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The BBC reports Emos planning to march on the Daily Mail headquarters this Saturday - for some reason I find this rather funny.

"The tabloid has labelled emo a "suicide cult" which glorifies self-harm and "romanticises death""

What, still? Yep, apparently they're still at it. (This does confirm the idea that "emo" has done a good job of attracting all the negative attention and stereotyping that was previously targetted at "goth" - you know, angsty teens who wear black, romanticise death, self-harm and post depressing poetry to LiveJournal MySpace.)

I'm not sure what I think of emo, I just think that the Daily Mail are complete cunts, that's all.

The Daily Mail believes that the entire Internet is a sinister cult that glorifies self-harm and suicide, and my suggestion is that the Internet should march on the Daily Mail headquarters too. But why stop there? Imagine a protest comprised of all the groups of society that the Daily Mail writes crap about. Emos, atheists, homosexuals, lesbians, pagans, Muslims, anyone who looks like a Muslim, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the left-wing liberal elite, rich people, poor people, immigrants, foreigners, New Labour, eurocrats, cannabis users, gypsies, Channel 4 - who have I missed?

(Is there going to be a protest for self-harmers who are outraged at the Daily Mail for being associated with emos..?;)

Some final updates on the wording of the "extreme porn" bill: ( Thank you for the millimetres )

Despite my enthusiasm for opposition, I knew this was likely so I'm not quite as mad as I thought I'd be. I don't regret any effort spent - I think just making a noise about it is important (and this doesn't stop here). When the plans were first announced, I feared not a single politician would dare to speak out; instead, whilst it may be in vain, it's reassuring to find MPs and Lords who criticised the plans, as well as all sorts of favourable or balanced media coverage that isn't simply "OMG violent porn - here's Liz Longhurst to tell you about it".

Ah yes, Liz Longhurst. Never underestimate the political power of a murder victim's grieving parent.

To those who risk being criminalised, she responds "hard luck". This infuriates me - I think it's the fact that she's been given her moral authority, and national media coverage for her political views, solely on the sympathy that people give to her - yet she gives not one bit of sympathy to those who disagree, or risk being criminalised! People speaking against this law have had to be careful to show sympathy towards her, out of fear of being accused of not showing her respect. She's a figurehead that politicians supporting the law can use; she plays the role of the "innocent lady singlehandedly taking on the Government" (even though they're with her all the way). She can be a campaigner pushing her political views, whilst hiding under a shield of "grieving parent who just wants justice for her daughter". She's far from the only guilty party (those in the Government who supported her include MPs Martin Salter and David Blunkett), but her campaigning gave the Government the excuse to be seen to be doing something, whilst making it hard for people to criticise her. So whilst this law more or less passes, I do feel some relief at the news that she will - and excuse me for, after following this law for almost three years and showing her sympathy all the way, my complete lack of sympathy and disrespect to her here - finally shut the fuck up. There, I've said it.

I leave you with words from the Lord McIntosh of Haringey: "I spent nearly 20 years on one Front Bench or another, and during that time I never quite had the guts to say what I really thought about these issues. I never quite had the guts to quote Kenneth Tynan, who in a review of eastern erotic art said, "All my life I have enjoyed having erections, and I have been grateful to the people and the works of art that made them possible". Now I have said it, and no one can accuse any political party of having any involvement in that."

[ETA - a new petition, FWIW: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/extreme-images/ ]

The final text of the law is at http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2008/ukpga_20080004_en_9#pt5-pb1-l1g63 .

For more info on this law, see: http://www.backlash-uk.org.uk/ , http://www.seenoevil.org.uk/wiki/index.php/Main_Page , and my post on the originally published bill (note there have been some minor word changes since that post, and the two amendments I list above).

Recently I have written some letters to learned Lords and Ladies about the filthy topic of extreme pornography...[1]

The criminalisation of possession of "extreme porn" law is being debated in the House of Lords[2] - two amendments are proposed, either to remove the clauses altogether, or to restrict it to images that are both images of actual sexual offences and that would be illegal to publish under the Obscene Publications Act. Backlash urge people to write to the Lords asking them to oppose the law or support the amendments, as the amendments risk not getting enough support.

If anyone fancies joining me, it's easily done by following the links from http://www.theyworkforyou.com/peers/ , or WriteToThem, or there is a list of email addresses. ( Read more... )

More posts on the "extreme porn" law.

Does Cambridge have any recycling facilities for electronic items? I have read numerous articles telling me of the evils of putting electronic components in the rubbish, but the advice they give amounts to pointing out the bleeding obvious ("you can sell it on this great site called e-bay!"),and is no help for stuff which either no one wants for free, or no longer works... (My dead computer junkyard currently consists of: 1 motherboard, CPU, power supply, and now recently joined by a DVD drive.)

I suspect the answer is No - the council website only seems to mention TVs/monitors, and I emailed them and got told they didn't. But I thought I would ask in case people had ideas. It's annoying that even when someone wants to recycle, they end up having to throw away in the normal rubbish...

Look How Cute! (Work Safe, for those of you not in Sudan)

I also wonder if the time is right for someone to try selling Cute Teddy Bears with "Jesus is a Cunt" t-shirts...

I had a moment of panic when I received a scary official looking letter headed "House of Commons". Imagine my relief when I found it was about violent pornography! ( Response from my MP )

Also I read through some committee transcripts (more exciting than it sounds, really[1]); there are three MPs arguing against the law (one from each party), putting across good arguments. Two amendments were proposed which would exempt consensual material. Unfortunately the Ministry of Justice puppet refuses to budge, and the amendments were withdrawn, apparentely on the basis that the Minister will "look at the clause again".

[1] I also wonder, do MPs have to go on a training course to learn to talk with things like "the hon. and learned Gentleman", or do they just pick it up as they go along? I am also amused when they get snarky at each other, but still maintain this manner.

Are there any recommendations for (free) software (edit: for Windows) to convert video files from DivX into a format that plays on a standard DVD player? (I know there are some DivX DVD players, but I'm doing a DVD for my parents and not sure they have one of those.) Alternatively any convertors from DivX to Avi/Mpeg should do, as I appear to have software which can cope with those.

I've found DVD Flick which works fine, although it doesn't put any menuy-thing on at all, so I'm not sure how easy it will be to navigate on a standalone player(?) (I don't need anything fancy, but I don't know if there is an easy way to let ppl choose which video file to view?)

(I have Googled, but the video/DVD conversion software seems to be swamped with "free" stuff that turns out to be commercial/time-limited shareware/crippleware etc, it's very hard to find something that works...)

thank yous

Interesting reading about that Cradle of Filth t-shirt. Maybe it's old news to some, but I didn't realise they could actually be illegal.

But the real conundrum is: Is it illegal because of the image of a masturbating nun, or because of the statement about Jesus? Either way, the various laws used against it seem to be specifically about religion ("selling obscene material aggravated by religious prejudice", "religiously aggravated offensive conduct"). I mean, I'm not bothered if you can't show a porn image in public, but I feel that's nothing specific to images involving religion.

Perhaps in an ideal world people wouldn't refer to historical characters / mythical characters / omnipotent beings [delete as appropriate] by a naughty word, or draw naughty pictures involving nuns, but I wonder if there is a need to send in undercover police and then raid the place. (Also it's curious why they only target random individual stores and people, rather than stopping production/import altogether.)

Making and even selling one's own t-shirt design is easily done now - just think, could one cripple a nation's police resources just by a particularly large collection of t-shirt production that draws references between an assortment of religious figures and body parts?

Should some t-shirts be illegal to sell, or wear in public? I can see statements directed at people (e.g., "Christians are ...") being problematic, but what about statements that others find offensive? I once was offended by someone standing in market square with a placard about how homosexuals, atheists, etc were all going to hell - but my first thought wasn't to dial 999.

[And I have to say, it's a sad comment of the metal scene that a t-shirt from ten(?) years ago is still making all the controversy; next people will be complaining about Marilyn Manson again. Come on, it can't be that hard to do something more controversial, and get yourselves lots of publicity!]

The Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill is at the committee stage, where MPs on the Committee listen to evidence, and can propose amendments (more info). Anyone can write to committee members, but it's much more effective for people in their constituencies to write. David Howarth is on the committee. ( Full list... ) So for anyone opposed to the law but not sure what to do, the best hope now appears to be for people in these constituences to write asap expressing opposition and/or proposing suitable amendments. (Another possible suggestion for people not in these constituencies is to write to their MP, asking them to pass it onto the committee.) E.g.:

* An exemption for material involving consenting participants (e.g., see http://www.backlash-uk.org.uk/amend.html ). Similarly, Liberty have proposed a variation on that in their briefing: "Liberty considers that an additional defence should also be available where a person believes that those involved in the material they possess consented to their participation."
* Removing all references to "appears to" (the phrase that MP Harry Cohen had concerns with).
(Anymore?)

The committee stage takes place during October and November - last meeting 29 November. Transcripts are available here (there have been good criticisms even from the MPs themselves, though who knows if this will lead to anything).

Are there any of you whose MP is on the committee, and who have written to them about this, and if so, have you heard back? (It would be useful to know the views of all the committee members on this issue.)

Also: Over 40 academics voice concerns, and condemn the Government's recent Rapid Evidence Assessment. Well that's something.

Hair Metal is back in fashion, Phil Collins is popular, and in true 1980s style, MP Martin Salter is worried about snuff films. He refers to SMers as doing "weird things to each other", and calls for "all PCs to be fitted with a blocking mechanism". Yes, it's the 2nd Reading of the Extreme Porn Bill [full transcript] (as part of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill) that took place on Monday. Some snippets (emphasis mine):

David Lepper (Labour; Jane Longhurt's MP - known to be in support of the law): "The provisions before us tonight do not go as far as many of us want, but they tackle an important aspect of the issue: the possession of those awful images. ... I wish we had proposals before us tonight to tackle at source the internet sites that purvey this material. However, that needs a degree of international co-operation that, sadly, despite the determination of Ministers, we have not yet been able to achieve—in the same way as we have achieved international co-operation to tackle child pornography. That is a further stage of the campaign."

Martin Salter (Labour; the MP who appears to be basically behind the extreme porn campaign): "We are talking about some of the most obscene and disturbing material, including internet sites such as Necrobabes [Wikipedia], Death by Asphyxia, and Hanging Bitches. Does he agree that the provisions will not make a new offence of anything that is not already illegal? We are talking about material that is already illegal under obscene publications legislation. It is merely the possession of the images that will become a new criminal offence."

Lepper: "We have before us tonight legislation that, in some small way, when eventually passed, will be a memorial to a dedicated teacher and a wonderful daughter."

Salter: "The extreme material that will be outlawed by the Bill covers acts and imagery that are already illegal under the Obscene Publications Act. But that legislation was introduced in an age before computers and the internet to deal with newsagents and publishers. We cannot go after the publisher of material if it is from an internet site whose server may be based in Guatemala [or backward countries like the United States, where Necrobabes is legally hosted] and contains, produces or puts into cyberspace images of young women being captured, raped live on camera and sometimes killed to feed this evil trade and to promote private profit and sexual gratification. We have to go after the imagery itself. We must build on the successful legislation that has outlawed images of child pornography. If we cut that end of the market, we start to deal with the trade, and that is exactly what part 6 of the Bill—a part that is well crafted, sensible and well thought through—seeks to do.

"I have received opposition, as have my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (David Lepper) and others, from groups claiming to represent the bondage, domination and sado-masochistic communities. I have learned that they organise themselves into munch clubs—I do not want to go any further into that. Let me make it clear to them that nobody is seeking to introduce a new level of censorship; we are talking about imagery that is already illegal. If people want to do weird things to each other they still can, but I say, "Don't put it on the internet." I do not need to see it and nor do my constituents—and, more importantly and seriously, those of an unbalanced mind who could be tipped over the edge by violent and extreme imagery do not need to see it, and we do not need to live with the consequences of their actions if they were to see it. ... Ideally, we would like blocking measures that prevent access—they now exist—to be brought in. We would like all PCs to be fitted with a blocking mechanism before they are sold on the open market—as cars are automatically fitted with seat belts."

Charles Walker (Conservative): Points out the contradiction that although films such as "Hostel Part II" will remain legal, stills from them could become illegal. Yet he concludes: "it seems madness that that film should be allowed on general release. I hope that, as the Bill is considered in Committee, we will look at those concerns to ensure that that part of the Bill is as watertight as it can be." So to summarise: People pointed out that the extreme porn definitions would cover legal films, and they responded by criminalising screenshots from those films. We point out the inconsistencies in that, and we may now see even the films criminalised?

Some positive points:

Harry Cohen (Labour): "My problem is with the phrase "appears to". That will catch all sorts of things that it should not. ... The Government should consider that sub-paragraph, which could be problematic for the future." (hurrah!)

Evan Harris (Liberal Democrat): [Firstly quotes from Liberty] "Ministers have not provided an evidence base for some of the material that will be covered by the measure. Despite the eloquent testimony that Members have given about an individual case, if we do not have evidence that the material causes harm, it is right that the House should subject the proposals to close scrutiny. We must ask why, for example, the Obscene Publications Act definition is not being used, and why another definition, which, it is argued, is broader, is being used. I can see no reference to compatibility with the Human Rights Act 1998 in the Government's explanatory memorandum, either; that will need to be tested. I would be grateful if, in his response, the Minister set out the evidence that justifies the measure."

I haven't bothered to comment, because I'd never get finished with Salter's comments. Though it's reassuring to see opposition is being aired. Your opinions?

I kept meaning to write about my nephew's christening a couple of years ago; now that I've been to another one, I figured I'd get round to writing about them both.

( Cut for general criticisms of religion. Well, when I say religion, I mean one in particular. )

( Infest write up )

What do you think of LJ's new sponsored features? (Or "features" depending on your point of view. Pepsi sponsored virtual-gifts, themes and mood icons. Paid users will see them, albeit without the link to the Pepsi website.)

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with idea of having advertising for paid customers (consider most TV/satellite/cable companies), but up to at least last September, LJ have always promoted the idea that there would be no ads, or they would be opt-in, and certainly not for paid users (well, free users will see sponsored communities and ads on Plus accounts or the news community profile, but paid users don't at least). I'd even rather have occasional simple straightforward ads, than trying to sneak them in, as "gifts" on profiles, or in a news post.

ISTR that some people disliked the idea v-gifts at all, in not wanting pics put on their profile? Now people can stick ads on your profile, all for free... On that note, the News profile page is quite funny - no one could have seen that abuse happening!

Of course we should, because the victims say so.

Well actually one victim, before they have to move onto relatives. And let's ignore any victims who might disagree. I don't know, whatever one's view on the issue, I'm not sure it's helped by one-sided emotional pleading of tired-arguments-that-we've-heard-before-anyway, thanks BBC.

Not to debate about whether one should leave LJ or not, but I note that various people nonetheless either have or are considering switching elsewhere. So I thought I'd post about the various features which make managing accounts across different blogging sites a lot easier - this will be boring old news to plenty of you, but I've seen some who are unaware of these useful things.

Feeds: It's possible at least to read public entries from other sites on your friends page - see here. This works with just about any blog site, not just LJ-clones. Basically go to http://www.livejournal.com/syn/ , enter the URL of the blog at the "Feed URL" box at the bottom. If the feed already exists, you'll taken to a page allowing you to add it to your friends page[*], otherwise you'll be asked for a name in order to create the new feed. Note that only paid/permanent users can create feeds (but you could always ask me or another paid user to do it of course).

OpenID: This post explains the details. Basically this lets you use your account on one site to: sign comments left on other sites (though the account owner must allow anonymous comments!), and people on other sites can add you as a friend, so that you can read their friends-only entries, all without you having to sign up for an account on that site. You can even set up a friends page on that site, and use the notification feature to get emailed comments.

Unfortunately, you can't combine this with the above feature, and get friends-only entries in an LJ feed (friends only entries can be read over RSS, but this doesn't seem to be possible with LJ feeds due to the way it works), but at least this saves having to sign up for multiple accounts.

As I have ranted, GreatestJournal doesn't support OpenID :( But DeadJournal and InsaneJournal do.

Multiposting: Alternatively, semagic apparentely supports posting to multiple sites simultaneously (apparentely Windows only, though apparently works under WINE on Linux - as you can probably tell, I haven't tried this out). A bit of a fudgy workaround perhaps, but means you don't have to choose between two or more sets of friends (the horror!).

[*] - well currently there seems to be a bug where it tells me the feed doesn't yet exist even though it does...

Anything I missed (or got wrong)?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6900512.stm

I think this is one of those cases where the ruling would annoy me either way. If she'd won, it would've supported the idea that personal religious beliefs would have been a reason for being exempt from uniform rules.

But on the other hand, the reasoning appears to be that "the ring was not an essential part of the Christian faith" and "wearing a ring was not "intimately linked" to the belief in chastity before marriage". So a pupil would still be exempt if their belief was that of an official organised religion (and indeed, Sikh and Muslim pupils can wear bangles and headscarves). The ruling still seems to be supporting the idea that religion is accepted as a valid reason, but personal beliefs are not.

What does it mean for something to be "essential" part of a religion, or for someone to be obliged "by reason of her belief"? No one's going to be struck off the list of Christians or Muslims if they don't wear a particular item. It's still a belief. It might be a tradition, but I'm not sure it's essential. It might be a belief the person holds very strongly, but that applies to personal beliefs too. What if she'd argued that "wearing rings is an essential part of being someone who believes they must wear rings"...

Poll #1023990
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

What do you think?

The Extreme Porn Law has been published (as part of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill).

Quick summary: Staged/fictional images are included; the threshold no longer requires "disabling" injury; even though classified works aren't covered, an extract from a classified work can fall under the law; their list of what could come under this seems to be worse than the more paranoid interpretations that people had; the Spanner case and "sado-masochists" are referred to when referring to "the material to be covered by this new offence".

The relevant bit (emphasis mine), for images which will be illegal to possess, from section 64:

(6) An “extreme image” is an image of any of the following—
(a) an act which threatens or appears to threaten a person’s life,
(b) an act which results in or appears to result (or be likely to result) in serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts or genitals,
(c) an act which involves or appears to involve sexual interference with a human corpse,
(d) a person performing or appearing to perform an act of intercourse or oral sex with an animal,
where (in each case) any such act, person or animal depicted in the image is or appears to be real.
---

* Breathplay images would surely count (so bad luck if you're into that - and even if not, these images would be fairly common on BDSM sites, even if they're not porn sites).
* The consultation response stated "serious disabling injury", and it was this which satisfied many who were originally opposed. The bill does not mention disabling at all. It's still "serious" at least, but that's undefined. We're basically back to the original proposal of GBH, with the addition that it now covers acts which would be likely to result in such injury!
* This covers images of fictional violence (staged acts or faked images). (See the repeated references to "appears to"; note that they refer to "image" (not "photograph" or "pseudo-photograph", as I believe is the case for child porn), and explicitly state "produced by any means"; also paragraph 803 of the explanatory notes refers to "staged activity"). This has always been my fundamental concern - it doesn't matter how "extreme" the definitions are, if it still covers simulated acts.

From part of the explanatory notes, we have a list of what will fall under this (paragraph 384):

* Acts which threaten or appear to threaten a person's life; this could include depictions of hanging, suffocation, or sexual assault involving a threat with a weapon.

* Likely to result in serious injury to a person's anus, breasts or genitals: this could include the insertion of sharp objects (yeah, done that one, I can't say I was seriously injured!) or the mutilation of breasts or genitals (unclear whether mutilation is broad enough to include cutting).

In addition, note section 65 "Exclusion of classified films etc.":
* Classified works are not counted (okay, makes sense, but why should there be a risk that classified works might come under the law? This would mean an image in a BBFC-approved film is legal, but an image of people reproducing the same scene could be illegal!)
* But, an extract from a classified work would still be covered by this law, if it was determined that the reason for extraction was for erotic purposes! Yes, make a set of stills from a standard Hollywood violent film for your pr0n folder, and get three years in prison!

In fact, what makes this point even more bewildering is that, for the possibility of extracts to be illegal, they are surely admitting that there must exist classified material which would fall under the proposed law. What happened to "already illegal to produce or distribute"?

Furthermore:

It is not possible at law to give consent to the type of activity covered by the offence, so it is therefore likely that a criminal offence is being committed where the activity which appears to be taking place is actually taking place.

Well, whilst it is true that the activities which appear to be taking place are illegal:
* This is irrelevant for any acts which "appear to" show harm - it's entirely legal to consent to acting in such a scene! This makes about as much sense as saying the acts which appear to take place in random_horror_movie, or in random_crime_story, are illegal! Much like LiveJournal of a few weeks ago, the UK Government could do well to learn the difference between fiction and reality... (The document addresses "staged" acts in paragraph 804, claiming that this is because people who consensually act need protection from "participating in degrading activities"!)
* Additionally, whilst I thought this would be what they'd say when they first announced these plans, the response from supporters so far seems to have been that they don't want to criminalise BDSMers. But here you have the message - These S&M acts are illegal, and so they should be, and we want to base new laws upon that ruling.

As well as up to three years in prison, offenders will be included on the Sex Offenders Register.

Thoughts? Anything I've got wrong? Anything I've missed?

Edit: Not sure what we can do now, but writing to one's MP seems to be the best thing (even if you've already done so, it's worth updating them with the new details) http://www.writetothem.com/ makes this easy.
Edit: See http://www.backlash-uk.org.uk for more details, and feel free to link to this post.

Last night I had a dream where I was apparentely in an episode of Coronation Street (but more as a passive observer), though upon reflection, the plot was more like 24, featuring terrorists, and people being kidnapped and driven away in unmarked black vans. But no kiefer :(

Then I had a dream about cats and fluffy kittens.

For a while I've been meaning to make a note of my recurring dream themes (in an attempt to help dream recall and lucid dreaming ability).

*Teeth falling out. THIS IS NOT A SIGN OF INSECURITY. Apparently this is quite a common dream? It ranges from a tooth being a bit loose, to them all suddenly falling out at once. It is a bit disturbing, but it's meant that I can often realise I'm dreaming when it happens (but if/when I should lose a tooth for real, my entire sense of reality is going to come crashing down...)

*School dreams, but there's a particular recurring one. One year at school, they decided to have a two week timetable. This was great, except for one flaw. No bugger could ever remember whether it was Week A or Week B. And to this day, I now have recurring dreams where I'm in school and panicing because I don't know which week it is, and hence which lesson I'm supposed to be in. It's left me mentally scarred for life. Also to a lesser extent, dreams where I've forgotten to do my homework (I was a good pupil, but nonetheless sometimes had a bad memory, so there were a few occasions where I had to hurriedly copy from someone in the lesson before).

*Cat dreams, but a particular one where I am looking after cats, and I keep forgetting to feed them :(

*Hair dreams. I used to have dreams that my hair was long, now I have them where it's all gone.

*Dreams where the light switch doesn't work (apparentely also quite common, and one explanation I read suggested it is due to inability to perceive sudden changes in brightness). This used to be common in nightmares, but now I just imagine into place a dimmer switch which works much better:)

*Dreams where my parents know all sorts of secretive (from them) things about me, like self-harm, and my occasional tendency for mini-skirts, and they are okay with it.

*24 dreams.

Tell me your recurring themes..?

There's not much media coverage on the "extreme porn" law at the moment, but a couple of interesting ones sprung up. Firstly, The Northern Echo. It seems nice that they are attempting to cover both arguments for and against, but there's something that doesn't seem quite right ... let me think ... ah yes, they've presented both sides of the argument by only interviewing someone in favour of the law. Brilliant.

Okay I don't expect much from most newspapers, but more recently we have the BBC covering the issue on Radio 4's Woman's Hour. Interestingly it involves the same person, Clare McGlynn, joined this time by some guy from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (like this has anything to do with children or child porn?)

I took me a few days to work up the strength to actually listen to the 8 minute piece, but I finally did it. To be fair, the questions posed are reasonably good, but it seems they're under the impression that this is only about actual non-consensual violence. But whatever is said, it's absurd to get any sort of reasonable debate when you only have two people in favour of the law. It basically seemed to be a piece for supporters of the law to shout down any possible criticisms (a few people have complained about the blatant bias, I am tempted to do so).

Amusingly the message board gets a bit of an invasion of people complaining, though actually, some of the people arguing against the law and the programme are regulars of the board rather than people who followed a link. There are only a few people arging in favour (and amusingly every so often, a regular will step in to shout them down). It was quite disappointing actually, I came home from work hoping to get stuck into some meaty debate on this, only to find about 100 comments in a row which I agreed with... But there are two people picking up the slack now, and it's degenerated to, well, let's just say it makes me want to run around screaming "OMG PLEASE WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!"

Anyway, someone from the BBC responded to the comments, ending with "Rest assured that if, in the near future, there are developments in the libertarian argument then we will return to the debate and explore these aspects." which to me sounds like diplomatically trying to brush aside the criticisms (if there were new developments in favour of this law, I failed to hear them). And also sticks to the assertion that this material is already illegal to produce (I've not heard of the OPA applying to non-published material? Furthermore, the OPA requires that the material would "deprave or corrupt"). Oh, and we're "Libertarians"...

During the media coverage in August, the BBC news team were a lot more willing to listen to criticisms of one-sided coverage, acknowledging this on their blog, and doing a piece where they tried to be a bit more balanced.

Anyway, I could only make it through the programme by writing notes ridiculing the arguments, which I present here:

( BBC Woman's Hour Extreme Porn writeup )

Government responds to Mediawatch's petition to criminalise possession of "extreme porn" and to extend it to a much wider range of porn.

Some initial thoughts:

* They do not give a qualitative difference between the "extreme porn" which should be criminalised, and other types of images which shouldn't (Mediawatch wanted R18 porn included for example). Rather, they seem to acknowledge that this is a arbitrary distinction, and state that it is a matter of debate about "where the line should be drawn". ("consulted widely" presumably refers to when they asked misleading questions, and ignored the majority who opposed the plans...)

* They claim that this would only apply to material illegal under the Obscene Publications Act - yet this was only one option considered by the consultation, and unlike the OPA, the proposed legislation has no requirement that the material would "deprave and corrupt". (Even if it did though, I feel there are many reasons why applying a law on obscene publications to possession is very worrying.)

* Talks about a balance between freedom of expression and "protection of the public" but does not state what harm is caused to the public. Talks about being "proportionate", but does not state what "potential harm" is proportionate to a prison sentence.

* Thankfully there is no mention of the claims of porn featuring actual non-consensual violence. (There has yet to be any evidence produced of sites with non-consensual violence, and this seems to be a myth much like the "snuff films" scare. Note that this is not even an issue of "How much can someone reasonably consent to?" since extreme online sites such as Necrobabes are simulated/faked. The consent issue applies more to images of less-extreme BDSM acts, some of which may still fall under the law, e.g., breathplay.) This at least makes it clear that the issue is one of obscenity - namely that viewing an image can alledgely cause harm such that the person must be punished for doing so (much like drug laws, I guess) - and not one of protecting anyone involved in the making.

* "Countries which do not share our approach to this material and is therefore outside our jurisdiction" - I'm curious which countries do share their approach of criminalising possession of adult porn. Well, there's places like Iran and Singapore I suppose.

They have yet to respond to the petition opposing the law, though the petition creator has been informed that a response is being prepared...