Do you want porn with that sir?

So kind of as predicted earlier on this blog there's a growing head of steam around this "Opt in for porn" thing with your ISP. The Daily Fail has got its panties in a bunch and started a campaign and Labour, always quick to spot a rolling bandwagon particularly when it comes to nanny stateism, have jumped on board

"Block online porn!" screams the banner, which without a trace of irony is placed right next to a photo link about someone called Kim Kardashian "Vehemently denying nude photos whilst stepping out in very tight trousers" because that right, isn't porn yeah and doesn't objectify women, right?

You would have a better chance of blocking the tide coming in Canute style. The majority of internet innovations were driven by or became mainstream because of porn. Grumble, I read somewhere, accounts for the majority of the web's traffic. Hell back in the day the video recorder war was won by the technologically inferior VHS system mainly because all the "adult titles" were released on that format.

And you are up against one of the most powerful forces in the universe, the raging hormones of a 14 year old boy. It cannot be bargained with, it cannot be reasoned with and it absolutely will not stop until it's found a way into wobblybigjugs.com and had one off the wrist. I know, I was one once; of course back then it was the magazines passed furtively around your mates and on one memorable occasion we managed to hire Ai No Korida from the video shop and it wasn't out of any desire to explore and critique Japanese cinema I can tell you. And have you met kids lately? They grew up with computers and probably have forgotten more about configuring anonymous proxies than I've ever known and will probably end up helping their dad's bypass the filters.

Its all utterly pointless gesture politics of the "something must be done" type as per usual. It's surely up to parents to bring their kids up, police their internet use and yes, accept that their teenage sons and daughters are a seething cauldron of hormones and talk to them about it, explain what porn is and about the difference between what's depicted in  porn and what real relationships are about.

What's that Mr Government? Ordinary people taking responsibility for their lives and children? That'll never do will it, after all, we're not qualified.

Free speech isn't so free any more

If limits are placed on what can be said can we still say that we have "Free Speech"? I've been thinking about this over the weekend in the wake of "The Twitter Cunt Trail". You won't have heard about it in any of the mainstream media probably for the very reason that it involves "The C word" but in essence what happened is that someone who goes by the name of Olly Cromwell was convicted, in effect, of calling someone a cunt on Twitter. You can read the background to this here and some more on Max Farquar's blog here.

I'll leave to one side for a moment the fact that this does appear to be a vindictive, politically motivated prosecution intended to shut up a individual who certain people in power find to be "troublesome" for actually holding them to account and just look at are there "limits" that can be placed on free speech.

I do not believe that there are, any restriction on what can and can't be said or written means speech is not free. That's not to say that there are repercussions from that freedom. The famous example is shouting "Fire" in a crowded theatre; you have the right to but you would have to suffer the consequences of that action. Also if I were to start making untrue allegations in the intent to slander a person, say by starting a blog that makes post after post insisting without any evidence that Councellor Whatsisface enjoys the intimate sexual company of farmyard animals, then it is only proper that Councellor Whatsisface would be able to seek some form of redress.

However that's a very long way from someone having an opinion on Councellor Whatsisface; in this case a crudely worded opinion that he's a cunt but that's as valid an opinion as any other. Sure if someone called me a cunt I'd be somewhat upset but I'd just call then a goat sperm gargling cockwomble back. What they said was probably just a heat  of the moment throwaway remark and I certainly would not go running to the law because I was "offended". Likewise if I was to say something on Twitter like "White people are smarter than black people so we should have no black politicians" the correct response to me would be to say back "Bollocks, you're wrong and stupid and this is why...", not go off screaming for the tumbrils to haul me to the guillotine for "racially aggravated hate speech"  On that latter point it's worth bearing in mind that for many years that was the prevailing orthodoxy and it took brave people to stand up and using speech and the written word to challenge that false assumption and I am sure those in power at the time found the idea that all men are of equal talents regardless of the colour of their skin "offensive"

And it's this "offence" that's the problem here. The law in question (2003 Telecommunications Act I think) makes in illegal to cause offence. Now I'm sure that this piece of NuLabour control freakery was conceived with the nobler motive of being able to go after the worst kind of cyber-stalking but with "I was affronted" seemingly now meaning "I was offended" and people being dragged to court for saying "cunt" and "Dead black footballer. LOL" by what appear to be the "professionally offended"

And this is a problem, a big one. These laws and judgements put the dead hand of fear onto free speech so speakers and writers are constantly checking themselves, not entirely sure if what they are going to say will see them thrown into jail and their lives destroyed because someone found their idea "offensive".  At the very least this idea that seems to have seeped into society and is now enshrined in statute that any person has the absolute right not to be affronted needs to go lest we all fall slowly into the perpetual silence of fear.

Panopticon

So our dear government, not 18 months after stopping the last lot of authoritarian fuckwits bringing in the same law, are going to track all our emails, texts, web site visits and, if they could get away with it, trips to the lavatory.  We've just seen a week when a young man was locked up for two months for tweeting a racist remark as apparently it would seem that putting "LOL" after saying a black footballer was dead now "incites hate"^* and now all our words pushed out into the ether will be checked by the ever-loving state, all for our own protection of course. I'm fully expecting our four internet horsemen: terrorism, pedophiles, extremists and whoever they have decided the bete noir is today to be trotted out by Dishface today.

It's utterly pointless of course as I will now demonstrate.  I live in a NUCLEAR family and I'm sure we're all going to have a BLAST at this year's London OLYMPICS. Whoops did I just set off your alarm bells Mr Government Person?  And as for tracking the websites I visit well I'm sure its fascinating that you're keeping up on my reading of the winemaking forum and that scambaiting site I visit but do you really think when I visit throbbingdonkeybondage.com  ^** I am going to do so without using a couple of proxies?  And you can be sure that Mohammed Al Suicidebomber is going to be doing the same as well when he visits his jihadist bomb making and hate preaching sites. For anyone who is a bit tech-savvy this is really simple now; proxies are point and click, you can download the TORBundle and be browsing completely anonymously (but rather slowly) in seconds, if you're getting really paranoid you can downloads Tails to a USB stick and leave no trace of activity on your computer at all.

Of course the government know this and know this is bugger all to do with security. At the least its security theatre from the "something must be done" school but at worse is pure state terrorism; watch what you say little people, watch where you go because this is the new Panopticon and we are watching you. Always.




^* I think we can agree it's tasteless, crass and stupid but if we locked people up for those things there would be nobody who wasn't in jail.

^** I'm thinking of getting that domain but I'll bet its already gone.