OK - This is Getting Out of Hand - UK MPs Debate Porn Block for Twitter

[WelshDdraig]

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38143757 

 

(Example of my personal twitter as it goes with the context of the topic)

 

As the title suggests - this situation is really starting to get out of hand.

 

Recently, the UK Government has passed the Digital Economy Bill and the Investigatory Powers Act

(Links to both respectively - To LTT Articles: https://goo.gl/DZl9BY and https://goo.gl/LWMszB)

 

But that's not what I'm really talking about here. Under the Digital Economy Bill - the UK government will have the ability to block websites that do not adhere to newly enforced age restriction guidlines

(Which is covered in more detail in the articles above)

 

Recently, there was talks that this could impact Reddit - but today I reveal that the UK Government has gone full stupid, by - and I wish I was joking typing this:

UK MP's Debate Porn Block for Twitter

 

That's right - The UK Government are now concerned about young people viewing porn on a social network - and due to this, are considering it may not adhere to the newly placed guidelines.

If Twitter do not implement a way to officially verify a persons age the is government approved:

 it is possible that it could be blocked under the Digital Economy Bill - KEY WORD - POSSIBLE, not definite.

 

Quote

Digital Minister Matt Hancock acknowledged that dealing with sites where users could add material unchecked was more difficult.

 

Maria Miller, MP for Baskingstoke, reminded MPs that a few years ago Twitter had said it could not take down visual images of children being abused but now there was a code of practice in place to handle this.
"Surely where there is a will there is a way," said Mrs Miller.

"[Mr Hancock] has already proved that he can make significant progress, so should he not put more pressure on organisations like Twitter?"

"'Yes,' is the short answer," replied Mr Hancock.

If it comes to the fact that they are going to block social networking or monitor what everybody does on social networking, that is borderline unlawful and very close to censorship when you pair the Digital Economy Bill and the Investigatory Powers Act together.

 

 

My Thoughts:

 

Today's current politicians are, what I would now class as "Unfit" for their role, if this is what they are considering. Half the time, they don't know what they are talking about - or even what they are doing on the internet.

When it comes to technological items, I feel that should be regulated by the current generation as they are the ones who have grown up with it, understand how it works and adapt more easily to changes. Everything that has been done recently by the UK Government i feel is so backwards.

 

Your Thoughts - Please leave them down below!

 

UPDATE - For those who want the full quote

Quote

Twitter's use among youngsters is declining, that's according to a recent report from the regulator Ofcom. However, that might change if access to pornography either explicit material is closed off by the Digital Economy Bill's provisions.

"I appreciate that there is a big challenge in stopping those who really want to access porn online, but all the evidence suggests that children's first interaction is often by accident," Mr Hancock said.
"We are legislating to prevent as much as possible of that inadvertent viewing by those who are not desperately actively seeking to do so.
"I appreciate that the bill is not a utopia, but it is a very important step forward."

Basically, the government is aware the bill wont stop pornography, but people looking for it may turn to twitter.

Where the argument come in - Underage people should not view porn - So lets make twitter age restrict itself, if not

the government may end up blocking Twitter....

 

This has nothing to do with Child Porn. That is just a quote to show how un-monitored twitter was in the past - and while it states it has changed since then, MPs will hold on to anything as an example - even if it was from a few years ago...

 

UPDATE 2: For People who cannot be bothered to read the article, the bit about child pornography is just an example.

The government is trying to stop children from being exposed to any pornography on the internet - and by doing so, people of age will be caught in the crossfire.

FULL Quote in spoiler

Spoiler

Quote

Maria Miller, MP for Baskingstoke, reminded MPs that a few years ago Twitter had said it could not take down visual images of children being abused but now there was a code of practice in place to handle this.
"Surely where there is a will there is a way," said Mrs Miller.

"[Mr Hancock] has already proved that he can make significant progress, so should he not put more pressure on organisations like Twitter?"
"'Yes,' is the short answer," replied Mr Hancock.

"The bill does so, and we will best achieve that pressure by delivering on its proposals and then working with the platforms on the issue of platform-based pornography, because that is a much more difficult technical nut to crack."

Children's charity NSPCC would like to see industry-wide minimum standards for child safety on the internet.
"This would mean children will be able to go online safely without being exposed to porn and other inappropriate content, such as violent videos." a spokesman said.
"It's good news that the age verification measures we called for in the Digital Economy Bill are now on their way to becoming law.
"However, there are lots of other online spaces, including social media, where children will still be able to see pornography."

 

 

[Guest]

Twitter already put warnings on NSFW shit, do they not?

 

 

 

https://i.imgur.com/3Esl3re.mp4

[SpaceGhostC2C]

They should ban RAM downloading.

 

 

London, 2016

 

Spoiler

 

London, 2050

 

Spoiler

 

[WelshDdraig]

Just now, obi-fade-kenobi said:

Twitter already put warnings on NSFW shit, do they not?

 

 

Yep, but doesn't stop people who click "Show me NSFW" in settings - something a "curious" child might do...

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Alexp10v2 said:

Yep, but doesn't stop people who click "Show me NSFW" in settings - something a "curious" child might do...

Then it's down to their parents to govern what sites they're allowed on as far as I'm concerned.

 

Government creating issues out of nothing as usual.

[Kobathor]

3 minutes ago, obi-fade-kenobi said:

Then it's down to their parents to govern what sites they're allowed on.

nah nah, it's the government's job to micromanage every single aspect of your life, since you're just another stupid peasant that doesn't know right from wrong - message paid for by the UK government

 

btw is a joke pls no report

[ThinkWithPortals]

4 minutes ago, Alexp10v2 said:

Yep, but doesn't stop people who click "Show me NSFW" in settings - something a "curious" child might do...

What's a curious child doing on Twitter?

[Sakkura]

8 minutes ago, Alexp10v2 said:

If it comes to the fact that they are going to block social networking or monitor what everybody does on social networking, that is borderline unlawful and very close to censorship when you pair the Digital Economy Bill and the Investigatory Powers Act together.

They're talking about child porn. They can definitely monitor publicly available pages for child porn, there's nothing unlawful about it. Of course, if they apply an ISP-level block for Twitter because one retard decided to ruin his/her life by publicly displaying child porn, that's a crazy overreaction.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

They're talking about child porn. They can definitely monitor publicly available pages for child porn, there's nothing unlawful about it. Of course, if they apply an ISP-level block for Twitter because one retard decided to ruin his/her life by publicly displaying child porn, that's a crazy overreaction.

This concerns children seeing phonographic material; not child porn - well not solely anyway

[WelshDdraig]

1 minute ago, Sakkura said:

They're talking about child porn. They can definitely monitor publicly available pages for child porn, there's nothing unlawful about it. Of course, if they apply an ISP-level block for Twitter because one retard decided to ruin his/her life by publicly displaying child porn, that's a crazy overreaction.

The child porn part is what it is intended for, but it has now grown to the point that it aims to stop anyone under age viewing ANY porn, not just child - and lets be honest, who shares that stuff on Twitter? They would be arrested in a heartbeat with SAS kicking down their front door.

[NumLock21]

These politicians want to make a name for themselves, as they want future children to read about them in history books. Go do something that changes the whole world, not some thing about blocking porn on twitter. Imagine 100 years from now, future children on a field trip to some government museum and they see a bunch of them head bust. One of them reads, "pushes mankind to go explore the stars and universe" and then you have this one "blocks porn on twitter". How sad is that.

[Sakkura]

2 minutes ago, obi-fade-kenobi said:

This concerns children seeing phonographic material; not child porn

The part OP was reacting to, again, is as follows:

 

Quote

Maria Miller, MP for Baskingstoke, reminded MPs that a few years ago Twitter had said it could not take down visual images of children being abused but now there was a code of practice in place to handle this.

Visual images of children being abused. That's child porn. Child porn is illegal in just about every country in the world.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Sakkura said:

The part you were reacting to, again, is as follows:

 

Visual images of children being abused. That's child porn. Child porn is illegal in just about every country in the world.

Fair. Your post on his quote didn't have the entire context  Or at least I didn't bother to look back to the part of the post you quoted him from...

[Sakkura]

2 minutes ago, Alexp10v2 said:

The child porn part is what it is intended for, but it has now grown to the point that it aims to stop anyone under age viewing ANY porn, not just child - and lets be honest, who shares that stuff on Twitter? They would be arrested in a heartbeat with SAS kicking down their front door.

Yeah but you were saying it is unlawful for the government to access publicly available sites like Twitter and check for child porn. That's hilariously far from true. Tweets are made publicly available, so of course the government can look at them. And in the case of child porn, they can react in all the appropriate ways.

 

Regular porn is another matter entirely.

 

There is the problematic issue of the types of porn the UK has made illegal - spanking, facesitting, and various other completely unharmful activities between consenting adults. If they go after people for that, in a similar way to how they go after people for child porn, then that's a problem. But the basic concept of government checking tweets for illegal content is fine. Tweets are explicitly public, there is absolutely zero expectation of privacy.

[Tech_Dreamer]

14 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

They should ban RAM downloading.

 

 

London, 2016

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

London, 2050

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

dem instagram filter is getting pretty realistic

[Scruffy90]

18 minutes ago, Alexp10v2 said:

-snip-

As messed up as this is about to sound, I stand strongly by this. The bulk of politicians seem to be from the silent gen or are baby boomers. I think all of them in politics need to pass on before the younger generations could start to fix all the issues they caused.

[Coaxialgamer]

Fun fact : the UK doesn't need the EU to mess everything up . they're doing that just fine by themselves .

 

[Tech_Dreamer]

Fun Fact : The Queen has officially signed the investigatory power Bill , so this should be seeing the same light soon enough

[WelshDdraig]

4 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

Yeah but you were saying it is unlawful for the government to access publicly available sites like Twitter and check for child porn. That's hilariously far from true. Tweets are made publicly available, so of course the government can look at them. And in the case of child porn, they can react in all the appropriate ways.

 

Regular porn is another matter entirely.

 

There is the problematic issue of the types of porn the UK has made illegal - spanking, facesitting, and various other completely unharmful activities between consenting adults. If they go after people for that, in a similar way to how they go after people for child porn, then that's a problem. But the basic concept of government checking tweets for illegal content is fine. Tweets are explicitly public, there is absolutely zero expectation of privacy.

This has nothing to do with child porn, this is to try and stop children (or anyone not over the legal age of 18 in the UK), from viewing any content the government says is not legal. I think anyone who posts child porn should rot for all I care. What I'm talking about is where the government is doing this, its stopping access to those of legal age - acting a censorship.  They are just using the point of child pornography as a dead example - as Twitter has updated its policy since then.

[Guest]

Honestly if any of you have never seen a debate in Parliament, go watch one. Comedy gold. 

 

Bunch of overpaid, stuck-up, clueless tossers. Actually worrying after seeing one these people have a say in our country.

[DrMikeNZ]

Children learnt how to open up child safety locked bottles long before their parents did.

If you create new systems to block porn, then only children will be able to figure out how to access it.

[Sakkura]

Just now, Alexp10v2 said:

This has nothing to do with child porn, this is to try and stop children (or anyone not over the legal age of 18 in the UK), from viewing any content the government says is not legal. I think anyone who posts child porn should rot for all I care. What I'm talking about is where the government is doing this, its stopping access to those of legal age - acting a censorship.  They are just using the point of child pornography as a dead example - as Twitter has updated its policy since then.

This is about multiple things, and one of them is definitely child porn. They directly refer to child porn in the part you quoted.

 

There are definitely bad aspects of what they're doing here, but you were calling it illegal to go after people posting child porn publicly. They are mixing all these elements together so they can send the simplistic message of "child porn is bad, let us ban this" - you shouldn't use the same rhetorical BS, you should be clearly separating the different things that warrant different responses.

[WelshDdraig]

3 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

This is about multiple things, and one of them is definitely child porn. They directly refer to child porn in the part you quoted.

 

There are definitely bad aspects of what they're doing here, but you were calling it illegal to go after people posting child porn publicly. They are mixing all these elements together so they can send the simplistic message of "child porn is bad, let us ban this" - you shouldn't use the same rhetorical BS, you should be clearly separating the different things that warrant different responses.

" but you were calling it illegal to go after people posting child porn publicly"

That is not what I intended the message to be perceived as. People who post that deserve to be locked up and rot. I was implying, if they were to do that, why would they do it publicly on a social network where they would get caught almost immediately.

 

They directly refer to child porn in the part you quoted

Yeah - that is an MP who is arguing that Twitter had no guidelines in place for indecent images of children, something which it does now. But they are still using this example for the kind of material that can be found on Twitter, and using it to scrutinise against Twitter and to generate "sympathy" for the bill to be forced on Twitter to age-gate itself because (and I'm pulling this number out of thin air), lets say 1% of the content found on Twitter is NSFW.

 

Quote

Children's charity NSPCC would like to see industry-wide minimum standards for child safety on the internet.

"This would mean children will be able to go online safely without being exposed to porn and other inappropriate content, such as violent videos." a spokesman said.

"It's good news that the age verification measures we called for in the Digital Economy Bill are now on their way to becoming law.
"However, there are lots of other online spaces, including social media, where children will still be able to see pornography."

Basically, the government is trying to stop children from being exposed to pornography - and while it is against child pornography, that is not what this article is about.

 

My wording of the previous arguments may have come across wrong - for that, I apologise. 

[Monkey Dust]

Oh god. Our Government have gone full retard

 

With the amount of porn out there trying to stop children accessing it is futile. As futile as keeping weed illegal, so I guess they have form.

 

I feel an alternative would be a walled internet that parents could opt their family's devices into for children's unsupervised access, rather than inconveniencing the entire population. 

[Magnetorheological]

Prohibition never works. As long as it exists and there's demand for it, people will ALWAYS find a way to get access to it. In this case, education is far more important. Why can't these brain-dead politicians see that?