Biggest four UK ISPs switch to 'opt-in' system for pornography.

[Fez]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/20...vice-providers

Subscribers to four of the UK's biggest internet service providers will have to "opt in" if they want to view sexually explicit websites, as part of government-sponsored curbs on online pornography.The measures will be unveiled on Tuesday as David Cameron hosts No 10 meeting with the Mothers' Union. At the government's request the group's chief executive, Reg Bailey, led a review in tandem with Department of Education staff into the commercialisation and sexualisation of children.

The Bailey report earlier this year produced a raft of proposals to shield children from sexualised imagery.The prime minister is expected to announce other moves in line with the Christian charity's review, such as restrictions on aggressive advertising campaigns and certain types of images on billboards.There will also be a website, Parentport, which parents can use to complain about television programmes, advertisements, products or services which they believe are inappropriate for children.The site, which will direct complaints to the regulator dealing with that specific area of concern, is expected to be run by watchdogs including the Advertising Standards Authority, BBC Trust, British Board of Film Classification, Ofcom, Press Complaints Commission, Video Standards Council and Pan European Game Information.The service providers involved are BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin. Customers who do not opt in to adult content will be unableto access pornographic websites.Cameron gave strong backing in June to the Bailey report proposals after he commissioned the six-month review.

However, Cameron did not commit his government to legislation.The recommendations of the report - Letting Children be Children, published on 6 June 2011 - included providing parents with one single website to make it easier to complain about any programme, advert, product or service, putting age restrictions on music videos and ensuring retailers offer age-appropriate clothes for children.Cameron wrote to Bailey in June to thank him for his report. "I very much agree with the central approach you set out," the letter said."As you say, we should not try and wrap children up in cotton wool or simply throw our hands up and accept the world as it is. Instead, we should look to put 'the brakes on an unthinking drift towards ever-greater commercialisation and sexualisation'."Bailey's report asked for government and business to work together on initiatives such as ending the sale of inappropriately "sexy" clothing for young children, for example underwired bras and T-shirts with suggestive slogans.However, he recommended that if retailers do not make progress on the issue they should be forced to make the changes in 18 months.• Several phrases and a heading in this article were amended on 11 October 2011 to make clear that the report on children was produced by Reg Bailey with Department of Education staff, not by the Mothers' Union.

I never, ever thought I'd see the day when bad parenting kills democracy. 101 course in protecting your child from 'inappropriate materials'. If it's on the CBBC, write a letter of complaint, if it's ITV1 and it's after 10PM then it's your own fault for not turning it over to late night with Spongebob Squarepants. Seriously, what sort of nanny state do we have to have when, quite frankly, I have to TELL my ISP that "Yes I do wish to consume these materials." and that this somehow makes it all okay? What if there's a single-father who works from home and has a child or two? I'm trying not to be rude and stuff but... well... yeah. Hell, I could easily say single-mother instead because we all know 'that' isn't exclusive to the male form.

What's next? A ban on violent video-games? An 'opt-in' thing for 'Mein Kampf: An Academic Analysis'?

Quite frankly, and it seems silly, but I believe sexual discovery to be one of the key cornerstones of human evolution and pornography DOES let teenagers... discover stuff. I'm trying to skirt around the edges and not be disgusting but I'm sure all of us lot can tell the difference between real sex and fake sex where all the bits are much larger.

Just seems silly to me.

[brandon]

If anything it should be an opt-out system not an opt-in. If parents have a problem with what their children are doing or viewing online than they should be the ones to contact their ISP if they want things blocked. No part of the internet should have to be opt-in to be viewable. I also think it's both harmless and better that young teenagers are allowed to 'explore themselves' rather than have sex at a naive and tender age.

[Inseriousity.]

I don't think an opt-in service would make fathers or mothers turn to paedophilia unless they already had those disgusting sexual fantasies anyway and I imagine it's only for 'legal' pornography rather than the dirty underground stuff you can find if you know what you're looking for. So I think that's a rather baseless argument.

However, I do agree that an opt-in service is ridiculous. Mainly cos it's probably easy to get around, it'd be quite embarrassing to ring up and say 'hey id like to watch my porn please' if you weren't that computer-literate to know how to do that and there's the assumption that it's to blame for everything wrong in the world. It's natural that children want to explore sexual behaviour during their teenage years and natural that there is likely to be negative consequences of that as well as mostly postive ones (this is not meant to be a dirty joke, I swear). "Back in the day", you used to have to get older brothers/friends/strangers to get the dirty mags for you but now there is easy access, regardless of an opt-in/opt-out service.

Instead, parents should be taught to be more computer-literate and I think people are very embarrassed to talk about sex so that attitude needs to change really as well.

[xxMATTGxx]

If anything it should be an opt-out system not an opt-in. If parents have a problem with what their children are doing or viewing online than they should be the ones to contact their ISP if they want things blocked. No part of the internet should have to be opt-in to be viewable. I also think it's both harmless and better that young teenagers are allowed to 'explore themselves' rather than have sex at a naive and tender age.

Fully agree. I get the idea of the system and I can see why they want to put it into place but I don't think it should be blocked straight away at all.

[dbgtz]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/20...vice-providers



I never, ever thought I'd see the day when bad parenting kills democracy. 101 course in protecting your child from 'inappropriate materials'. If it's on the CBBC, write a letter of complaint, if it's ITV1 and it's after 10PM then it's your own fault for not turning it over to late night with Spongebob Squarepants. Seriously, what sort of nanny state do we have to have when, quite frankly, I have to TELL my ISP that "Yes I do wish to consume these materials." and that this somehow makes it all okay? What if there's a single-father who works from home and has a child or two? I'm trying not to be rude and stuff but... well... yeah. Hell, I could easily say single-mother instead because we all know 'that' isn't exclusive to the male form.

What's next? A ban on violent video-games? An 'opt-in' thing for 'Mein Kampf: An Academic Analysis'?

Quite frankly, and it seems silly, but I believe sexual discovery to be one of the key cornerstones of human evolution and pornography DOES let teenagers... discover stuff. I'm trying to skirt around the edges and not be disgusting but I'm sure all of us lot can tell the difference between real sex and fake sex where all the bits are much larger.

Just seems silly to me.

I completely agree with every point you make. There does need to be control but the control should be by the parents and I would be really tempted to complain about this if it didn't make me look like a right paedo/perv.

[GommeInc]

Urrrm, wasn't it meant to be an opt-out system? It would make more sense to be an opt-out, because it's usually standard practice to assume people will only react if they care, and considering porn has been freely available from the start an opt-out is what usually happens. If porn was created yesterday, then an opt-in would be option.

Slightly concerned that poor parenting has led to regulations on the internet, which is meant to be based on the idea of freely sharing information with the world. Is blocking porn at a household level that difficult? It's nice ISPs are offering a service, but if you have to ask to view porn or adult material seems unethical, especially when people will be embarassed to ask

[Camy]

Seems like a totally stupid idea to me, there's plenty of programs out there to do this sort of thing, alot of them coming from isps themselves, so this just shouldn't be forced upon everyone because a group of people are too lazy too find out about these programs for themselves.
Annoys me so much when a specific group have problems with something and complain about it, then everyone has to suffer. There can't be many more embarrassing things then having to phone up and ask to get your porn turned on?

[The Don]

Better start stocking up then! :L

But in all seriousness, I can't believe censorship has reached this stage.

[Technologic]

Damned Christians forcing their views!

[-:Undertaker:-]

As for myself, i'm rather sympathetic to this idea as i'm conservative and I wouldn't want my children watching certain things. However, the state should have nothing to do with the regulation of the media (thats it, zilch) as its up to me as a parent to regulate - something I can do far better than the state can ever do.

Another kick in the head for freedom.

Damned Christians forcing their views!

... reminds me of..

Well if it has to be forced [on Religious insitutions], so be it.

Pot calling kettle black.