Phone firms to discuss barring porn from mobiles
Monday 28th November 2011, 11:30AM GMT.
OUR director-general John Curran
TELECOMS operators will meet with the regulator to investigate the possibility of blocking adult content on young people’s mobile phones.
The Office of Utility Regulation in Guernsey and the Jersey Competition Regulatory authority will facilitate a discussion forum on the matter in the next few weeks.
OUR director-general John Curran (pictured) said it was becoming more difficult for parents always to know what type of websites their children were accessing, particularly given the ease with which sites can be viewed on smartphones and other portable devices.
‘Any reasonable measures that can be taken to make it easier for parents to protect their children are worth exploring,’ he said.
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Wouldn’t even bother wasting time on this.
What ever system you use it will be circumvented before the kids have left the house.
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Rather than just trying to bar it what we need is some boffin to work out a way of introducing a virus which would cause both the sender’s and the recipient’s equipment to fry
If that’s illegal .. change the law!
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Clearly you are not a boffin nor a lawyer.
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Education is the key, or just be a good parent.
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Sounds easy but the best way of being a good parent is not to let them have the equipment in the first place.
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Why have kids got phones with full web access, video calling and downloadable apps, only justifiable reason for kids to have a phone is to enable contact with their parents in emergencies, even though didn’t have ‘when i was a kid’ and i am still alive.
Parents should take a more reasonable attitude to the upbringing of their kids, full stop.
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I agree – it disgusts me but all parents seem to cave to peer pressure. There are certainly kids swanning about with better gadgets than I will ever afford.
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Pornography (or at least the hard-core flavour) is already illegal on Guernsey. It also promotes sexual abuse, fuels human trafficking and is often a cover for organised crime.
Guernsey should take the lead and block pornographic material at the ISP level. I’m not usually a fan of censorship but this is one time I wouldn’t have a problem with it – the end justifies the means.
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That’s just ridiculous, most routers have parental settings in which block these sites, therefor no need to do at ISP level, older people should still have the right to view if they so wish. In terms of the mobiles i think they will find it hard to achieve.
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Trouble is Fred, my child only has a phone for emergencies and doesn’t use it for anything else but there is nothing stopping another child thrusting their own unblocked phone in front of my child with whatever content displayed. This is a valid modern concern and I tend to agree with John Curran, Ray and Lord Percy.
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But then isn’t that where the parenting factor comes in, fair enough you are stopping your child from reaching this content, so then if the parents of the other child did the same and all others then you have no issue. There is a much simpler fix then trying to block mobiles.
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In an ideal world, yes Fred that would be ideal.
Unfortunately we don’t live in an ideal world, and for a variety of reasons not all parents will take such measures, or will be capable of stopping access.
I would rather know that the vast majority of hardcore porn was being blocked at the ISP level – then there’s no need to concern ourselves. All that’s doing is blocking content that’s illegal anyway so what’s the problem?
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Agree Sir Percy (hope you are male – not many men are prepared to take a stand against porn).
Through the medium of the internet porn has become increasingly hardcore and this is giving a generation of young men a truly warped view of sex, whilst increasing pressure on woman to conform to unrealistic ideas of what they should look and be like.
Anyone who doubts the abuse that goes on in the porn industry should seek out the Channel 4 documentary ‘Hardcore’
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I am male Rocquaine and yes like a lot of men I’ve viewed porn before so I’m not some kill-joy puritan.
Thankfully now I’m not so ignorant of the consequences – both on the participants and viewers – of what is often deemed “harmless fun.” It’s anything but.
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Why don’t parents take some responsibility for their children instead of expecting the government to bring up them up for them?
If your child really must have a mobile at a young age then why don’t you purchase one that isn’t a smartphone? No Internet – no problem. If they’re over 16 they’re going to see porn no matter what you do, times have changed.
There are significantly worse things to be found on the Internet than breasts and any technology put in place to block them will be circumvented and ineffective from the offset (especially if it developed by the people responsible for the States websites).
Money would be much better spent educating parents on technology rather than implementing censorship which will be abused by the next bigot on a power trip.
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Completely agree with you, some of the more horrific things i have seen all non porn related, this like mutilations/self-mutilation and even some things in the news.
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Yes,
I fully agree that there are significantly worse things to be found on the internet than breasts – it is known as hardcore porn.
I don’t think this discussion is about young boys looking at images of breasts unless I have missed something vital.
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rocquaine, my sincerest apologies; by breasts, I did of course mean hardcore pornography. I chose to use breasts because it is much more fun to use than ‘hardcore pornography’. Breasts, breasts, breasts, see? Hardcore pornography on the other hand is not a fun word to use at all. I’m sorry for the confusion caused.
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So , it would be impossible to watch two people engaged in the physical expression of their love on my mobile.
But youtube footage of thugs killing wildlife with a spade, we could still watch that.
Yes, I think that would be a policy worth the time, money and resources implimenting for the good of society ..
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Tony – if you think hardcore porn is “two people engaged in the physical expression of their love” then you really need to step out from the little bubble you’re living in and into the real world.
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So are you saying that WOULDN’T be barred then?
If not, exactly what criteria would you use to define acceptable “erotica” or “soft porn” from the unnaceptable “hardcore” variety ? And how would you apply these criteria to the barring ?
I have heard of a problem in UK schools with Latin students trying to research the poems of Cattullus. His tendency to mention his girlfriend Lesbia leads to a lot of perfectly innocent reference material being blocked …….
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Tony – in terms of criteria I would simply use the current legal definitions. Soft porn is legal; hardcore isn’t.
Presumably one way the technology would differentiate would be to use a site database in a similar way to corporate content checking sites. I’m sure there are other more advanced methods too.
I don’t see how ISPs would be able to totally block every hardcore porn site due to the transient nature of the Internet. Also if they were too strict the risk of false positives (like the one you mention) would block a lot of totally acceptable stuff.
If this was to be implemented what would need to be agreed is an acceptable level of blocking that eliminates the worst examples of porn (I’m sure I don’t need to go into the gory details of what they are) whilst generally maintaining freedom of use.
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Tony – to follow on, as some have already said any blocking needs to go hand in hand with personal responsibility – both for your own actions and also for your children.
I like and want the Internet to be an open forum but we also need to do our bit to protect the vulnerable, both the children of the island and the many women / girls (and men/boys) who are exploited and abused by this nefarious industry.
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I only managed to get heavy breathing on mine, turned out to be the next door asmatic moaning about the noise
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This is a hugely difficult issue and one that encompasses far more than porn. I am generally opposed to censorship as what one person considers a freedom of speech another may consider as unacceptable. Censorship can also lead to massive abuse and oppression.
However – I have 2 young daughters and their exposure to the internet with all the pressures that entails is hugely concerning. As a teenager the only porn available to me was top shelf mags, this meant going through the embarrassment of having to buy them from a shop. Similarly all shopping was done direct from a shopkeeper and gambling had to be done in a bookies which in general were smokey distasteful places with someone who could check ID etc. Now with the internet so readily available all of these things are 2 or three clicks away and available 24 – 7. Not just that the internet is flooded with adverts and no matter where you go there is pressure from all these websites e.g. Hotmail one of (if not the) biggest webmail providers in the world has dating agencies, loan providers and gambling constantly scrolling past when you look at your email.
The problem is as a teenager I never had these pressures. My parents who I now look to for parenting advice never had to guide me through these pressures so this is all unchartered waters and child hood is too short and far too precious to learn simply by trial and error. Its all well and good saying parents should be more responsible but with technology changes so do the challenges of parenting.
On my PC at home I can set it to allow only certain websites however internet capable mobile phones are not so easily controlled. I still do not agree with censorship however the mobile phone providers should put controls and systems in place to allow parent to limit website usage on a mobile just as you can with home PCs.
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It started out that boys would look at this stuff and expect to do all the things they saw with the girl they were with now the girls are watching it and certainly appear to think it is quite normal… Anything goes now. I am only 28 and feel like a prude when I hear of what a 17 year old relative of mine tells me of what goes on with her peers, certainly it has to be fuelled by what they are viewing.I think most parents today would be shocked were they to view the history of their childs smartphone. I worry about my two little boys and how it will have degenerated in the next 15 years.
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Does that mean I won’t be able to send naughty text messages to my boyfriend when I’m lonely in Guernsey?
Cecile
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