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It’s their job to guard their kids from this content first and foremost. It’s their job to put it into context for their children. But the article doesn’t even mention that any of this is a humongous failing of parents.
Next this commissioner will want to outlaw computer mice because they’re used to click pornographic content without verifying the age of the finger on the button. And roads because adult content actors use them to get to jobs.
The way forward is not banning or making worse all sorts of useful tools as collateral damage in this “think of the children” campaign. It is to get all adult content everywhere behind a barrier toddlers cannot break. We were fine with porn mags partially obscured on the top shelf at a news agent when that was a thing. And the salesperson making sure the customer wasn’t a minor. The solution isn’t closing all digital news agents.
And it’s quite telling that the existence of VPNs didn’t play a bigger part in this UK online safety initiative. Like it wasn’t obvious that when the west entrance to porn central was closed off, people wouldn’t naturally look for the ones in east, north, and south.
Edited typo
Not everything but a lot. The short answer is cost. This will be long and simplified simultaneously:
Ever since the latter half of the last century companies have really loved one way to reduce cost in manufacturing. And that’s labor. Go to a place where the cost of living is low and work those people to the bone for a pittance.
After WW2 a lot of stuff was made in Japan, then in South Korea and Taiwan, and then China. We have since moved on to places like Vietnam, Myanmar (when politically palatable), and India. All of these stories are different and the same. Japan’s industrial heartland was bombed to smithereens and had to be rebuilt, top of the line. People needed jobs, those people were good at it too, and manufacturing jobs went there. The economy grew, wages grew with them, and it became too costly again. Enter South Korea, after successfully democratizing in the 80s (I think). They looked at what Japan had done and did a version of that. The economy grew, wages along with it, and it also became too expensive. Enter the People’s Republic of China in the 90s, ready to blend communist political power with Manchester red capitalism. A billion people who need jobs. So they looked at what the other so-called tiger states had done and did a version of their own. The economy grew, wages grew with it, and they are teetering on the edge of being to expensive again. But their sheer size, both geographically and inhabitants-wise, keeps them in the game longer. Because the policies the communists implemented to grow and steer the economy are quite unique and perhaps the lack of having to explain everything (i.e. democratic oversight) puts them in quite a strong position. And over the last 30 years anybody who is somebody has gone to China. Big market to sell goods to, big labor force to make stuff, somebody else’s rivers to pollute. It was so tempting a deal that both the US and Europe blindly became very dependent on China. Certain base chemicals, e.g. for medicine, were almost exclusively produced there. I think there world’s entire canned mandarin industry is one village in the middle of nowhere. It takes time to change this. 47 is trying to do it the impulsive, not so thought through way (tariffs). But he may yet learn that you cannot make an iPhone in the States for the price suicidal youths put it together in Shenzhen. At the heart is always cost. Labor is expensive in Ohio, cheap in Guangdong. Slightly cheaper in greater Hanoi. If we could just stop the genocide and coups, Myanmar. India has a harder time catching up because - at least for the time being - there is democratic oversight. But the gravy train will move on. Subsaharan Africa will be the next big thing. Capitalism.