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ISP Porn Block: Why it won’t be just child porn

The NTC has clarified that only child porn will be filtered by the ISPs and there was a huge sigh of relief from everyone. For once, it looks like netizens are trusting the NTC that it will follow that directive and that alone.

Then again, who is to say that there won’t be any overlap or abuse of discretion?

Yugatech 728x90 Reno7 Series

When was the last time we thought that the government would only block the letters X and Y and they won’t really block the entire alphabet from A to Z.

Liberal Definition.

What is considered porn? The term “porn” alone is subject to a lot of interpretation. What may be an expression of the art of human anatomy can be already considered as porn by others. As such, the interpretation of what is porn is dependent on how liberal or conservative the implementing body (or the head of that body) is.

How to identify if a subject is a minor? The term “minor” means any person under the age of eighteen years old. Again, that is open to discretion and guesstimates. How will the implementing body determine if a subject in a porn site is not a minor? Visually, it is very hard to distinguish a 17-year old from a 19-year old.

In both cases stated above, the normal tendency is to err on the side of caution. Meaning, if in doubt of the nudity, it must be porn (or if in doubt of the age, it must be a minor).

A Drop of Child Porn in a Sea of Porn.

Majority of the porn sites that Filipinos visit are generally adult sites. So, generally, they are also exempted from the filters of the ISP. This might hold true for managed or paid adult sites where the content is controlled by the operators.

However, the rest are user-generated or user-contributed porn sites. As such, the content that is being regularly contributed to those sites may come from adults or minors. As such, any single instance that a porn content of a minor is uploaded or contributed to the site, it automatically becomes child porn.

The Lobbying Crowd.

While the implementing body is independent, there were always be outside forces that will influence them. From congressmen to senators, all the way to Malacanang and the Archbishop’s House.

Remember Mark Verzo and the BoyBastos story from 2007? Even before the Anti-Child Pornography Act of 2009, Sen. Loren Legarda was already asking the NBI to shut down sites like ThePinoyTube.

The Litmus Test.

Just like the brouhaha on the alleged more stringent requirements in immigration to Filipinos travelling abroad, this IRR could also be a litmus test to see how people will tolerate some level of censorship or control.

So yes, child porn is the primary target here but adult porn could easily be the collateral damage.

And while we agree that the Republic Act No. 9775 should be enforced we’re also wary of what else would tag along with it.

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Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

18 Responses

  1. Avatar for Hen-Sheen Hen-Sheen says:

    The people who made these laws were so HIGH, is like they’re touching the sky! If they keep on doing this, Internet TV will be extinct in a matter of months…… Give me that remote for I’m watching T.V. again!

    • Avatar for Hen-Sheen Hen-Sheen says:

      P.S.: Traditional TV with a Digibox installed in Standard Definition! H.D. is a different scenario for me.

  2. Avatar for Anonymous Anonymous says:

    Well if ever they block porn sites, there are always VPN. Even the great firewall of china has cracks.

  3. Avatar for passengerticket passengerticket says:

    May do this, may do that… bull$shit!

  4. Talagang ipagpipilitan ang gusto eh sinabi na nga ng NTC eh… Kung hindi copy-and-paste ang mga articles, mali-maling grammar, mostly sensationalized pa…

    • Avatar for GarryB GarryB says:

      Its called the Law of Supply and Demand. As long as readers like you continue to visit this site and even post a comment, the more they will supply you with similar articles. Basically, you are feeding YugaTech. So they should thank you as well.

  5. Avatar for Boycott Boycott says:

    NEWS FLASH: How readers abandoned yugatech. Set yugatech.com on your firewall or Adblocker, unfollow on social networking sites.

  6. Avatar for gaspar gaspar says:

    Another sensationalist tabloid article from Yuga.

  7. Avatar for abuzalzal abuzalzal says:

    Right now this imminent implementation (?) is still dubious…It reeks internet cencorship (in a BAD Way)cloaked by a sinister camouflage to benefit local iSP’s to ease-up their traffic problems, ….Mag react kayo pag na-block na yung mga pornsites na paborito ninyo.

    To see is to believe.

    meh

    • Avatar for jrmagtago jrmagtago says:

      well if they indeed block all porn (except child porn na bawal sa buong mundo) ay mapipilitan tayo na gumamit ng circumvention tools para i bypass iyang censorship na iyan.

    • Avatar for abuzalzal abuzalzal says:

      For example. ..if a batch of jpegs or mpeg videos were uploaded and labeled as “graduationDay005. RAR” sa Zippyshare, Mediafire or Cloud. Pero puros bata pala na naka hubad ang laman..how could an isp detect it?

      These pedophiliacs make money by selling their media to other pedophiliacs

      To stop kiddie porn you need to shut down the internet

  8. Avatar for abuzalzal abuzalzal says:

    Slow-news day?

    Of course this Porn-NTC pt. II article will save the day………

    Sinabi na nga sa INQUIRER, Child Porn lang ang ibo-block…but then, again, Child Porn DOESN’T EXIST in the interwebs as far as web hosting is concerned………..it only exists inside the hard drives of the pedophiles

    • Avatar for Justin Justin says:

      http://www.iol.co.za/news/world/philippines-arrests-11-over-web-child-porn-1.1638873#.Uyg55oXNlqE

      Yes, child porno may originate from hard drives, but these scrupulous individuals still need an ISP to stream their illegal content to the outside world, and that’s when this whole ISP porn blocking thing comes into play.

  9. Avatar for lolwut lolwut says:

    I think this is more of a test to see how people will react to it. Then when people don’t bother to care, ISP will be exerting full efforts to block porn as a whole since it will lessen their traffic and bandwidth. This freaking government is becoming more restrictive but nothing more than effective in giving solutions. So nauseatingly aggravating, geez.

    • Avatar for jrmagtago jrmagtago says:

      well i think they are now following the foot step of china hahaha!

    • Avatar for vince vince says:

      after blocking all porn why not go the extra steps and block all the pictures of a certain government official with his mouth open as if having nothing in is head?

  10. Avatar for GeNeRaL GeNeRaL says:

    Both intent and purpose are pure for this Republic Act. The only question is do we have the means to implement this properly? Sa panahon and situation ng bansa kasi ngayon, napaka-trivial ng matter na ito and sayang lang ang oras ng gobyerno para pagtuunan pa ng pansin tong mga ganitong bagay. Parang pampaganda lang to ng CV ng mga lawmakers na wala pang nao-author na batas :S anyway, tignan na lang natin ang mangyayari xD

    • Avatar for vince vince says:

      Intent and purpose of a law is one thing but its not the only thing to take into consideration. If MacGyver taught me anything its that the intent and purpose of the manufacturer of something has no bearing on how Mac will use it.

      i.e. a law may have good intent and good purpose but it may still be misused

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