fuck no! Thank christ for that. Someone has finally fucking saved us from the moral decay sweeping through society.
And this smacks of dumb fuckness beurocracy "Oh the rule book says".....
I mean there are billions of pictures, stories, and films of people fucking just EVERYWHERE all over the internet.
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