In the waning days of his leadership at the FCC, chairman Kevin J. Martin is trying to push through some striking initiatives in his last chance to leave his mark on the agency. On Election Day, for instance, the FCC approved unlicensed use for white-space TV spectrum (aka, WiFi 2.0) that is being freed up. Now Martin wants to rid the wireless Web of porn.
One of the issues he plans to tackle in upcoming meetings this month, is a plan to give all Americans free access to the Web via the airwaves, minus the porn. Adults would be able to opt back in to get the raw, unfiltered Internet.
The proposal opens the door for the FCC to regulate decency standards on the Web, but only when it is accessed over the airwaves by wireless devices. It would reassert the FCC’s authority in this area, which harkens back to the decency standards it imposes on broadcast TV. This is a bad idea for several reasons.
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1. The FCC has a hard enough time figuring out what is decent and what is not on 500 channels. It is not equipped to police decency on billions of Websites, even if it relies on automated filters to do most of the work.
2. The rule would apply to only one sliver of spectrum, the AWS-3 band, which nobody really uses yet. It would be like banning porn on fiber-optic IPTV, but not doing anything about it on satellite or cable. If children watching porn is the problem, this will do nothing to stop it.
3. Porn filtering aside, requiring winners of the AWS-3 spectrum auction to give up a quarter of the airwaves they win to set up a free slower-tier wireless Internet service will certainly make those airwaves worth less to any potential bidders. Worse, it could drive away the best potential bidders who might decide it is just not worth their effort or capital.
You’ve got to wonder whether Martin really thinks he can get this passed, or whether he just wants it as a resume stuffer. It’s the kind of thing that plays well on the campaign trail, should Martin decide to run for political office in the future. Why is he bringing this up now for what is ultimately a minor swath of spectrum? If he was serious about eradicating porn on the wireless Web, he should have tried to impose this kind of rule during the last set of auctions for the 700 MHz spectrum. But he didn’t.
Setting up a free tier of wireless Web access is the more interesting part of his proposal. Perhaps a better way to do that would be to set up economic incentives for spectrum winners to offer free tiers of service, rather than mandate it. For instance, why not offer a 25 percent discount to each bid that includes provisions for free Web access that could be supported by advertising. That way the market would sort out what portion should be free and what portion should be paid.
Porn is the #1 reason why the Internet exisits!
agree
This economy needs porn right now. What other industry can offer Jobs + Revenue + High Spirits in a time of need like porn?
Yeah … Didn’t the porn guys invent secure online transactions?
There is no way the filtering would be effective, schools and businesses have a hard enough time, imagine trying to do that for the entire country…
Not gonna happen.
Meanwhile, the web wishes to rid itself of belligerent, self-righteous autocrats who threaten to monitor and control it.
OK, good luck, contestants! To the winner go the spoils!
I feel like this is going to be a huge dose of fail for this guy…I mean everyone hates the FCC anyway and thinks it’s made up of backwards looking people. This will be yet another example of the agency’s ineptitude.
Why in the hell is the Government trying to provide free access to the Internet? Charge for the damn thing.
So they can control the content, duh. The Bush Administration is all about giving Jesus control over your life, so this comes as no surprise. No regulation or oversight of the war or banks, but plenty of regulation of your leisure time.
Obviously sex is the number one thing on most peoples minds, and on the Internet it is HUGE….what an odd thing to try and pass…I bet he runs for office in the future….
This is why the republican party is going down the tubes (thank god!)…
The economy is crashing, the environment is circling the drain, we’re in a war that really has no point, our energy future is in question…
and yet, the republicans are more concerned about keeping gay people from marrying and porn off the internet.
Yeah, great set of priorities. Say hello to the Whig party for us.
Well put Troy! LOL! Too bad there are so many dumb people who buy this non-issue crap every election cycle.
I think this is a great step towards cleaning things up. To be successful on the other hand this would need to be a global effort and good luck on that one!
The best that can be hoped for is a mere reduction in what is available. Still the effort is honorable and commendable, but will require massive collaborative efforts in the US alone.
My only question is, it has taken the gov. how long to figure out porn is bad?
Wait, who says “things” need “cleaning?”
Who says that porn is bad? I’ve personally been to a lecture by a Stanford educated professor in which it is stated that porn can be a healthy way to keep relationships fresh.
Hardcore/fetish porn, in his words, could be considered to have about as much of a negative effect as fashion/glamour magazines does for teen women. Porn propagates a view of how women should be/act in the bedroom. Magazines turn women into consumerists and could be contributing to the glass ceiling in that it encourages women to think about “pleasing the man” and “staying at home to raise the children.”
Other than that romantic porn or softcore porn isn’t harmful at all, and likely healthy in most cases. It keeps spice in a relationship and provides comfort to those in need. For example: a man who’s wife has recently died, or a woman who’s husband is in the military and deployed in a warzone.
Stop making wild ascertains that something is bad, especially without backing it up.
They couldn’t auction off Block D (or whatever) much because of the public safety requirement and neither will this.
His picture looks like a yearbook debate team photo, explains why he has porn on his mind.
How about letting me decide for myself what I think is offensive. If porn was that taboo and deplored by the masses it would not be as pervasive, and profitable, as it is today.
Lets start a war on porn, then we will know all hope is officially lost.
This guy looks like he never had sex in his life. Would he KNOW what PORN is?
to quote family guy:
Peter: They will clean up all your talking in a manner such as this
Brian: they will make you take a tinkle when you wanna take a piss
Stewie: And they’ll make you call falacio a trouser friendly kiss
Chrous: It’s the plain situation, there’s no negotiatin’ with the freakin’ FCC
Brian: They’re as stuff as the stuffiest of the special interest groups
Peter: Make a joke about your bowls and they order in the troops
Stewie: Any baby with a brain could tell them anybody poops!
Chorus: Take a tip, take a lesson, you’ll never win by messin’ with the fellas at the freakin’ FCC
Peter: And if you find yourself with some young sexy thing, you’re gonna have to do her with your ding-a-ling – cause you can’t say penis
Peter: so they sent this little warning, they’re prepared to do their worst
Brian: and they stuck it in your mailbox hoping you could be coersed
Stewie: I can think of quite another place they should have stuck it first
Chorus: They may just be neurotic, or possibly psychotic, they’re the fellas at the freakin’ FCC!
Luckily, you can’t do this anymore.
But it is incredible how puritan values still pervade American culture.
Orly? Is that why porn is such a big industry that the FCC wants to censor it somewhat?
Keep in mind that Martin is pretty conservative politically.
Really it’s more Victorian values if you read your history.
What a dumb idea… I mean, whats the point of internet if there’s no porn?
Whether you like or dislike porn it should be irrelevant in this argument; in my opinion. Again; it just seems someone is trying to push their own agenda and beliefs which result in limitation of peoples’ freedoms to do what they want to do.
Why do we continue down this path? Someone is always trying to control someone or somebody it seems.
If they go after porn, what next? Or why not something else instead of porn? MMOs because too many obese children? It seems that it could be anything.
If they go after porn, what next?
Social networks, I’m guessing.
Could mandating a tier of free service become a license to gauge users for full featured access?
Too late! I’m using a wireless network and I plan to rid it of porn by downloading all of it right now! I’ll get back to you when I’m done.
Gee…i knew the U.S was a deeply religous country but it’s becoming like China, and Iran with all this censoring….let’s hope Obama sorts the idiots out…….Porn is what keeps the net ticking.i mean how the hell were we all born ? through Sex which equates to Porn……..fuck me even Adam & Eve done it doggy style
neanderthal
doushe bag
@Dave note. china doesn’t Cesaro porn. in fact china is a free country until you do something political – way more free then america. I road across china on an unlicensed motorbike (including into military and border zones) and got stopped by cops a total of 8 times. every time they let me go smiling. Also people grow weed and corn in the same fields. In the US if you so much as look at a cop wrong, you will be shackled – sure the judge may throw out the case, but you are all intimidated.
I live in Hong Kong, stay in mainland China frequently, and lived in mainland China for a cumulative period of about two years. China absolutely blocks many porn websites. Porn mags and movies are banned.
Also, just imagine how annoying it would be for some village cop in China to prosecute a westerner for driving an unlicensed motorbike. They have bigger fish to fry. They respect westerners from rich countries, and don’t particularly want to arrest or fine you. Don’t let your experience convince you that police and government officials in China are not often extremely corrupt, or very hard on ordinary Chinese people. They just don’t bother government officials (those with white license plates on their cars) or westerners.
Living in mainland China, I was frequently visited by police, at my home, asking for ID without cause – I lived in a pretty upscale apartment. That’s “normal” in China. They can search anyone they want, at any time. I know someone who was visited and warned by police shortly after replying to a blog post.
China is not a free country. They don’t even have a framework in which to legislate freedom.
Building an internet nanny force, or an internet police force, is just like trampling on the bill of rights. You’ve heard the slippery slope argument, and it is pertinent to this issue. I’d like to think it couldn’t happen, but it could.
I remember a long time ago, talking to a friend about how opposed I was to the “internet decency act.” I was shocked when my friend said “I’m glad if they get rid of porn.”
I guess my friend was willing to let the government set a precedent of censorship and fairly arbitrary policing of the internet. And for what purpose? People act as if porn kills. Actually, if little johnny sees pictures of nipples and clits when he is five, it won’t make any significant difference in his life.
Which is more important, making sure that some little boys don’t see quite as many pics of clits, or making sure that we develop a legislative framework that protects everyone’s rights on the internet?
Kevin Martin is a shit stain.
Actually i agreed with Jeff statement. That this is a great step
Why don’t you start your own ISP with optional filtering service. Then people can make their own decisions.
They tried to do the same with internet gambling in the US. All it did was move “underground”. The same would happen here (and this pipe dream plan to eliminate web porn would never happen anyway).
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Typical of the FCC to try to legislate morality. The FCC will do whatever it can to stick its nose into our private business and to limit our access to free speech. The internet without porn is like a body without a soul: the net IS porn and we love it. Mark Montgomery boboberg@nyc.rr.com
Porn is the #1 reason why the Internet exisits! <<< LOL
Let them do it; if you dont agree with what they do just dont use there service plain and simple no need to whine and b***h about it like children.
http://www.yout...h?v=YRgNOyCnbqg
The only logical reason (to me) that they would ban porn on the free internet would be to narrow down the amount of content they’d be serving up. If they remove porn from the free internet, that would cut down like… what, 80% on operating costs? If we think about this more along the lines of a business move instead of ethics, I think it makes better sense.
Might as well block file sharing and streaming video as well. It just depends what you consider non-essential. I think porn filtering is all about posturing for K. Martin.
Belligerent statements like this don’t really even phase me anymore. “___ wants to regulate ____ in a bold new move.” Tipper Gore and her troupe of nit wit, puritan housewives did the same thing to the recording industry in the 80’s as hour friends at the Federal Communism Committee have done for several decades, and wish to do now.
I firmly believe in two things: I can decide what is proper for myself and my potential family to see, and will leave ‘net-nanny’ services up to private companies; I also believe in the red square with the ‘x’ in it at the top, along with use of the my finger in conjunction with my brain to take me away from what I don’t like.
Fuck, I did not see the ‘h’ in ‘our’. Now I feel dumb.
Why not just move all porn to a top level domanin like .xxx or .porn to give us an easy way to block it, if we as individuals/parents select to do so. We zone our cities, why not zone the internet with expanding the top level domain list.
Damn it tought I had this one!
and gay porn, evidently.