UK.gov wants to stop teenagers looking at tits online. No, really

Prime Minister David Cameron has declared himself "determined to introduce age verification mechanisms to restrict under 18s' access to pornographic websites" and he is "prepared to legislate to do so if the industry fails to self-regulate." The government will hold a consultation in the autumn, meaning it will be standing on …

[JakeMS]

5 minutes

I give it 5 minutes after the "blockade" is put in place before someone puts a blog post up explaining how to bypass said blockade.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: 5 minutes

"I give it 5 minutes after the "blockade" is put in place before someone puts a blog post up explaining how to bypass said blockade."

I can do that now & don't need a blog.

Q: Are you over 18?

A: Yes

[g e]

Re: 5 minutes

Perhaps it's more of a 'force people to somehow register' thing so someone somewhere has 'A List Of People'

[Kane]

Re: 5 minutes

"Perhaps it's more of a 'force people to somehow register' thing so someone somewhere has 'A List Of People'"

Credit Card verification. As you can only own a credit card if you are over 18.

Whilst you won't be required to actually buy anything from a website/service that is hosting material of the jiggly variety, you could be asked to verify a credit card on-line - much like how certain e-transactions with shopping websites work, e.g. Sainsbury's. Once the details are stored with the card company you can pretty much order as often as you want from the website, without having to re-enter all your card details each time (barring the occasions if you check in/check out multiple times in one day - then they get arsey about it).

[dotdavid]

Re: 5 minutes

Credit Card Verification? Yes, because you really want to be handing out your card number to some of these sites.

Although I do see the puritans in charge thinking it would be a splendid idea.

[I_am_Chris]

Re: 5 minutes

Cue lots of CC details being pilfered from parents' wallets and purses.

[Charles Manning]

Re: 5 minutes

They will try Credit Card verification.

Within a month, various politicians will be wondering where that extra 800 quid of spending came from/

A week later they will have an emergency session repealing it.

[John Smith 19]

I sense the epic vacuum that is Ms Perry at work.

Last time round she though those nice on line gambling sites could handle this task..

Until one of them handed all the member CC details to some card fraud ring.

Cameron seems to be the perfect melange of a sound bite talking PR Goon and the ineptness with women of a single sex boarding school boy. Easy prey for any slightly aware and ambitious women MP looking to get a Cabinet seat without much effort.

The video of her debate on paedos and sexualization of kiddies was most interesting.

Six MP's bothered to turn up to listen to her and she declared it a great success.*

*If by "A great success" you mean most MP were smart enough not to waste their time on this BS then she'd be right.

[Alan Edwards]

Re: 5 minutes

Agreed, having to give a credit card for access to free stuff is not going to happen with me.

Maybe the credit card companies can give you a zero-value credit card, as an adjunct to a real card? It's a valid card with a validation code and everything, but any attempted transaction will be declined.

The one-time-use card numbers (that totally failed to take off here for some reason) would be ideal for this.

[jonathanb]

Re: 5 minutes

Would that work? When a card is declined, the merchant isn't told why it is declined, it could be insufficient funds, account closed, blocked or doesn't exist, or bank thinks the transaction is fraudulent. Usually if a company wants to verify a card without taking any money, they do an authorisation-only transaction for £1, $1 or whatever and let it lapse without collecting the money.

[farnz]

Re: 5 minutes

You can only be the account holder if you're over 18. However, you can be a secondary card holder on someone else's account at any age; there's nothing (yet) stopping my 3 year old having her own cards on my Mastercard and American Express accounts. Further, AFAICT, there's nothing that lets you discover the card holder's age, only the account holder's age.

Downside is that if I did let her have her own cards, I'd be responsible for her use of them - and I don't want to pay for as much Peppa Pig as she'd want to get.

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: 5 minutes

I don't want to pay for as much Peppa Pig as she'd want to get

Well, I've never heard it called that before.

[jonathanb]

Re: 5 minutes

"Credit Card verification. As you can only own a credit card if you are over 18."

That's not strictly true. You can only be required to pay money back if you are over 18, but it is possible for an under-18 to get a prepaid credit card, or garantor credit card if someone over the age of 18 is prepared to guarantee the balance.

[Kubla Cant]

Re: 5 minutes

Q: Are you over 18?

A: Yes

There's a hilarious variant on this on BBC iPlayer. If a show contains "strong language" it displays a popup asking if you're old enough to stand it. If you answer "Yes", it displays another popup asking if you want to set up parental controls.

In households with no children this is very annoying. In all other households I can't see it having any effect whatever.

[Peter Gathercole]

I wish politicians would learn...

...that the Internet is trans-national, and as much as he would like to, he can't penalise a company outside of the UK.

All he can do is to try to get the UK ISPs to block access to offending sites, but as we've seen from TPB, that's like playing whack-a-mole.

I can sympathise with trying to keep certain content away from vulnerable people, but that doesn't mean that I can see a way of doing it without breaking the Internet!

[BlartVersenwaldIII]

Re: I wish politicians would learn...

> I wish politicians would learn that the Internet is trans-national, and as much as he would like to, he can't penalise a company outside of the UK

A cynical person might, just might, say that even politicians aren't that stupid. An even more cynical and paranoid person might even say that, if authoritarians were to go down this road for the long game, they might choose to get the "BAN THIS SICK FILTH NOW!/think of the children!" brigade behind this "age restrictions for porn" thing, and when it spectacularly fails to work because all the porn is hosted overseas it'll then be effortless to divert the attentions of said brigade into clamouring for a National Firewall UK whereupon sites can be blocked, blacklisted or blackholed entirely.

As has been continually pointed out for years, age restrictions on internet connections are complete bollocks anyway (at least if you're talking about a household rather than solely mobile access) since, in my admittedly limited experience, pretty much every household that has under-18's in it also has over-18's who actually pay the bills. The only way such a system would conceivably be feasible would be if everyone had to log on to some sort of Tory internet condom with their NI number in order to view naughty bits. Perhaps that's what some people would like to achieve? Perhaps they really would like to break the internet?

Think I'll go smoke some more crack now.

[hplasm]

Re: I wish politicians would learn...

"Think I'll go smoke some more crack now."

Go and ask foir some at 10 Downing St- I think they have loads.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I wish politicians would learn...

I think I'll go look at some more crack now..... nyah nyah nyah!

[Sgt_Oddball]

Re: I wish politicians would learn...

I thought you just asked the teachers for it? Both music (easyworld -everyone knows) and Popular culture (breaking bad) says so, so it must be true.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I wish politicians would learn...

the Internet is trans-national

I seem to recall that gov.au banned the hosting of titty sites in Aus some years ago. Local smutcos simply moved their content to US servers. Two things ensued:

1. Aus hosters lost a load of business.

2. Everyone in Aus still looks at pr0n.

Governments are even more stupid than we think.

[Bob H]

Re: I wish politicians would learn...

@Mahatma Coat

I'd also imagine it put much greater strain on their optical fibre links to the US!

[kventin]

Re: I wish politicians would learn...

"""...the Internet is trans-national..."""

but does it have to be?

clearly there is too much wrong with today's internet. not to mention severe lack of responsibility and accountability.

the solution is left as an exercise for the reader.

[John Sanders]

Re: I wish politicians would learn...

See, Dave is an ignorant with regards to the internet.

We know he is an ignorant because we know how the internet works.

Now think this: (and not only this affects dear Dave but all politicians)

Each time you happen to know about a particular field and you listen to a politician, you realise the man is an ignorant or a t*at.

This happens all the time, and this is how politics is done in the 21 century by professional politicians.

[JohnMurray]

Re: I wish politicians would learn...

Since most of them went to educational establishments that were single-sex, and not the female sex, and their idea of a fun evening was either trashing restaurants or burning twenty-pound notes in front of the peasants, you quickly realise that most of them qualify for state mental health services.

And let's face it, there are so many perverts in parliament not interested in tits that the pr0n filters mainly apply to them anyway, AND they are so thick they would answer YES to the question "are you under 18", just to see if it was a gateway to kiddie pr0n.

[Mark 85]

Re: I wish politicians would learn...

I think they've learned very well... This is obviously a smokescreen for something else. Politicos do that you know.. sorta' like those doing magic tricks. He's re-directing your attention so won't see him put the rabbit in the hat for him to pull out later. The bigger question is "what is he not wanting you to see?" and chances are, it's not tits.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I wish politicians would learn...

"All he can do is to try to get the UK ISPs to block access to offending sites, but as we've seen from TPB, that's like playing whack-a-mole."

Rather randomly, since moving to BT Infinity, from BT ADSL, I am no longer being blocked access to thepiratebay.se, eztv.it etc. which formerly gave 'Error - site blocked' pages and required me to route over an SSH tunnel*. I don't know if the fibre packages are meant to be excluded from blocks or whether this is a monumental cockup from BT - or how far it reaches.

* I want to help contribute to the blocks vs encrypted tunnels statistics to help make a point.

[Roo]

It would be easier to set up a little Internet for Ravey Davey and his pals to play in, that only has the BBC, Daily Mail, and an official My Little Pony site...

Or even better can't we ship Ravey Davey and his merry band of technotards off to North Korea so they can have the Internet they want ? It would save us a lot of money and bullshit.

[Brewster's Angle Grinder]

>"It would be easier to set up a little Internet for Ravey Davey and his pals to play in, that only has the BBC, Daily Mail, and an official My Little Pony site..."

They're working hard at getting rid of the BBC, too.

Now, if you excuse me, I need to sell my shares in My Little Pony.

[Anonymous Coward]

My Little Porno

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think that porn of My Little Pony doesn't exist, you haven't been on the Internet long enough.

[Naughtyhorse]

Obligatory...

Rule 34

thassal

[John Smith 19]

Would that be found at

verynaughyhorse.com by any chance.

It's a raincoat of course.

[Sgt_Oddball]

It exsited long before then, Warren Ellis being an all seeing sage for the as age with his transmetropolitan comic. (come now, the world needs a crack addled junky reporter able to talk politians to doing the world a favour with naught but a phone and enough cigarettes to keep Cuba in milk and honey, and welll you get the idea)

[Lallabalalla]

North Korea

Well there's the rub - if they can do it, so can we.

[earl grey]

Re: North Korea

If you're rubbing it, you're probably already watching the porn.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: North Korea

"If you're rubbing it, you're probably already watching the porn"

Or you're on a train in Essex. And how is Cameron going to stop that?

[Kubla Cant]

I want to see age restrictions put into place or these websites will face being shut down.

That's going to work well, because of course all porn sites are based in Britain.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they are, all the women on them are local.

[Anonymous Coward]

But they are! The messages they send to me clearly state they are only 1 or 2 miles away all the time!

[wolfetone]

He either reads The Daily Fail, his advisors read and believe The Daily Fail, or he is pandering to the idiots who read The Daily Fail.

Either which way, the man is a massive QUACK QUACK OOPS*.

*The Register doesn't have age verfication for the real word to be displayed to over 18's

[Doctor Syntax]

"He either reads The Daily Fail, his advisors read and believe The Daily Fail, or he is pandering to the idiots who read The Daily Fail."

Cue reminiscences of the Yes Prime Minister speech on newspaper readers remembering, of course, that the last sentence was "People who read the Sun don't mind who runs the country so long as she has big tits."

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see it being a blast

So all the UK isp's are forced to move offices to somewhere offshore to avoid regulation.

Parents that already use the internet like a babysitter whilst they smoke the funny tobacco and drink their Tennants Extra will do even less parenting.

The nanny state will declare looking at tits "unlawful" so all the years of campaigning for "public breast feeding" will be lost

And Crapita or Atossers will make a mint by bidding and charging, but not actually delivering the results

Stroll on, another day at the office

[Anonymous Coward]

The government will hold a consultation in the autumn, meaning it will be standing on the proverbial street corner and soliciting views on how to stop 17-year-olds running a web search for the phrase "tits".

I'm glad I pay my taxes for these government studies they seem to be really spot on in trying to protect young adults from the dangers of "tits". When I were a lad we didn't have t'internet (we did but you couldn't download pictures of any use) and you either borrowed a vhs or got a magazine (or even those dodgy german channels on the sky pre-encryption), I don't seem to remember the government trying to put firewalls in front of shops or for that matter doing anything about it. It's a phase, you grow out of it (at least most do)

I think the only "tits" that are a danger to society are government.

[Cynic_999]

"

The government will hold a consultation in the autumn, meaning it will be standing on the proverbial street corner and soliciting views on how to stop 17-year-olds running a web search for the phrase "tits".

"

It is in fact very easy to stop such searches. Simply lower the standard of education until almost all under 18's are illiterate and so unable to type search terms. The government has already been working toward that goal for decades.

[Mark 85]

or... a lawsuit/regulation for search engines to remove the word "tit" from searches. Which will make it difficult look up "titular" or"titmouse". However, once that happens, "jubs" will be outlawed on searches and the Register Comments Section will never be able to be searched.

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought we were supposed to be electing intelligent people to lead us?

See tit.

[Kane]

Re: I thought we were supposed to be electing intelligent people to lead us?

"See tit."

I see what you did there!

[kmac499]

Re: I thought we were supposed to be electing intelligent people to lead us?

Well that's 650 search results that would be blocked by the term Tit, alongside the terms

greedy self serving clueless attention grabbing techno ignoramii MP

BTW just in case the idiots do go ahead with summat like this what is 'tit' in the all the other major languages of the world..

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I thought we were supposed to be electing intelligent people to lead us?

The problem is that we mostly still elect people who had their sexual awakening in the days when <span class="strike">casual sex</span> free love was going to save the world and were married before the memo came out that actually careless sex can kill so everyone is better off if you masturbate instead when between relationships.

So now they don't understand why people aren't banging their neighbors as a way of saying hello and are trying to wind back the clock to pre-AIDS days by forcing us to do it.

Politicos - if you want us to behave like AIDS isn't a thing then find a damn cure! You've cut enough to fund the thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't help but feel that this story isn't the story

It's a smoke screen for something

It keeps popping up, and feels ickier and ickier each time, and more desperate

The ISP undertaking would introduce a mechanism to add scope creep

And BT ... all that money....

<insert obligatory Martin Niemöller refence here>

[Christoph]

You must do this voluntarily.

That didn't work, so we'll bring in a law that you must do it.

That didn't work, so we will bring in a law that you must use filters.

That didn't work, so we will bring in a law that you must use the government approved filter list.

That didn't work, but we will still expand the filter list to anything we don't like - unions, protest groups, and other terrorists.

[Red Bren]

"It keeps popping up, and feels ickier and ickier each time, and more desperate"

But enough about your penis, what do you think of this policy?

[Roo]

"But enough about your penis, what do you think of this policy?"

I thought they were referring to Ravey Davey's Penis which appears to be making all his policy decisions these days.

[Red Bren]

Nob gags or political commentary?

Don't know if I should be worried that my nob joke has had more upvotes than my scathing political insights on the subject...

[&rew]

Fix society

How about we teach children better - about human beings' bodies as well as consideration for others and that sort of thing. As has been exhibited time and again, prohibition solves nothing. I also find it somewhat amusing that, if the voting age were to be dropped to 16, that people could vote for politicians who could then lower the age at which it is deemed "acceptable" to look at tits. An odd juxtaposition, that - Hello, I am 16 and can affect international policy by voting for my public representative, but am not supposed to be able to view things that appear in biology textbooks.

[David Webb]

Re: Fix society

The joy of UK laws, you can get married, perform every single act on <random porn website, err.. random legal porn website>, record it to view with your husband, but you're not legally allowed to purchase the content of the stuff you're doing with your husband. You also can't distribute the video of you doing it with your husband (which is fair enough really).

You can imagine the scene now, a bunch of 17 year old horny college girls, having a mass orgy, resident geek decides to stick on some fluff from a porn website and gets hit with age verification, says "meh" and goes back to spit roasting that hot chick with the glasses who has huge tits.

Next up, legal age is raised to 18 (now that all the politicians who were happily getting off to under age kids are either dead or senile - allegedly)

[Pascal Monett]

Re: am not supposed to be able to view things that appear in biology textbooks

Well there's your problem my good man ! Why are these reprehensible appendices appearing in biology textbooks ?

Think of the children ! Let us remove any and all references to them. For the good of the children, of course.

It worked so well for the Prohibition, right ?

[TheOtherHobbes]

Re: Fix society

>consideration for others

Not from this lot. You want the other lot for that.

I think tits are a national danger. We should all be terrified of free-range tit access for our teens. Their minds will be warped into perversion forever by hordes of terrifying nipples invading screens all over the UK.

And that's just the start. Tits are the gateway drug to other body parts.

Before you know it they'll be snorting coke off prostitutes and - oh, wait, that's what happens to Lords, not teenagers.

Got a little confused there. My mistake.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone remember the disastrous way the public consultation was handled last time

You know, the one where they had session tokens in the URL and El Reg published their token

So we were all 'collaborating' on a single entry

The government and computers, it'd be funny if they weren't so dangerous

[Dr. G. Freeman]

Never underestimate what a teenage boy will do for the chance to look at breasts,

or even the hint of them.

Any ISP blocking will last about as long as a box of milk tray at a weight watchers meeting (Is there a Register unit of time ?)

* source - Having been a teenage boy a long time ago

[KA1AXY]

As a former teenage boy, I agree.

Looking at tits is pretty much the raison d'etre of teenage boys

[Neil Barnes]

You have to remember

Each and every one of us is the direct genetic result of someone who looked at tits...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: You have to remember

> Each and every one of us is the direct genetic result of someone who looked at tits...

And long may it continue, otherwise we might be facing another extinction event...

[VinceH]

Re: You have to remember

"And long may it continue, otherwise we might be facing another extinction event..."

I think that would be more like an extinction non-event.

Anyway, just tweeted this:

I gather @Number10gov wants to stop people looking at tits on t'internet. Soon, you'll no longer be able to look at https://duckduckgo.com/?q=uk+politicians&t=ffnt&ia=images

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: You have to remember

"Each and every one of us is the direct genetic result of someone who looked at tits..."

Unless they are Mormons who have to wear special sacred underwear. I'm afraid you may be looking at this from too high a viewpoint.

[Boo Radley]

Forget The Tits

I want to look at c*ck!

[Stoneshop]

Re: Forget The Tits

So you prefer male Gallus Gallus Domesticus over, say, a Parus caeruleus?

[I Am Spartacus]

Reg unit of time

Not sure if there is one, but I propose the micro-fortnight

[Brewster's Angle Grinder]

I want to be reasonable but find myself foaming at the [BLANK].

I have no objection to making it difficult for under 18s to look at porn. But as ISPs are already filtering content, why do we need additional age restrictions on pornographic websites? Could it be the filters aren't that good? Could it be some parents aren't enabling the filters and the government nevertheless wants to control what their children see? Or could it even be that the government finds porn morally objectionable, thinks age verification might stop some casual viewing by over-18s, and is using children as an excuse to introduce it?

[VinceH]

Re: I want to be reasonable but find myself foaming at the [BLANK].

More likely, it's a first step in creating a list of people who look at porn. Start by making sites authenticate users' ages using credit card verification - then later, insist on having that information fed back to the newly formed Porno Commissioner's Office*.

^{* Actual name may - and probably will - vary.}

[Nevermind]

Job Vacancy - queue here

<...possibly with a regulator to oversee and enforce controls.>

New quango and fat salary - OfPr0n

...where do I apply?

[David Harper 1]

Re: Job Vacancy - queue here

OfToss, surely?

Or OfWhack, for our American friends.

[Andy Non]

Re: Job Vacancy - queue here

You are too late, Lord Sewel has taken the job.

[joeW]

Obligatory Dilbert

http://dilbert.com/strip/1996-01-23

[magickmark]

Re: Obligatory Dilbert

Followed by ....

http://dilbert.com/strip/1996-01-24

[Anonymous Coward]

eeerrrm

cuckoo.

The only way is to educate parents and promote filtering services, hang on, the majority of ISPS now offer it for free don't they?

For gods sake, start worrying about the important things!

[King Jack]

Stupid Fight

Has anyone ever been harmed by looking at the opposite sex? Last time I checked it was engrained into us to become interested in sex at puberty. How is picking a fight with biology ever going to be won? Why not educate children to not be afraid of penises, tits and vaginas or is that too difficult. I think all this censorship is to spare adult's blushes not the children's.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Stupid Fight

> Why not educate children to not be afraid of penises, tits and vaginas ...

Because the Victorian prudes that are in charge of our country think otherwise.

The Victorians and their recent ancestors might have brought us industry and trade but they also brought with them insane societal taboos that we are still suffering under.

The moment we stop being embarrassed about our biology and embrace it the better as far as I'm concerned.

David Cameron and his moronic comrades are desperately trying to perpetuate these taboos by their inane policies.

[Grikath]

Re: Stupid Fight

two words: Victorian Morality.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Stupid Fight

"Victorian Morality."

Child labour.

Slavery for part of the period and in some parts of the English-speaking world

Young male aristocrats expected to screw the skivvies so that their future wives would be virgins at marriage.

Rent boys and child prostitution ignored so long as it was confined to the upper classes (continued up to about 2014).

The poor kept under control by a savage legal system.

The symbol is Dave and Boris putting their Buller coats on.

[lucki bstard]

Re: Stupid Fight

What's your point?

Child labour. - Still happens today in the UK

Slavery for part of the period and in some parts of the English-speaking world - Still happens today in the UK

Young male aristocrats expected to screw the skivvies so that their future wives would be virgins at marriage. - Not sure about this one, but what you do in your spare time is up to you

Rent boys and child prostitution ignored so long as it was confined to the upper classes (continued up to about 2014). - Its still being ignored, there is lots of talk but no action

The poor kept under control by a savage legal system. - Still happening today

So what's your point?

[Stumpy]

Re: Stupid Fight

King Jack wrote:

"Has anyone ever been harmed by looking at the opposite sex?"

Yes. I was in the pub the other night staring at this fantastically beautiful blonde, when her boyfriend came over and kicked the crap out of me...

[Bernard M. Orwell]

Re: Stupid Fight

"Has anyone ever been harmed by looking at the opposite sex?"

Bear in mind that staring at the opposite sex can be considered as sexual harassment in and of itself too.

http://www.safeworkers.co.uk/SexualHarassmentWork.html

[CAPS LOCK]

In the end this is about taxation...

... the various moves to 'Ban This Sick Filth' will, of course fail. The gubmint will use that as an excuse to bring in a white list. To get on the white list you will be required to fill in the forms and return them (by post!) with the processing fee. The fee will be laughably small, so you can't object. Once that is established the fee will rise inexorably.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: In the end this is about taxation...

"fill in the forms and return them (by post!)"

No, return them via a .gov.uk site that falls over the day it goes live.

[codejunky]

Hang on

Dont we all have an option from our ISP to view the sanitised/puritanical/cotton wool version of the world instead of that horrible real one? And of course all the bad parents, loud mouths and puritans will already have signed up wouldnt they? So either it isnt working or more people are happy with the full fat legal internet instead of the legal but also morally sanitised version.

I think I have a solution though. The puritans could have a new city made somewhere (or small village depending on numbers. Or just a street come to think of it) where they can mingle with each others and leave the filthy heretics and their sinful ways alone. Although as he is pushing for it I guess Cameron will also be living on that street. That could put people off.

[John Sager]

Re: Hang on

Back in the day, people who felt like that emigrated to America, though they would probably think twice about that destination now. There is a large empty continent a ways south of here that might suit? If it's true what we keep being told it might even become inhabitable. Alternatively we could offer to build them the B-Ark.

[hplasm]

Re: Hang on

"Or just a street come to think of it) where they can mingle with each others and leave the filthy heretics and their sinful ways alone."

Downing St?

[Red Bren]

Safer places for children

Here are some other places that Cameron could make safer for children:

Roads

Theme Parks

Building Sites

The Houses of Parliament

[Christoph]

Re: Safer places for children

Government run Children's Homes

[ratfox]

Cognitive dissonance

Is it just me, or is David Cameron really, really off base on this? What can possibly the reason he's so obsessed with the subject, when frankly there are so many other more worthy of his attention?

I think this must have been what it felt like in the US during the prohibition.

[Lyndon Hills 1]

Re: Cognitive dissonance

Reminds me of the Labour party spending all that time & effort on fox hunting.

[Rich 11]

Re: Cognitive dissonance

I think his advisers are telling him that his social security cuts are disproportionally affecting women, with a consequent risk of losing yet more of their votes. He asks the advisers what policy he can introduce to regain their support, and the advisers naturally start thinking about children (hopefully not too hard). Obviously doing things like reducing classroom sizes or implementing limits on sugar in processed food are out, so they've given him a policy he can talk about without having to actually do much, because he can always fall back on the availability of ISP nanny settings to claim success.

[Andy 73]

Thanks, Internet

We seem to be importing US-style prurient outrage wholesale.

Still, it's so much easier to see the world in black and white terms than to actually talk about education, understanding, support, diversity and the human condition.

[Old Handle]

Re: Thanks, Internet

Hey, hey, wait a minute! Whose country banned spanking videos again?

[Anonymous Coward]

"As a result of our work with industry, more than 90 per cent of UK consumers are offered the choice to easily configure their internet service through family friendly filters "

Yes, and by the last reports about 80% of people on most ISP's use these enforced options... to turn them off!

Hell even on Talk-Talk the ISP with the highest uptake more than half of the people turned it off :p

Its almost as if people don't actually want the filters and instead understand that educating the kids and monitoring them properly is better! Banning it just makes it forbidden fruit, they will get it anyway and just go to worse places to get it, like hedgerows where the mythical magazines used to reside.

[Peter Gathercole]

Family Friendly Filters

As the bill payer in my household, I'm waiting for the invite to turn the block on, and have been for a while.

I've not seen it, and I can still get to porn if I want, so I must assume that it's not in place.

I was always sceptical about this process. I suppose it's possible that one of the other members of the household may have seen and accepted it, but it was supposed to be such that only the person whose name the account was in is able to complete the form.

Does anybody on Orange/EE as an ISP have experience of how it was supposed to work?

[msknight]

Clueless

Cameron is utterly clueless.

Even the newspapers that support him ... when they discuss this issue, their comment sections are jammed with people slamming the idea.

He is out of date. Long gone are the days when kids run down to the corner shop with 50p in their grubby little innocent hands to buy a quart of sweets. They are now moving in to the age of pay-by-bonk ... which is all the proof you need that Cameron is pay-by-bonkers. Kids are getting credit cards, some of which are pre-paid and some of them are underwritten by someone, and have spending limits.

Cameron is a good christian man, in the era when the validity of religion is being torn asunder. Even retired Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong admitted that hell was an invention to control people by fear - http://deadstate.org/retired-priest-hell-was-invented-by-the-church-to-control-people-with-fear/

Romeo was 16, Juliet 14. It wasn't long ago that we sent children to work, even up chimneys. Childhood is a modern invention and Mother Nature will pay no heed to Cameron's legislative pen. But no, instead of educating children, he wants to protect their innocent eyes and make them suffer teenage years of growing up with self-doubt and insecurity. Or does he want every child to be forced to take medication to delay puberty until a year of his choosing?

Congratulations Cameron. Carry on screwing up. This will be your Waterloo.

[Peter Gathercole]

Re: Clueless

My goodness. Two pints by volume of sweets for 50p. I'm not sure sweets have been that cheep since decimalization. Is Cameron old enough to remember decimalization? Probably not, he was only 4 and a half at the time.

Oh. You meant 4 ounces. That would be a quarter, not a quart! About 113g.

[lucki bstard]

Re: Clueless

'This will be your Waterloo.' That will explain the large number of Polish people moving in, they are coming to save us as they did at Waterloo.

[CoffeeFueled]

A cunning ploy

What people aren't realising is that this is actually a cunning bit of social engineering to turn teenagers into penetration testing experts and get them interested in information security from a young age. Genius.

[TomChaton]

Re: A cunning ploy

Teenaged boys are already pretty adept penetration testers, as I recall...

[Steve Evans]

Typical HM Gov idea. Ill Conceived, impossible to implement, and a total waste of money to even try (as usual).

For a start, the age of consent isn't even consistent across Europe, and there's a free movement of people, goods and services clause in the EU rules and regs.

Sounds like just another excuse to build a great firewall of UK... Which we know those in power would dearly love to be able to do.

[Dan Paul]

Boys looking at naked pics of the opposite sex.......

isn't allowed because they might become heterosexuals. Since half the politicians are homosexuals they don't like their odds.

[Tom Chiverton 1]

"freetard collective"

Calling ORG "freetard collective" is a bit harsh. That's the Pirate Party... ORG wanted sensible polices like the freedom to copy stuff you had for your own use.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "freetard collective"

As a member of ORG I concur,

It simple exists in an up hill attempt to challenge as much as its able to, the government's ability to pass stupid legislation mostly centred around but not limited to online & digital.

[Martin Taylor 1]

Re: "freetard collective"

I too find the description objectionable. I have in the past acted as an ORG volunteer on election issues: this is not something I would ever be likely to undertake for a "freetard collective". A withdrawal of the description would be welcome.

[Daggerchild]

One ring to rule them all..

Well this is one way to waste time and money I suppose.

You can't damn a flood. You can't order a river to change course. You can't order the sea to retreat. What you can do is raise dry land above the torrent. There is, and only ever has been, one way of establishing the level of control and order they want - a seperate network, a 'training wheels' internet.

If they order the Big ISP's to unify a second network (IPV6, finally) they can put all the kids in a CCTV'd area and keep them all safe, and stamp out any 'inquisitive ideals', set privacy expectations, and big business could present clean, safe, legal websites and then bid for access to the docile herd of domesticated farm animals that would become the future of this country (and the prey of the rest of the world).

[Roo]

Re: One ring to rule them all..

"and big business could present clean, safe, legal websites and then bid for access to the docile herd"

Presumably big business only because of an enormous amount of red-tape & bribes will be required to have one's website approved. Ravey Davey and his fellow school chums have often expressed their dismay at how the Internet allows anyone to publish stuff they don't like, so I suspect the end-game you propose is probably what Ravey Davey and the rest of the establishment is aiming for.

I think kids are a bit smarter today, only the old farts and technomuppet establishment types will fall for it.

[Anonymous Coward]

searching for family Paridae

All I can say is that Cameron will look like a Parus Major

[Old Tom]

Like booze

Will it be like brewery web sites where you have to enter a random birthdate that makes you more than 18?

(Does anybody know the point of those annoying web site gates?)

[Greg J Preece]

Re: Like booze

The point is arse-covering. If they just show you porn, they "forced porn onto children, those monsters!" If they ask you your age, you got in because you're a liar, and how are they supposed to know?

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: Like booze

The point is arse-covering.

Tit-covering, Shirley?

[Vladimir Plouzhnikov]

As a parent

I'd be much more concerned if my sons weren't able to look at tits and more when they became interested in such things.

There is nothing in porn that can harm anyone and unless a person is interested in "extreme" porn he will not look at it except out of morbid curiosity, which, once satisfied, will no longer exist.

Cameron, you really should stop sucking up to the moral minorities, trying to impose their perversions on others...

[Stevie]

Bah!

I agree with Mr Cameron. We should stamp out this vile internet vileness tootsweet.

Teenaged boys should get their inspirational artwork by clipping it from the Sunday Mirror like I did.

The girls illustrating the serialization of Desmond Morris's The Human Zoo almost gave me Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

[damocles]

Maybe...

... it's because Mr Cameron was caught browsing filthiest of smut by Mrs Cameron.

[VinceH]

Re: Maybe...

"Honestly, Sam, I was merely researching to find out just how easy it is to access. Now I know, I'm going to see what can be done about it!"

[RainForestGuppy]

..blocking images of tits online!

So how will young boys be able to tell the difference between Great, Grey and Blue??

[kain preacher]

I think I'd have and easier time convincing people god exist then stopping teen age boys from looking at net porn

[Greg J Preece]

Cameron huffed and puffed: "Our One Nation government is working hard to make the internet a safer place for children. The next step in this campaign is to curb access to harmful pornographic content which is currently far too widely available."

Citation on pornography being harmful, please.

He added: "I want to see age restrictions put into place or these websites will face being shut down."

Oh, right, I forgot - barely anyone in government has even the slightest idea how the Internet works. "Shut down" in this case will most likely equate to "blocked", which never works.

[Maty]

It's not about porn ...

It's about controlling how people use the internet.

'To a government, freedom means failure. It represents something the government has been unable to regulate or tax.' - G. Faldene

[Flocke Kroes]

Perhaps Camoron is not completely dumb

Was this all a distrction because he recently did something even more stupid?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doomed to failure ...

And not for the obvious reasons either - the biggest tits of all are on open display during PMQs

[Infernoz]

Oh dear, are they still this ridiculously hypocritical!

Most babies will have already have had intimate experience of a women's sex organs from being born, so it's a bit late after, and I assume that most women are smart enough to breast feed their babies too, which 'shock, horror' children may see in public... What about cleavage in low cut dresses and bikinis, are they going to try and censor these too?

This contradicts the whole point of sex education and the UK age of consent of 16; some children will already have some intimate knowledge of other sex children before 17, seen other sex Mammals or have done relevant Biology, so WTF!

I think the mockery of Japanese sex censorship in the current running anime "Shimoneta" is also timely mockery for the whole UK sex censorship farce too.

[Greg J Preece]

Just show a picture of a C-90, with a multiple choice question: "What is this?"

Under 18s will likely be stumped.

[I Am Spartacus]

C90

It's a cray super computer, as any fule nose

[tony2heads]

C90

The old Honda?? or the codec from Cisco ? or the grenade launcher from Instalaza ? or the aircraft from Beechcraft?

[hatti]

Hey David

Wake up or the species will be in danger.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet no filter for violence, terrorism etc.?

[Ramon Zarat]

Stopping the rain

What those technologically illiterates buffoons are proposing is the equivalent of trying to stop every single drop of rain falling over a country from reaching the ground, with your bare hands... To say "mission impossible" would be the understatement of the century.

One does not block what account for 75%+ of the entire Internet for fuck's sake! There ALWAYS will be a few trillion sites you didn't block or an easy way around that block! Unless you implement your own version of the Internet; a giant, state sponsored intranet where EVERYTHING is tightly regulated. Just like Big Brother, but even worser. It's either or: Free Internet or dictatorial intranet.

What you need to do is to EDUCATE so parents do their fucking job at policing their own children by installing nany software to block the content THEY judge inappropriate for THEIR children.

All this until all sexual content are EXCLUSIVELY confined to a single domain, like ".sex". Then you might be able to do something about it. Ands I use the word "might"' very loosely here.

[Rol]

I blame the parents

As nearly all have already said, Cameron's thoughts on the subject have no merit what-so-ever. unworkable, impractical and totally useless, for the many reasons already stated.

If he wants to be all caring and thoughtful on shielding children from the more seedier side of the net he must look to the very source of the problem, useless, incompetent, carefree parents.

It is the parents of these children who by inactivity allow their spawn to access porn, when they could quite easily stop it dead.

The family computer could be hard wired (in a soft way) to a family portal where content has been verified as suitable for children. Every site available through a portal like that has already been checked and as a parent you can be assured it's safe.

The rest of us can carry on regardless, on the understanding that we will face prosecution if we allowed minors access to our open access systems to gawk at dirty pillows.

While still not perfect, it's a damned better way of skinning this bunny without destroying the hutch at the same time.

[Dan 55]

Just tell them to use Facebook or Google+ to age verify the user

That'll keep them quiet for couple of years.

[Camilla Smythe]

Pron Sheild Up!!!!1!!!!

...Oh.. no Pron :-( Oooo.. no fix Linux Forums...

Hmmm???

cd /etc

sudo nano hosts

password? password123

xx.xx.xx.xx pornsite1.com

xx.xx.xx.xx pornsite2.com

xx.xx.xx.xx linuxforum.com

xx.xx.xx.xx rinse

xx.xx.xx.xx repeat

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts

::1 ip6-localhost ip6-loopback

fe00::0 ip6-localnet

ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix

ff02::1 ip6-allnodes

ff02::2 ip6-allrouters

ctrl-O

ctrl-X

sudo reboot

Of course some of you might suggest I am slightly knowledgeable about this stuff. I really do not have a basic but bypassing my ISP pron/other filters using the hosts file was and remains laughably simple.

Perhaps Camerloons plan is in fact to force kids to either become competent with computers or make friends with the playground Geek and share USB sticks.

Scrub that. The bloke is a divot.

Maybe this is an admission by Mumsnet and their Wine & Cheese Party Pocket Politicians that their cunning plan failed so they have to come up with some other blither to try to impose on others based on their self serving ignorance.

More disturbingly the end game as far as this is concerned will be full-scale implementation of DPI. Wholesale monitoring of communications and.. naturally banning of encryption as well as curtains and toilet door locks.

Might as well move to Syria and get bombed by the Turks.

'Your purpose for visiting Syria?'

'I am trying to escape what is becoming a totalitarian regime?'

'Are you sure Sir? Not perchance going to join IS are we?'

'OK, you've got me. I'm trying to smuggle Dates to Iran without paying duty.'

'How many cartons?'

'Here, see Five.'

'I only see Four Sir... Move along now.'

[Evil Auditor]

David,

Did you have a bad-porn day?!

[g7rpo]

Headline Grabbing Tosh

When will politicians learn that they cant control the web and trying to do so just emphasises their idiocy and lack of knowledge and insight.

Surely there must be a government advisor who understands this shit (and isn't afraid of saying no to shiney dave)

[Roo]

Re: Headline Grabbing Tosh

"Surely there must be a government advisor who understands this shit (and isn't afraid of saying no to shiney dave)"

I suspect those types are kept as far away from Ravey Davey as possible. Dave doesn't strike me as someone who would tolerate people telling him things he doesn't want to hear, hopefully I am mistaken. :)

[Henry Wertz 1]

"Voluntary"

Don't most sites already voluntarily want credit card "verification" to get access to the pron? Then "verify" the card to the tune of $5-$50 a month?

[Old Handle]

Re: "Voluntary"

I'm not sure about "most sites", but honestly there are loads that give it away for free (with ads) including a number of large sites with "porn" and/or "tube" in their name.

[Brewster's Angle Grinder]

There's nothing that gets the commentariat excited as a good porn story. :/

[David 45]

Grandstanding, as ever

"More effective controls"........Really? Well, good luck with that one. One has to ask just what suggestions Camerloon has to actually implement said controls. Man's a fool.

[Lars]

I would advice you Brits not to vote for guys of Cameron's age who went to boarding schools as I think his huffing and buffing about tits is due to severe lack of tits as a teen.

[Kaltern]

So, what about girls? Does Cameron realise that girls watch porn too? Or does he think that they play with Barbie until 16?

The whole argument he has about sex is purely male orientated, showing a hideously sexist attitude. Very 'Good old boys club' attitude, in fact. Of course, I already understood this, but this whole 'porn is bad', is very much a strawman argument - by stating porn is bad, he gets to control the internet - there is no citation that confirms watching porn is inherently damaging to young kids.

This is nothing more than a way of ensuring that a UK firewall is introduced, as Porn and that over scourge of UK citizens, Piracy, is threatening the very fabric of Britishness - or something like that.

Just keep in mind, the only reason there are citizens, is to pay taxes - they are otherwise ignored.

[J.G.Harston]

And exactly /how/ is David Cameron going to shut down that p0rn server in Khablikistan?

[John Munyard]

It's clear to me that the biggest tit in this story is David Cameron. There he goes again promising to ban everything and threatening an entire industry when he clearly hasn't got a scooby-doobie-doo how anyone will be able to achieve it.

Clearly he's a believer in just shouting at people and the magic will happen. His Daily Mail fuelled initiative to get ISPs to block all porn sites without an opt-in has already f**king failed miserably, and yet here he goes all over again.

What a complete knob.

[Anonymous Coward]

Parenting commissioner

what we need need is a huge government department completely dedicated to parenting in general - so 'parents can feel secure for their child's safety' [have no actual parenting responsibility]

I can understand Cameron is just a mouthpiece but really can the entire supporting political crew be *that* incompetent - oh apparently they can - I know let's have a referendum about it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Parenting commissioner

Good plan, but you know the press will be endlessly implying that the parenting commissioner is a paedo, right? That's what they do.

[Marcus Fil]

China

Has a great firewall that is far from airtight despite millions of dollars spent with western companies helping them build it. What hope then for Fortress UK that cannot even afford the schematics? Cameron please go and bother somebody else about something else you can actually fix. T'internet is about the flow of information and whilst GCHQ can pull the odd stunt with mis-directions they are only for the uneducated masses. People who want to route round or through will, and introducing fruitless schemes of control will be nothing more than needless expenditure and unnecessary embuggerance. Furthermore, swelling the ranks, and skills, of the dark brigade is probably the last thing you want to do; even more concerning (or edifying?) is the number of game keepers who have turned poacher - rightfully paranoid at the unfettered zeal of some of those in power. Snowden is the just the tip of the iceberg (sic). Anyone who thinks this is just about Pr0n think again - as should Cameron. Impact assesment? Law of unintended consequences? Next he will be telling us that only governments can have stong encryption ..oh, wait.

[Daniel Voyce]

David Cameron

Is exactly the kind of man who only has sex for procreation.

[Whit.I.Are]

16/18 paradox

So you can legally have sex at 16 in the UK, but you'll have to be 18 to look at boobs?

That's as daft as being able to join the army at 16, but not able to play Call of Duty till you're 18.

[9Rune5]

Pull the other one...

...it has bells on.

I clicked on the article expecting to read about cattle prods being employed as a negative stimulus to teach teenage boys to not associate tits with sex. Instead there was talk of a filter.

Yeah... A filter will work... For 5 milliseconds. You would have more luck convincing a thirsty man in a desert to go without water for another week.

[I Am Spartacus]

Gilmore's 1st Rule

from 1996 - Now that was visionary:

"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it".

[Anonymous Coward]

If....

If the sight of a boob is damaging to minors, then the next logical step is to insist upon blindfolds for babies being breastfed. Just in case they get their young minds blown by the sight of a nipple while they're sucking on it.

[Vladimir Plouzhnikov]

Re: If....

Perhaps they should be blindfolded while still in the womb! Taking into account what they'll have to go through on their way out...

[PassiveSmoking]

If we ban tits from the internet then Cameron won't be able to go on line any more.

Yeah, I went there.

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely Parenting should be handled by the parents?

In this day an age any half witted mook can install preventative software/hardware on their own internet connection if they are that worried about kids looking at porn?

And if they go elsewhere to access it, well maybe we should start locking kids up in buildings so they cant get out and do that... how much would it cost to turn all schools into 'learning camps'?

I miss the old days of finding a raz mag in a bush when you were 14 and having to work out some form of rota so you and all of your mates could get an appropriate share.

[Simon B]

Do a websearch of tits and you get David Cameron. Indeed most objectionable! Can this material also be blocked from tv and radio? I'm all for blocking access to tits!!!

[John Brown (no body)]

stop 17-year-olds running a web search for the phrase "tits".

I thought Cameron wanted younger people to enage more with politics? Banning them from searching for their MPs might hinder that aim.

[Brian Allan 1]

Violence and gore are OK! Tits are bad! What a society we live in... Wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

"webcam girl" vacancies were advertised on the Job Centre website...

Not so long ago the Job Centre had adverts for "webcam girls". There was a big stink about it and it was said that as long as it is legal they had to advertise said vacancies. £10 ph if I remember rightly.

[JumpinJehosophat]

Really? Ah, I get it, much better to have burglaries, purse-snatching, peeping tom teens, teenage rape and pregnancy than let them fap off at the net ...

Meanwhile, Daddy is trying to explain to Mummy why the policeman said his card came up flagged for terrorism in Afghanistan after BigTiTGilfs stole all their money via Thailand ...