RE: Facebook censorship and internet porn

 

-----Original Message-----
From: brin-l-bounces-r0TUnz/JSrZWk0Htik3J/[email protected] [mailto:brin-l-bounces-r0TUnz/JSrZWk0Htik3J/[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Bruce Bostwick
Sent: Saturday, December 11, 2010 8:56 PM
To: Killer Bs (David Brin et al) Discussion
Subject: Re: Facebook censorship and internet porn

On Dec 11, 2010, at 7:42 PM, Jon Louis Mann wrote:

>> ..."net nanny" software block and report any search for any string 
>> containing the word "breast"
>> ...that may prevent a woman from learning how to examine herself for 
>> cancer or her options if she is diagnosed...
>> ...policy of removing pictures of breastfeeding. I know of a few 
>> images that disappeared even though they were privacy-restricted in 
>> such a way that the only possible audience was 
>> clothing-optional-aware and I doubt there were any complaints to 
>> speak of, so I may very well be wrong. The rules seem to be somewhat 
>> variable, and the only consistent cases seem to be ones with one or 
>> both nipples visible.
>> one friend who pushed that about as close to the limit as they seem 
>> to tolerate -- the one of her in *only* a skirt and pasties is still 
>> up...
>> Charlie
>
> thanks for the link, charlie all is explained:
> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/02/breastfeeding-facebook-
> photos/
>
> i found this on facebook:
> http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=39521488436
> evidently there are a lot of riled up women about this.  evidently, 
> some few were using breastfeeding as a way around the facebook 
> restriction on frontal nudity. i still think this is a tempest in a 
> teapot.
> personally, i think free speech is being abused on the internet.  i do 
> not want my eight year old to accidentally access porn when clicking 
> on some spam site, or by googling white house.
> i don't want to censor the internet, but perhaps there should be a 
> separate internet isolating any porn related material?
> jon

This would be an excellent idea if the porn industry could be persuaded to
go along with it.

As perverse and counterproductive as this sounds, said industry, as a whole,
seems bent on the exact opposite, and in fact, in many cases the less
scrupulous players in the industry go to great lengths to invade inboxes and
hijack web searches specifically to avoid being confined to the target
market that would be happy to go find them wherever they are.

This was made abundantly clear by the somewhat paradoxical maneuvering
surrounding the proposed .xxx TLD for porn domains.  The idea of a
porn-specific TLD made perfect sense, as it would have provided a place
where interested adults could easily have gone looking for whatever they
wanted, and would have made the process of blocking porn from underage
computer users (or any others whom society feels the need to protect from
porn) relatively trivial and straightforward.

* * * * * * * * * *

Really?

When I was first aware of an attempt to create the top-level domain .xxx,
the porn industry was on board at the time, it was a bunch of religious
leaders that were so vocal that it was blocked it then.  At least, this was
what I heard from someone who was in close communication with folks members
of the ICANN board....  Said individual expressed disbelief and couldn't
figure out why the *hell* any religious folks would get involved in trying
to *block* something like that.

	Julia