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Online monkey-spank expert no longer
The original report has since been revealed as a very minor incident of graffiti, but its development into a tale of mass riot was typical of the mood at the time. Joggers were stopped in the street and frisked in case they were carrying paedometers. Swimmers were hunted down for wearing Spaedos. Sub-editors were shot on sight for being paedantic.
Around this time, an ex-colleague - the late Guy Kewney - was being hounded by a tabloid reporter because Guy had once moderated a closed online forum about soft porn. For months, he had to put up with emails and public messages from the hack who kept calling him a "nonce".
Shortly beforehand, I had written an article about internet smut for a magazine and, for a brilliant three months following its appearance, I became the go-to man for regional radio stations wanting someone to speak to them over the phone live on air about web jigglies to titillate their listeners. But after Guy's experience, I decided to strike 'online monkey-spank expert' off my CV.
The problem is that you only have to utter the word "porn" now and people think of the internet straight away. We shouldn't be surprised. It was the same in the early 1990s when popular media had you believe that "Japanese animation" and "dangerous hard-core porn" were one and the same thing. Looking at Urotsukidoji today, the idea is laughable. Get your tentacles out for the lads, eh?
So when Psychologies magazine and the like talk about children seeing "porn" on the internet, do they mean full-on shagging or Page Three nudity? Are we talking about scary deviant stuff, or a Channel 4 educational site? A Rhianna video? Library clips of Linford Christie running the 100 metres?
Even more laughable is the shocking discovery that kids as young as 12 have seen porn on the internet. I don't know about you but I saw my first jazz-mag at school at 11, and by 12 I was regularly misusing the lingerie pages of my mum's Freemans catalogue. Why does everyone think this is weird or, worse, an occurrence exclusive to the modern internet-enabled world?
However, what really bugs me is not the call to ban this and that. After all, there is an important role for censorship in a society in which very stupid people live. Often it gets silly - anyone here remember how The Prodigy's single 'Breathe' was originally labelled as having "explicit lyrics"? - but it's often necessary to protect the innocent. What is frustrating, however, is that the calls to censor the internet are being made without the faintest idea of how it can be done.
Take the 'opt-in' method, for example. With this, you're denied access to ugly-bumping pictures and videos unless you specifically agree to accept them. So there you are, a fuckwit parent who already couldn't give a toss about what the kids are up to, having ignored all the parental controls on your computer and thrown your ISP's free one-year trial of Kaspersky in the bin, and you see the message: "Do you want access to hard-core porn?" Do you click YES or NO? Duh.
But the silliest of them all is the method demanded by the Online Safety Bill, and incidentally also by John Humphys: ISPs should ensure that images of 'porn' - which could mean just nudity, remember - should not be shown to children while they are online.
Now how the flying feck is that supposed to be done? Dick recognition software, perhaps? ®
Alistair Dabbs is a freelance technology tart, juggling IT journalism, editorial training and digital publishing. He is not addicted to viewing porn sites in the early hours of the morning, although he is charmed by the idea of jazz-mags in the 1970s selling "hot" cine-reels by mail order. They recall a time which was more innocent, playful and glamorous. And hairier.
COMMENTS
If MP's had it all their way regarding censorship...
...we'd still be paying for their duck houses, moats and pr0n whilst listening to them telling us how hard they're making our taxes work for us.
That's the deal with censorship. You have to trust totally the ones doing the censoring to do the right thing. So, can anyone think of anything MP's collectively did in the last few years to affect the publics trust in them? Hint - read the first sentence again.
I wrote to my MP.. Got a reply too..
I didnt baffle him with science, and the why it wont work, and the how to get around any blocks... Because thats not going to win us any arguments. We'll get 'oh you're just not trying!' thrown back in our faces. 'We can put Men on the Moon, you must be able to deal with this!'.
So.. I took a differnt tack, one you've hinted at in this article.
I said, "why should I have to put my name on a list to access legal adult content? And when my name is on that list, and an annoymous hacker gang releases that list to the internet... People like teachers, nurses, politicians will be called PERVS!! Someone think of the children!!"
Scare them with their own game! Thats my thought.... Many of them think it'll be fine to add their name to the lists, because really its 'just harmless adult pron'... but when they're the one on the front page of the Daily Fail, they'll soon realise it was a bad idea.
Society has a strange attitude to nudity lately I think.
As an example of this, a couple of weeks ago my wife took my 4 year old daughter out for a day with her friend from school, and that friends mother was there too.
While they were out they saw a statue of a naked man. The friend of my daughter, 4 and a half years old, pointed at its genitals and asked what that was. My daughter told her it was his "willy". The friends mother was outraged that a 4 year old girl would know this and was asking how she knew, why she knew, etc.
Obviously in their house opposite sex nudity in front of the children is not allowed, which I just find really strange. I dont wander around my house naked for the sake of it, but if my daughter is there as i come out of the shower or while I'm getting dressed, we dont make a big deal of making sure I'm covered up.
But, having said that, i wouldn't want her looking at xvideos or youporn.
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