Comment by physicsguy
2 days ago
I listened to a British politics podcast the other day called Not Another One and they were discussing that among western governments there is some looking at the UK’s porn block because in general politicians think that things have gone too far in children being able to access to extreme content, and that if 20 years ago it had been suggested this had been where we’d be, it wouldn’t have been seen as acceptable. They used the example that if you want to publish a very explicit book in the U.K., the Obscene Publications Acts would put limits on you doing so, but putting it online would be allowed
> things have gone too far in children being able to access
Look, the reality is that kids will be kids ...
Remember the pre-internet days when the porn mags were on the top-shelf at the newsagent ?
I'm sure many of that generation will tell you stories of copies of Playboy being passed around in the school playground.
Or back in the VHS or DVD days .... someone in the playground would be passing around some porn.
Or, a UK-centric example would be the famous Page 3 of The Sun newspaper.... "giggle giggle...boobies...giggle"
Moving swiftly forward to the modern day. You can legislate about it all you like, but kids know their way around tech and will soon discover what you can do with a VPN or any of the other many workarounds.
I think the reality is more that the government is trying to legislate for things that could be resolved by good old-fashioned parenting and teaching.
Educating your child properly is better than doing the helicopter-parenting routine and trying to smother little Billy in cotton wool.
Previously, it was controlled by kingship Now, we suppress freedom under the pretext of safety.
If you have read "1984", the story is fast.
I'm a korean, And a fake news censorship law has been drafted here. When We asked what the standard of fake was, the answer came back that "it was not important".
It's actually the case. Because they already have standards.
You say that but I’m sat at the cricket match today listening to another Dad talking about their 11 year old kid turning on their phone this week and watching a video they’ve been sent by another chile of Charlie Kirk being shot by another child. That’s not going looking for it right?
The trouble is where are you going to stop ?
Are you going to not allow the kid access to mainstream radio or TV incase they watch/listen to the news where you have eye-witnesses being interviewed, often live with minimal/no editing ?
Or not allow the kid to visit mainstream media news websites, because most mainstream media outlets copied the same social media clip you referred to and just edited out the exact moment. But the kid can still use their imagination for that half-second moment.
Are you not going to take them on public transport incase some adults start chatting about it in detail ?
Don't get me wrong, I see your perspective.
But the point is there are so many moving parts to today's fast moving world that you can't put them all back in the box, wave a magic wand and revert to the pre-internet days where there were only four TV channels showing highly scripted content.
Yes modern parenting is tough. But thinking everything can be solved just by throwing more and more broadly (and badly) worded highly-intrusive kitchen-sink legislation at it is not the answer either.
> if 20 years ago it had been suggested this had been where we’d be, it wouldn’t have been seen as acceptable
20 years ago was 2005. We were "here".
Ah, the good old "think of the children" argument. Does anyone buy that?
“Think of the children” is a persistent nemesis of modern civil liberties precisely because people buy it so often! One of the easiest emotional arguments to make is “your children are in danger” because parents have extremely low risk tolerance for the safety of their children.
Also parents of young children are typically overwhelmed and freaked out, and easy to manipulate.
2 replies →
Perhaps the children who don’t have free access to information anymore.
Oh, right..
If those kids could read they would be very angry!
Yes, especially lots of people with children are terrified that their little darlings will be able to access the best German BDSM content in 4K at an early age.
I’m not a parent, so it might be I completely do not understands some important aspects of this due to lack of expirience, but I hope I’ll be more smart than my parents. It was quite easy to google things my parents were silent about, but I still remeber that feeling of guiltiness. It affected me much more than knowing what the bdsm is
Terrified? Maybe they just calmly rationally don't want them to have access to the best German BDSM content in 4K at an early age?
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Unfortunately, yes.
Maybe it'll die off in a generation or two, when cynical millennials and zoomers become the backbone of politics. But for now?
"Think of the children" is hilariously transparent to us, but it enjoys moderate support across population, and, much worse, it gets overwhelming support of geriatric politicians. Which is what makes fighting for liberties so hard.