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United Kingdom EU The Internet Your Rights Online

Leaked Document Shows Europe Would Fight UK Plans To Block Porn 253

Mark Wilson writes: Before the UK elections earlier in the month, David Cameron spoke about his desire to clean up the internet. Pulling — as he is wont to do — on parental heartstrings, he suggested that access to porn on computers and mobiles should be blocked by default unless users specifically requested access to it. This opt-in system was mentioned again in the run-up to the election as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Sajid Javid assured peopled that the party "will age restrict online porn". But it's not quite that simple. There is the small problem of Europe. A leaked EU Council document shows that plans are afoot to stop Cameron's plans in its tracks — and with the UK on the verge of trying to debate a better deal for itself within Europe, the Prime Minister is not in a particularly strong position for negotiating on the issue. Cameron has a fight on his hands, it seems, if he wants to deliver on his promise that "we need to protect our children from hardcore pornography". Documents seen by The Sunday Times reveal that the EU could make it illegal for ISPs and mobile companies to automatically block access to obscene material. Rather than implementing a default block on pornography, the Council of the European Union believes that users should opt in to web filtering and be able to opt out again at any time; this is precisely the opposite to the way Cameron would like things to work.
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Leaked Document Shows Europe Would Fight UK Plans To Block Porn

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  • by Whiteox ( 919863 ) on Monday May 25, 2015 @06:06PM (#49771259) Journal

    Sure. Let the Brits only see their own porn!

    • by TWX ( 665546 )
      Eeeegh. That's a terrible thought...
      • Eeeegh. That's a terrible thought...

        Quite agree! It should be both geo-locked AND geo-cached. Preferably in Scottland. In the Highlands. Among the sheep. It's a baaaad influence.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      "Shall I felate you with my misshapen blackened teeth, luvvey?"

      "Please do, dearest, and I shall think of England while you do it!"

    • by mwvdlee ( 775178 )

      They can pry the porn from my warm, wet hands!

  • by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Monday May 25, 2015 @06:08PM (#49771271) Journal

    And how exactly do you block access? Politics and policy aside, from the technical viewpoint, what he proposes is not possible. One country cannot get worldwide cooperation of every single adult website to honor this opt-in policy. Keyword based filters cannot work with encrypted traffic. Whitelisting or blacklisting would be such a massive undertaking as to never be effective. There's just no way to even do what he's advocating.

    • It would be done by the ISP of the device itself. they would run a web filter at their end for it.
      • Re:Blocking access (Score:5, Insightful)

        by TWX ( 665546 ) on Monday May 25, 2015 @06:23PM (#49771363)
        And suddenly extremely low-cost proxy services would be offered, so that people wouldn't have to register with the government to see pictures of naked people.

        I'm still waiting for the definition of pornography. Does William Adolphe Bouguereau's A Young Girl Defending Herself Against Eros [getty.edu] qualify? How about the work of Spencer Tunick? How about Tennis Girl [wikipedia.org] by Martin Elliott?
        • Try turning the safe search filter on for google search and search for it. Thats essentially all this will be other than filtered at the ISP instead of a search engine.

          Most people don't even know google turns this filter on by default. Other search engines do the same. Its not much different and any government wanting to know if you specify are a pervert will either get your records from Google or find the info on the computer / device itself and possibly without your knowledge.

          Some ISP spam filters operate

        • by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
          They can block the proxies too. You try accessing Hulu through a proxy from outside the US, for example. All it takes is for someone to say "if you're using a proxy you obviously have something to hide and therefore must be evil".
          • by Falos ( 2905315 )
            Superevil.

            Like, a druglord pedorist selling illegal DVDs of terrible movies. Who kicks puppies even before you can.

            And that's why I didn't need a warrant, Your Honor.
        • And suddenly extremely low-cost proxy services would be offered, so that people wouldn't have to register with the government to see pictures of naked people.

          And just as suddenly those extremly low-cost proxy serviced might be blocked?

          • by itzly ( 3699663 )

            No, the government will start offering low-cost proxy services that keep a detailed log of all your traffic.

        • by Malc ( 1751 )

          I'm still waiting for the definition of pornography. Does William Adolphe Bouguereau's A Young Girl Defending Herself Against Eros qualify? How about the work of Spencer Tunick? How about Tennis Girl by Martin Elliott?

          Instead of speculating, why don't you look at the British statute books? Wouldn't you expect the same law(s) for print, film and television for instance to apply or at least be a starting point?

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Everyone in the UK should be using a VPN service already. They are inexpensive and will help block various levels of spying and monitoring, as well as providing a clean, unmolested internet feed.

      • Re:Blocking access (Score:5, Insightful)

        by penguinoid ( 724646 ) on Monday May 25, 2015 @06:38PM (#49771449) Homepage Journal

        And as a bonus, giving the government the right to filter your content at the ISP level comes with a free promise not to abuse that power.

    • The trick is that you don't need to get perfect results:

      It is definitely not the case that you can be perfect results(given that we don't even have an unambiguous definition of what we seek to block, of course it isn't going to work); but even quite primitive filters will hit some stuff. This allows you to tell the Daily Mail readers that Something Is Being Done, just as it ought to.

      Next, the real fun begins: various smartass nerds and/or concerned parents will point out instances where your glorious
    • Re:Blocking access (Score:5, Insightful)

      by NostalgiaForInfinity ( 4001831 ) on Monday May 25, 2015 @06:54PM (#49771537)

      And how exactly do you block access?

      You're assuming that blocking access is the goal. In fact, the primary goal is likely increased Internet monitoring and surveillance; expansion of police powers.

      • This especially includes video monitoring. The UK has a television tax, called the "television license fee". It's still a tax, and it's used to help fund the BBC and other government sponsored media. This tax is being skipped more and more with modern computers downloading video directly, and the DRM on British television is being evaded more and more and the broadcasts being retransmitted live, around the world. The problems of collecting the tax are compunded by home entertainment systems no longer being

    • Re:Blocking access (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Areyoukiddingme ( 1289470 ) on Monday May 25, 2015 @07:33PM (#49771775)

      And how exactly do you block access?

      Easy. You call up the US vendor that sold China their Great Firewall and order another one. This one will be cheap, considering the UK's population is a fraction that of China.

      And yes, you can hire enough busy-body bureaucrats to keep the blacklists up to date. China does. Think of it as a jobs program. If there's one thing history has shown, it's that 10% of the population is willing, eager, and waiting to oppress the other 90%, "for their own good." That plus a tiny number of sociopathic opportunists is all you need to get it done.

      I'm sure when it's in place that the UK will become a beacon of morality for all the world to admire. Kind of like the Victorian era.</sarcasm>

      • Easy. You call up the US vendor that sold China their Great Firewall and order another one. This one will be cheap, considering the UK's population is a fraction that of China.

        Already done: TalkTalk (arguably the UK's worst ISP in general, as well as being the first to jump on the government's bandwagon) spent many millions of pounds (described in a related court case as "an eight figure sum") importing a horribly flawed censorship system [pcpro.co.uk] from Huawei, which is one of the Chinese manufacturers of part of the

  • by FlyHelicopters ( 1540845 ) on Monday May 25, 2015 @06:09PM (#49771279)

    I would suggest that this might be an issue that David Cameron used for the elections and for politics and that it isn't a core issue that he'll defend against such pushback.

    • Someone should gently remind the prime minister that the Victorian era is over.

      • Someone should gently remind the prime minister that the Victorian era is over.

        MP to PM: Sir, I beg leave to inform you that the Victorian era is over.
        PM to MP: Then let the Neo-Victorian era begin!

        God save the Queen! Protect the Falklands! ...... Egad! What happened to the Jewel of the Empire?

      • Someone should gently remind the prime minister that the Victorian era is over.

        You obviously don't know much about the Victorians.

    • I would suggest that this might be an issue that David Cameron used for the elections and for politics and that it isn't a core issue that he'll defend against such pushback.

      I think it is quite important - as a diversion tactic. He doesn't want people to catch on to the fact that the Conservatives are selling off public assets as part of a larger, ideologically motivated strategy. I won't deny that they and the Liberal Democrats have done a reasonable job of handling the crisis, in as much as they have done at least part of what had to be done, but they have moved on from the pragmatic running of the country, to a targeted implementation of ideology, and that will inevitably hu

  • Or.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Monday May 25, 2015 @06:10PM (#49771285)

    Or we could just stop raising a country of sexually reclusive prudes who are ashamed of their own body and freak out at the through of seeing nipple.

    Funny side anecdote: I was in Bad Hofgastein in Austria skiing and after a long day on the slopes I went down to the wellness centre for an evening of sauna. There was a British woman shouting at the receptionist that it is absolutely unacceptable that she was kicked out for wearing swimmers in the sauna area. There were a lot of naked men and women standing around quite bemused.

    • I hate to agree with a 'prude' but if she's not comfortable having her body naked, that's her own issue. I understand people who want to be naked can / should be able to in such an environment - but to force others to have to do it? Sorry I'm not seeing the humour.

      • by JanneM ( 7445 )

        You don't bring swimwear into a sauna. If she isn't comfortable being nude there are multiple other ways to refresh yourself, in the pool, showers or wherever. Nobody forced her into the sauna in the first place.

      • by delt0r ( 999393 )
        Germans and Austrians are really funny about rules, typically made up one at that. Like you *must* be naked in a sauna or you get rabbies or something. Or if wind blows on your neck you die (Zugluft).
    • by delt0r ( 999393 )
      I lived in Austria for a number of years. They just don't give a shit about nudity. If you tried to get attention by protesting naked, people would probably not even notice. When shopping with my daughter (teenager at the time) one of her friends couldn't find a cubicle to get changed in, so she just got changed in the shop, including a bra.
  • LOL democracy! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BringMyShuttle ( 4121293 ) on Monday May 25, 2015 @06:10PM (#49771287)
    Cameron is staunchly anti-freedom. What's tragic is a majority of British liked this and voted for the man and those that didn't are forced at gunpoint to come along for the ride.

    "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." - Winston Churchill

    “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” —Ben Franklin

    “The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.” —Thomas Jefferson

    “Democracy ... wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.” —John Adams

    “Democracy is the most vile form of government... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention... incompatible with personal security or the rights of property.” —James Madison

    “The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and ... breaks up the foundations of society.” —Thomas Jefferson

    http://democracyisnotfreedom.c... [democracyi...reedom.com] https://encyclopediadramatica.... [encyclopediadramatica.se]
    • Cameron is staunchly anti-freedom. What's tragic is a majority of British liked this and voted for the man and those that didn't are forced at gunpoint to come along for the ride. "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." - Winston Churchill “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” —Ben Franklin “The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.” —Thomas Jefferson “Democracy ... wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.” —John Adams “Democracy is the most vile form of government... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention... incompatible with personal security or the rights of property.” —James Madison “The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and ... breaks up the foundations of society.” —Thomas Jefferson http://democracyisnotfreedom.c... [democracyi...reedom.com] https://encyclopediadramatica.... [encyclopediadramatica.se]

      "The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them in parliament." — Vladimir Lenin

    • Re:LOL democracy! (Score:4, Informative)

      by grahammm ( 9083 ) <graham@gmurray.org.uk> on Tuesday May 26, 2015 @12:54AM (#49772889)

      Cameron is staunchly anti-freedom. What's tragic is a majority of British liked this and voted for the man and those that didn't are forced at gunpoint to come along for the ride.

      No, the majority of the the British people did not vote for him. Firstly, only about 65% of those eligible voted and of those only 36% voted conservative. So less than one quarter of those registered to vote voted for him.

    • by gerddie ( 173963 )

      [...]

      “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” —Ben Franklin

      [...]

      “The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and ... breaks up the foundations of society.” —Thomas Jefferson

      That's why you really want a consensus democracy [wikipedia.org]:

      Consensus democracy is the application of consensus decision-making to the process of legislation in a democracy. It is characterized by a decision-making structure which involves and takes into account as broad a range of opinions as possible, as opposed to systems where minority opinions can potentially be ignored by vote-winning majorities.

  • the EU could make it illegal for ISPs and mobile companies to automatically block access to obscene material. Rather than implementing a default block on pornography, the Council of the European Union believes that users should opt in to web filtering and be able to opt out again at any time

    O.K., this is better than the opposite (i.e., "blocked by default unless users specifically requested access to it"), but does this means that "the EU could make it illegal for ISPs and mobile companies to NOT automatically block access to obscene material if users OPT IN to web filtering"? (for the record: i believe that ISP's should -try to- block access to such materials if users ask for it)

    • (for the record: i believe that ISP's should -try to- block access to such materials if users ask for it)

      If you believe that, then you have failed to understand the Internet at a profoundly fundamental level.

      The Internet was designed from the very beginning for all of the intelligence to be at the edges. The network itself is supposed to be as dumb as it is possible to be while still moving everybody's packets around. If you want censorship, it's your job to implement it on the tiny little network in your house, or even individual nodes on that network, and leave everyone else alone. No one else should be s

      • Re: (Score:2, Redundant)

        (for the record: i believe that ISP's should -try to- block access to such materials if users ask for it)

        If you believe that, then you have failed to understand the Internet at a profoundly fundamental level.

        The Internet was designed from the very beginning for all of the intelligence to be at the edges. The network itself is supposed to be as dumb as it is possible to be while still moving everybody's packets around. If you want censorship, it's your job to implement it on the tiny little network in your house, or even individual nodes on that network, and leave everyone else alone. No one else should be spending any CPU time for what you want.

        I had a VERY small part in helping the first Greek real ISP build its network - i know the network fundamentals (if you read carefully you will notice that i wrote "try to"), but i also know that most "internet" users dont know anything about networking. You must understand that censorship is a very strong word to use for cases like, e.g., a parent who does not know about packets/node/networks asking his ISP to block porn - and ISPs have enough CPU time to -try to- help. Just because YOU know about networks

  • by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Monday May 25, 2015 @06:21PM (#49771355)

    UK & Greece: no porn and no money.

  • by gstoddart ( 321705 ) on Monday May 25, 2015 @06:43PM (#49771477) Homepage

    The world should not be set up safe as a default for you and your fucking whiny children.

    The moral upbringing of your children in a sealed bubble which keeps the world at bay is your damned problem.

    Every parent who insists the world be made sanitized for you and your precious little snowflake can piss off.

    You want a nanny internet, you take the time to sign up for it and request it. But if you think the rest of the world should have to opt-in ... you can fuck off and leave the rest of us out of it.

    I'm s sick of idiotic parents who think the world should change to protect their children. We don't give a crap, they're not our kids ... on behalf of parent-less couples everywhere, this is your fucking problem not ours.

    I won't moderate my behavior for my mother. If you think I'll do it for you and your brood of annoying children ... well, ask me. I dare you. Because they'll learn every possible bad word as well as hearing them used in complete sentences.

    If you think the world should tiptoe around you and your kids ... you're too stupid to have kids.

    Shit piss fuck cunt cocksucker motherfucker and tits. Fuck you, fuck off, go the fuck away, and don't make me tell you again.

    • by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Monday May 25, 2015 @08:28PM (#49772071) Homepage

      The porn filter and protect the children thing is a straight up lie. It is all about censorship about blocking any ideas that compete with the false ideology of the rich and greedy, that ideology being they want more, more, more. It is all about accidental block sites, union sites, opposition (real opposition) political sites, real news sites, blogs basically anything at all. All so very accidental, then it takes months to unblock and costs thousands of dollars and then it gets accidentally blocked again.

      Reality is, if they are serious about porn, they should simply strip sic it of copyright protection, cripple the ability of corporations to generate a profit from it and with out the profit there is no money to make more. Done and finished.

      Of course it all has nothing what so ever to do with porn, that is a lie. All about blocking the majority from publishing anything and putting the power of publishing content back in the hand of a psychopathically greedy minority.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        We need to define a "cameron" as a particularly distasteful (to prudes) sex act so that it gets blocked by the porn filter. I suggest something scatalogical. He is a little shit, after all...

        Would be nice to get May in on the action too. Some porn star should use her name. The chaos caused if we could get "may" into the filter would be hilarious.

    • +1, Bravo.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by duke_cheetah2003 ( 862933 ) on Monday May 25, 2015 @06:52PM (#49771529) Homepage

    David Cameron needs to watch this [youtube.com] video.

  • Just a minute ago I was reading about trannie mosquitos, now I read the EU wants to protect the average brit's right to fap to trannie mosquito porn.

    / it's not news
    // it's Fark!
    /// Oh, wait
  • I am split. On one hand I support freedom of speech and I think it would be nice to enforce it. On the other hand I support Democracy and if the Brits want to restrict freedom of speech, an outer undemocratic body like EU should not be able to bar them.

    But after some though, I think that there should be no natural laws. People sovereignty should be the source of any law and therefore Democracy should trump freedom of speech. After all in a democratic regime, freedom of speech restriction wan be overturned l

  • by Brulath ( 2765381 ) on Monday May 25, 2015 @07:45PM (#49771823)

    As is typical for politicians of his breed, he only needs to be seen to be trying to implement an Internet filter. He doesn't need to pass it to be seen to be doing something by those people he's trying to win votes from, and if he doesn't succeed he'll be able to rally them again next election and win their votes. Failing to create a workable solution and being able to blame the European Union is probably highly beneficial to him, politicially.

  • Ho hum (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    "we need to protect our children from hardcore pornography"
    Typical conservative "save the children" bullshit. What we actually need to do is educate children that "hard-core" pornography is not real. That it's the equivalent of a sexual cartoon for not very grown up grown ups, and that for the vast majority of people sex doesn't work that way.

  • by mark_reh ( 2015546 ) on Monday May 25, 2015 @07:48PM (#49771847) Journal

    There is so much free stuff available (so I've heard ;) ), how does anyone make any money with it at all?
    Who pays for porn with so much free stuff available?
    Is porn just advertising for the actors who engage in for-hire sex with anyone with adequate funds?
    Are us poor slobs just enjoying the commercials while the rich guys get the real stuff?

    • by m00sh ( 2538182 )

      There is so much free stuff available (so I've heard ;) ), how does anyone make any money with it at all? Who pays for porn with so much free stuff available? Is porn just advertising for the actors who engage in for-hire sex with anyone with adequate funds? Are us poor slobs just enjoying the commercials while the rich guys get the real stuff?

      There is so much open source and free software available on the internet. Does anyone even make any money selling software?

      There is so much free music. There is so much free movies. So much free news, books, educational material, and so on and so on.

      • Quality and indexing. There's lots of free porn available, but it isn't very well-filed - and if you've any particular desires, you could spend far too long searching for the hot stuff and not enough time enjoying it. Some pay-porn services operate by providing access to well-indexed and often quite specialised fetishes. Even so, the porn industry online has long struggled to get customers to actually pay, and is very heavily dependent upon advertising. This creates another problem for them: Most of the maj

    • it's a few big spenders. In the game industry they call them "Whales". That and spyware/viruses selling scams that folks fall for.
  • is just not British!
  • by Snufu ( 1049644 ) on Monday May 25, 2015 @09:43PM (#49772373)

    Some things are worth dying for.

  • Whatever you think of the various sides of this argument, it's interesting to me to look at how different the sides are.

    The US is, on average, far more concerned about pornography and other sexual issues than the UK, but there is not and never will be any significant discussion of government-mandated filters, outside of specific situations like government-run schools. The reason is our belief in the importance of free speech. Although there are plenty of Americans who would like to ban porn, no one at a n

  • This is beyond futile, but at least it will greatly advance image recognition. Maybe they could also differentiate the ban by actual scene properties and try to vary them every week (like having a BBC week, ATM week, etc.) - that would be really useful.
  • by ihtoit ( 3393327 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2015 @01:06AM (#49772927)

    UK ISPs already block certain traffic. Not necessarily bittorrent either. I've had more than a few blogs blocked not because of morally questionable content, but because of politically questionable content.

    The message here from Europe, is that you can watch a video of a woman getting fucked up the arse but you can't watch a Youtube of someone with a beef against the British Government. It's starting to sound more like the West's vision of North Korea every day, but there it is.

    • Which anti-government Youtube videos have been blocked in the UK?
      • by abies ( 607076 )

        'Someone with beef against government' may mean someone explaining how to make 2 tons of explosives and where to park them in Westminster to cause maximum damage.

        • So, what if it does? Where do you draw the line? Who gets to decide what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. You could go to a pub and chat to someone who will explain how to make an explosive from fertilizer and diesel. Are we going to ban pubs as well now? In fact if we ever meet in a pub I can tell you exactly how to make an explosive, down to the detonator and timers, as well as ensuring you get maximum shrapnel. Doesn't mean I'm going to do it, doesn't mean you are going to do it, we're jus
      • by ihtoit ( 3393327 )

        I shot a documentary with the father of a little girl who had been abducted by two social workers and four police officers in Suffolk; we had his evidence in the video, we had a prima facie case against the State for child trafficking - we only did the video because the police didn't want to know and neither did the criminal courts, but they sure had something to say when the video went up. Something about bringing harm to MY family. Next thing I know, my primary blog is taken down by Wordpress, my Youtube

  • by SuricouRaven ( 1897204 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2015 @01:30AM (#49772977)

    Is there any evidence - I mean serious, well-studied, scientific evidence - that access to pornography is that harmful?

    I've seen a lot of scaremongering. I've seen a lot of anecdotal accounts too, plenty of people sharing their personal stories of how porn ruined their mind and their life. But what I've not seen is serious data - the few bits of real research I've found are rather dubious in methodology, and tend to be carried out by the type of organisation with 'family' in the name that can hardly be called unbiased.

    If pornography was one-tenth as harmful as anti-pornography campaigners claim, western civilisation would have collapsed by now - just about everyone has access to it and yet, somehow, the incidence of rape is actually going down. Yet the assumption remains unchallenged, because it's just too socially and politically awkward: Anyone who dares so much as suggest that maybe pornography isn't a terrible threat to children risks being branded as supporting child molestation. Society has reached the witch-hunt level: Anyone who questions the validity of the witch-hunt risks being accused of supporting the witches.

  • I predict that one of the "great concessions" that David Cameron will gain from Europe will be permission to block porn. They will probably come up with a whole load more things that they won't sweat about dropping so that David can go back with a long list and gleefully declare that his negotiations have been very successful, whereas in reality he won't have gained many of his important targets
  • No, it doesn't exist. But maybe it ought to...

    The problem: lots of nasty porn where men do nasty things to ladies, and no-one seems to be smiling or enjoying themselves. Lots of poking things where they simply don't belong. LIttle information or education on how to have more fun and possibly do less harm.

    The non-solution: try and filter it out. We know this does not work, and it is unrealistic to believe it may work in the future. It is also a restriction of liberty. The only thing it might do is gener

  • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2015 @11:47AM (#49775721)

    I propose this as the name of the SI unit for the minimum distance between two blunders.

If God had not given us sticky tape, it would have been necessary to invent it.

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