The case for mandatory internet filtering

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#1779872 11-May-2017 20:38

Rikkitic:

"it is widely understood that the printed word
can be more disturbing than images".

Oh lord. They're advocating censorship on the basis of their own dislike of the material. Let's be honest - it's not about protecting children, it's about power, control, and moral crusading.

freitasm

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#1780033 12-May-2017 10:37

Which leads to the question: what child was harmed by the writings of a book?

Think about it this way: "if this is a work of fiction (erotica) and there are no actual images of a child and no evidence of being a report of actual facts then which child was abused?"

The answer is that the moral guardians are the ones offended in this case. and before you say "but such a book could lead people to act" I'd say there are a lot of books out there that could've been the same regarding other topics.

Think how many of these guardians are offended by Lolita.

Rikkitic

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#1780057 12-May-2017 11:07

Perhaps the salient point is that Lolita could never be published today, let alone be made into a film.

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JimmyH

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#1780318 12-May-2017 18:26

More to the point, if they are going to ban written material because it traverses illegal acts, why assume it will stop at Lolita.

Murder is illegal. Espionage is illegal. Theft is illegal. So, to be even handed, they will need to go after the Agatha Christie, Colin Dexter and John Le Carre novels as well.

To say nothing of taking Midsomer Murders off the telly.

Ford

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#1782161 15-May-2017 01:00

"We accept Govt mandated controls in many aspects of life which infringe on our personal freedom for the greater good of society or for our own protection"

That statement cannot be said about the government's policy on making available the private details of people who are bankrupted. And then for those public listings to be picked up by rouge NZ based websites.

That puts everyone at risk and protects no-one.

I just wrote a post about that in the ICT regulations forum.

I believe if people knew the truth about govt. mandated controls, there would be a lot of them people wouldn't accept.

Ford

JimmyH

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#1782736 15-May-2017 19:39

"We accept Govt mandated controls in many aspects of life which infringe on our personal freedom for the greater good of society or for our own protection"

In some cases, yes. But the filter doesn't meet that test. Not even remotely.

As has been asked several times in this thread, but not answered by proponents of the filter who keep intoning that the filter is "part of the solution":

what exactly is the harm being caused by the internet?
to whom?
how does a mandatory filter prevent the harm?

All I see is snake oil being peddled by various politicians, religious lobbyists and product vendors who have vested interests in manufacturing boogy men that they can then campaign to keep us safe from, trying to control views and material they don't like, and peddling products. I have seen nothing like a rational analysis showing that there is serious harm resulting, that a blanket filter applying to all adults will somehow prevent that harm, and that the damage from the filter (assuming it will work, which it won't) is remotely proportional to the alleged harm. Plus, there is no clarity at all about what will be filtered and what won't, how errors will be swiftly fixed, how abuses will be prevented, or how people will be prevented from bypassing it.

So, to the supporters of the filter, what exactly are you proposing to block, what is the "harm" that will be prevented, and why do you think that censorship on this scale is proportional to any harm (assuming you can identify any)? And please don't use CP (which is already banned and blocked) as grounds, as arguing for a sweepingly intrusive filter to block something that is already blocked isn't exactly compelling.

shanehobson

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#1782767 15-May-2017 20:25

I will mention child porn, because as far as I know there is no mandatory filtering applied in NZ. There is the Govt DIA filter which is optional and used by about six NZ ISPs. That means a consumer of child porn can access child porn through any one of the numerous other ISPs not using the DIA filter.

I’ll assume that I don’t need to explain the harm caused by child porn.

I agree with your statement that consumption of child porn is banned.

To answer your questions, here’s a hypothetical example :

An adult male who consumes internet adult porn in the absence of all other ‘inputs’ comes to believe that adult porn found on the internet is representative of normal sexual behaviour.

That person then goes out into the real world with behaviour and beliefs shaped by internet porn and ends up forcing his will on a female he meets.

Had he not been exposed to internet porn his understanding of normal sexual behaviour would be more closely aligned with that of the people he interacts with in the real world.

Harm is not caused by the internet any more than harm is caused by roads.

Content delivered via the internet has potential to cause harm.

Please do not reach the conclusion that I am advocating a mandatory block on adult porn. I have used this example to answer your questions.

freitasm

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#1782768 15-May-2017 20:32

shanehobson:

To answer your questions, here’s a hypothetical example :

An adult male who consumes internet adult porn in the absence of all other ‘inputs’ comes to believe that adult porn found on the internet is representative of normal sexual behaviour.

That person then goes out into the real world with behaviour and beliefs shaped by internet porn and ends up forcing his will on a female he meets.

Had he not been exposed to internet porn his understanding of normal sexual behaviour would be more closely aligned with that of the people he interacts with in the real world.

Here's another example. An adult male plays GTA V. In the absence of all other ‘inputs’ comes to believe that the video game is representative of normal driving behaviour.

That person then goes out into the real world with behaviour and beliefs shaped by online gaming and ends up crashing into a police car, getting a shotgun and driving around like mad.

Had he not been exposed to online gaming his understanding of normal driving would be more closely aligned with that of the people he interacts with in the real world.

Sounds far fetched? Yes, because it is.

You are saying that seeing porn can cause people to behave badly. This argument was used before for video games and we know it's not what happens.

DarthKermit

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#1782785 15-May-2017 20:49

I'd be interested to know if this mandatory internet filtering stuff will work for s*** that does real harm, like the WannaCry ransomware.

JimmyH

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#1782791 15-May-2017 21:01

Here's another example:

"An adult male who consumes too much beer comes to believe that a woman in a bar finds him attractive and behaves inappropriately. Had he not consumed five pints his understanding of her body language would be more closely aligned with that of the people he interacts with in the real world." - quick.... we had better ban beer.

Your example is a pretty stretched and implausible one. And one which could just as logically be used to ban many video games, Films, TV shows, plays, novels and suchlike being banned.

Come to think of it, what about the example of a man who obsessively reads the Bible and comes to believe that the correct penalty for his wife cheating on him is for her to be stoned to death. Which is actually more plausible than your example (some extreme religious folk do take the Bible strictly literally). You had better put that right at the top of your ban list!

This thread is getting a bit tedious and circular now. I intend this to be my last post in it.

shanehobson

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#1782792 15-May-2017 21:01

freitasm

In your example, GTA is CGI and is more likely to be interpreted by the viewer as a fiction rather than porn which is usually not CGI and so is less likely to be interpreted as fiction.

Rikkitic

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#1782795 15-May-2017 21:09

shanehobson:

I will mention child porn, because as far as I know there is no mandatory filtering applied in NZ. There is the Govt DIA filter which is optional and used by about six NZ ISPs. That means a consumer of child porn can access child porn through any one of the numerous other ISPs not using the DIA filter.

You keep making ridiculous assertions that are patently untrue and then presenting them as if they are 'evidence' of something. 20 years ago, possibly even 10 years ago, there might have been some truth to your claim, but today no 'consumer of child porn' is going to find anything like it through any ISP in this country or most others. It simply isn't there. Child porn no longer exists on the open web. It cannot be found on any site the DIA filter covers. If anyone was dumb enough to post CP on the open web, it would be gone in minutes and the poster would be in handcuffs. The level of international monitoring for precisely this kind of material guarantees that it simply cannot be found on any normal web site. If you seriously maintain that it can, then you don't know what you are talking about and you are the last person in the world who should be filtering anything.

Many people here, including me, have posted numerous links demonstrating why your arguments are incorrect and impossible. To repeat just one, check out the DIA filter site itself. Even they admit there is no CP to be found on the regular web. You are living in a filter dream world.

shanehobson:

An adult male who consumes internet adult porn in the absence of all other ‘inputs’ comes to believe that adult porn found on the internet is representative of normal sexual behaviour.

That person then goes out into the real world with behaviour and beliefs shaped by internet porn and ends up forcing his will on a female he meets.

Had he not been exposed to internet porn his understanding of normal sexual behaviour would be more closely aligned with that of the people he interacts with in the real world.

Do you have a psychology degree? I very much doubt it, because you are spouting utter nonsense you are in no way qualified to dispense. If you want to be a snake oil salesman, that is up to you, but you have no business making statements like the above. You don't know what you are talking about and that can be just as damaging as any child pornography.

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MikeB4

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#1782818 15-May-2017 21:34

Rikkitic:

shanehobson:

I will mention child porn, because as far as I know there is no mandatory filtering applied in NZ. There is the Govt DIA filter which is optional and used by about six NZ ISPs. That means a consumer of child porn can access child porn through any one of the numerous other ISPs not using the DIA filter.

You keep making ridiculous assertions that are patently untrue and then presenting them as if they are 'evidence' of something. 20 years ago, possibly even 10 years ago, there might have been some truth to your claim, but today no 'consumer of child porn' is going to find anything like it through any ISP in this country or most others. It simply isn't there. Child porn no longer exists on the open web. It cannot be found on any site the DIA filter covers. If anyone was dumb enough to post CP on the open web, it would be gone in minutes and the poster would be in handcuffs. The level of international monitoring for precisely this kind of material guarantees that it simply cannot be found on any normal web site. If you seriously maintain that it can, then you don't know what you are talking about and you are the last person in the world who should be filtering anything.

Many people here, including me, have posted numerous links demonstrating why your arguments are incorrect and impossible. To repeat just one, check out the DIA filter site itself. Even they admit there is no CP to be found on the regular web. You are living in a filter dream world.

shanehobson:

An adult male who consumes internet adult porn in the absence of all other ‘inputs’ comes to believe that adult porn found on the internet is representative of normal sexual behaviour.

That person then goes out into the real world with behaviour and beliefs shaped by internet porn and ends up forcing his will on a female he meets.

Had he not been exposed to internet porn his understanding of normal sexual behaviour would be more closely aligned with that of the people he interacts with in the real world.

Do you have a psychology degree? I very much doubt it, because you are spouting utter nonsense you are in no way qualified to dispense. If you want to be a snake oil salesman, that is up to you, but you have no business making statements like the above. You don't know what you are talking about and that can be just as damaging as any child pornography.

One could ask do you have a Psychology degree to make the judgement in your last paragraph?

freitasm

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#1782822 15-May-2017 21:40

Quite rightly, attack the argument folks.

Rikkitic

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#1782866 15-May-2017 23:57

Point taken. In any case I have to agree with JimmyH that the arguments have been made and we are now just going in circles. We all believe what we believe. Time to move on.

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