Censorship, Politics vs Porn
Echo: Porn-Surfing By Proxy
Summary: If works for politics, it works for porn. And there's a whole lot more people interested in porn than in politics
Mr. X first visited CNN.com and a few other media pages, but when Hunter checked his psiphonode [proxy] log again hours later, he discovered Mr. X had moved on to a search for nude pictures of Gwen Stefani and photos of a panty-less Britney Spears.
Then he spent five hours on hard-core sex sites.
This is the flip side of the values vs. implications argument. That censorware for {parent, child, sexual material } and {government, citizen, human rights} are the same technical issue. It does no use to repeat endlessly that one's one values are in favor of the former and not the latter. The implications are independent of the personal values.
Not that this reflects badly on the goals of Psiphon and other such projects. But it's a fact of life.
By Seth Finkelstein | posted in censorware | on May 30, 2007 05:27 PM (Infothought permalink)
Do readers of a library book commission the author to write it - simply by their reading of it?
Does the media commission serial killers, kidnappings, and acts of terrorism - because the perpetrators seek the oxygen of publicity?
Do visitors of web pages commission the publishers of those pages?
If the mere act of seeking and viewing certain information is a crime, are the thoughts that lead to this also a crime?
Is there such a thing as thought-crime?