Is Censorship A Necessary Evil?

(10-10-2011 03:34 )eccles Wrote:  Thats an adult channel gone over to fully clothed presenters and ads for another genre.

I suspect that they make more money running the advertisment than they otherwise would make in call charges with their normal programming.

Nah, its a naughty channel for nudists.

As if trying to help adults not make an informed decision on what to watch on their TV, the goverment seems intent on trying to put into place somewhat ill-thought-out plans around ISPs blocking content.
Don't know much other than what I read over in PC Pro news site here, but does seem to be a little worrying...

(11-10-2011 22:41 )dirk362 Wrote:  As if trying to help adults not make an informed decision on what to watch on their TV, the goverment seems intent on trying to put into place somewhat ill-thought-out plans around ISPs blocking content.
Don't know much other than what I read over in PC Pro news site here, but does seem to be a little worrying...

Might be a help in the long run. If it is shown that giving people the option to block all "adult" material on the web at source is effective and means better protection for children, then it is a small step to realising that you can do the same thing with tv.

Once television has "better protection" in place, then you have a case for allowing stronger material on the channels aimed at adults.

(11-10-2011 23:48 )Grawth Wrote:  

(11-10-2011 22:41 )dirk362 Wrote:  As if trying to help adults not make an informed decision on what to watch on their TV, the goverment seems intent on trying to put into place somewhat ill-thought-out plans around ISPs blocking content.
Don't know much other than what I read over in PC Pro news site here, but does seem to be a little worrying...

Might be a help in the long run. If it is shown that giving people the option to block all "adult" material on the web at source is effective and means better protection for children, then it is a small step to realising that you can do the same thing with tv.

Once television has "better protection" in place, then you have a case for allowing stronger material on the channels aimed at adults.

the problem with this filter idea of blocking porn is that once its in they can use it for anything p2p for one example with this type of thing we cannot go and say you should not block your internet traffic to the goverment in china because now we would be doing the same

we all want to protect kids but giving people power to block certain parts of the web they dont like is not a good idea

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Apparently 4 large ISPs are going to make porn opt in.

On the face of it that is not such a bad thing, but the way it could operate is that a totally unaccountable charity reacts to tip offs and complaints to build a blocked list. Contacting site owners around the world would be prohibitively expensive, as would checking out the sites, so one the basis of unsubstantiated complaints websites would be blocked without prior notice or notification. Website operrators would not know because they would still get some traffic from other ISPs.

A list of known safe sites might be built up to prevent malicious/stupid/misguided complaints. Without this Amazon would be blocked within about 6 hours for selling books about Evolution, and so would abortion counselling services, but that would not help thousands of fruity but non pornographic sites that would not know.

Would catchup services on the BBC and Channel 4 be blocked? Quite possibly unless they prevented stronger films being watched before 9 or 10pm. Bad news if you are a shift worker. What a great way to thank doctors and nurses.

Meanwhile the likes of tubestation might find ways to circumvent detection by changing names frequently (while pushing Google ratings) or disguising content so automated systems dont detect it. (tubestation itself is of course a responsible business and would never do this. I mean other providers of that kind of clip service).

This may be a sop to the hysterical letter writers, that will be known to fail. Or it may be a sincere attempt clean up. BT strongly resisted the proposal before saying it was unworkable.

The only way to make it workable is for all web content to be age rated, to be traceable to person responsible for the site, to take civil and criminal action where necessary, and in extreme circumstances to ban people from loading content on their own site or any other. Imaging a preregistered digital fingerprint in your computer that gets loaded every time you write a comment on a new article, blog or review a holiday provider. To prevent foreign content bypassing these controls content from countries with weaker controls would be blocked.

Unlikely? Impossible? Its already happened with satellite TV. 20 years ago Murdock (boo, hiss) was able to bypass British broadcasting controls and set up satellite TV channels that eventually were brought into the fold. More recently Hungarian and Turkish channels broadcast non EU content. These days if it is uplinked from Europe (Astra, Hotbird) the satellite operator is liable for any unlicensed content. Astra and Hotbird are not going to carry the can for unlicenced sex shows or calls for armed uprisings in Arab dictatorships, so channels that stray into that territory might be pulled. [/bore]

Censorship is a very grey area.. For whatever reason people will always argue what is right and wrong..However much we try and protect the innocent..something always seems to get leaked and the problems continue as do the arguements... I'd rather just sit here and appreciate the forum b4 it all becomes a thing of the past....we've all seen how tame the shows have become....I remember a time where the normal evening shows were rather something to talk about (HOT),but now the shows only get talked about for being SHIT!!!

I know I mean why must we be subjected to this daily dose of torture, what's the fucking point of these shows anymore, they are failing consistently to deliver what we the viewer and caller expect to see especially for late night entertainment. Thanks very much to Ofcom and this government we now live in a media repressed society.

This is going to leave me feeling a bit dirty, but here is a quote from Paul Dacre, Editor of the Daily Mail, talking to or about the Leveson Inquiry into press standards:

Paul Dacre, Daily Mail Editor Wrote:The Hampstead liberal with his gilded lifestyle understandably enjoys The Guardian - a paper that deals with serious issues. But does he or a judge have any right to deny someone who works in a Sunderland call centre and lives for football, the right to buy a paper that reveals the sexual peccadillos of one of his team's millionaire married players - a player who uses his celebrity to sell products to him and his children?

The guilty of murder verdict passed down to Vincent Tabak last week for the killing of Joanne Yeates as opened up a debate on his penchant for harder pornography, and was that in any way to blame for his behaviour? I don't suppose anyone will ever know for sure one way or the other. As we all know some of the stuff out there is terrible to say the least. And I for one wouldn't be sad to see the back of it. This is where I now feel a little guilty using such a sad event to build up the case against Ofcom, with it's over-zealous campaign against the adult channels. Could it not be that instead of being the corrupting force in the way that Ofcom see them. Could the channels not be the last line of defence before reaching the hard stuff that appears on the net.

What I am trying to say is, people get sexual gratification from watching the offerings from adult TV. But now it's so insipid with it's content, lots of people will have chosen to take that harder path and moved on to the internet to get their Hilary Swank material. And that includes kids dashing home from school to have their twice daily pull. Where once they got one off from catching sight of one of Danica's nipples. They now choose to tune into MFC and watch some pretty young model shove a dildo the size of a fire extinguisher up her twaat. Well done for that Ofcom. As I say I don't like to win points from Ofcom in this way. But once again knee jerk reaction as set in towards pornography, started by the Daily Mail as usual. My point is that the adult channels create very little danger, but once they are no longer worth watching people will go to the hardcore sites, 'the same sites that are now in question' for their needs. I doubt very much that any foul deed as ever been committed after watching an evening with Caty Cole.Or any other of the models for that matter. I just wish that the powers that be for once looked outside the box for solutions and for once came up with the right answers.