back to article Deviants, perverts, 'weirdos' - who's going down?

The die is cast. From today, it is illegal to possess "extreme porn" - though exactly what that means, despite two years of debate, is still unclear. Depending on who you believe, this will criminalise 2m individuals or a mere handful. The Register guide to surviving this law can be found here. Meanwhile, what has become of …

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  1. Dave Webb
    Coat

    Why get involved?

    I can't say that I'm affected by this in any way but I think the government have gone a bit far trying to dictate what people can and can't have in their video stash if it's all consenting.

    Mine's the one with the gimp mask in the pocket

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll

    Laws like this will make it cool to be a registered sex offender.

    And also on this day, cannabis gets reclassed as class B.

    Is there anything relating to rock'n'roll happening today?

    ... Perhaps someone should start making T-shirts with "unregistered sex offender" printed on them? I'm sure there'd be a market.

  3. Ned Fowden

    Do I Dare ...

    ask someone official whether the pron i view/store falls foul of this law or not ... if so, who the heck do i talk to ?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Gotta agree with Dave

    If it's legal to do it, it should be legal to have a photograph of it.

  5. Hollerith

    extreme pr0n -- and reality

    In the 1980s, Canada brought in a law about the importation of 'extreme' adult material. The first thing Customs did was seize shipments of gay and lesbian magazines (especially political/activist ones), novels (romances), health books, etc. The extreme hetero stuff shipped through without problem.

  6. TeeCee Gold badge
    Joke

    Careful what you say.

    ".....the BDSM community ran round like the proverbial headless chicken....."

    Thanks to that I now have a possibly erroneous perception that headless chickens run around in skintight latex suits while being whipped by other leather-clad farmyard animals with extensive body piercings.

    Now, how do I scrub my mind before the filth download it and prosecute me?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    So What?

    Just hide it under the bed and use a proxy - thats the way to deal with it.

    What they can't see won't hurt them. (sic)

  8. michael

    ????? (this IS a TITLE)

    "describe those who enjoyed the material in question as "weird" and advising them to quit the internet."

    has he ever been on the internet "weird" pepol are the only pepol online even here on good old el reg

  9. John

    Silly law

    There was already laws to deal with people with some material, I don't really see the need for a new one. Especially one which if my wife and I both decide to get kinky with some bondage or S&M type frolicking that we would be in danger of being prosecuted for taking photographs of. What manner of insanity is that we might legally act out these fantasies but get banged up for taking a photo or video of it to watch at a later date.

    Just note that we aren't into this kind of thing, but we are young and who knows what we may enjoy as we mature, I would like to have the option of one day we might choose to try and video these things, without going to jail for it.

    Someone once said, I might not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. Clearly he hadn't heard of the Nu Labour way of criminalising every single person in England one way or another.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Dave Webb

    This law will be used by the police / government as a blanket to prove they arrested the bad guys whenever they arrest anyone at all. Currently it seems that everyone arrested as a suspected terrorist has "suspected child abuse pictures" found on their PC. The extreme porn category will make this much easier and generate a much higher percentage of serious crime operation sending in a successful conviction.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Martin Salter MP, fantacist

    So are we fixing the real world, or the twisted fantasy land that exists in his head? If it's only in his head he should seek psychiatric help.

    And if what he's saying is real then how come only he knows about these? Perhaps his ISP should report his web purchase of these snuff movies to the police? Since he seems to know something about which the rest of us are unaware!

    Most likely, he's seen a horror gore movie and gotten carried away.

    Or perhaps a crime scene image (common in newspapers around the world) and equated that with p0rn, but again, he should really seek help from professionals if that's the case.

    Whichever way, the *viewer* of something should not be punished. Just because it easier to lock people up in Britain for viewing something you disapprove of, in the place of the movie maker, the distributor, or the people actually doing the act in the movie.

    Just because it's easier to lock Brits up, doesn't means it's right.

    I hope he gets voted out for this.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Peter Tatchell was out?

    I thought Peter Tatchell had been out for a while.

  13. Mark
    Dead Vulture

    Why is that bad?

    "The irony is that the MoJ may have shot itself in the foot. Criminal lawyers suggest that this public spin may provide individuals with mitigation, if not an outright defence: the possibility of a Government Minister being dragged into court to explain their advice is not entirely far-fetched."

    That is EXACTLY what should be done. If the law is sold on "this is to close loopholes in the OPA" then people using that to define what this new act does is entirely correct.

    If the law wasn't meant to be interpreted with that in mind, then they should have said so when getting the law passed.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I wonder

    I wonder if it will infact end up going the way of the obsene publication act, you'd need a few test cases to get the ball rolling, but in the end it may prove impossible to get a jury to agree that an image or scene is so obsene that it will in itself pervert a person.

    I reckon they'll have far more success with their much mooted cartoon child porn (seen as on latest look the burden of "proof" in determining whether an imaginary drawing is a "child" seems far lower then if the porn were real life and the drawing doesn't need to be obseen just a "child" in a sexual circumstance) then they will with the extreme pornography law.

    I wonder how long till they have cartoon extreme porn loophole closed. Extending their perverted logic as they will "well if cartoon porn makes people rape children, and real extreme porn makes people murder and rape women, then obviously cartoon extreme porn must also make people murder and rape women!"

    I'm hungry...

  15. Joel Mansford
    Alert

    Martin Salter

    I am ashamed to say Martin Salter is my local MP. I have written to him on a variety of topics most notably ID cards which I tried to offer an IT Professional's perspective. Needless to say he disagrees.

    Roll on the next general election!

  16. Schultz

    What about abstract art?

    We all know it's perverted, else they wouldn't be afraid to paint the natural image, eh?

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    IWF Role

    I've been looking a little further into the role the IWF will play in this. It seems they're updating their website on the matter, as I did find the following recent page, last modified today.

    "IWF role regarding government legislation on the possession of extreme pornography"

    http://iwf.org.uk/police/page.22.539.htm

    It seems they're only going to be dealing with material hosted in the UK. Since the government insists this new law only covers stuff that it would be illegal to publish under the Obscene Publications Act, this suggests the IWF are intending to continue as normal, as they already deal with such material hosted in the UK anyway.

    Looks like they won't be adding material hosted abroad to their blacklists.

    Perhaps that's something El Reg might like to press the IWF and Ministry of Justice on, since this law was supposed to deal with material hosted abroad in the first place?

  18. Josh

    @ I wonder

    "I wonder how long till they have cartoon extreme porn loophole closed..."

    Not long. CEOP (along with many others, but CEOP have perhaps the most clout) have been lobbying Parliament via consultative committees since 2007 for this to happen, and are pressing for sentencing for 'possession' or simply viewing to be equated to that of possessing or viewing actual CP (by that I mean porn actually featuring real people as opposed to imaginary drawings). If they get their way (and who will oppose them?) you can expect to see individuals found guilty of possessing such drawings, cartoons, comics or CG renders going to prison, onto the SOR, losing their jobs, their homes and ultimately their families. For looking at drawings of fictional people.

    CEOP would consider that a job well done, no doubt. All expands the remit, and at a time when the UK hosts less than 1% of all known online CP (IWF's own findings), I guess they have to drum up new business wherever they think they can find it, even if every time they do this they create a whole new type of criminality.

  19. MinionZero
    Stop

    This is surely getting into subjective Thought Crime law?!!

    I want them to precisely define "extreme"? ... Because otherwise, its so subjective. For example, back in Mary Whitehouse's day, even full nudity on TV (even after 9pm) would have been decreed by her as extremely pornagraphic, especially if the image was on screen for more than a few seconds.

    By this same definition, even many ancient statues across Europe (some worth millions) would need to be covered or removed and destroyed.

    The problem with this law, is that its so totally subjective (everyone has a different meaning for "extreme") and therefore this law is totally wide open to be misused however anyone sees fit to apply the law. Its not an absolute concept, like for example a theft or a murder is exactly that. This law is someone accusing another of effectively a Thought Crime, if that person doesn't like what the other person is into. Its a completely subjective law. Is that the kind of world NuLabour wants?! ... where they can now even punish people for Thought Crimes?!!

  20. Paul Crawford Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Another pointless law

    Yes another example of pointless law-making where the 'witch craft' approach is used, i.e. the mere accusation is enough to whip up (if you pardon the pun) a media frenzy about something that is often legal to do (when consenting adults, etc), there is no real evidence that it does 'bad things' to the viewers, but it is now going to be illegal to view.

    Are they banning violent video games, you know the sort where random killings are all part of the plot? No, as there is money to be made there (or it is part of the later plan perhaps). Are they banning 'normal' porn? No, again money to be made.

    Yes, it is tragic that Liz Longhurst's daughter was murdered, but the 'porn made me do it' sort of excuse just fails to stand up. Any independant study to back that up? Thought not...

  21. Graham Marsden
    Thumb Down

    A statement from ACPO...

    ... suggested that they would investigate material as they came across it

    Avoiding the obvious pun, all this means is that either a) this law will be used as a Consolation Prize by the Police to charge someone with "possession of extreme porn" if they can't do them for anything else or b) someone going through a contentious divorce/ custody case can accuse their partner of "possessing extreme porn".

    In either case it will probably be a simple smear tactic.

    Meanwhile, of course, anyone who "lives quietly on their own, keeps themself to themselves" and doesn't come to the Police's attention, will probably not have a problem. Unfortunately those of us who have drawn attention to ourselves by contacting MPs and the Lords may well yet find ourselves the "low hanging fruit" if the Police want to up their arrest/ conviction rates.

  22. Ben Bawden
    Stop

    What a waste of time

    So the law won't pick up anything that isn't already illegal? So what's the point of it then?

    Good article, but the caption in the first pic is wrong - that's the clock tower; Big Ben refers only to the bell.

  23. Dennis
    Stop

    Re: This is surely getting into subjective Thought Crime law?!!

    "I want them to precisely define "extreme"?"

    No. That is exactly what you don't want.

    You don't want a definition of extreme created by a small group of politicians and their advisors sitting in the safe environment of a parliamentary committee room. You want a definition that reflects the current opinion of the populous. This was the beauty of the OPA. “Obscene” was defined as a tendency to deprave or corrupt. It was left to a jury to decide. This allows the meaning of obscene to vary with the current opinion of the public. The OPA also took into account the likely audience. So, the idea of “obscene” varies between a shop window and a private club.

  24. Ashley Stevens

    @Ben Bawden

    "So the law won't pick up anything that isn't already illegal? So what's the point of it then?"

    Illegal to publish and distribute that is. This makes it illegal to possess. Slight difference.

    It's still stupid though.....

  25. Sabine Miehlbradt
    Flame

    Looks easy to solve

    So the proper solution would be for someone to kill a child and then start crying: Labour made me do it!. Repeat as necessary with any political party. (Compost the corpse and do the Greens next, please)

    Can we get an extreme porn icon, please?

  26. Ceiling Cat
    Coat

    Whew I'm from . . .

    On the west coast of Canada, there was a big series of raids a few years back in which all the video rental stores in town were raided. Most of the stuff taken was not even real, it was Hentai (animated pr0n from Japan, for the uninitiated).

    Nobody ever gave a reason, and as far as I know, none of the shop-owners were charged with anything. One shop-owner, who specialized in all manner of bizarre asian live-action films and rare Anime, said his was seized simply because it was not stashed in the back of the store, behind the ineffective saloon-doors along with the rest of the filth. I dunno though, "Words*Worth" was a little strange.

    Mine's the one with the tentacle-monster in the pocket.

  27. Dave Bell

    Who needs this sort of law?

    Both this and the looming anti-cartoon law seem to be based on a very few instances known to police, in which a suspect (apparently for other reasons), hadn't broken actual laws.

    Why didn't they just go for an ASBO against the guy with the CP cartoons?

    Or does that make too much sense?

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    MinJ

    "The MoJ have repeatedly claimed that no image that is legal under the OPA would be caught by the extreme porn law."

    I suspect that before the Lord Chancellor's Department (of blessed memory) was re-staffed with knuckle-dragging Home Office thugs it would not have issued any such idiotic pronouncement. There is no such thing as an illegal article under the OPA, so they are in effect declaring this new law to be void.

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    let's face it

    Let's face it, this law was not created by politicians, or even their civil servant advisors, but instead by lobbyists, interest groups, the Police and, an enraged "media" frenzy. The politicians simply stamped the bill.

    It's opinion, prejudice and, assumption made law.

    Or as I like to think of it - shit, and I still can't get over the horse s--t about swearing in stand up comedy. Someone needs to start cullling at the BBC pretty damn quick before it becomes even more worthless (last worth watching things being Mock The Week, Live at the Apollo and QI) the news is a bit NeoZanu party.

    Latest mad hat conspiracy theory, that the current lords fiasco was infact instigated by the Labour party to undermine the house of lords - the last institution standing between the people and outright moralistic lobbyist controlled hell. Reason for the thought, all the Lords in question were labour and there is no actual punishment for what has happend, all that will happen is the Party will have more leverage over those troublesome peers.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    @Graham Marsden

    ' anyone who "lives quietly on their own, keeps themself to themselves" and doesn't come to the Police's attention, will probably not have a problem '

    Let's see. I'm male, 45, live quietly on my own and keep myself to myself. I expect it won't be long before some busybody neighbour decides that this means I must be a pervert and makes a complaint to the police. Unable to find any kiddie porn, they'll do me for having some marginal BDSM porn instead. Having been sacked and publicly labelled a pervert, it won't really matter whether I'm found guilty or not.

    My life will be down the crapper, and all because Jacqui Smith wants me to conform to her own narrow definition of morality.

    Paranoid? You bet.

  31. RW
    Go

    Martin Salter

    His verbal spewings remind me of the homophobic ravings of some American right wingers and televangelists -- who later turn out to be queer as all get out.

    And let us not forget the proven link between homophobia and repressed homosexual urges, thanks to careful studies using a peter meter. Mr. Salter appears to be blissfully unaware that he is proving himself to have a very dirty mind indeed.

    I suggest all good Britons honor Mr. Salter by sending him copies of their extreme porn for his delectation. A box of tissues for post-frenzy cleanup might also be in order.

    Yowza!

  32. Paul
    Flame

    Can we review all laws and vote on the contentious ones?

    There is continued sympathy for Liz Longhurst, who was a prime mover in campaigning for this law after her daughter was murdered by Graham Coutts: in part, it is alleged, because "the porn made him do it".

    Can we now ban religion due to all those nutters who did something because "God made me do it"?

    As Luther Campbell once said "...what I do in my house,

    you might not do in your house!

    So what I do in my house is my business!"

    If it harms no-one and causes no harm then it is no-one else's business.

    Correct me if I'm wrong but do these law makers not tend to be the most perverted class of people? And that's fine, just don't be hypocritical and tell me what I can or can't do in my house on my own.

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    I am going to cite Japan

    Japan is a country with very little censorship and one outstanding blip in its crime statistics.

    In Japan, the only thing censored in most media is pubic hair. Bald pussies all round thankyou very much. The one crime considered uniquely japanese? Sticking a camera up some poor unsuspecting woman's skirt. To the point that some railway stations now have areas of platform marked out as women only.

    The explanation is clear. Censorship of the vagina in its natural state* has served only to make people go to extreme measures to view them. One wonders whether some day a defence of "The censorship made me do it" might be accepted by a court of law.

    * I was going to type Au Naturel but then I realised that was the masculine form and couldn't be bothered remembering my French classes.

    Do I have to explain the icon?

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    CEOP....

    Don't talk to me about CEOP

    I'm in the process of taking them to court

    THE WHOLE OF CEOP

    I'll let you know the outcome

  35. adnim

    No hang ups here.

    If this law is in place to protect folk from depravity, corruption and obscenity does it apply to those of us who are already depraved, corrupt and obscene? Can we cheerfully ignore this law because it is not going to save us from anything.

    "Deviants, perverts, 'weirdos' - who's going down?"

    I'll go down on anything, animal vegetable or mineral for an appropriate fee.

  36. Turbojerry

    Gedankenexperiment

    A little thought experiment. Could crime scene photos come under this law? Lets assume yes, then the police with those photos would be criminalized, so they go, the case is then taken over by other officers, who are now also criminalized and so on. Okay lets say the police are excluded, what about other people who handle the photos, barristers etc. they would be similarly criminalized, what about coroners who have the photos for an inquiry? As the law is so broadly drawn I can imagine that the possession of other types of evidence to be used in court proceedings may criminalize those who require it for justice to be done. .

  37. Cucumber C Face
    Thumb Down

    legal to do != legal photo

    >>If it's legal to do it, it should be legal to have a photograph of it.<<

    That would completely miss the point of such legislation - that being to define thought crimes for the convenience of HM Govt and the Police with the bonus of pandering to the tabloid fuelled lynch mob aka our lumpen electorate.

    Under 18's can take their clothes off legally BUT take a photo (and we're NOT talking sexual activity let alone that involving adults) and you're going down.

    Think of the horses / consenting adults!

  38. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Cover your table legs

    They're only locking up the perverts, don't worry about it.

    It's the punks whoput up obscene filth like this who need taking out:

    http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/9866/tablevw4.jpg

    (Warning: Graphic content may cause sexual arousal)

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    plain english campaign!

    given the massive volume of silly laws being passed, we need to hold everything up to the same standards. if legalese isn't acceptable in any other consumer literature, why should the laws be any different. learning the laws of the country shouldn't require 5 years in law school just to understand, they should be freely published, written in plain English for the layman. otherwise how the hell are we supposed to abide by them!

    i understand the old ignorance of the law is no excuse argument, but it only really work for the biggies, theft murder etc. when you have an insane amount of fiddly little laws with all sorts of conditions, exceptions, and ambiguities, you don't have the faintest idea if you're breaking the law or not. especially since some laws are passed without any real publication, nobody really knew that the smoking age in the uk was increased from 16 to 18 a couple of years ago until it directly impacted them.

    even forgetting the hippocracy* of this, the whole idea of obscene being illegal is insane, as it's entirely subjective, I have seen porn that i consider obscene, from the wording it's probably not even covered by this new law, but i don't go out of my way to look at it, while stuff that i think of as mildly titillating, the daily fail readers in a jury would probably think sickeningly obscene. maybe i'm just jaded from 15+ years of free net access.

    *if looking at a picture of an indeterminately aged, tied up, fully leather clad woman, with small breasts, in a gimp mask would make me a paedophile sex offender, well i might as well go out and actually have some s&m sex with a 16 year old girl as that's still perfectly legal!!

  40. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    BBC News

    Well I just saw the BBC "news" report on the subject, and what a worthless piece of pap it was, not that I'm suprised that such a turd produced such unresearched pap, even to the point of praising operation Ore (awe? Oar? bah) It was a 2 minute waste of time where the reader said why it was great using the one example (the guy that killed a girl and kept her in storage sorry pretty sure there's something slightly more wrong with such a person then simply liking the extreme pronz.)

    Riding on the cusp of their sodding Panorama episode tshh.

    God I hate MPs and I hate the BBC and the moral elite, what a useless bunch of gits. I can't believe they get our hard earned money. I should probably note that I'm not a fan of extreme porn, maybe a bit of a spanking, maybe a bit of the old Japanese opening with force but in the end the woman finds her sexual desire blah blah blah it's a pretty typical J-Porn thing. However as I've pointed out many a time, I don't like the notion of criminalising thousands of people just becouse one person was murdered.

    Saying Extreme Porn makes you rape and murder woman is as retarded as saying being a Muslim turns you into a suicide bomber, it's rubbish and there's no evidence to support the claim beyond bad statisticial analysis.

    as an aside @Mycho, other countries have woman only carriages too, and the woman only areas in Japan are for peak rush hour time and it's more down to the chiikans than the cameras although those are a problem too, interestingly alot of Japanese girls/woman wear shorts which beats the cameras.

    Chiikans are train perverts who touch up woman when you're all squished up like sardines, never saw it happen any of the times I've been trapped on a rush hour metro in Tokyo though, but I suspect that's half the point. Also a correction, it is the pubic region that is sensored, bush or no bush, which is just so weird becouse they can have the most hardcore extreme stuff going on but the vagoo is still censored - weird. But the arse hole isn't. Even weirder.

    End @Mycho; the rest is me following an anonymous chain of thought.

    On the mention of train perverts I remember a woman saying that it happend on the London Underground on one of the threads here - go figure - seems like you get people all squished together and you get people pushing their luck. Sad really - even as a no girlfriend piece of s--t I find it far more enjoyable to watch some Momosu concert dvds (a Japanese pop group), save for Japan then see a half dozen concerts every six months. But old Comrade Brown has put a stop to that with his devaluation of the pound.

    But then I've known a fair few Japanese girls and woman who have stayed in Japan and on one hand they say they're perfectly happy walking down dark seedy looking alley ways you'd never consider walking down in London, but at the same time they wouldn't hang they're panties outside to dry becouse they'd get knicked. Funny eh? Pretty much the reverse here, but I'm sure a woman would rather lose her panties from her line then get brutally raped and murdered.

    Not to say people don't get brutally raped and murdered in Japan, wherever you have people you have monsters. In the early ninties there was an incident with two men who went to a village picked up a child and dumped her in the mountains dead, I think they'd just killed the poor thing. Still there are monsters everywhere.

    Interestingly one the girls I know, the only person who she knows has beeen the victim of a sexual assault was assaulted by a foreigner who visited. I suppose I could imagine some westerners not quite being able to tell the difference between Japanese porn and real Japan. Of course that brings us back to the crux of the abuse matter, which is pictures don't rape and murder people, people do.

    Pictures don't even make you do things, they've never made me do anything, and I suggest if pictures tell you to do things you stop looking at pictures, and probably go to see a psychiatrist, becouse I think you're probably mentally ill. Human beings have morals, they have reason, common sense, a vast number of social memes and a wide array of other complex mechanisms that keep a normal rational person from abusing anyone.

    Banning pictures wont stop someone who is ill from harming people, the only solution to that is proper psychiatric and social therapy and care.

    Man have I ranted today. These issues all really nark me. I've got a feeling it's gonna be an awful year for me.

  41. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Another concern

    Unlike child porn, the material covered by this law is perfectly legal in other countries. As such it's not unusual for images that are *ahem* potentially illegal to circulate freely in the more let's say trollish parts of the internet. Likewise certain people who frequent those parts of the internet will be absolutely delighted to know that pictures they legally possess could land someone else in jail.

    That's going to be much harder for would-be law abiding citizens to make sure they don't com into contact with it online. Technically the law has to covered, but only if you "act quickly" to delete it as soon as you know about it. I'm not sure who you're supposed to prove that.

    P.S. Nobody google the phrase "I'll be in my lab", OK?

  42. John Ozimek
    Paris Hilton

    French pedantry (@mycho)

    Mycho writes:

    "The explanation is clear. Censorship of the vagina in its natural state* has served only to make people go to extreme measures to view them. One wonders whether some day a defence of "The censorship made me do it" might be accepted by a court of law.

    "* I was going to type Au Naturel but then I realised that was the masculine form and couldn't be bothered remembering my French classes".

    Apart from wondering just what sort of French classes you attended, I think you may be missing the point.. Anything and everything raw or in its natural state is "au naturel" - irrespective of its original gender, because the phrase includes an implied "état", or similar.

    Literally - à l'état naturel....

    For much the same reason as you ask for "un crême"...because despite the fem. gender of "crême", there is a masculine café implied there somewhere.

    I suppose if you are going to be all clinical and write about "le vagin au naturel", you would have no probs with gender...everything in the sentence being masculine. That said, most people wouldn't say that and I can't quite think of any alternative masculine slang for "la chatte"....

    ...or as Brel rather coarsely punned in "Amsterdam", "les moules frites"....

    cue assorted rude francophiles to enlarge my dictionary.

    Paris: 'cause she sounds like a rude francofille...

  43. ratfox
    Paris Hilton

    @Mycho

    Au naturel is correct, as "girl in the natural way"

    Well, Japan IS renowned for its dirty perverts who take pictures under the skirt and mash girls in the subway... But it's difficult to know if that is a result of porn or the reverse. Or maybe it is the traditional role of woman over there?

  44. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Human rights law

    Since the law requires a sexual connutation, and the same things aren't illegal otherwise, then it is obvious discrimination on the grounds of sexual preferences.

    Is that not against the human rights act?

  45. Mike Crawshaw
    Thumb Down

    How long...

    before we're banned from going to France? Because, obviously, we only want to go there so we can go to the Louvre and see paintings which have cherubs on. And therefore, anyone trying to go to France should immediately go on the SOR and be righteously villified.

  46. Alan Fisher

    Blanket law

    as someone else mentioned before, this law will do precisely what is required AND is vague for that very reason.....to stop people held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act from getting away....find extreme porn of any description on their computer and you've got 'em! Never mind that they never viewed it, it's there so they must have....

    It's a scary law and gives too many powers to nail (no pun intended) anyone for anything.....I'm glad I left the UK, but people who remain should be afraid...

    You can no longer taker photos in public

    You can no longer own photos/videos which might be 'obscene' (read will offend someone, somewhere)

    You can no longer demonstrate

    Television censorship by tabloid has begun

    what's next? They'll start with the Moslems and foreigners, then gay and lesbian people, then the BDSM community....the masses won't complain because the tabloids will keep the "immorality" thing going on...then they'll sit back and realise, much too late that it, in fact, is.

  47. Alan Fisher

    Cue the next Malware/Virus attack

    just you wait, a malware, virus attack which fills your harddrive with obscene material or at least directs you browser to a hosting site and....well the rest is stripy overalls and so forth....try and prove it isn't yours, Deviant!

  48. Graham Marsden
    Unhappy

    @Can we review all laws and vote on the contentious ones?

    The Lib Dems came up with a "Freedom Bill" proposing to ban the "ten worst pieces of legislation" that Labour have come up with eg restrictions on protesting outside Parliament.

    Of course because they're the Lib Dems, despite it being eminently sensible, it was pretty much ignored and the public barely heard about it.

  49. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Another concern

    I like the idea, rickrolling the brits into pictures that are illegal only in their miserable island!

  50. Cris Wilson
    Unhappy

    Goatse

    Is it illegal to look at a Goatse now? Or is it illegal to send a link of one to someone else?

    Actually, am I allowed to still use the word G****e? Or is it now illegal due to the graphic images it conjures up?

  51. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    We Can Has IWF-Goatse Icon?

    Cris Wilson gives me an idea. Can we have a Goatse-style version of the IWF logo, please? It would be most appropriate for issues of censorship.

  52. John Ozimek

    Oops (@myself!)

    I do like to double check stuff and sadly, Amsterdam makes no reference to "moules frites".... just "frites", which is still a pretty gross image.

    Obviously the combination of my own poor memory and filthy mind working overtime. Although one wonders if a translation is possible that still retains the obscene ambiguities with which the original was packed.

  53. Anthony Mark
    Thumb Down

    The MoJ...

    ...have repeatedly claimed that no image that is legal under the OPA would be caught by the extreme porn law. So this law won't outlaw any images that are not already illegal, and therefore is pointless?

  54. steward
    Black Helicopters

    What if...

    someone is stimulated by the Prime Minister's questions addressing bombings of towns during Middle Eastern wars or police actions?

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