Press Statement
Tony Game
Ref: Graeme Brown on Mon, 26 Aug 1996 :-
>sex sells newspapers, and sex probably sells internet
>connections too these days.
I think you are right. Let's come straight out and say that this is a
perfectly reasonable state of affairs. If I want sex in my newspaper or
on my internet then nobody should be allowed to prevent me from enjoying
it so long as someone else is prepared to provide it.
The question of text or pictures depicting or describing children or
anyone else being raped clearly comes into a different category. I think
that if we can prevent such material from being dispersed then we
probably should. But I am open to be told that I am wrong.
The point is that the question is a *difficult* one. What I object to as
strongly as I am able, is its being portrayed as a simple matter of
banning all sexually orientated material wherever it is found. And let
it be noted that, although French appears to want to ban all sex*
groups, he has never asked, to my knowledge, for magazines like
'Playboy' to be banned. Or 'Mirror' page threes. Why is the internet to
be treated differently?
--
Greetings, Tony. [ The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. ]
Felixstowe, Suffolk, UK.
PGP KeyID 0x9D55B429 | 3D 86 63 0F A3 5A 8A 9F 29 F1 E9 4C F4 70 E8 E8
Malcolm McMahon
>And let
>it be noted that, although French appears to want to ban all sex*
>groups, he has never asked, to my knowledge, for magazines like
>'Playboy' to be banned. Or 'Mirror' page threes. Why is the internet to
>be treated differently?
>
Probably a matter of how much they can afford to spend on lawyers.
Anyway this is vanila hetrosexual sex.
---------------------------------+----------------------------------
I was born weird: This terrible | Like Pavlov's dogs we are trained
compulsion to behave normally is | to salivate at the sound of the
the result of childhood trauma. | liberty bell.
---------------------------------+----------------------------------
Malcolm
Peter McDermott
In article <WgYHGiAx...@babbs.demon.co.uk>,
Tony Game <acg...@babbs.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Ref: Graeme Brown on Mon, 26 Aug 1996 :-
>
>>sex sells newspapers, and sex probably sells internet
>>connections too these days.
>
>I think you are right.
Hardly surprising though. After all, the production of erotica has
driven a great deal of early adopters of new technologies, without
which they may well have failed. Obvious examples include
daguerrotypes and other early photographic techniques, the VCR and
the Camcorder, and many of the on-line services like AOL and Compuserve.
Given that reproduction is probably the primary human drive, why would
anyone be surprised at such a thing?
Peter Saxton
Graeme Brown
Tony Game <acg...@babbs.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Ref: Graeme Brown on Mon, 26 Aug 1996 :-
>
>>sex sells newspapers, and sex probably sells internet
>>connections too these days.
>
>I think you are right. Let's come straight out and say that this is a
>perfectly reasonable state of affairs. If I want sex in my newspaper or
>on my internet then nobody should be allowed to prevent me from enjoying
>it so long as someone else is prepared to provide it.
>
>The question of text or pictures depicting or describing children or
>anyone else being raped clearly comes into a different category. I think
>that if we can prevent such material from being dispersed then we
>probably should. But I am open to be told that I am wrong.
>
>The point is that the question is a *difficult* one. What I object to as
>strongly as I am able, is its being portrayed as a simple matter of
>banning all sexually orientated material wherever it is found. And let
>it be noted that, although French appears to want to ban all sex*
>groups, he has never asked, to my knowledge, for magazines like
>'Playboy' to be banned. Or 'Mirror' page threes. Why is the internet to
>be treated differently?
I don't think it should be. A newsagent selling magazines about
paedophilia would soon find himself up in court (and quite right too).
Why should standards of what's acceptable be different for the 'net.
Graeme
Adam Kightley
Graeme Brown (gra...@emtel.demon.co.uk) wrote:
> Tony Game <acg...@babbs.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >it be noted that, although French appears to want to ban all sex*
> >groups, he has never asked, to my knowledge, for magazines like
> >'Playboy' to be banned. Or 'Mirror' page threes. Why is the internet to
> >be treated differently?
>
> I don't think it should be. A newsagent selling magazines about
> paedophilia would soon find himself up in court (and quite right too).
> Why should standards of what's acceptable be different for the 'net.
acceptable != legal
magazines about paedophilia != child pornography
a newsagent != an isp
a newsagent's shop != the internet
this country != other countries
That doesn't make the unpalatable more palatable, but the net simply
doesn't work like other media and must evolve on its own terms.
AJK
--
ada...@cogs.susx.ac.uk - 15 Model Dwellings,Church St,Brighton BN11UW
Voice: +44/1273/774237 - (01273) 774237 - A.J.Ki...@sussex.ac.uk
Psychology Undergraduate - School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University Of Sussex UK - Working for Computing Service:(01273)678090
David Hough
In article <32233240...@news.demon.co.uk>No, one of the groups to which it is posted is to advertise Demon web
pages. You should have set follow-ups......
Dave
--
da...@llondel.demon.co.uk
Any advice above is worth what I paid for it.
Matthew Smith
in demon.service, which is clearly not 'to advertise Demon web pages'.
-M
Stan The Man
In article <AE49EFC8...@petermc.demon.co.uk>,
pe...@petermc.demon.co.uk (Peter McDermott) wrote:
>Because Demon don't create the contents of the newsgroups, all
>they do is sell connections. If you choose to use your connection
>to either upload or download kiddy-porn, that's _your_ decision,
>not Demon's.
>
>If you can't handle that responsibility, get yourself one of those
>net-nanny programs or give up your connection altogether.
I feel that this is simplistic, idealistic and maybe disingenuous too. The
fact that such material is only a click away must have tempted many
first-timers, including young people, to explore what is on offer -- and
who knows where it may have taken them after that first curious recce?
The wizened and wordly-wise among us are indeed capable of exercising
conscious, rational and mature judgments in such matters but there must be
many, many others who first stumble upon kiddy-porn just because it's
there and they are curious. If it were less easy to access, those who are
prone to shallow or impetuous judgments might have time to reconsider
while they try to unearth the stuff. And if it was harder to find, most of
them just wouldn't bother.
It is all too easy to get at -- and we are not _all_ capable of making the
right judgment at the right time. Of course, Peter McDermott needs no
protection from himself, nor do many of the rational folk posting in these
threads. But these are not the people I worry about...
Stan
--
st...@pro.u-net.com
+++Naked under this Macintosh+++
David G. Bell
In article <32233240...@news.demon.co.uk>
pe...@psaxton.demon.co.uk "Peter Saxton" writes:
> This newsgroup is to advertise Demon web pages.
That's demon.homepages.adverts, folks.
There is a lot of silly cross-posting going on, so if you wish to
complain, at least tell folks _which_ newsgroup is the one that's wrong.
Follow-ups trimmed to exclude demon.homepages.adverts
--
David G. Bell -- Farmer, SF Fan, Filker, Furry, and Punslinger..
Tony Lambord
st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man) wrote:
>In article <AE49EFC8...@petermc.demon.co.uk>,
>pe...@petermc.demon.co.uk (Peter McDermott) wrote:
>>Because Demon don't create the contents of the newsgroups, all
>>they do is sell connections. If you choose to use your connection
>>to either upload or download kiddy-porn, that's _your_ decision,
>>not Demon's.
>>
>>If you can't handle that responsibility, get yourself one of those
>>net-nanny programs or give up your connection altogether.
>I feel that this is simplistic, idealistic and maybe disingenuous too. The
>fact that such material is only a click away must have tempted many
>first-timers, including young people, to explore what is on offer -- and
>who knows where it may have taken them after that first curious recce?
Do you have *any* evidence for this viewpoint? (make that evidence of a
causative link between pornography and further interest).
Here is an alternative flight of fancy - first-timer downloads stack of
filth, discovers it isn't so interesting after all, and drifts away.
As opposed to contacting a real paedophile and getting persuaded into
carrying on.
Tony.
Peter McDermott
In article <32237933...@news.demon.co.uk>,
gra...@emtel.demon.co.uk (Graeme Brown) wrote:
>>The point is that the question is a *difficult* one. What I object to as
>>strongly as I am able, is its being portrayed as a simple matter of
>>banning all sexually orientated material wherever it is found. And let
>>it be noted that, although French appears to want to ban all sex*
>>groups, he has never asked, to my knowledge, for magazines like
>>'Playboy' to be banned. Or 'Mirror' page threes. Why is the internet to
>>be treated differently?
>
>I don't think it should be. A newsagent selling magazines about
>paedophilia would soon find himself up in court (and quite right too).
>Why should standards of what's acceptable be different for the 'net.
Because Demon don't create the contents of the newsgroups, all
they do is sell connections. If you choose to use your connection
to either upload or download kiddy-porn, that's _your_ decision,
not Demon's.
If you can't handle that responsibility, get yourself one of those
net-nanny programs or give up your connection altogether.
Peter McDermott
In article <stan-28089...@news.u-net.com>,
st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man) wrote:
>>If you can't handle that responsibility, get yourself one of those
>>net-nanny programs or give up your connection altogether.
>
>I feel that this is simplistic, idealistic and maybe disingenuous too. The
>fact that such material is only a click away must have tempted many
>first-timers, including young people, to explore what is on offer -- and
>who knows where it may have taken them after that first curious recce?
So speculate? Where do you think it would take you? And if you
don't suppose it's going to deprave and corrupt you, why do you
think it will deprave and corrupt anyone else?
>The wizened and wordly-wise among us are indeed capable of exercising
>conscious, rational and mature judgments in such matters but there must be
>many, many others who first stumble upon kiddy-porn just because it's
>there and they are curious. If it were less easy to access, those who are
>prone to shallow or impetuous judgments might have time to reconsider
>while they try to unearth the stuff. And if it was harder to find, most of
>them just wouldn't bother.
Have you ever looked at this stuff Stan? After you get over the initial
shock value, it is, like most pornography, just plain boring. Nobody
is going to spend their time studying this stuff unless they already
have a bent in that direction, and I've never seen any research that
suggests such a bent can be created simply by exposure.
All of the research on the issue that I've read suggests that the
variable most likely to create paedophiles is being abused yourself
in childhood. I acknowledge that many paedophiles use pornography
as part of their seduction routine, but I just don't understand how
you think someone can be corrupted simply by looking at the stuff.
>It is all too easy to get at -- and we are not _all_ capable of making the
>right judgment at the right time. Of course, Peter McDermott needs no
>protection from himself, nor do many of the rational folk posting in these
>threads. But these are not the people I worry about...
So who do you worry about? And why?
Richard Kettlewell
What, uk.net? That would explain a few things...
- Richard (who thinks Peter should pay a little more attention to the
Newsgroups: line)
John F Hall
In article <AE49EFC8...@petermc.demon.co.uk>,
Peter McDermott <pe...@petermc.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>If you can't handle that responsibility, get yourself one of those
>net-nanny programs or give up your connection altogether.
Except of course that CI French wishes to prevent the "net-nanny"
programs from working by not having clearly labelled newsgroups that
describe their content, so that posters will be selecting other
newsgroups to post the articles.
Question: Why aren't the legal implications of postings by Demon users
being discussed in the demon.legal newsgroup?
Hint: Is it possibly because there's no such group, and people are
selecting the most appropriate group from the list of groups that *are*
present?
Does the absence of demon.legal have *any* inhibiting effect on the
discussion of Demon legal issues?
Would it be easier for those that did not wish to follow these legal
arguments to avoid them if there were a demon.legal newsgroup or has not
creating such a group helped in avoiding them?
--
John F Hall jfh...@avondale.demon.co.uk Compuserve: 100016,1210
Bill Bedford
Stan The Man <st...@pro.u-net.com> wrote:
>
> I feel that this is simplistic, idealistic and maybe disingenuous too. The
> fact that such material is only a click away must have tempted many
> first-timers, including young people, to explore what is on offer -- and
> who knows where it may have taken them after that first curious recce?
>
To try and find out how to use the decoding software?
--
Bill Bedford bi...@mousa.demon.co.uk
Shetland
Brit_Rail-L list auto...@mousa.demon.co.uk
Graeme Brown
Simon Gray <si...@star-one.org.uk> wrote:
>In article <32237933...@news.demon.co.uk>
> gra...@emtel.demon.co.uk "Graeme Brown" writes:
>
>~ >The point is that the question is a *difficult* one. What I object to as
>~ >strongly as I am able, is its being portrayed as a simple matter of
>~ >banning all sexually orientated material wherever it is found. And let
>~ >it be noted that, although French appears to want to ban all sex*
>~ >groups, he has never asked, to my knowledge, for magazines like
>~ >'Playboy' to be banned. Or 'Mirror' page threes. Why is the internet to
>~ >be treated differently?
>~
>~ I don't think it should be. A newsagent selling magazines about
>~ paedophilia would soon find himself up in court (and quite right too).
>~ Why should standards of what's acceptable be different for the 'net.
>
>The Queen isn't up in court because the Royal Mail distributes child
>porn. Ian Vallance isn't up in court because child porn is distributed
>down the phone. Why should Uncles Clive & Cliff be under such threat ?
I would bet (or at least hope) that if the Royal Mail delivered
packages to every household with the words "Paedophila Pictures
Inside" or something like that, then they would end up in court.
Just because Uncle Clive and Uncle Cliff run a good ISP (I wouldn't be
a customer otherwise) it doesn't mean they are always right.
Graeme
Dave Reader
These words of wisdom came from Stan The Man (st...@pro.u-net.com):
: Yes, I have looked at it. My curiosity on first gaining access to the
: Internet drew me to alt.sex.binaries.multimedia and one or two other hot
: spots. I got quite a thrill out of it for a couple of weeks before it
: became boring. The stuff I saw was undoubtedly pornographic, albeit not
: paedophilic, and I don't doubt that had it been made available to me via
: any other distribution channel it would have been against the law. I also
: saw many advertisements from purveyors of pornography offering to supply
: diverse obscene materials via email and on CD-ROM via snail mail.
So what leads you to believe that this will be any different from anyone
else. As far as I'm aware, all of the people i know who have looked at
this stuff have done so out of interest and have not been corrupted by it.
For most people, looking at this stuff is out of curiousty. The internet
allows you a very wide view of whats out there in the big wide world.
Removing these groups servers no purpose other than to hide reality from
the people who don't want tobelieve it really happens.
: >All of the research on the issue that I've read suggests that the
: >variable most likely to create paedophiles is being abused yourself
: >in childhood. I acknowledge that many paedophiles use pornography
: >as part of their seduction routine, but I just don't understand how
: >you think someone can be corrupted simply by looking at the stuff.
There are, in my mind, 2 kinds of people looking at this stuff... 1. the
person hwo looks out of interest, it is there, they wonder what the fuss
is about, they look, they learn something about the world, so what? 2.
there are the people who get a kick out of looking at this stuff. now,
these are the people who are already corrupt. they look at it because
they *are* corrupt.
: Well, I don't think that _I_was corrupted. But I am broad minded,
: reasonably worldly, sometimes rational and undeniably venerable. But it
: would be no surprise to me if it were shown that others _have_ been
: corrupted by it.
why?
no i;m not going to pretend i can't see some truth in this (see comments
further down re children accessing), but i think the point that you
appear to be trying to make is wrong.
: Well, to be parochial, I worry about my 14-year old son who lives with his
: mother. She doesn't understand the first thing about computers, let alone
: the Internet, and is in no position to control his Internet access and
: activities. I provided him with the means to access the Internet but I am
: not on hand to exercise control. In truth, I am not unduly worried about
: him accessing straight pornography since it has a certain educational
: value and sex is a normal part of life (other parents, especially of
: younger children, would be right to disagree with this view, by the way).
: But I do worry about the extremes: paedophilia, bestiality and violence. I
: think that adults, as well as pubescent teenagers, should be protected as
: far as possible from stumbling across these images which are undeniably
: disturbing and, to some, harrowing.
Right now, dso you not think as a parent that you should not only be
teaching him about 'straight' sex but also these other 'diverse' things?
I think the corruption comes more from seeing this sort of stuff in an
uneducated state, than seeing it and knowing it for what it is. If a kid
who sees this stuff has not been taught prior to seeing it, he or she may
believe that what he/she is seeing is perfectly normal, acceptable, etc
etc. The reason you are not corrupted is that you know otherwise, no?
Rather than maiing out that you are better than these esily corrupted
people who need protecting from themselves and who might develop strange
sexuyal tendanices if they see pictures of someone doing strange things
with a household implement, maybe you ought to think about why you are
not susceptible and how these other people can be brought to the same state.
: I also think he is too young to be an anarchist so I was disturbed to find
: out that he had happened upon the Jolly Roger Cookbook and was planning to
: test out some of the recipes with his schoolfriends. The most I could was
: to ask him to delay his experiments until the end of the summer holiday,
: so as to give us another few weeks of his company in case he killed
: himself.
So why do you not think that you are wrong for believing he was too
young, clearly he isn;t, the evidence is right there before you, are you
blind? I understand that it can be difficult to keep up with a child in
terms of what they are upto and encountering, but I believe that
education is the key here, not censorship. what if your son encountered
this later on in life, still not having been educated against it.. he may
really have taken up such passtimes..
: He, like many kids I guess, gets home from school a couple of hours before
: his mother returns from work and does pretty much as he pleases.
: Hopefully, I have drilled some commonsense into him and perhaps other
: parents in similar situations have more to worry about than I do.
Another problem. Many many parents are not responsible, and take no care
to ensure their child knows whats what.. these are the "isnt that why i
send him to school?" bunch who believe they dont have to educate their
child at all. Increasingly schools are finding themselves needing to
teach basic things thats the child should have learnt at home, eg
manners. ask a teacher.
: But the solution to all this would be to wave a magic wand and eliminate
: these extremes from the Internet, as they have been eliminated from other
: public places. I have read all the arguments by the anti-censorship lobby
: for leaving things well alone but I have to conclude that it is a parent's
: responsibility to seek some protection for their children, particularly if
: they are unable to exercise constant control over them directly.
As long as they exist in the real world, you can;t pretend they don't
exist forever. It will turn up elsewhere. why do you think it is on the net?
: I believe that it would be better to ban, or remove from the newsfeed, all
: of the most extreme groups. Let it all move to FTP or WWW sites where
: passwords are needed to gain access. Then, those in need can get their fix
: while those at risk will be protected. I would be happy enough to force
: people to use an external newsfeed to gain access to whatever groups they
: want, so long as these services were not widely advertised. I simply want
: it to be more difficult to get hold of than it currently is.
There *are* password-only ftp sites, but what happens? people get stuff
from these and make it freely available.. it gets out. Do you consider
the people who distribute this stuff by posting it to freely avaoilable
newsgroups to care enough to password protect it and make sure absoluetly
none gets out? the fact they do not do that already should give you a clue.
(if that reads a little like a contradiction, what i mean is some such
sites do exist, but as we know there is still a hell of a lot posted to
newsgroups... i'm sure you can work out what i mean..?)
: Stan
: --
: st...@pro.u-net.com
: +++Naked under this Macintosh+++
is that some strange sexual perversion involving your computer, stan?
we'll have to ban that we will. better not tell you what NIFOC stanbds
for, though...
--
Dave Reader - http://www.cus.umist.ac.uk/~dar/
D.A.R...@Bradford.ac.uk d...@ps.cus.umist.ac.uk d...@nifoc.demon.co.uk
Known as 'Undone' on MBA4 (telnet jumper.mcc.ac.uk 3214) and Monochrome BBS
Paul Carpenter
gra...@emtel.demon.co.uk "Graeme Brown" writes:
-Tony Game <acg...@babbs.demon.co.uk> wrote:
-
->Ref: Graeme Brown on Mon, 26 Aug 1996 :-
->
->>sex sells newspapers, and sex probably sells internet
->
->I think you are right. Let's come straight out and say that this is a
->perfectly reasonable state of affairs. If I want sex in my newspaper or
....
->The point is that the question is a *difficult* one. What I object to as
->strongly as I am able, is its being portrayed as a simple matter of
->banning all sexually orientated material wherever it is found. And let
->it be noted that, although French appears to want to ban all sex*
->groups, he has never asked, to my knowledge, for magazines like
->'Playboy' to be banned. Or 'Mirror' page threes. Why is the internet to
->be treated differently?
-
-I don't think it should be. A newsagent selling magazines about
-paedophilia would soon find himself up in court (and quite right too).
-Why should standards of what's acceptable be different for the 'net.
Nobody prosecutes the Post Office and/or delivery agent, especially if this
was sent from say Holland, which is more of an accurate analogy, along with
the time span held by these agents.
--
Paul Carpenter | pa...@pcserv.demon.co.uk
Consulting for General, Scientific, Industrial Computing & more..
email: list...@pcserv.demon.co.uk - how to _use_ UK Consultants listings
Paul Carpenter
st...@pro.u-net.com "Stan The Man" writes:
-In article <AE4A8B2C...@petermc.demon.co.uk>,
-pe...@petermc.demon.co.uk (Peter McDermott) wrote:
-
->Have you ever looked at this stuff Stan? After you get over the initial
->shock value, it is, like most pornography, just plain boring. Nobody
->is going to spend their time studying this stuff unless they already
....
->All of the research on the issue that I've read suggests that the
->variable most likely to create paedophiles is being abused yourself
->in childhood. I acknowledge that many paedophiles use pornography
->as part of their seduction routine, but I just don't understand how
->you think someone can be corrupted simply by looking at the stuff.
-
-Well, I don't think that _I_was corrupted. But I am broad minded,
-reasonably worldly, sometimes rational and undeniably venerable. But it
-would be no surprise to me if it were shown that others _have_ been
-corrupted by it.
It is always possible to find at least _one_ case of anything that will
corrupt or trigger a suitably vulnerable person. So what do you do -
Lock everybody up in isolation?
->>It is all too easy to get at -- and we are not _all_ capable of making the
->>right judgment at the right time. Of course, Peter McDermott needs no
->>protection from himself, nor do many of the rational folk posting in these
->>threads. But these are not the people I worry about...
->
->So who do you worry about? And why?
-
-Well, to be parochial, I worry about my 14-year old son who lives with his
-mother. She doesn't understand the first thing about computers, let alone
-the Internet, and is in no position to control his Internet access and
-activities.
He could also get a Video from a mate and watch that on the VCR, possibly
record something from a European satellite channel, because others do not
understand how the technologies of VCR's work. We all know people with
flashing clocks on their VCRs because they cannot operate them.
-... I provided him with the means to access the Internet but I am
-not on hand to exercise control. In truth, I am not unduly worried about
-him accessing straight pornography since it has a certain educational
-value and sex is a normal part of life (other parents, especially of
-younger children, would be right to disagree with this view, by the way).
-But I do worry about the extremes: paedophilia, bestiality and violence. I
-think that adults, as well as pubescent teenagers, should be protected as
-far as possible from stumbling across these images which are undeniably
-disturbing and, to some, harrowing......
Some of which surely can be stopped by simple locks on modem phone lines
until an adult is in the house, as should the VCR have. Also there are
newsgroup filters and even web nanny suites, heavily touted in other groups
and web sites.
-But the solution to all this would be to wave a magic wand and eliminate
-these extremes from the Internet, as they have been eliminated from other
-public places.
Quite a few libraries have the basics of how a nuclear bomb works, as well
as other things in Encyclopedias and other reference items.
- I have read all the arguments by the anti-censorship lobby
-for leaving things well alone but I have to conclude that it is a parent's
-responsibility to seek some protection for their children, particularly if
-they are unable to exercise constant control over them directly.
I also think that people should take more 'personal responsibility' for their
actions than get everybody else to do everything for them. Locks on modems
and the like can be done if you cannot trust someone.
-I believe that it would be better to ban, or remove from the newsfeed, all
-of the most extreme groups. Let it all move to FTP or WWW sites where
-passwords are needed to gain access. Then, those in need can get their fix
-while those at risk will be protected. I would be happy enough to force
-people to use an external newsfeed to gain access to whatever groups they
-want, so long as these services were not widely advertised. I simply want
-it to be more difficult to get hold of than it currently is.
There are a lot of people about who would like it easier to know how to
access the NON-banned newsgroups ;) I would suggest that you look at how to
protect your own system first, before changing things as all protection means
by external sites even passwords can be worked around. Or possibly found out
by kids passing around passwords for servers.... Which they would do..
Tim Bierman
In article <503nb9$q...@columbia.acc.brad.ac.uk>
D.A.R...@bradford.ac.uk "Dave Reader" writes:
> no i;m not going to pretend i can't see some truth in this (see comments
> further down re children accessing), but i think the point that you
> appear to be trying to make is wrong.
We seem to be forgetting our own childhoods. The main appeal of pornography,
or for that matter drugs, alcohol or tobacco, to children is that they are
forbidden. We were brought up to believe there was an "adult" world into
which we would be initiated as we grew up, containing all kinds of delights.
"Adult" is still a euphemism for "pornographic", when referring to TV
channels, videos or mags ... personally I think "peurile" would be more
appropriate.
Kids would crowd around the classroon hard-guy, who had managed to get a
copy of Penthouse, or whatever, and ogle at the pictures. I suspect most of
them were thinking "So what?", but felt they ought say "Phwoar! Let's see
that!" along with the rest for fear of being thought odd.
Once we grew up, most of us realised that it was the King, rather than the
centrefold girls, who really had no clothes.
The bald fact is, pornography is just plain BORING. Nobody who isn't already
that way inclined would get a kick out of it. This coupling of Internet porn
to actual child abuse is as fatuous as the Satanic hysteria a few years ago.
It is a smokescreen, a way to assuage public opinion while not having a clue
about how to tackle the actual problem ... which, in case anyone has
forgotten, is the matter of real children being abused by real adults,
irrespective of whether "dirty pictures", Satanism, ar any other side issues
were involved or not.
--
Tim *** Boycott The Observer and all other Guardian group newspapers ***
*** They want to close down our freedom to communicate, so let's ***
*** see how they like it if we close down theirs. ***
*** (Feel free to copy this and spread it as widely as possible) ***
Stan The Man
In article <AE4A8B2C...@petermc.demon.co.uk>,
pe...@petermc.demon.co.uk (Peter McDermott) wrote:
>Have you ever looked at this stuff Stan? After you get over the initial
>shock value, it is, like most pornography, just plain boring. Nobody
>is going to spend their time studying this stuff unless they already
>have a bent in that direction, and I've never seen any research that
>suggests such a bent can be created simply by exposure.
Yes, I have looked at it. My curiosity on first gaining access to the
Internet drew me to alt.sex.binaries.multimedia and one or two other hot
spots. I got quite a thrill out of it for a couple of weeks before it
became boring. The stuff I saw was undoubtedly pornographic, albeit not
paedophilic, and I don't doubt that had it been made available to me via
any other distribution channel it would have been against the law. I also
saw many advertisements from purveyors of pornography offering to supply
diverse obscene materials via email and on CD-ROM via snail mail.
>All of the research on the issue that I've read suggests that the
>variable most likely to create paedophiles is being abused yourself
>in childhood. I acknowledge that many paedophiles use pornography
>as part of their seduction routine, but I just don't understand how
>you think someone can be corrupted simply by looking at the stuff.
Well, I don't think that _I_was corrupted. But I am broad minded,
reasonably worldly, sometimes rational and undeniably venerable. But it
would be no surprise to me if it were shown that others _have_ been
corrupted by it.
>>It is all too easy to get at -- and we are not _all_ capable of making the
>>right judgment at the right time. Of course, Peter McDermott needs no
>>protection from himself, nor do many of the rational folk posting in these
>>threads. But these are not the people I worry about...
>
>So who do you worry about? And why?
Well, to be parochial, I worry about my 14-year old son who lives with his
mother. She doesn't understand the first thing about computers, let alone
the Internet, and is in no position to control his Internet access and
activities. I provided him with the means to access the Internet but I am
not on hand to exercise control. In truth, I am not unduly worried about
him accessing straight pornography since it has a certain educational
value and sex is a normal part of life (other parents, especially of
younger children, would be right to disagree with this view, by the way).
But I do worry about the extremes: paedophilia, bestiality and violence. I
think that adults, as well as pubescent teenagers, should be protected as
far as possible from stumbling across these images which are undeniably
disturbing and, to some, harrowing.
I also think he is too young to be an anarchist so I was disturbed to find
out that he had happened upon the Jolly Roger Cookbook and was planning to
test out some of the recipes with his schoolfriends. The most I could was
to ask him to delay his experiments until the end of the summer holiday,
so as to give us another few weeks of his company in case he killed
himself.
He, like many kids I guess, gets home from school a couple of hours before
his mother returns from work and does pretty much as he pleases.
Hopefully, I have drilled some commonsense into him and perhaps other
parents in similar situations have more to worry about than I do.
But the solution to all this would be to wave a magic wand and eliminate
these extremes from the Internet, as they have been eliminated from other
public places. I have read all the arguments by the anti-censorship lobby
for leaving things well alone but I have to conclude that it is a parent's
responsibility to seek some protection for their children, particularly if
they are unable to exercise constant control over them directly.
I believe that it would be better to ban, or remove from the newsfeed, all
of the most extreme groups. Let it all move to FTP or WWW sites where
passwords are needed to gain access. Then, those in need can get their fix
while those at risk will be protected. I would be happy enough to force
people to use an external newsfeed to gain access to whatever groups they
want, so long as these services were not widely advertised. I simply want
it to be more difficult to get hold of than it currently is.
Stan
Ray Auchterlounie
Tim Bierman <t...@bierman.demon.co.uk> wrote:
[...of childhood...]
>Kids would crowd around the classroon hard-guy, who had managed to get a
^^^^^^^
intentional... :) ?
>copy of Penthouse, or whatever, and ogle at the pictures. I suspect most of
>them were thinking "So what?", but felt they ought say "Phwoar! Let's see
>that!" along with the rest for fear of being thought odd.
[...]
No, no, no - you've got those totally the wrong way round:
Thinking: "Phwoar! Let's see that!"
Saying: "So what?" ... "I've seen loads better than that, nothing
like the real thing though, eh boys ?"
After all, what could be a worse than admitting your sexual experience
was lagging behind the boasts of your peers...
ray
--
Ray Auchterlounie <r...@kythera.demon.co.uk>
"Forty Two! Is that all you've got to show for
seven and a half million years' work?"
David G. Bell
In article <AE49EFC8...@petermc.demon.co.uk>
pe...@petermc.demon.co.uk "Peter McDermott" writes:
> In article <32237933...@news.demon.co.uk>,
> gra...@emtel.demon.co.uk (Graeme Brown) wrote:
>
> >>The point is that the question is a *difficult* one. What I object to as
> >>strongly as I am able, is its being portrayed as a simple matter of
> >>banning all sexually orientated material wherever it is found. And let
> >>it be noted that, although French appears to want to ban all sex*
> >>groups, he has never asked, to my knowledge, for magazines like
> >>'Playboy' to be banned. Or 'Mirror' page threes. Why is the internet to
> >>be treated differently?
> >
> >I don't think it should be. A newsagent selling magazines about
> >paedophilia would soon find himself up in court (and quite right too).
> >Why should standards of what's acceptable be different for the 'net.
>
> Because Demon don't create the contents of the newsgroups, all
> they do is sell connections. If you choose to use your connection
> to either upload or download kiddy-porn, that's _your_ decision,
> not Demon's.
>
> If you can't handle that responsibility, get yourself one of those
> net-nanny programs or give up your connection altogether.
I just wonder how many kids would be able to pay the annual fee on
invoice, or get a credit card to pay monthly...
Heck, I know households where the whole family has internet access, and
their own e-mail addresses, but it isn't the kids who are in control.
And the newsagent analogy is pretty poor. If the stuff has come through
the big wholesalers, like W H Smith, it is a pretty solid bet that it is
legally safe. I know of instances where a wholesaler has refused to
distribute a particular issue of a magazine because of the content.
And, when you look in some of the smaller shops, not part of the chains,
you can see some much more startling magazines on the top shelf, which
are obtained through other distribution channels, but there will still
be a lot of people who will have seen it as it passed through the
production process, such as the print workers. And, again, I know of
cases where finding a willing printer has been a problem.
What makes the Internet different from the print media is that there
isn't the same bottleneck between the author of the material and the
general public. You don't have to fund the printing, or the
distribution. You don't have people having to see your work before it
goes out.
So the arguments about the process of catching the illegal are dealing
with a different paradigm. You're not going to get any warning. the
pornographers don't have any problems with printers. All it needs is
some relatively cheap computer hardware which, unlike printing, you only
need to buy once.
Now that, as much as the supposed anonymity, may be what is scaring the
Police. There is no need for a conscious conspiracy to handle the
distribution, and the creation process may be consensual enough that it
isn't a weak link -- "hot amateur video action", for instance. So
they're not getting the tips from informants about stacks of magazines
or videos, there are no warehouses to raid. Yet they still seem to be
thinking in terms of the physical world, in order to deal with a virtual
world problem.
Simon Gray
~ >The point is that the question is a *difficult* one. What I object to as
~ >strongly as I am able, is its being portrayed as a simple matter of
~ >banning all sexually orientated material wherever it is found. And let
~ >it be noted that, although French appears to want to ban all sex*
~ >groups, he has never asked, to my knowledge, for magazines like
~ >'Playboy' to be banned. Or 'Mirror' page threes. Why is the internet to
~ >be treated differently?
~
~ I don't think it should be. A newsagent selling magazines about
~ paedophilia would soon find himself up in court (and quite right too).
~ Why should standards of what's acceptable be different for the 'net.
The Queen isn't up in court because the Royal Mail distributes child
porn. Ian Vallance isn't up in court because child porn is distributed
down the phone. Why should Uncles Clive & Cliff be under such threat ?
--
[]=- Simon Gray, in Birmingham, EU <*>
// _-=__-=
_/|] ) ___ \ Now Netscape 2 Enhanced:
(_) \___/_(___)_| http://www.mahayana.demon.co.uk/
@ @
Ken Grey
> Now that, as much as the supposed anonymity, may be what is scaring the
> Police. There is no need for a conscious conspiracy to handle the
> distribution, and the creation process may be consensual enough that it
> isn't a weak link -- "hot amateur video action", for instance. So
> they're not getting the tips from informants about stacks of magazines
> or videos, there are no warehouses to raid. Yet they still seem to be
> thinking in terms of the physical world, in order to deal with a virtual
> world problem.
>
> David G. Bell -- Farmer, SF Fan, Filker, Furry, and Punslinger..
>
You are right David. The police are scared. They don't know how to handle
the problem. It has only been a short time since PC plod moved from his
notebook to a keyboard and there is a total lack of understanding in the
police of what the Internet is and does. Most police I have spoken to
derive their opinions of the net from the media and do genuinely regard it
as a hot-bed of porn. No wonder we are getting the knee-jerk reactions from
the police, they read the Guardian and believe its the truth (are they that
gullible).
Ken Grey
Ian G Batten
In article <32261732...@news.demon.co.uk>,
Graeme Brown <gra...@emtel.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> I would bet (or at least hope) that if the Royal Mail delivered
> packages to every household with the words "Paedophila Pictures
> Inside" or something like that, then they would end up in court.
Charged with what?
Suppose, for the sake of argument, Demon did drop every newsfroup with
the most tenuous connection with sex. Now then, someone posts pictures
of [insert your personal loathing here] jpeg'd to, oh, ``uk.misc''.
Whom are you going to blame? Because the only logical way out is to
make every newsgroup moderated.
Death of...11...etc...
ian
Murray C Park
st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man) wrote:
>>All of the research on the issue that I've read suggests that the
>>variable most likely to create paedophiles is being abused yourself
>>in childhood. I acknowledge that many paedophiles use pornography
>>as part of their seduction routine, but I just don't understand how
>>you think someone can be corrupted simply by looking at the stuff.
>
>Well, I don't think that _I_was corrupted. But I am broad minded,
>reasonably worldly, sometimes rational and undeniably venerable. But it
>would be no surprise to me if it were shown that others _have_ been
>corrupted by it.
That's the age-old cry of censors around the world - they must protect
the people from vile and disgusting material that will corrupt and
twist the minds of the innocent, but somehow they all have the magical
property of being able to remain unaffected by it themselves.
I understand that there are real concerns about the effect of all the
various unpleasant things that children of today are now exposed to.
However, the truth is that TV, the internet, CD-ROMs, entertainment
phone lines and other forms of communications we've yet to hear of
aren't going to go away. As technology continues to evolve the fight
to prevent children having access to unpleasant material will become
more and more futile.
Personally I think the only hope is to expend a bit more effort in
educating children to select what they watch, to analyse and criticise
the things they do watch, to excersise a bit of discipline and
self-respect.
Murray
---
Murray C Park, West Drayton, England
w...@murray.org and http://www.murray.org/
Howard Harris
st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man) wrote:
>But I do worry about the extremes: paedophilia, bestiality and violence. I
>think that adults, as well as pubescent teenagers, should be protected as
>far as possible from stumbling across these images which are undeniably
>disturbing and, to some, harrowing.
>
Hm, I didn`t expect to encounter this sort of argument here. How,
pray, does anyone `stumble across` an image in usenet? Unless you know
something I do not, there is a sequence of deliberate and conscious
choices and actions that must occur before you access an image from a
news group.
Perhaps you stumble across alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.bestiality
in your list of news groups. There are no images there Stan - it`s
empty - you have to choose to subscribe to that group, then go online,
then download the articles, then decode them, then view them - there
is very little stumbling occurring here [ I am leaving aside the
necessary acquisition of appropriate software].
If we who use usenet and the like are so loose in our descriptions,
then how can we expect those who are seeking to legislate, to do so
from an informed position.
Howard
Peter Saxton
On 28 Aug 1996 18:55:19 +0100, Richard Kettlewell
<ric...@greenend.org.uk> wrote:
Point taken, sorry
Peter Saxton, from London
pe...@psaxton.demon.co.uk
Malcolm McMahon
>st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man) wrote:
>
>
>>But I do worry about the extremes: paedophilia, bestiality and violence. I
>>think that adults, as well as pubescent teenagers, should be protected as
>>far as possible from stumbling across these images which are undeniably
>>disturbing and, to some, harrowing.
>>
>
>Hm, I didn`t expect to encounter this sort of argument here. How,
>pray, does anyone `stumble across` an image in usenet? Unless you know
>something I do not, there is a sequence of deliberate and conscious
>choices and actions that must occur before you access an image from a
>news group.
>
Besides which I think it does people no harm to be disturbed now and
again.
---------------------------------+----------------------------------
I was born weird: This terrible | Like Pavlov's dogs we are trained
compulsion to behave normally is | to salivate at the sound of the
the result of childhood trauma. | liberty bell.
---------------------------------+----------------------------------
Malcolm
Peter Saxton
On Wed, 28 Aug 1996 07:06:39 GMT, Matthew Smith
<msm...@ml-associates.co.uk> wrote:
>pe...@psaxton.demon.co.uk (Peter Saxton) wrote:
>>This newsgroup is to advertise Demon web pages.
>Before you throw arrows, check the newsgroups line, I'm reading this
>in demon.service, which is clearly not 'to advertise Demon web pages'.
>
>-M
Point taken, sorry
Lee Miles
In article <stan-30089...@news.u-net.com>
st...@pro.u-net.com "Stan The Man" writes:
> In article <32272154...@newnews.dial.pipex.com>,
> h.ha...@dial.pipex.com wrote:
>
> >st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man) wrote:
> >
> >
> >>But I do worry about the extremes: paedophilia, bestiality and violence. I
> >>think that adults, as well as pubescent teenagers, should be protected as
> >>far as possible from stumbling across these images which are undeniably
> >>disturbing and, to some, harrowing.
> >>
> >
> >Hm, I didn`t expect to encounter this sort of argument here. How,
> >pray, does anyone `stumble across` an image in usenet? Unless you know
> >something I do not, there is a sequence of deliberate and conscious
> >choices and actions that must occur before you access an image from a
> >news group.
>
> Well, this is a lofty and blinkered riposte!
Not really.
> Unfortunately, not everyone
> knows where they are going or what they will find when they get there,
> especially those who are new to the Net and have just discovered how to
> use their newsreader to download binary files. People, especially novices
> and children _do_ stumble around, with perhaps a bit of help from friends
> or peers, and they can very easily find their way into any of these
> newsgroups and download an image without knowing exactly what it depicts.
Get real. First of all, they've got to go into a newsgroup. I think
most of the "offending" newsgroups are pretty descriptive of what one
might find in them. Secondly, the subject headers in a binary group
tend to be more descriptive, given that most people do not download
an entire binary group's postings.
With the exception of AOL's software, I have never found a newsreader
that offers the user the option of decoding and viewing a JPEG as it
is being downloaded. And of course, AOL's s/w doesn't allow such
groups as default.
> Even you stumbled around once upon a time - so please dismount from your
> high horse/descend from your ivory tower, look around and take note of the
> real world. It is clear that _you_ do not know such people, but that does
> not make them disappear.
Yer, it's true most people "stumble" around to begin with, but most have
the common sense to avoid things like alt.binaries.erotic.little.girls.
You can't legislate to protect stupid people from themselves.
There's a big world out there, and not all of it's sane[tm].
--
Lee Miles
Stan The Man
>st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man) wrote:
>
>
>>But I do worry about the extremes: paedophilia, bestiality and violence. I
>>think that adults, as well as pubescent teenagers, should be protected as
>>far as possible from stumbling across these images which are undeniably
>>disturbing and, to some, harrowing.
>>
>
>Hm, I didn`t expect to encounter this sort of argument here. How,
>pray, does anyone `stumble across` an image in usenet? Unless you know
>something I do not, there is a sequence of deliberate and conscious
>choices and actions that must occur before you access an image from a
>news group.
Well, this is a lofty and blinkered riposte! Unfortunately, not everyone
knows where they are going or what they will find when they get there,
especially those who are new to the Net and have just discovered how to
use their newsreader to download binary files. People, especially novices
and children _do_ stumble around, with perhaps a bit of help from friends
or peers, and they can very easily find their way into any of these
newsgroups and download an image without knowing exactly what it depicts.
Even you stumbled around once upon a time - so please dismount from your
high horse/descend from your ivory tower, look around and take note of the
real world. It is clear that _you_ do not know such people, but that does
not make them disappear.
Stan
Stan The Man
In article <32273179...@news.demon.co.uk>,
mal...@pigsty.demon.co.uk (Malcolm McMahon) wrote:
>Besides which I think it does people no harm to be disturbed now and
>again.
What an extremely silly an immature thing to say. Lowers the tone of the
whole debate...
Stan The Man
>Yer, it's true most people "stumble" around to begin with, but most have
>the common sense to avoid things like alt.binaries.erotic.little.girls.
>
>You can't legislate to protect stupid people from themselves.
Wrong. Most of our legislation exists to protect people like my son and
his friends from people like you. Thank goodness. You don't have to be
stupid to be curious, rather the reverse. "Hey, guys, what's a pedophile?"
"Dunno - could be mountain bikes." "Let's take a look"...
This may well be a minority scenario but there are many other minority
scenarios which will lead to the same place. There must be laws to protect
the minorities. I only wish they also protected us from boors, bigots and
buffoons too. It is all too apparent that you feel the world should
revolve around you and other sophisticates: perhaps it would be easier
simply to exterminate the naive, the innocent and the stupid? Then the
rest of us could be left to make sensible, informed, rational judgments
without having to worry about a few million unattractive, uneducated,
unworldly, undesirable intruders into _your_ Internet.
Pompous git.
Peter Ceresole
In article <stan-30089...@news.u-net.com>,
st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man) wrote:
>People, especially novices
>and children _do_ stumble around, with perhaps a bit of help from friends
>or peers, and they can very easily find their way into any of these
>newsgroups and download an image without knowing exactly what it depicts.
This is sophistry. To get into one of these extremely clearly named groups,
you have to select it. The words are up there on the screen. They are
totally obvious. Nobody can get in there, select, download, decode and view
an image without knowing very well what they are doing. It can't happen by
accident.
They may not know *exactly* what the image depicts, because you never can
until you see it. But to say that somebody might innocently stumble across
pornography in these groups requires an Observer-style attitude to reality.
--
Peter
Stan The Man
In article <AE4D9CA6...@cara.demon.co.uk>, pe...@cara.demon.co.uk
(Peter Ceresole) wrote:
>In article <stan-30089...@news.u-net.com>,
>st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man) wrote:
>
>>People, especially novices
>>and children _do_ stumble around, with perhaps a bit of help from friends
>>or peers, and they can very easily find their way into any of these
>>newsgroups and download an image without knowing exactly what it depicts.
>
>This is sophistry. To get into one of these extremely clearly named groups,
>you have to select it. The words are up there on the screen. They are
>totally obvious. Nobody can get in there, select, download, decode and view
>an image without knowing very well what they are doing. It can't happen by
>accident.
It can happen out of curiosity; it can happen if prople are expecting to
see 'soft' porn images; it can even happen by accident (see 'minority
scenario' in my earlier post). I really feel that most people in this
discussion are missing the key point, around which the ultimate decision
will surely revolve, ie:
The law needs to address what is *possible*, not what is *probable*.
Bill Bedford
Stan The Man <st...@pro.u-net.com> wrote:
> In article <841444...@atreyu.demon.co.uk>, l...@atreyu.demon.co.uk wrote:
>
> >Yer, it's true most people "stumble" around to begin with, but most have
> >the common sense to avoid things like alt.binaries.erotic.little.girls.
> >
> >You can't legislate to protect stupid people from themselves.
>
> Wrong. Most of our legislation exists to protect people like my son and
> his friends from people like you. Thank goodness. You don't have to be
> stupid to be curious, rather the reverse. "Hey, guys, what's a pedophile?"
> "Dunno - could be mountain bikes." "Let's take a look"...
>
Sorry These laws and especially the ban on child pornography can be seen
as there to protect the establishment. Consider this -
Without some sort of corroborating evidence, such as photographs it is
almost impossible, with our legal system, to convict paedophiles,
because in the end it is the child's word against an adults.
So if there was law that by which paedophiles could convicted without
involving children this would be a Good Thing(tm). After all the police
'know' when someone is guilty even if they can't prove it. So by using
guilt by association, and imprisoning people for possessing child
pornography, it is possible to 'save' children from a harrowing trial,
ensure the conviction of 'know' paedophiles and make people believe that
both the police and the politicians are on top of the problem.
Unfortunately this 'solution' has not been thought through properly, and
the effect is exactly the opposite of what was intended. Here the
problem is the prisons. In British prisons Sex offenders, and
particularly child sex offenders are segregated for their own safety.
Which means that, in almost every prison there is a small group of
paedophiles living together. They tell each other their stories and
fantasies which has the effect of reinforcing their belief that their
predeliction are right. Even if a paedophile was non-practicing when he
went into prison there is every chance that he will be much more
dangerous when he comes out. There have been a few tragic cases recently
which bear this out - expect more in the next few years.
So you see Stan - noone is out to 'protect' your child.
Tony Lambord
st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man) wrote:
>In article <841444...@atreyu.demon.co.uk>, l...@atreyu.demon.co.uk wrote:
>>Yer, it's true most people "stumble" around to begin with, but most have
>>the common sense to avoid things like alt.binaries.erotic.little.girls.
>>
>>You can't legislate to protect stupid people from themselves.
>Wrong. Most of our legislation exists to protect people like my son and
>his friends from people like you.
Really? What % exactly?
(I was under the impression that the majority of laws of this type
existed to protect people from the actions - whatever the motivation -
of others. And that these laws don't actually form the majority).
> Thank goodness. You don't have to be
>stupid to be curious, rather the reverse. "Hey, guys, what's a pedophile?"
>"Dunno - could be mountain bikes." "Let's take a look"...
Possibly the alt.sex... part of the group name represents a small clue
here?
>This may well be a minority scenario but there are many other minority
>scenarios which will lead to the same place. There must be laws to protect
>the minorities.
Not necessarily. Where actual protection is required (and this probably
is a suitable case), it need not be legal in nature.
Perhaps something that would actually be useful could serve instead
(think parental supervision, PICS, net-nanny, etc)?
> I only wish they also protected us from boors, bigots and
>buffoons too.
That would never get through parliament ;)
> It is all too apparent that you feel the world should
>revolve around you and other sophisticates: perhaps it would be easier
>simply to exterminate the naive, the innocent and the stupid? Then the
>rest of us could be left to make sensible, informed, rational judgments
>without having to worry about a few million unattractive, uneducated,
>unworldly, undesirable intruders into _your_ Internet.
I got the impression that the world should cater for all. Restricting
its scope down to your undesirables isn't much of a solution either.
>Pompous git.
Who?
Tony.
Tony Lambord
st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man) wrote:
>In article <32272154...@newnews.dial.pipex.com>,
>h.ha...@dial.pipex.com wrote:
>>Hm, I didn`t expect to encounter this sort of argument here. How,
>>pray, does anyone `stumble across` an image in usenet? Unless you know
>>something I do not, there is a sequence of deliberate and conscious
>>choices and actions that must occur before you access an image from a
>>news group.
>Well, this is a lofty and blinkered riposte! Unfortunately, not everyone
>knows where they are going or what they will find when they get there,
>especially those who are new to the Net and have just discovered how to
>use their newsreader to download binary files. People, especially novices
>and children _do_ stumble around, with perhaps a bit of help from friends
>or peers, and they can very easily find their way into any of these
>newsgroups and download an image without knowing exactly what it depicts.
Thats a lot of very-well directed stumbling, and involves ignoring
pretty well everything en route - just how many people are there who are
so incapable of understanding what they are doing, but able to log in
and setup a connection, and keen enough to stumble blindly on?
You have to run a newsreader, dial in, select a group, get the headers,
get the articles (sometimes automatic), then read them. And if you get
all that wrong, its still only an iffy picture. The world probably won't
end.
>Even you stumbled around once upon a time - so please dismount from your
>high horse/descend from your ivory tower, look around and take note of the
>real world. It is clear that _you_ do not know such people, but that does
>not make them disappear.
When I joined up, getting the access software to work at all was hard -
everything else seemed pretty trivial after that. You can stumble a bit,
but that normally gets you nothing, rather than the wrong thing.
Tony.
Gary Cooper
In article <stan-31089...@news.u-net.com>
st...@pro.u-net.com "Stan The Man" writes:
>
> Wrong. Most of our legislation exists to protect people like my son and
> his friends from people like you. Thank goodness. You don't have to be
> stupid to be curious, rather the reverse. "Hey, guys, what's a pedophile?"
> "Dunno - could be mountain bikes." "Let's take a look"...
<snipped>
Then let's assume he *did*. Do you believe that if your son viewed
paedophile material it would turn him into one?
--
Gary Cooper
Lee Miles
> In article <841444...@atreyu.demon.co.uk>, l...@atreyu.demon.co.uk wrote:
>
> >Yer, it's true most people "stumble" around to begin with, but most have
> >the common sense to avoid things like alt.binaries.erotic.little.girls.
> >
> >You can't legislate to protect stupid people from themselves.
>
> Wrong. Most of our legislation exists to protect people like my son and
> his friends from people like you. Thank goodness. You don't have to be
> stupid to be curious, rather the reverse. "Hey, guys, what's a pedophile?"
> "Dunno - could be mountain bikes." "Let's take a look"...
Stop talking through your arse!
But I like the way you're prepared to link/exploit your son's vunerability
to further your cause - very Observer-like.
If your son doesn't know the difference between a mountain bike and a
child molester, I think it is high time you informed him. Ignorance
is not a solution.
> I only wish they also protected us from boors, bigots and
> buffoons too.
Ever heard of "shooting yourself in the foot" ?
> It is all too apparent that you feel the world should
> revolve around you and other sophisticates:
Mine is a position of reality. Unworkable legislation is not a
substitute for common sense.
> perhaps it would be easier
> simply to exterminate the naive, the innocent and the stupid?
You've really lost it now.
[Further insane ramblings of a mad man deleted, just not worth the effort]
--
Lee Miles
Nick Buckle
st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man) wrote:
>
>It can happen out of curiosity; it can happen if prople are expecting to
>see 'soft' porn images; it can even happen by accident (see 'minority
>scenario' in my earlier post). I really feel that most people in this
>discussion are missing the key point, around which the ultimate decision
>will surely revolve, ie:
>
>The law needs to address what is *possible*, not what is *probable*.
>
>Stan
>--
>st...@pro.u-net.com
>+++Naked under this Macintosh+++
Stan
As a fellow u-net subscriber I'm sorry to disagree with you on this
one but -
I don't believe in censorship at all.
I do believe in parent's responsibility to protect their children.
I don't believe that everything in the world should be arranged around
the possibility that a child may be damaged.
If a parent is worried about what their child may encounter on the
internet then, in my opinion, the parent should make arrangements
accordingly; prevent access, or obtain 'Nanny' software, or be with
the child when using the internet. If your child's mother is unaware
of what the internet contains perhaps she should be educated. The
prospect of a 14 year old being allowed unrestricted access to
*anything* is worrying in itself.
There is a basic issue of fairness here; why should adults' rights be
subordinated to what's seen as the best interests of children ? Even
more so if the parents of those children have abrogated their
responsibility for the actions of their child.
--
Nick Buckle
Swindon UK
NB: If this is a follow-up response, it has also been emailed to the author,
unless it's a u-net newsgroup
Paul L. Allen
In article <stan-31089...@news.u-net.com>
st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man) writes:
> In article <841444...@atreyu.demon.co.uk>, l...@atreyu.demon.co.uk wrote:
>
> >Yer, it's true most people "stumble" around to begin with, but most have
> >the common sense to avoid things like alt.binaries.erotic.little.girls.
> >
> >You can't legislate to protect stupid people from themselves.
>
> Wrong. Most of our legislation exists to protect people like my son and
> his friends from people like you. Thank goodness. You don't have to be
> stupid to be curious, rather the reverse. "Hey, guys, what's a pedophile?"
> "Dunno - could be mountain bikes." "Let's take a look"...
A *responsible* parent would already have warned his son about the perils
of accepting sweets from strange men.
A *responsible* parent would, by the time his son reached your son's age,
have explained to him such things as sex, homosexuality, paraphilias
and unacceptable behaviours such as rape and child sexual abuse.
A *responsible* parent would not let his under-age son free and unfettered
access to the internet without any parental control whatsoever, *unless*
he had fully explained the things his son might encounter, where he might
encounter them and *why* they were bad things.
In short, you want more legislation to protect your son from your own lack
of responsibility. If your son is old enough for you to let him use the
internet by himself you already should have *told* him what paedophilia
was and why it was a bad thing, not left him to find out for himself (which
is exactly what you have done).
--Paul
Stan The Man
This is a laughable attempt to abrogate any responsibility whatever for
what is accessible via the internet. If you had read the whole thread you
would have seen that my son is only one of the cast members. The others
are the newbies, the curious, the stupid et al, any of whom can stumble
upon shocking material. Where exactly does my duty as a responsible parent
slot in here?
By the by, I suspect this post comes from a child-free zone since it
displays a complete lack of understanding about how children operate. It
is simply not good enough to expect every parent to maintain constant
vigil and thereby rationalise the existence of pornographic material.
Those who defend it should be a little less insular. There are many
different lifestyles to your own and they *all* need to be taken into
account. If that means legislating for the lowest common denominator --
which in our legal system it usually does, thank goodness -- then the few
who would champion the right to free-flowing pornography will lose out, in
favour of the majority. I kind of like the idea that the majority view
will win at the end of the day. Those in the minority, of course, don't.
Stan
Lee Miles
> This is a laughable attempt to abrogate any responsibility whatever for
> what is accessible via the internet. If you had read the whole thread you
> would have seen that my son is only one of the cast members. The others
> are the newbies, the curious, the stupid et al, any of whom can stumble
> upon shocking material. Where exactly does my duty as a responsible parent
> slot in here?
It lies in educating your son to the unpleasantness of the real world.
A considerable number of children are killed on Britain's roads each
year. You can legislate against irresponsible drivers, but that doesn't
prevent them. The essential issue is that the best means of preventing
your child from ending up a victim, is to educate them to the dangers
of road traffic.
A responsible parent teaches their children life's dangers, a foolish
parent relies on legislation.
--
Lee Miles
Peter McDermott
In article <stan-31089...@news.u-net.com>,
st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man) wrote:
>>Yer, it's true most people "stumble" around to begin with, but most have
>>the common sense to avoid things like alt.binaries.erotic.little.girls.
>>
>>You can't legislate to protect stupid people from themselves.
>
>Wrong. Most of our legislation exists to protect people like my son and
>his friends from people like you. Thank goodness. You don't have to be
>stupid to be curious, rather the reverse. "Hey, guys, what's a pedophile?"
>"Dunno - could be mountain bikes." "Let's take a look"...
I'm still not at all clear about what exactly it is you feel
you need to protect your son _from_, Stan. Do you suppose
that if he happened to glance at some pictures of kiddy-porn
he would be immediately turned into a paedophile himself?
Or do you suppose that the sight of such images might traumatize
him somehow, and thus do some irrepairable harm?
Or is it really that you just can't bear the idea of your son
gazing upon images that _you_ find morally objectionable, regardless
of whatever his response to them might be?
My own thoughts on children and pornography is this. When kids
are two young to understand it, most porn is totally meaningless
to them -- strange people doing stuff they don't understand or
care about. As they get older, their curiosity is aroused by
talking to the other kids in school. By this time, they've probably
already _been_ exposed to material far stronger than their parents
would approve of, and the fact that it is forbidden gives it that
much more cache. In fact, the fact that they aren't supposed to be
looking at it is probably the only kick they get out of it.
Stan The Man
In article <32289aa...@news.dircon.co.uk>, Big...@technocom.com (Big
Ears.) wrote:
>
>Hear, hear. An excellent posting.
I presume you went into aol mode simply so that you could re-propagate
this patronising and misdirected post. I would like to know how many
children you are responsible for. In fact, I would like to know just how
many of the people in these threads who are championing the so-called
freedom of the Internet have children at home who are old enough to surf.
The great majority of anti-censorship posters have made no reference to
their own children, which I assume is because they don't have any. Which
just might explain, although not excuse, their lopsided view of life and
morality.
Stan
Stan The Man
In article <AE4E8F0B...@petermc.demon.co.uk>,
pe...@petermc.demon.co.uk (Peter McDermott) wrote:
>I'm still not at all clear about what exactly it is you feel
>you need to protect your son _from_, Stan. Do you suppose
>that if he happened to glance at some pictures of kiddy-porn
>he would be immediately turned into a paedophile himself?
>Or do you suppose that the sight of such images might traumatize
>him somehow, and thus do some irrepairable harm?
What I can't fathom is why the moral majority are castigated by the
libertarian minority for their freely-held views about what is right and
wrong; nor why anyone should be questioned for choosing to see the law
upheld so as to protect his family and others who may not be able to
protect themselves at all times. I fail to understand why a plainly
minority viewpoint -- eg that children viewing paedophile images would be
unlikely to suffer adverse effects -- should carry any weight at all
unless it is widely endorsed by psychiatrists, psychologists and others
whose professional opinion merits a hearing.
Mark Lowes
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
On Sat, 31 Aug 1996 21:08:24 +0100, in <stan-31089...@news.u-net.com>
st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man) wrote.....
>This is a laughable attempt to abrogate any responsibility whatever for
>what is accessible via the internet. If you had read the whole thread you
>would have seen that my son is only one of the cast members. The others
>are the newbies, the curious, the stupid et al, any of whom can stumble
>upon shocking material. Where exactly does my duty as a responsible parent
>slot in here?
In finding ways to control your son's access to the Internet, if you have
sufficient desire you *can* prevent him from accessing undesirable material
but it often seems to be the case that parents demand that everyone else
has to come down to a level that is 'safe' for their little kiddy.
[...]
>Those who defend it should be a little less insular. There are many
>different lifestyles to your own and they *all* need to be taken into
>account.
but should they take precedence?
- --
Mark <ham...@lspace.org> http://www.flyhmstr.demon.co.uk/
The Elendor MUSH Shire Home Page http://www.flyhmstr.demon.co.uk/shire/
The Flying Hamster Listserver : list...@flyhmstr.demon.co.uk
There aren't enough days in the weekend.
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Stephen Harris
Stan The Man (st...@pro.u-net.com) wrote:
: What I can't fathom is why the moral majority are castigated by the
: libertarian minority for their freely-held views about what is right and
Do you have figures for showing majority and minority status? The term
"moral majority" is a hype term used by pro-censors. In reality I suspect
it is a vocal minority. The _majority_ couldn't care less either way and
have no strong opinion on the subject. The response you would get from these
people would depend on how the question is phrased..
Would you want to see the government have the right to control what
you are allowed to read and see, in a similar manner to that practiced
in countries such as Dubai?
NO
Would you want to see the government have the right to control what you
are allowed to read and see, to protect a child from being attacked by
a paedophile?
YES
Anyone who invokes the term "moral majority" as an argument for his cause
has lost the argument.
--
rgds
Stephen
Stephen Harris
: slot in here?
Oh, that's easy - its the parents responsibility to oversee the childs use
of the internet. If you had bought a subscription to the Astra "Adult
Channel", would you leave the decryption card lying around for the child to
pick up and watch? No? Well, if you buy access to the internet, then treat
it in _exactly_ the same way.
Your child is _your_ responsibility. Don't try and abrogate responsibility
and say it's the service providers job to protect your child.
: account. If that means legislating for the lowest common denominator --
: which in our legal system it usually does, thank goodness -- then the few
Like hell it does. Lowest common denominator would mean a hell of a lot less
freedom than we currently have. No words larger than 5 letters please, because
those with mental deficiencies won't understand it, and so are at an unfair
advantage.
--
rgds
Stephen
Peter McDermott
>If that means legislating for the lowest common denominator --
>which in our legal system it usually does, thank goodness -- then the few
>who would champion the right to free-flowing pornography will lose out, in
I don't believe we're championing the right to free-flowing pornography,
regardless of how much you want to cast it that way. We're championing
the right of adults to read or look at whatever it is that they wish,
without having the state decide what they can or can't see.
Now I understand perfectly well that some people feel that they want
to deprive others of those rights -- usually in the guise of protecting
the 'weak' or the 'innocent' in some sense. Yet strangely enough, I've
yet to hear anyone claim that they've been corrupted or believe that
they risk being corrupted (unless you exclude those people convicted
of sex offences who are using it as an excuse to try and get a lighter
sentence.)
You keep on going on about your fears, Stan, but you still haven't
posted any persuasive arguments or evidence that I can see.
>favour of the majority. I kind of like the idea that the majority view
>will win at the end of the day.
Well, given that the majority view expressed here seems to be
opposed to censorship, I assume you'll be happy when Demon gets
to keep all the groups, including the pedophile ones?
Or do you just mean that you like the idea when _you_ happen to be
part of the majority?
Peter McDermott
In article <stan-01099...@news.u-net.com>,
st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man) wrote:
>In article <32289aa...@news.dircon.co.uk>, Big...@technocom.com (Big
>Ears.) wrote:
>
>>
>>Hear, hear. An excellent posting.
>
>I presume you went into aol mode simply so that you could re-propagate
>this patronising and misdirected post. I would like to know how many
>children you are responsible for. In fact, I would like to know just how
>many of the people in these threads who are championing the so-called
>freedom of the Internet have children at home who are old enough to surf.
I do. I have three. A boy, 16 and two girls, aged 9 and 7. The
boy uses the net unsupervised, the girls need my assistance.
However, if they were old enough to do it alone without crashing
netscape, I'd have no qualms whatsoever about allowing them to
browse unsupervised. They all have more sense than to correspond
privately with anyone over the net -- adult _or_ child, but if they
did, I have no doubt that they'd discuss it with me.
I suspect that my eldest's reaction on seeing kiddy-porn would
be either to giggle or to be grossed out by it. The eldest girl
would be grossed out, the younger would probably be curious. She'd
probably ask either me or her mother what was going on. However, I
don't see how either of them could accidentally assemble the multi-part
binaries necessary to look at kiddy-porn, and by the time they are
sophisticated enough to do that, and sophisticated enough to form
the intent necessary to do so in the places where porn lurks, I
believe they are old enough to deal with the emotional consequences
of their actions.
You can't hold their hands and change their nappies for ever.
Peter McDermott
>In article <AE4E8F0B...@petermc.demon.co.uk>,
>pe...@petermc.demon.co.uk (Peter McDermott) wrote:
>
>>I'm still not at all clear about what exactly it is you feel
>>you need to protect your son _from_, Stan. Do you suppose
>>that if he happened to glance at some pictures of kiddy-porn
>>he would be immediately turned into a paedophile himself?
>>Or do you suppose that the sight of such images might traumatize
>>him somehow, and thus do some irrepairable harm?
>
>What I can't fathom is why the moral majority are castigated by the
>libertarian minority for their freely-held views about what is right and
>wrong; nor why anyone should be questioned for choosing to see the law
>upheld so as to protect his family and others who may not be able to
>protect themselves at all times.
I'm not castigating you at all, I'm simply seeking to understand
the basis for the fears that you've expressed here in support of
your arguments. If you want to make an argument in support of
something publicly, you have to expect that people will question
the things that you offer in evidence.
As it is, you don't seem prepared to say what it is that you
fear, and seem to be falling back on the position of "its wrong
because it's wrong" which doesn't exactly carry a great deal of
weight.
>I fail to understand why a plainly
>minority viewpoint -- eg that children viewing paedophile images would be
Since when did the fact that a viewpoint was held by a minority
make it incorrect? But you still haven't even identified what
adverse effects such children are likely to suffer.
>unlikely to suffer adverse effects -- should carry any weight at all
>unless it is widely endorsed by psychiatrists, psychologists and others
>whose professional opinion merits a hearing.
Well, do you know what the views of any of the experts in this field
on the issue happen to be? Or can we simply assume that your own
position is based upon your gut instinct, ie, it's wrong because it's
wrong?
For my own part, I did a pretty broad review of the literature in this
area for my MA, which was an examination of legal morality and victimless
crimes and covered prostitution, pornography, drug use and some sexual
offences. I don't recall having come across (oops) anything that suggested
a child would suffer any harm as a consequence of exposure to kiddy porn
in the way that you seem to fear that they might. So my viewpoint _is_
informed by a review of expert professional opinion. Peter Ceresole, who
has given evidence before a Home Office committee into the issue and so
also seems to have some credentials in this area largely shares my views.
Is your position based upon _anything_ more concrete than ignorance and
fear?
David Lawson
In article <stan-01099...@news.u-net.com>, Stan The Man
<st...@pro.u-net.com> writes
>In fact, I would like to know just how
>many of the people in these threads who are championing the so-called
>freedom of the Internet have children at home who are old enough to surf.
>their own children, which I assume is because they don't have any. Which
>just might explain, although not excuse, their lopsided view of life and
>morality.
You sanctimonious, self-important prat. Assume all you like but don't
expect to such assumptions to be right.
I have a 14-year-old who can surf but does very little because he says
it is *BORING!!!*
Sex is not something he goes snuffling around for because it is
discussed openly by us. He is curious about paedophilia after reading
openly-distributed newspapers but is horrified after learning what it
involves (he has a two-year-old half-brother) and has a healthy wish
*not* to see it.
Other forms of hard core would be, I'me sure, just as fascinating but
he is a lot more interested in finding cheats for his games.
Don't you understand that kids his age go looking for things which are
swept under the carpet. If I suppressed sex rather than explained it to
him, he would soon find a way around the petty little restrictions
adults try to impose.
You can call that "a lop-sided view" of life and morality. I don't.
--
David Lawson - London
Julie Brandon
Hiyas,
On Sat, 31 Aug 1996 01:03:09 +0100, st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man)
wrote:
>>Besides which I think it does people no harm to be disturbed now and
>>again.
>
>What an extremely silly an immature thing to say. Lowers the tone of the
>whole debate...
I'm confused? Although the statement may have been a bit
inappropriate to the context of the message, on it's own it is a
*very* mature thing to say.
Surely you're disturbed by the prevalance of child sex abuse, and just
how common it appears to be? If not, why are you writing here?
It's a very important and true statement. We occasionally do
occasionally have to be "disturbed" into action. If something doesn't
upset and disturb you, the chances are you won't do anything to about
it.
If I included a few articles here from a few friends who had suffered
sexual abuse, detailing verbatim details of their abuse (in the cases
I'm thinking of, this would be sexual abuse by a relation in one case,
and rape by a "friend" in the other case) then I would *hope* such an
article would disturb you, if it did, it may well shape your opinions
and your actions in a positive way for the future.
Yet if I didn't write such an article, and it therefore didn't disturb
you, these events *would still have happened*.
As a people, we are often rather apathetic (hell, my partner and his
family are the only face-to-face people I know that *can't* be
described that way) and as such, many of us *do* have to be disturbed
into action.
Of issue is whether or not something that disturbs you does lasting
damage of course, and most of us conceed that it is more likely for a
child to suffer lasting damage from being disturbed in one way or
another than adults.
Anyways...
Love,
Julie.
Stan The Man
In article <AE4F2416...@petermc.demon.co.uk>,
pe...@petermc.demon.co.uk (Peter McDermott) wrote:
>In article <stan-31089...@news.u-net.com>,
>st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man) wrote:
>
>>If that means legislating for the lowest common denominator --
>>which in our legal system it usually does, thank goodness -- then the few
>>who would champion the right to free-flowing pornography will lose out, in
>
>I don't believe we're championing the right to free-flowing pornography,
>regardless of how much you want to cast it that way. We're championing
>the right of adults to read or look at whatever it is that they wish,
>without having the state decide what they can or can't see.
Exactly. If the Internet community were 100 per cent sane, rational
adults, I would have no problem with this. But where is it written that
others, eg children, women and the unworldly should be excluded from this
world so that the founding fathers may continue to do exactly what they
like without any consideration for the rest?
>Now I understand perfectly well that some people feel that they want
>to deprive others of those rights -- usually in the guise of protecting
>the 'weak' or the 'innocent' in some sense. Yet strangely enough, I've
>yet to hear anyone claim that they've been corrupted or believe that
>they risk being corrupted (unless you exclude those people convicted
>of sex offences who are using it as an excuse to try and get a lighter
>sentence.)
>
>You keep on going on about your fears, Stan, but you still haven't
>posted any persuasive arguments or evidence that I can see.
I am not a psychologist, nor a researcher. Just a paid-up member of the
human race.
FWIW, my son tells me that he has seen all kinds of material on the
Internet but was only once afraid that an image would shock his peers, and
adults come to that, and that was a scene of violent murder. I have no
doubt that he is more intelligent and broad-minded and less likely to be
shocked than many of his friends. So I am not too concerned about him. As
I have said, I do worry about others, which in a community-based existence
I am entitled to do.
>>favour of the majority. I kind of like the idea that the majority view
>>will win at the end of the day.
>
>Well, given that the majority view expressed here seems to be
>opposed to censorship, I assume you'll be happy when Demon gets
>to keep all the groups, including the pedophile ones?
The views expressed here should not be misinterpreted as the majority
view, as you must be aware. I think that I will be satisfied with the
outcome of this argument -- especially after reading today's Observer in
which Demon are reported to have agreed to restrict access to certasin
newsgroups.
john eden
>this patronising and misdirected post. I would like to know how many
>many of the people in these threads who are championing the so-called
>freedom of the Internet have children at home who are old enough to surf.
>The great majority of anti-censorship posters have made no reference to
>their own children, which I assume is because they don't have any. Which
>just might explain, although not excuse, their lopsided view of life and
>morality.
>
I'm sorry, not having children leaves us in some way incapable of making
valid moral judgments? Does this include nuns and priests, too?
To repeat a point made earlier if you CHOOSE to have children it's up to
you to ensure that they're not up to anything of which you might
disapprove - I don't see why I should have to live in a Disneyfied world
just because you're a useless parent.
And before you accuse me of being on the side of paedophiles, I'm NOT!
I, personally, would be quite happy to have all the overtly paedophile
binary groups removed, but I am NOT happy at the notion that French
should be allowed to get away with removing any of the others on his
little list.
The Moonman
--
Love is Magic
Tony Game
Ref: Stan The Man on Sun, 1 Sep 1996 :-
>I fail to understand why a plainly
>minority viewpoint -- eg that children viewing paedophile images would be
>unlikely to suffer adverse effects -- should carry any weight at all
>unless it is widely endorsed by psychiatrists, psychologists and others
>whose professional opinion merits a hearing.
I have not personally seen the 'minority viewpoint' you speak of
expressed in the debate, which I have followed from the first. The
question that I have seen debated is how best to prevent all of us,
adult or infant, from being confronted with this material.
--
Greetings, Tony. [ As long liveth the merry man (they say) ]
Felixstowe, Suffolk, UK. [ As doth the sorry man, and longer by a day. ]
PGP KeyID 0x9D55B429 | 3D 86 63 0F A3 5A 8A 9F 29 F1 E9 4C F4 70 E8 E8
Gary Cooper
In article <stan-01099...@news.u-net.com>
st...@pro.u-net.com "Stan The Man" writes:
>
> Exactly. If the Internet community were 100 per cent sane, rational
> adults, I would have no problem with this. But where is it written that
> others, eg children, women and the unworldly should be excluded from this
> world so that the founding fathers may continue to do exactly what they
> like without any consideration for the rest?
Is *that* how you view women - along with "children... and the
unworldly"?
My, what a revelatory comment.
> I am not a psychologist, nor a researcher. Just a paid-up member of the
> human race.
Wrong. If you view women in this patronising manner you are
heavily in arrears.
--
Gary Cooper
Stan The Man
As I suspect you fully appreciated, my comments were meant to imply that
women, in general, are less likely to be interested in pornography than
men and more likely to be offended by it. Do I have to quote a full
bibliography for this statement too? Of course I did not mean to imply
that women are less sane or less rational than men. If anything, I
beleieve the reverse to be true.
Stan
In article <841578...@wordshop.demon.co.uk>,
coo...@wordshop.demon.co.uk wrote:
Tony Lambord
st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man) wrote:
>>>favour of the majority. I kind of like the idea that the majority view
>>>will win at the end of the day.
>>
>>Well, given that the majority view expressed here seems to be
>>opposed to censorship, I assume you'll be happy when Demon gets
>>to keep all the groups, including the pedophile ones?
>The views expressed here should not be misinterpreted as the majority
>view, as you must be aware.
Could be, but it isn't that important anyway. I'm sure you know that
society has to cater for minorities too..
> I think that I will be satisfied with the outcome of this argument --
> especially after reading today's Observer in
>which Demon are reported to have agreed to restrict access to certasin
>newsgroups.
Did you believe them, then?
Tony.
Tony Lambord
st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man) wrote:
>This is a laughable attempt to abrogate any responsibility whatever for
>what is accessible via the internet. If you had read the whole thread you
>would have seen that my son is only one of the cast members. The others
>are the newbies, the curious, the stupid et al, any of whom can stumble
>upon shocking material. Where exactly does my duty as a responsible parent
>slot in here?
You don't know? Try 'protect' and 'educate' (and try to get a sense of
proportion - dodgy pictures on the internet come some way down my list
of potential disasters for parents).
>... It is simply not good enough to expect every parent to maintain constant
>vigil and thereby rationalise the existence of pornographic material.
Pornographic material exists, and will continue to exist. You need to
realise that, and plan accordingly. Sorry, but constant vigilance somes
with the job - you can't take a few days off if you get tired of it.
>Those who defend it should be a little less insular. There are many
>different lifestyles to your own and they *all* need to be taken into
>account
I'm glad you said that - I was beginning to think you were going to
disregard the pishes of those who wanted pornography.
> If that means legislating for the lowest common denominator --
>which in our legal system it usually does, thank goodness
Or rather, it doesn't. It usually achieves some sort of balance (in
motoring, for example, there is a compulsory test before you are allowed
out alone). You can even buy pornography in the shops.
>-- then the few
>who would champion the right to free-flowing pornography will lose out, in
>favour of the majority. I kind of like the idea that the majority view
>will win at the end of the day. Those in the minority, of course, don't.
What makes you think you are in the majority (even by changing the
subject to the defence of free-flowing porography)?
(The majority of internet users expressing a preference are in favour,
for a start).
In any case, I don't really agree with this premise. Imposition of a
majority view should only be applied if necessary.
Tony.
Tony Lambord
st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man) wrote:
>In article <AE4E8F0B...@petermc.demon.co.uk>,
>pe...@petermc.demon.co.uk (Peter McDermott) wrote:
>>I'm still not at all clear about what exactly it is you feel
>>you need to protect your son _from_, Stan. Do you suppose
>>that if he happened to glance at some pictures of kiddy-porn
>>he would be immediately turned into a paedophile himself?
>>Or do you suppose that the sight of such images might traumatize
>>him somehow, and thus do some irrepairable harm?
>What I can't fathom is why the moral majority are castigated by the
>libertarian minority for their freely-held views about what is right and
>wrong;
You aren't being castigated for that, but for trying to impose that view
on others.
> nor why anyone should be questioned for choosing to see the law
>upheld so as to protect his family and others who may not be able to
>protect themselves at all times. I fail to understand why a plainly
>minority viewpoint -- eg that children viewing paedophile images would be
>unlikely to suffer adverse effects -- should carry any weight at all
>unless it is widely endorsed by psychiatrists, psychologists and others
>whose professional opinion merits a hearing.
So you have some evidence to the contrary then? Otherwise why does your
view have to be the right one?
Tony.
Phil Payne
In article <KZtLeHAm...@artful.demon.co.uk>
da...@artful.demon.co.uk "David Lawson" writes:
> Don't you understand that kids his age go looking for things which are
> swept under the carpet. If I suppressed sex rather than explained it to
> him, he would soon find a way around the petty little restrictions
> adults try to impose.
They're _good_ at it too, aren't they?
--
Phil Payne
(ph...@sievers.com, despite what the bounces say. If I don't
reply, your message is probably still stuck on a Demon punt.)
Phone: +44 385302803 Fax: +44 1536723021 CIS: 100012,1660
Simon Gray
In article <stan-31089...@news.u-net.com>
st...@pro.u-net.com "Stan The Man" writes:
~ It can happen out of curiosity; it can happen if prople are expecting to
~ see 'soft' porn images; it can even happen by accident (see 'minority
~ scenario' in my earlier post). I really feel that most people in this
~ discussion are missing the key point, around which the ultimate decision
~ will surely revolve, ie:
~
~ The law needs to address what is *possible*, not what is *probable*.
Using your argument, it is possible that an offensive picture could be
posted to uk.misc; are you advocating banning uk.misc ?
--
[]=- Simon Gray, in Birmingham, EU <*>
// _-=__-= Don't give in to censorship - boycott The Observer
_/|] ) ___ \ & The Guardian.
(_) \___/_(___)_| http://www.mahayana.demon.co.uk/
@ @
Simon Gray
~ By the by, I suspect this post comes from a child-free zone since it
~ displays a complete lack of understanding about how children operate. It
~ is simply not good enough to expect every parent to maintain constant
~ vigil and thereby rationalise the existence of pornographic material.
Quite. So take heart in the probability that whilst your here denouncing
Bad Things On The Internet, your son is probably around at his mate's
house having a good look at his mate's copy of Penthouse.
Simon Gray
In article <841444...@atreyu.demon.co.uk>
l...@atreyu.demon.co.uk "Lee Miles" writes:
~ > Unfortunately, not everyone
~ > knows where they are going or what they will find when they get there,
~ > especially those who are new to the Net and have just discovered how to
~ > use their newsreader to download binary files. People, especially novices
~ > and children _do_ stumble around, with perhaps a bit of help from friends
~ > or peers, and they can very easily find their way into any of these
~ > newsgroups and download an image without knowing exactly what it depicts.
~
~ Get real. First of all, they've got to go into a newsgroup. I think
~ most of the "offending" newsgroups are pretty descriptive of what one
~ might find in them. Secondly, the subject headers in a binary group
~ tend to be more descriptive, given that most people do not download
~ an entire binary group's postings.
Indeed. Of course, if you *do* ban newsgroups with names like
alt.binaries.get.it.here, you *are* running the risk of stumbling
across what you don't want to see in alt.binaries.fluffy.pussies.
Which, in addition to the censorship issue, is the whole basis of
our argument to keep the offending groups.
Simon Gray
~ >Besides which I think it does people no harm to be disturbed now and
~ >again.
~
~ What an extremely silly an immature thing to say. Lowers the tone of the
~ whole debate...
A bit like a .sig which says 'Naked under this Macintosh'.
Simon Gray
In article <stan-30089...@news.u-net.com>
st...@pro.u-net.com "Stan The Man" writes:
~ >Hm, I didn`t expect to encounter this sort of argument here. How,
~ >pray, does anyone `stumble across` an image in usenet? Unless you know
~ >something I do not, there is a sequence of deliberate and conscious
~ >choices and actions that must occur before you access an image from a
~ >news group.
~
~ Well, this is a lofty and blinkered riposte! Unfortunately, not everyone
~ knows where they are going or what they will find when they get there,
~ especially those who are new to the Net and have just discovered how to
~ use their newsreader to download binary files. People, especially novices
~ and children _do_ stumble around, with perhaps a bit of help from friends
~ or peers, and they can very easily find their way into any of these
~ newsgroups and download an image without knowing exactly what it depicts.
So you are suggesting that They should legislate against clueless idiots ?
Bill Bedford
Stan The Man <st...@pro.u-net.com> wrote:
> In article <32289aa...@news.dircon.co.uk>, Big...@technocom.com (Big
> Ears.) wrote:
>
> >
> >Hear, hear. An excellent posting.
>
> I presume you went into aol mode simply so that you could re-propagate
> this patronising and misdirected post. I would like to know how many
> children you are responsible for. In fact, I would like to know just how
> many of the people in these threads who are championing the so-called
> freedom of the Internet have children at home who are old enough to surf.
Some of us are also experienced to know that any danger to our children
is more likely to come from source that are know and trusted.
--
Bill Bedford bi...@mousa.demon.co.uk
Shetland
Brit_Rail-L list auto...@mousa.demon.co.uk
Paul L. Allen
In article <stan-31089...@news.u-net.com>
st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man) writes:
> This is a laughable attempt to abrogate any responsibility whatever
Oh how true, Stan, how true. All your posts on the matter so far have
been laughable attempts to abrogate your parental responsibilities. You
have so much difficulty responding to the points I raised that you had to
change your quoting style so you could slag me off without responding to
any of them.
> If you had read the whole thread you would have seen that my son is only
> one of the cast members. The others are the newbies, the curious, the
> stupid et al, any of whom can stumble upon shocking material.
Which they can in the real world too. Mind you, one expects that somebody
who wanders into a sex shop clearly labelled sex shop has some idea of
what they might see, just as somebody who chooses to read an alt.sex
group will. Unless, of course, their parents never told them about sex
and they don't even know what the word means.
> Where exactly does my duty as a responsible parent slot in here?
Education, control and supervision. You could give your kid a motorbike
and tell him to ride it on the roads, underage and without any training
because you had told all the other drivers they must cut their speed to
5MPH so he doesn't get hurt, but it would be irresponsible.
You could give your kid a TV in his bedroom, and then insist the TV companies
don't show adult material after 9pm, but that would also be irresponsible.
You could give your kid a chainsaw and tell him to chop down some trees
you don't like without giving him any training or supervision, but that
would also be irresponsible.
You could give your kid an internet account and let him use it without
supervision or any education as to what he might find or how he should
interpret it, and that would be equally irresponsible.
The net is a vast repository of information on every subject under
the sun. As well as information it contains even more misinformation -
people posting incorrect facts because they don't know any better. As well
as misinformation it contains even more disinformation - people lying for
propaganda purposes, such as saying the holocaust didn't happen. The
internet is real life, warts and all (especially the warts), condensed into
a computer monitor. It is *not* a children's toy, any more than a motorbike
or a chainsaw is.
You could fit net nanny software, but he may well figure out how to bypass
that. And, of course, the net nanny s/w can only keep him away from the
naughty pics as long as they're posted into naughty pix groups, which you
and others want to ban - whereupon they'll end up in quite innocuous groups.
> By the by, I suspect this post comes from a child-free zone
You're right.
> since it displays a complete lack of understanding about how children
> operate.
You're wrong. I understand how children operate because I was one myself.
What I don't have is a parent's delusions that his kid is somehow magically
different from any other child.
> It is simply not good enough to expect every parent to maintain constant
> vigil and thereby rationalise the existence of pornographic material.
It is simply not good enough to demand the whole world be turned into
a glorified Disney park because you're too lazy to supervise and instruct
your child. It would appear from your posts that you and his mother are
separated, and it looks like you're trying to make up for not being there
by giving him toys. The internet may have looked like a good choice of
toy because it also lets you communicate with him at a distance, but it
is not a toy suitable for children. Give him a game boy and a mobile phone
instead (but make sure the mobile phone is barred from access to all the
naughty phone lines that abound).
> Those who defend it should be a little less insular. There are many
> different lifestyles to your own and they *all* need to be taken into
> account. If that means legislating for the lowest common denominator --
> which in our legal system it usually does, thank goodness -- then the few
> who would champion the right to free-flowing pornography will lose out, in
> favour of the majority.
This is, of course, bollocks. Much legislation sets age limits on access
to adult material and activities. I would feel quite happy with a law which
says that parents and schools should not permit children to access the net
without appropriate supervision, just as parents commit an offense if they
leave children alone in the house whilst they go off boozing. In fact, the
sooner such a law is passed, the better. The net is not a children's toy,
and children should not be left alone with it any more than they should be
left alone with a bottle of whiskey, or a video recorder and daddy's
collection of porno videos.
> I kind of like the idea that the majority view will win at the end of the
> day. Those in the minority, of course, don't.
I kind of like the idea that parents should be responsible for their
children. Some parents, of course, don't.
BTW, since you chose not to answer last time round, let me ask you these
again...
> >A *responsible* parent would already have warned his son about the perils
> >of accepting sweets from strange men.
So, have you actually warned him about them?
> >A *responsible* parent would, by the time his son reached your son's age,
> >have explained to him such things as sex, homosexuality, paraphilias
> >and unacceptable behaviours such as rape and child sexual abuse.
Have you discussed sex with him at all? Have you warned him of the dangers
of unprotected sex? Have you warned him that as an adult he will meet men
whose preference is for other men and how he should deal with such
approaches if they're unwanted? Have you explained to him that he may
find himself sexually attracted to men and that this is usually a passing
phase? Have you explained to him that for around 10% of men this is not a
passing phase, that he may find he is only happy with men and how he can
best cope in a society which is still largely homophobic?
> >A *responsible* parent would not let his under-age son free and unfettered
> >access to the internet without any parental control whatsoever, *unless*
> >he had fully explained the things his son might encounter, where he might
> >encounter them and *why* they were bad things.
This is the biggie. Have you actually explained to him that he could
encounter all sorts of stuff on the net? Are you satisfied that he is old
enough and mature enough to cope if he does?
> st...@pro.u-net.com
> +++Naked under this Macintosh+++
Oh yes, and have you explained this humorous sig to him? Have you told
him that there are some mentally-ill men who like to walk around nude
wearing only a raincoat and expose themselves to women? Have you told him
the alternative meaning applicable to the net: that some people use the
net to communicate with others for the purpose of sexual stimulation and
can be found naked in front of their computers masturbating?
Or is this another of the things on the net that you can't be bothered
to explain to him? Perhaps we ought to censor you so he doesn't find out
what it means...
--Paul
Julie Brandon
Hiyas,
On Sun, 01 Sep 96 15:47:15 GMT, Phil Payne <Ph...@sievers.com> wrote:
>> Don't you understand that kids his age go looking for things which are
>> swept under the carpet. If I suppressed sex rather than explained it to
>> him, he would soon find a way around the petty little restrictions
>> adults try to impose.
>
>They're _good_ at it too, aren't they?
*Very* good at it indeed.
TTFN,
Julie.
Mark Lowes
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
On Sun, 01 Sep 1996 14:58:45 +0100, in <stan-01099...@news.u-net.com>
st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man) wrote.....
>As I suspect you fully appreciated, my comments were meant to imply that
>women, in general, are less likely to be interested in pornography than
>men and more likely to be offended by it. Do I have to quote a full
>bibliography for this statement too?
No but then you don't need to keep quoting *entire* articles. Try learning
how to snip.
- --
Mark <ham...@lspace.org> http://www.flyhmstr.demon.co.uk/
The Elendor MUSH Shire Home Page http://www.flyhmstr.demon.co.uk/shire/
The Flying Hamster Listserver : list...@flyhmstr.demon.co.uk
If at first you do succeed, try to hide your astonishment.
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Mark Lowes
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
On Sun, 01 Sep 1996 12:23:02 +0100, in <stan-01099...@news.u-net.com>
st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man) wrote.....
[rend]
>FWIW, my son tells me that he has seen all kinds of material on the
>Internet but was only once afraid that an image would shock his peers, and
>adults come to that, and that was a scene of violent murder. I have no
>doubt that he is more intelligent and broad-minded and less likely to be
>shocked than many of his friends. So I am not too concerned about him. As
>I have said, I do worry about others, which in a community-based existence
>I am entitled to do.
Have you attempted to control his access to this material or block sites,
do you even care? Or would you rather have someone else do the job for you
because you can't be bothered?
Mark
- --
Mark <ham...@lspace.org> http://www.flyhmstr.demon.co.uk/
The Elendor MUSH Shire Home Page http://www.flyhmstr.demon.co.uk/shire/
The Flying Hamster Listserver : list...@flyhmstr.demon.co.uk
... What are you doing?!? The message is over, GO AWAY!
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Stan The Man
>> If you had read the whole thread you would have seen that my son is only
>> one of the cast members. The others are the newbies, the curious, the
>> stupid et al, any of whom can stumble upon shocking material.
>
>Which they can in the real world too. Mind you, one expects that somebody
>who wanders into a sex shop clearly labelled sex shop has some idea of
>what they might see, just as somebody who chooses to read an alt.sex
>group will. Unless, of course, their parents never told them about sex
>and they don't even know what the word means.
>
>> Where exactly does my duty as a responsible parent slot in here?
>
>Education, control and supervision.
I assume you are intentionally misinterpreting my post since it was quite
plain. My question was (paraphrased): How does my duty as a responsible
parent help people *other* than my son, ie the 'newbies, the curious, the
stupid et al'? I am fully aware of my duties as a responsible father, but
thnk you for pointing them out.
In fact, despite the fact that I don't see my son for 5 days a week, I
believe that I have done everything possible to prepare him responsibly
for the real world including *all* of your very kind suggestions.
But it is disingenuous to claim, as do you and others, that a parent
should maintain a constant vigil in these matters. Insofar as it is
possible, I do supervise my son whenever he is connected to the Internet
at my house -- and I have made sure that his access at his mother's house
is via CompuServe rather than a fully fledged Internet account.
But many times he moves out of our sphere of control. He accesses the
Internet at friends' houses. He goes to clubs where he pays 50p for an
hour's access. I cannot be with him all the time and I cannot rely on
other adults to supervise their children's activities as I might wish when
my son is with them.
As others have pointed out, there is a big risk attached to telling
children where *not* to go on the Internet since that makes them even more
curious -- and as sure as eggs are eggs, they *will* get the chance
somewhere to explore without parental supervision.
Most contributors to this thread have chosen to over-simplify this issue
-- presumably because it enables them to deflect any responsibility from
themselves corporately onto individual parents. But, even when parents are
as attentive as they can possibly be, it will never amount to
round-the-clock control, especially of 13, 14 and 15-year olds.
And, I repeat, the children are but part of the cast. We should not forget
our corporate - not individual - responsibility to the newbies, etc.
Oh, I nearly forgot, what do _you_ think my sig means? If you choose to
interpret it as risqué, then that is your problem, not mine. And even if
it were, it hardly qualifies as pornography and it is a
time-wasting/desperate tactic to even comment upon it.
Stan
--
Stan The Man
In article <84159053...@herrflik.demon.co.uk>,
To...@herrflik.demon.co.uk (Tony Lambord) wrote:
>> I think that I will be satisfied with the outcome of this argument --
>> especially after reading today's Observer in
>>which Demon are reported to have agreed to restrict access to certasin
>>newsgroups.
>
>Did you believe them, then?
Well, I haven't read any retraction here from Demon nor even a complaint
about a misquote.
Andrew Shuttlewood
On 31-Aug-96 09:51:35, Stan The Man (st...@pro.u-net.com) wrote the following.
I reply thus.
>The law needs to address what is *possible*, not what is *probable*.
Too right. I mean, you see all these Americans posting that they could
nuke the rest of the world, well it's possible that these people could
get into power, so the government should invade America immediately to
stop this happening
Great logic m8
--
Andrew Shuttlewood, (An...@shu-wood.demon.co.uk) AndyS on IRC (Effnet)
Ideas win prizes! Think of something exciting that describes me well
to go in this space and you could win, uhhh, a friendly e-mail :-)
--
I think he'd like to have been Ronnie Kray
but then nature didn't make him that way
Blur: Charmless Man
Andrew Shuttlewood
On 31-Aug-96 00:03:09, Stan The Man (st...@pro.u-net.com) wrote the following.
I reply thus.
>In article <32273179...@news.demon.co.uk>,
>mal...@pigsty.demon.co.uk (Malcolm McMahon) wrote:
>>Besides which I think it does people no harm to be disturbed now and
>>again.
>What an extremely silly an immature thing to say. Lowers the tone of the
>whole debate...
Not necessarily, consider this, would Bandaid have raised so much money
if we hadn't seen pictures of starving children on our screens? Would we
have cared so much about Yugoslavia if we hadn't seen the pictures of
the broken families?
Shocking people can sometimes have a good effect
In this case, it can expand people's horizons to accept that not
everybody is a clone of everybody else.
--
Andrew Shuttlewood, (An...@shu-wood.demon.co.uk) AndyS on IRC (Effnet)
Ideas win prizes! Think of something exciting that describes me well
to go in this space and you could win, uhhh, a friendly e-mail :-)
--
Why can't we ever meet anybody who can shoot straight?
Andrew Shuttlewood
On 31-Aug-96 20:08:24, Stan The Man (st...@pro.u-net.com) wrote the following.
I reply thus.
>This is a laughable attempt to abrogate any responsibility whatever for
>what is accessible via the internet. If you had read the whole thread you
>would have seen that my son is only one of the cast members. The others
>are the newbies, the curious, the stupid et al, any of whom can stumble
>upon shocking material. Where exactly does my duty as a responsible parent
>slot in here?
>By the by, I suspect this post comes from a child-free zone since it
>displays a complete lack of understanding about how children operate. It
>is simply not good enough to expect every parent to maintain constant
>vigil and thereby rationalise the existence of pornographic material.
>Those who defend it should be a little less insular. There are many
>different lifestyles to your own and they *all* need to be taken into
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This is the funniest part of your post. Why should people who like
pornography(which on the Internet is scanned, and generally consensual)
be blocked from viewing it?
>account. If that means legislating for the lowest common denominator --
>which in our legal system it usually does, thank goodness -- then the few
>who would champion the right to free-flowing pornography will lose out, in
>favour of the majority. I kind of like the idea that the majority view
>will win at the end of the day. Those in the minority, of course, don't.
>Stan
<SNIP (unlike the previous poster)>
Surely the solution to this is obvious. Demon should offer a service to
bar access to newsgroups if the parent so wants it.
Bingo, then there are no excuses such as "Any sufficiently brainy child
can get round netnanny", as most children, or teenagers can't write
cheques and aren't going to.
Bingo problem solved.
--
Andrew Shuttlewood, (An...@shu-wood.demon.co.uk) AndyS on IRC (Effnet)
Ideas win prizes! Think of something exciting that describes me well
to go in this space and you could win, uhhh, a friendly e-mail :-)
--
I've played pool with planets, but I never thought I'ld taste an edible Pot Noodle
Peter Ceresole
In article <stan-01099...@news.u-net.com>,
st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man) wrote:
>What I can't fathom is why the moral majority are castigated by the
>libertarian minority for their freely-held views about what is right and
>wrong
I don't think castigation is right. But I certainly don't like the idea
that somebody else, worried by fears for their children that I certainly
never felt for mine (my girls are both just over 20 now) should try to
restrict everybody's freedoms as a result. You have the means to protect
your children right now, using net nanny type programs. Ideally the best
protection is to have the kind of relationship with your children that
would mean that they felt safe whatever they saw- that's the only issue. To
say that they would be corrupted or changed by something they saw on the
Net is nonsense; it doesn't work like that. The trouble comes when they
operate in a moral or emotional vacuum. And if they do, what they find on
the Net will be the least of their problems.
I don't want to deny the comfort for parents of feeling that they can
protect their children, but I do object when that protection is illusory,
and the way they choose is to deny freedom to others.
This is theoretical. The only child pornography I have ever seen was
material collected by colleagues of mine making a TV programme about how
easy it was to obtain. This was in magazines, and long before the present
incarnation of the Internet. I've never downloaded any illegal pictures
from the Net, partly because the idea doesn't seem attractive to me (I have
my hang-ups like anybody else) and partly because the whole process looks
like a terrible sweat. Multi-part uuencodes out of order sound like just
the kind of hassle I don't want. But I regret it, because it means I don't
know what we're talking about here. I guess I ought to... Do you?
--
Peter
Mark Lowes
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
On Sun, 01 Sep 96 14:10:02 GMT, in <841587...@star-one.org.uk>
Simon Gray <si...@star-one.org.uk> wrote.....
[....]
>So you are suggesting that They should legislate against clueless idiots ?
Nice idea but without the lusers on usenet who would we laugh at?
- --
Mark <ham...@lspace.org> http://www.flyhmstr.demon.co.uk/
The Elendor MUSH Shire Home Page http://www.flyhmstr.demon.co.uk/shire/
The Flying Hamster Listserver : list...@flyhmstr.demon.co.uk
Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.
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Michael Ashton
In <32237933...@news.demon.co.uk> gra...@emtel.demon.co.uk (Graeme Brown) writes:
>I don't think it should be. A newsagent selling magazines about
>paedophilia would soon find himself up in court (and quite right too).
>Why should standards of what's acceptable be different for the 'net.
*Yawn* because the post office doesn't find themselves in court.
--
"Arousing me, now, with a sense of desire"
"Possessing my soul 'till my body's on fire"
Peter Ceresole
In article <322A9E...@cableol.co.uk>,
Simon Watkins <sim...@cableol.co.uk> wrote:
>What you say above Peter is totally wrong. What happened in one of the
>alt.binaries
>groups was this (the group was alt.binaries.drwho, for the tv programme
>Dr Who - as innocent as that), a picture of a pierced vagina was posted.
>So it is definately not the case that you have to go into one of these
>porn nesgroups.
Hi: welcome out of lurk mode.
You've just made my point for me. It was being said (the debate has been
raging on for some time as you know) that having these named groups offers
some protection, and I was saying that you aren't going to go into them and
download pictures by accident. That is still true. Finding a nasty picture
in a Whosie group confirms what many here have been saying; taking out the
named groups isn't going to help in any real way, and may simply make
things worse.
I take your point about automatic decoding, but that's a very minor factor.
The main thing is having to choose to go into a clearly named newsgroup. I
simply can't see that happening by accident. Maybe from stupidity, but then
if you start to legislate against stupidity you have a long way to go.
You'd have to ban the lottery to start with...
Lurk if you wish, but it's good that you've joined in. Stick around and
talk to us.
--
Peter
Howard Harris
pe...@cara.demon.co.uk (Peter Ceresole) wrote:
>This is theoretical. The only child pornography I have ever seen was
>material collected by colleagues of mine making a TV programme about how
>easy it was to obtain. This was in magazines, and long before the present
>incarnation of the Internet. I've never downloaded any illegal pictures
>from the Net, partly because the idea doesn't seem attractive to me (I have
>my hang-ups like anybody else) and partly because the whole process looks
>like a terrible sweat. Multi-part uuencodes out of order sound like just
>the kind of hassle I don't want. But I regret it, because it means I don't
>know what we're talking about here. I guess I ought to... Do you?
>
This is an interesting point. I have seen these images, I went out of
my way to look at what all the fuss is about. First, the child
orientated binaries have a very poor ratio of binary:non-binary
articles - in other words, there aren`t that many images there.
Second, the images were all of children engaged in the `usual` range
of sexual activities (oral, anal, conventional penetrative - the
former was by far the most common) either with other children or with
adults, or of naked/semi-naked, young, usually girls, on their own. I
saw no dead bodies. Personally, I found the images of the holocaust
in the Cybrary of the Holocaust (http://remember.org/) far more
disturbing than anything that came my way via usenet.
It seems to me that much that is now occurring is a displacement
activity - it is the producers of these images that need to be sorted
out, not the carriers and consumers. I would have thought it would be
much more sensible to keep these news groups available and then
monitor who uploads material to them, than to force these people
underground, to disperse across the whole of the internet which, of
course, many have already done.
The priority, surely, is not to stop Stan`s young son stumbling into
one of these images, but to stop the sexual of abuse of these children
- and banning access to these news groups seems, to me, to have a
purely negative consequence in this respect. It will probably not help
prevent one child being sexually abused and it will make it more
difficult to track any of the abusers.
We are in danger of allowing the images to be confused with the
reality: it is not so much the images which hurt, but the way in which
they are produced - an image of a five year old boy being buggered
doesn`t hurt, the buggering does.
It may be that Stan`s young son will have to run the risk of
encountering these images in order that it be more easy to prevent the
sexual abuse of children.
Howard
Mark Lowes
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
On Sun, 01 Sep 1996 20:51:01 +0100, in <stan-01099...@news.u-net.com>
st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man) wrote.....
[....]
>>> I think that I will be satisfied with the outcome of this argument --
>>> especially after reading today's Observer in
>>>which Demon are reported to have agreed to restrict access to certasin
>>>newsgroups.
>>
>>Did you believe them, then?
>
>Well, I haven't read any retraction here from Demon nor even a complaint
>about a misquote.
Radio 5 Live
The Big Byte
1st September 1996 @ 12:00 approx
Interviewer "Now, what about today's story that Demon have changed their
stance as a direct result of the Observer's campaign"
Cliff Stanford
"Well again it's absolute nonsense it's the Observer backing
off from an very defamatory story last week, we have not
changed our stance. Our stance has been that be abhor
pornography, we are looking to do everything we can to avoid
paedophiles using our service as part of their transport."
Good enough for you?
- --
Mark <ham...@lspace.org> http://www.flyhmstr.demon.co.uk/
The Elendor MUSH Shire Home Page http://www.flyhmstr.demon.co.uk/shire/
The Flying Hamster Listserver : list...@flyhmstr.demon.co.uk
The trouble with being punctual is that no one is there to appreciate it.
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Mike Slocombe
In article <stan-01099...@news.u-net.com>, Stan The Man
<st...@pro.u-net.com> writes
>In article <32289aa...@news.dircon.co.uk>, Big...@technocom.com (Big
>Ears.) wrote:
>
>>
>>Hear, hear. An excellent posting.
>
>I presume you went into aol mode simply so that you could re-propagate
>this patronising and misdirected post. I would like to know how many
>children you are responsible for.
It always amuses me that as soon as someone becomes a parent they
suddenly acquire this extra layer of smug knowledge and feel obliged to
sound off as to what is best for all the children in the world,
dismissing counter-arguments by saying, 'well, you're not a parent, so
you wouldn't *understand*'.
>In fact, I would like to know just how
>many of the people in these threads who are championing the so-called
>freedom of the Internet have children at home who are old enough to surf.
>The great majority of anti-censorship posters have made no reference to
>their own children, which I assume is because they don't have any.
Wrong. I have a beautiful little boy, who will be told all about the
wonders and the evils of the big wide world when the time comes.
Which will be way before I get him an internet account.
>Which
>just might explain, although not excuse, their lopsided view of life and
>morality.
Here you go again - switching into 'morality' mode.
Morals are not dependent on whether someone has a child or not, or are
you suggesting- as your post implies -that people are devoid of them
until they have a child themseves?
Mike
--
********URBAN75 MAGAZINE NOW ONLINE!:www.urban75.demon.co.uk*********
Football Fans Against the Criminal Justice Act-www.display.co.uk/ffacja
*Rated amongst the top 5% of all sites on the Internet by Point Survey!
'B.Jones'football comic Comic:www.display.co.uk/ffacja/bjones
Simon Gray
In article <stan-01099...@news.u-net.com>
st...@pro.u-net.com "Stan The Man" writes:
~ As I suspect you fully appreciated, my comments were meant to imply that
~ women, in general, are less likely to be interested in pornography than
~ men and more likely to be offended by it. Do I have to quote a full
~ bibliography for this statement too?
I think you'll find that women are just as interested (or not) as men
in pornography, & 'sexy things' in general.
Whence the rise in popularity of Ann Summers parties.
Simon Gray
~ >I don't believe we're championing the right to free-flowing pornography,
~ >regardless of how much you want to cast it that way. We're championing
~ >the right of adults to read or look at whatever it is that they wish,
~ >without having the state decide what they can or can't see.
~
~ Exactly. If the Internet community were 100 per cent sane, rational
~ adults, I would have no problem with this. But where is it written that
~ others, eg children, women and the unworldly should be excluded from this
~ world so that the founding fathers may continue to do exactly what they
~ like without any consideration for the rest?
Bwahahahaha !!
So we should also ban prostitutes from working in brothels. After all,
where is it written that others, eg children, should be excluded from them
so that etc...
Simon Gray
In article <841601463s...@horizon.co.uk>
ne...@horizon.co.uk "Richard Ashton" writes:
~ You sir, are a craven fuckwit.
I rarely[*] concur when I see {R} call people a fuckwit, but in this
instance I believe he has most succinctly hit the nail fully on the head.
[*]Though if I read all the same froups he does I probably would much more
frequently.
Simon Watkins
Peter Ceresole wrote:
>
> In article <stan-30089...@news.u-net.com>,> >People, especially novices
> >and children _do_ stumble around, with perhaps a bit of help from friends
> >or peers, and they can very easily find their way into any of these
>
> you have to select it. The words are up there on the screen. They are
> totally obvious. Nobody can get in there, select, download, decode and view
> an image without knowing very well what they are doing. It can't happen by
> accident.
>
> They may not know *exactly* what the image depicts, because you never can
> until you see it. But to say that somebody might innocently stumble across
> pornography in these groups requires an Observer-style attitude to reality.
>
> --
> Peter
Well, this must be a stron debate, you have managed to kick me out of
lurk
mode and bring me in to say my two penneth...
What you say above Peter is totally wrong. What happened in one of the
alt.binaries
groups was this (the group was alt.binaries.drwho, for the tv programme
Dr Who - as innocent as that), a picture of a pierced vagina was posted.
So it is definately not the case that you have to go into one of these
porn nesgroups. The other fact is, that with many newsreader
applications( like the one in Netscape 2), the viewers are built in, so
you can see Base 64 ot UUencoded messages tagged on to the text without
even having to download and collate them.
The point here is, however, that the Metropolitan Police action is
futile. These images will just appear in the so called "safe" groups. In
fact, Short of making every group moderator controlled, there is
probably nothing that can be done.
In fact, barring the offending groups will possibly mean that even more
material like this will appear in innocent groups.
I don't know what the answer is, I'm just correcting you in your
assumption that you have to deliberately select this material from a
known group, then configure a viewer.
Simon.
..back into lurk mode.
email Home : sim...@cableol.co.uk
Work : simon_...@nt.com
Peter McDermott
In article <841587...@star-one.org.uk>,
Simon Gray <si...@star-one.org.uk> wrote:
>~ What an extremely silly an immature thing to say. Lowers the tone of the
>~ whole debate...
>
>A bit like a .sig which says 'Naked under this Macintosh'.
Actually, much as I disagree with Stan, I think it's a
pretty clever .sig.
Not a patch on "Cool as fuck" though. :-)
Peter McDermott
In article <stan-01099...@news.u-net.com>,
st...@pro.u-net.com (Stan The Man) wrote:
>>You keep on going on about your fears, Stan, but you still haven't
>>posted any persuasive arguments or evidence that I can see.
>
>I am not a psychologist, nor a researcher. Just a paid-up member of the
>human race.
I'm not suggesting that one needs to be. However, we all use
some process of reasoning to arrive at our views on any issue.
I'm suggesting that your views are arrived at through a
combination of fear (about what might happen) and ignorance
(about what will, among other things.) I was asking you to
lay out your arguments so that I can point out where they are
weak. Even psychologists and researchers can make weak, irrational
arguments (psychologists in particular, seem prone in my view. ;))
>FWIW, my son tells me that he has seen all kinds of material on the
>Internet but was only once afraid that an image would shock his peers, and
>adults come to that, and that was a scene of violent murder. I have no
>doubt that he is more intelligent and broad-minded and less likely to be
>shocked than many of his friends. So I am not too concerned about him. As
>I have said, I do worry about others, which in a community-based existence
>I am entitled to do.
>
>>>favour of the majority. I kind of like the idea that the majority view
>>>will win at the end of the day.
>>
>>Well, given that the majority view expressed here seems to be
>>opposed to censorship, I assume you'll be happy when Demon gets
>>to keep all the groups, including the pedophile ones?
>
>The views expressed here should not be misinterpreted as the majority
>view, as you must be aware.
I don't know Stan. I'm getting a good idea what the view of a
majority of people who _use_ the Internet think. I'm not sure
why anyone else's view is relevant? But even if it was, I'm not
at all sure that I'd know what it was. I'm usually pretty careful
not to confuse the views of hysterical newspapers engaged in the
creation of a moral panic with the majority view. After all, if
I did that, I'd believe that Liverpool fans pissed on Sheffield
coppers from a great height as they tended to the wounded and
dying at Hillsborough, and then looted the bodies of the sick
and dying.
Just one more example of newspapers taking the word of coppers
in a corner rather than doing their jobs and finding out what
_really_ happened.
>I think that I will be satisfied with the
>outcome of this argument -- especially after reading today's Observer in
>which Demon are reported to have agreed to restrict access to certasin
>newsgroups.
Did they? I must have missed that part altogether?
Mike Tuppen
In article <841601463s...@horizon.co.uk>, Richard Ashton
<anti...@horizon.co.uk> writes
>} The great majority of anti-censorship posters have made no reference to
>} just might explain, although not excuse, their lopsided view of life and
>} morality.
>
I have 2 girls (9 and 5)
I fear for them cycling on our local (country) roads.
I fear for them being picked up in Supermarkets.
I fear for them being picked up when walking next door unaccopanied.
I fear that their minds will become mangled by religion at school.
I am NOT worried by what they see of their own free will. They have
watched, with us, films which contain x-rated scenes of violence or sex.
We have been there to explain what they are seeing - whether truth or
fiction, how the special effects were created, what the people were
doing on the bed, etc. At their current ages I would not wish then to
sit alone through programmes which they would find disturbing or
confusing.
They have never had nightmares.
They don't go around hurting animals or people.
They don't snigger when they see a naked body.
They know the violence they see on the news is real and horrific.
They know the violence they see in Terminator is not.
They are not insensitive, or uncaring (they cried their eyes out when
they watched Fieval Goes West (cartoon where the mouse looses its
parents)!
They should not live in ignorance of all the rotteness that invades
society
As parents we owe it to our "investment in the future" that they should
have all the facts available, no matter how embarassing it may be to
tell them. One day we will no longer be with them to say what they can
and cannot see or do. They must be prepared for what lurks out in the
world.
If my children decided to download material from the alt.sex groups I do
not see them rushing into the street instant nymphomaniacs. I am certain
that if they were disturbed by the images they saw they would come to us
for guidance. It will then be up to us to make certain they understand
if people are being physically or mentally hurt in what they are
viewing, and whether this is good or bad.
The *presence* of child pornography on the net is not the problem - the
problem is the *production* of this material in the first place. It is
this that MUST be stopped, and censoring news groups will do nothing
worthwhile in this respect.
Mike
--
Mike Tuppen mgtu...@iee.org
Chris Croughton
In article <stan-01099...@news.u-net.com>
st...@pro.u-net.com "Stan The Man" wrote:
>I assume you are intentionally misinterpreting my post since it was quite
>plain. My question was (paraphrased): How does my duty as a responsible
>parent help people *other* than my son, ie the 'newbies, the curious, the
>stupid et al'?
Simple, it doesn't. Unless you want to help them by hand-holding them,
or becoming a surrogate parent. You have no right to take over that job
for another unless you can prove (to the satisfaction of the courts)
that they are abusing those people.
>I am fully aware of my duties as a responsible father, but
>thnk you for pointing them out.
Really? I'll come back to that...
>But many times he moves out of our sphere of control. He accesses the
>Internet at friends' houses. He goes to clubs where he pays 50p for an
>hour's access. I cannot be with him all the time and I cannot rely on
>other adults to supervise their children's activities as I might wish when
>my son is with them.
Or: He drinks and smokes pot at his friends houses. He goes to clubs
where he gets drugs. How do you know? You aren't there and you've said
that you can't rely on other adults who are there.
And you say you are aware of your duties as a father? Ah, that's it,
you're 'aware' of them but you don't carry them out. Thanks for
clarifying.
Incidentally, I saw hard-core porn before I knew that's what it was
called, literally behind the bike sheds at school. Homosexual porn as
well, which I found most off-putting. No kiddie-porn, though - come to
that, I still haven't seen any. Have you?
>As others have pointed out, there is a big risk attached to telling
>children where *not* to go on the Internet since that makes them even more
>curious -- and as sure as eggs are eggs, they *will* get the chance
>somewhere to explore without parental supervision.
So you tell them why. And you earn their trust so that if they see it
they will come and tell you about it, and you can explain how that could
have been their kid sister or that girl down the road being hurt.
>Most contributors to this thread have chosen to over-simplify this issue
Yes, you have.
>-- presumably because it enables them to deflect any responsibility from
>themselves corporately onto individual parents.
The responsibility *is* on the parents. It's the parents who choose to
have the children and bring them up, it's their responsibility. You're
the one who's tring to wriggle out of your responsibilities and say
"society's to blame".
>But, even when parents are
>as attentive as they can possibly be, it will never amount to
>round-the-clock control, especially of 13, 14 and 15-year olds.
So, what are you doing to stop underage drinking and smoking? Or your
son going off and having sex with an underage girl, for that matter?
Because that happens a damn site more often than kids looking at net
pictures and doing any more than jerking off.
>And, I repeat, the children are but part of the cast. We should not forget
>our corporate - not individual - responsibility to the newbies, etc.
I'm not part of your company. I have the same responsibility to net
newbies that I have to a visitor to London to stop them wandering round
wherever the red light district has gone to (I was about to say Soho,
but that's been cleaned up now) - warn them what's there, if I see them
and they ask, otherwise they learn to read a guidebook. And if they
want to visit that area, it's their choice.
>Oh, I nearly forgot, what do _you_ think my sig means? If you choose to
>interpret it as risqu, then that is your problem, not mine. And even if
>it were, it hardly qualifies as pornography and it is a
>time-wasting/desperate tactic to even comment upon it.
I can think of several ideas, all involving you being naked (which is
what it explicitly states). Which is not a sight I want to see (any
more than you want to see me naked - believe me, you don't). But given
your high moralistic stance it probably means that you're a flasher
who's "coming out"...
.-------------------------------.-------------------------------------.
| ch...@keris.demon.co.uk | FIAWOL (Filking Is A Way Of Life) |
`-------------------------------^-------------------------------------'
Ian G Batten
In article <b1ovgFAF...@tuppambr.demon.co.uk>,
Mike Tuppen <mgtu...@iee.org> wrote:
> I fear for them cycling on our local (country) roads.
> I fear for them being picked up in Supermarkets.
> I fear for them being picked up when walking next door unaccopanied.
> I fear that their minds will become mangled by religion at school.
This is one of the best things I've read on Usenet in a decade.
ian
Richard Hanson
>} The great majority of anti-censorship posters have made no reference to
>} their own children, which I assume is because they don't have any. Which
>} just might explain, although not excuse, their lopsided view of life and
>} morality.
>
>You sir, are a craven fuckwit.
Oxymoronic worthless waffle as usual from you, {R}. His views may be
incorrect, but if you disagree with his opinions why don't you
rationalise in reply rather than than sinking into your giggly
schoolgirl mode once again?
--
Richard
http://www.utopiasw.demon.co.uk
Ian G Batten
In article <stan-01099...@news.u-net.com>,
Stan The Man <st...@pro.u-net.com> wrote:
> others, eg children, women and the unworldly should be excluded from this
Your easy linking of ``women'' and ``children'' in the groups that need
to be protected by big, strong, men may cut it in the 1890s, but looks a
little regressive today.
It's Naomi Wolf, or one of the other young US feminist critics, I think,
who points to the way in which some branches of feminism are remaking
sex in the image of one hundred years ago, with women as fainting
flowers to be protected from erotic images.
ian