Jenuall wrote:Errkal wrote:It is the parent's job to stop their kids looking at cocks and vag not the governments.
Hmm... Where does one draw the line?
"It's the parents job to stop their kids buying knives not the governments"?
"It's the parents job to stop their kids buying alcohol not the governments"?
Smoking, drugs, chemicals? Just let the parents police it?
Society works when we accept and agree what is harmful to children (and indeed to adults) and take collective steps to limit or prevent exposure to it. Research has shown that kids being exposed to porn is A Bad Thing - it harms their education and their personal and social development, and it's the responsibility of a mature society to respond to that. This is not necessarily the best solution but to do nothing would be to betray those coming after us ... No pun intended
![Razz :P](./images/smilies/standard/icon_razz.gif)
Sure, and it's already a crime to sell pornography to children in a pornography shop, just as it's a crime to sell knives, cigarettes, or alcohol to children in a supermarket. I presume there is even a legal burden on Internet cafe owners to ensure their services are used appropriately by minors. These responsibilities are placed on the community while the child is out in public, where they are in at least partial care of that community.
At home, the burden of responsibility is placed on the parent to ensure their child does not hurt themselves with knives in the kitchen, or get cigarettes out of a drawer and smoke them, or drink alcohol from the cabinet. If a young child were found to be shanking his playmates, or starting a 20-a-day habit, or getting riggity riggity wrecked son, then that is a different kind of crime: neglect. Just as in those cases, when it comes to the Internet connection - yes, you guessed it! - it is the parent's responsibility to ensure the PC or their child's smartphone isn't used to access inappropriate material. (And if the child's psyche were damaged from accessing that material, then the parent has clearly failed in their duty and has acted neglectfully.)
Luckily, it literally could not be easier for a parent to make it difficult for a young child to 'happen upon' pornography. The ISP content filter is opt-out -- it's turned on by default, for goodness' sake! And there are so many parental control softwares out there -- anyone with even a passing interest in engaging with their child's use of the Internet could set one up!
There is no need for the state to get involved. Current solutions would be more than sufficient if parents were even slightly switched-on, and by the time a kid turns into a teenager and begins actively attempting to subvert the filters you'll never stop them anyway. (Does anyone really care if a 16 year old browses Pornhub? I suspect only maniacal, Lovejoyian conservatives. I masturbated when I was 16 and so did all of you.)
Even if it were reasonable to expect the state to step in - it isn't, and you're mind-bogglingly wrong if you think it is, but ho hum - there is another important difference between ID laws in a shop and ID laws online. Greasy Eggbert behind the counter at the Discount Fisting Videos Emporium is unlikely to memorise your full name in the two seconds he spends checking your driver's license, and functionally you betray your privacy no more than you did by simply stepping into the shop. It's a reasonable measure. Online, by enforcing a credit card gate, you encourage people to leave a digital paper-trail linking them to pornography, which will at some point be exploited by blackmailers; you also encourage the practice of entering card details into random shady websites, which will increase the incidence of card fraud. I use 'will' there because it has happened before and it is obvious to anyone who knows anything about the Internet that it will happen again.
Oh, and owning a physical shop is a large commitment with legal and bureaucratic overhead - not to mention clear geographic jurisdiction - that makes it far easier to enforce laws about what shopkeepers should and should not do. It is literally impossible to tell 'the Internet' to do something.
The entire set-up is stupid and anyone who supports it is at best deeply ignorant.