http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...e-8726991.html
Filtering porn: problems with the plan
Can the filters work effectively?
Filtering pornography is fiendishly difficult to do accurately. Although the technology is improving, filters set up in hospitals several years ago had to be switched off after doctors were unable to access clinical studies on breast cancer.
Even if they do work, can they be circumvented?
Some schools have used web filters to stop children accessing Facebook when they were meant to be working. But some children reportedly got around them by using “proxy websites” that re-diverted them to Facebook around the filters. Such problems could also exist for pornography – while parents think there are safeguards in place.
What is pornography?
Some women’s groups believe that Page 3 in The Sun is pornography – not a view David Cameron shares. Computer algorithms may not be the best means of deciding what is and what is not pornographic.
Do we want to live in a nanny state?
The basis of Mr Cameron’s argument is that people should have to make a conscious decision to watch pornography. But civil liberties groups take the opposite approach and accuse him of hypocrisy. It was Mr Cameron who used to decry Labour’s nanny state.
And what about marital harmony?
Some men (and women) in happy relationships may secretly watch pornography without their partner’s knowledge. This, as Mr Cameron admits, will force them to fess up or abstain. A husband whose wife finds he has secretly turned off the porn filter could find himself in trouble – possibly straining the institution Mr Cameron cares most about
: marriage.