Crassy or classy
I understand why many places would block porn sites they are more victims of some very crassy people.
Starbucks bans XXX Wi-Fi
Coffee mega-chain Starbucks will ban X-rated websites on its free Wi-Fi networks following pressure from anti-porn groups. The US java-slinger says it will add filters to prevent surfers from peeping at saucy content while using the free wireless internet offered in its cafés. This comes after "food" chain McDonalds said it …
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Saturday 16th July 2016 05:33 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: What?
Who ?
The Puritan watch police. There are still many Puritan traits in the USA. I've had the word Sussex censored in the past when searching for something on a Hotel WiFi.
The Law is the Law and it will be prosecuted to the full extend of the Law. There are places where even breathing the Air is a felony.
Now you have a failed Politician proposing that even visiting an ISIS/Al Quaeda site should be a felony.
https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/07/15/2243250/newt-gingrich-says-visiting-an-isis-or-al-qaeda-website-should-be-a-felony
So much for the Constitution.
Trump's policies (should he get elected) will probably violate at least the 1st, 3rd, 4th and 6th ammendments to the Constitution. Does that stop him? Like hell it does.
It is one crazy place at times. Glad I don't live there anymore.
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Sunday 17th July 2016 22:11 GMT WatAWorld
Even in Germany, shops that have sex toys and visual erotica on open display
There are "dirty pictures" and there is "pornography" as legally defined in a nation's criminal code.
Very few countries tolerate kiddie porn, bestiality, or photos of actual murder or torture created for entertainment. I think we'd all be fine with companies blocking that sort of actual porn as defined by criminal law.
But doubtless this American company will, in the USA at least, be baring sites with bare breasts and wide open crotches -- the common definition of "pornography" in ordinary American usage.
In other words, Starbucks will be barring "dirty pictures" (visual erotica).
But Starbucks are often crowded, you can take kids in there. I think it is reasonable to block the pictures -- at least in US locations.
Even in Germany, shops that have sex toys and visual erotica on open display have red lights or beads hanging across the doorways to warn you not to bring your kids inside.
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Sunday 17th July 2016 23:20 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Even in Germany, shops that have sex toys and visual erotica on open display
@ WatAWorld:
I agree, but let me play Devil's Advocate for a moment....
"Very few countries tolerate kiddie porn..."
There is an entire Japanese culture built on it (Anime). Even when Amazon Japan got busted for selling kiddie pr0n, they defended it as "...their culture..."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/11371330/Amazons-Japan-HQ-raided-in-child-porn-investigation.html
Manga is only now getting bounced out, state-by-state because law makers are finally realizing what it is! Canada had the sence to kill it all together, but you can still openy buy it in Vancouver's Chinatown.
http://cbldf.org/criminal-prosecutions-of-manga/
http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/criminalizing-cartoons-how-the-law-is-dealing-with-anime-child-pornography-in-canada
"...bestiality..."
Has been around longer than prostitution. You can't hurt a 1200 pound horse with a penis.
Canada is coming to its senses about this legit orientation ( http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/bering-in-mind/animal-lovers-zoophiles-make-scientists-rethink-human-sexuality/ ), but won't go so far as outright legalization:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bestiality-legal-canada-supreme-court-a7073196.html
"I think we'd all be fine with companies blocking that sort of actual porn as defined by criminal law."
I'm fine with this, but where do we stop? OK, let's block kiddie porn... but Islamic countries might round up and shoot people for looking at bikini models. American's are too puritan, so let's not use their laws. Denmark? Netherlands? OK, I'm in!
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Sunday 17th July 2016 22:19 GMT WatAWorld
Re: What?
"Trump's policies (should he get elected) will probably violate at least the 1st, 3rd, 4th and 6th ammendments to the Constitution. Does that stop him? Like hell it does."
Trump won't get in, and if he did, anything that departed greatly from what congress and the SCOUS likes would be overruled and voided.
And if they somehow failed, well, we sadly know what some Americans are like when they don't like a president. Some "right to bear arms" will take the law into his own hands and trash it again.
Anyways, violating the US Constitution and international treaties is regular practice in the USA. Look at the sub-section of the Geneva Conventions the US has signed on to. Look at how they abrogate them. Look at the old "Bird Amendment" on international trade. Look at what 'Clinton the First' did to blacks. Look at the patent trolls. Look at citizens in DC not getting a representative in congress. Look at how cops treat non-wealthy male civilians and how prosecutors, courts and politicians ignore it.
Rest assured, after the election things won't change vastly no matter who is elected. And anyways, Trump won't get elected.
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Saturday 16th July 2016 17:25 GMT JLV
Depends on context
As an occasional visitor, not a librarian, I have seen people surfing porn twice at my public library, on monitors that are viewable from a broad vantage. Personally? Don't care much, it was rather lame porn. If I was with my kids I'd probably use that as an example of people not to emulate.
I suppose some people have no computer access or no home. And/or remarkably little respect for others.
While one could argue that a library shouldn't censor (though I certainly wouldn't fault them in this instance if they used a suitably specific and narrow blacklist) I really don't see why a commercial open space entity has to put up with these lowlives on their free offerings.
I'd have an entirely different view on a hotel carrying out this type of filtering however.
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Wednesday 20th July 2016 20:19 GMT Suricou Raven
Re: Depends on context
"I'd have an entirely different view on a hotel carrying out this type of filtering however."
Many hotels make money off PPV porn. Internet filtering might be a way to preserve what's left of that profit stream. It's so dismal now though that some of the biggest chains have announced to great fanfare that they are no longer offering PPV porn services out of respect for marriage, family, and apple pie.
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Saturday 16th July 2016 11:34 GMT tfewster
Re: Pathetic
If you're going to be going in there anyway, please:
1) Set your ringtone to That Scene from "When Harry met Sally"
2) Help your hosts refine their filters by testing if web proxies bypass their blocklist
3) Complain loudly to the boob in charge every time their blocking boobs and lets you see boobs
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Saturday 16th July 2016 16:04 GMT Teiwaz
Re: Pathetic
I've ocassionally allowed myself to be dragged in (in a an attempt to be considered sociable) and after tasting their coffee wondered if they were just emptying the contents of the lavatories into cups and selling it. Possibly Baldricks coffee from Blackadder goes forth would taste beter.
Maybe they are making fecal movies in the back rooms...
---Sorry, I'll leave now, promise.
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Saturday 16th July 2016 17:39 GMT JLV
Re: Pathetic
Task tssk. I lived in the US from 77 to 86 and first set foot back on the North American continent in 94.
If you think *$ coffee is bad, you should have seen the slop that used to be the norm in the US before coffee culture took off, largely helped by that chain.
This is in a land where a presidential candidate not too long ago proudly proclaimed that he only ate the bright yellow "mustard" they serve on hot dogs. Given that presidential hopefuls, except for Nader, are all rich lawyers or at least rich, I rather doubt he was being honest (something prez candidates are also rarely guilty of). Still...
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Saturday 16th July 2016 19:53 GMT Barry Rueger
Re: Pathetic
Yeah, but where but in the US can you order that watery coffee in a 36 oz travel cup!
I was raised on bright yellow French's mustard on hotdogs, and can't imagine anything else.
But, back to the point, many years ago, when web sites were a new thing for some people, The Appalachian News Express, a Kentucky newspaper, launched with what seemed like a perfect URL, only to find that they were blocked in many places: http://www.newsexpress.com
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Saturday 16th July 2016 15:35 GMT Suricou Raven
Pointless.
This achieves nothing at all. Very few people are going to want to watch porn in Starbucks, and those that do will simply use the mobile network or bring their own on storage.
What the decision does is convince the self-appointed moral guardians to shut up for a while and go bother someone else. The campaign group "Enough is Enough" recently announced they intend to commence efforts to pressure Starbucks into installing filters - Starbucks simply realised that they had no reason to resist. Their website (http://enough.org/) is already celebrating their victory, while I've no doubt that right now they are debating who to harass instead.
To give you some idea of what we are dealing with, take a look at http://enough.org/friendlymemes - notice something odd? That they use 'porn' and 'child porn' interchangeably? That's because they see no difference. It's all filth and sin and must be stopped by any means, because even perfectly unremarkable adult non-kinky porn will turn men into rapists and paedophiles.
I also love all their 'according to federal officials' claims that don't actually name an official, or a date, or a department.
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Saturday 16th July 2016 18:01 GMT Teiwaz
Re: Pointless....dangerous
"Enough is enough" are as guilty of promoting extremism as any terrorist group. It's just the slippery slope to art-sem, crushing joyless state control and arrests for breaking rules that are never written.
They consider themselves part of a moral majority, but like any such group they are a minority that tries to make enough noise to be considered a majority.
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Saturday 16th July 2016 22:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
1984
Sounds like the society in 1984.
Sex was reduced to a joyless activity that was for procreation only, whereas the media was saturated with war, violence, projected hate, and death statistics.
The war never actually reached the hinterlands though, so the government simply bombed their own citizens to perpetuate a climate of panic and fear.
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Sunday 17th July 2016 20:58 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: 1984
I'm not talking about the proles you chav. The proles were politically irrelevant, and lead an animal-like existence.
I'm talking about the outer party who's control was relevant, because in our society they'd be the equivalent of the politically engaged middle-classes and intellectual activists.
"Doing our duty to the party" - Sex was a joyless experience controlled by the state.
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Sunday 17th July 2016 21:52 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: 1984
... of course Orwell extrapolated a dystopian society based on the war and politics of the mid-20th century, so maybe 1984 isn't the best comparison.
What we actually have is a different dystopia. A plutocracy.
Plotted on a logarithmic scale, we're all proles now, thanks to the erosion of the middle-classes, and the accumulation of wealth at the top.
However the result is the same. "Only the middle can switch places with the high". The proles are stuck where they are forever.
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Wednesday 27th July 2016 06:38 GMT Suricou Raven
Re: Pointless.
Just had to return to the comments to mock this quote:
"Dawn Hawkins, executive director of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, called filtering public Wi-Fi a “necessity” in a statement commending McDonald’s new policy.
“Pornography is linked to decreased brain matter, compulsive use disorders, and sexual aggression. In light of the technical capabilities, it has become socially irresponsible for any corporation, public library, or public school to leave its Wi-Fi unfiltered,” she said."
The NCSE was formerly known as Morality in Media. They rebranded.
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Sunday 17th July 2016 22:32 GMT WatAWorld
Re: I don't Understand Western Puritan Culture....
"Have to agree. Society would be in much better shape if the taboos were on violence. That people weren't so desensitized to human suffering."
It isn't "western culture" that has a boob phobia.
It is American culture.
And many people in a lot of other western cultures are sickened by the amount of raw graphic violence on, simulated torture and murder, on American broadcast TV even before 9 PM down there. Cannot be broadcast in Canada until after 9 PM.
Most other western cultures, even a few miles away here in Canada, a boob is okay on TV after 9 PM.
Penis phobia, "wide open beaver phobia", yes we share America's phobias of those in Canada.
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Sunday 17th July 2016 23:23 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: I don't Understand Western Puritan Culture....
"It isn't "western culture" that has a boob phobia.
It is American culture."
Well, educated people know this, but the fact in mass hysteria deindividuation, America == Western culture. This is borrowed from "Israel is the Jews" (even their own Supreme Court declared state != religion).
That's why the real hatred against America is turning into "If it's white, blow it up/drive over it/shoot it" mentality that's even now creeping into the BLM movement.
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Saturday 16th July 2016 23:51 GMT Paul Hovnanian
Re: I don't Understand Western Puritan Culture....
We had a bikini barista coffee stand open in my town a few years back. It was on a gas station lot, on an intersection that doesn't get much pedestrian traffic.
Suddenly, protests rose up about the children being exposed to scantily clad women. And local mothers made it a practice to walk their kids and strollers in front of the station as background for the inevitable news coverage. After some time, the political pressure resulted in the stand being closed and removed. And the daily pedestrian traffic promptly disappeared.
If I had been in a more mischievous mood, I would have written an editorial comment in the local paper pointing out to the correlation between increased pedestrian traffic and the presence of bikini barista stands. The obvious conclusion being that if one wants to promote walking, one should install more such businesses. But I don't think the Puritan mindset includes a sense of humor.
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Sunday 17th July 2016 01:52 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: I don't Understand Western Puritan Culture....
@ Paul - Another thing I don't understand is why men are so weak to not stand up to feminist hypocrisy and keep it in check? Perhaps you SHOULD have wrote your letter, rather than stand idly by.
We have nothing to fear. I am an ardent masculinist and you know what? All but two of my many, many friends are women. I asked them once why and they all answered with a comparison of me to their dad or grandfather or someone from school that was strong and respected.
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Wednesday 20th July 2016 19:57 GMT Paul Hovnanian
Re: I don't Understand Western Puritan Culture....
"why men are so weak to not stand up to feminist hypocrisy"
I don't know. I'm not sure if it's true Puritanism* or emasculated men. I suspect it may be more of the latter. But I reserve my best humor for venues where guys (and women) are free to laugh at it. I suspect that most of the guys in my neighborhood fear the occasional boob joke because the wife and her friends will give them the icy stare if caught.
*Actually, the best example of true Puritains and humor I can think of comes from a movie, 'Witness' starring Harrison Ford. Where he has to hide out in an Amish community and he pitches in with the farm chores to help out. When he is given a cow to milk and he just stares at it, the old farmer says, "Never had your hands on a teat before?" Ford replies, "Not one this big" and the old guy really cracks up laughing. So I suspect that the 'no humor' Puritans are just the hen-pecked ones that don't dare getting caught laughing.
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Sunday 17th July 2016 23:50 GMT Oengus
Will it block VPNs?
I was visiting a local sports club with Wi-Fi available to patrons. I tried to download some material for a meeting (we held the committee meetings for a local charity event at the club as they were a sponsor). I was blocked by their "Filtering" software. 20 seconds later TOR was fired up and I was downloading the material.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
