Adult content

[Jack Jackson]

Amichai Teumim wrote:
> Hey 

> Thomas. I enjoyed reading your input. Some really cool stuff. If I was
> Head Master or actually even a network administrator in a Police
> Department I'd ask you to help me with educating and protecting users.
> 
> Check this out:

>    DID YOU KNOW . . . 
> Pornography has become a
> $57 billion industry
> worldwide.
> 
Yes. And this has what exactly to do with Ubuntu? I mean, I can 
apologize for going off the rails with a three line statement that 
values are more important than a software package to monitor your kids' 
firefox but this is getting ridiculous. I am not writing in support of 
pornography, and I also state categorically that I do not work with or 
for, or derive a single penny from pornography or any content or product 
containing or alluding to sex. So since I've already taken the plunge on 
this issue, let me say this about that:

<rant>
While most profess revulsion, the fact is that pornography has since the 
earliest days of the internet been in the top five most sought-after 
content segments - A $57 billion a year industry is not some fringe, 
underground market sector: $57 billion is the amount, for example, that 
the United States pays to protect its foreign oil supply; it also is the 
amount the United States imports from South and Central America 
combined, what the US government spends in public research and what 
Proctor and Gamble paid for Gillette. Adult content is mainstream.

Digital publishers of adult material led the pack in the development, 
for better or worse, of many of the most cutting-edge web delivery 
technologies - the very same ones now used by Disney, Sony, PBSKids and 
dozens of other sites. They were among the earliest users of javascript, 
streaming media, bandwidth compression, server-side scripting, 
database-driven content management systems, PHP, ASP, Perl, Cold Fusion 
and even DVD and VCD production and development. And annoying pop-up ads 
(used now by sites such as nytimes.com), interstitial ads, and, yes, 
spam, spyware and a slew of other products and services. $57 billion 
means that industry around the world caters to it by developing new 
technologies which in the end affect all of us.

THERE IS NO BLACK AND WHITE ABOUT THIS ISSUE.

Websites with adult content were in FACT among the top five driving 
forces behind the transition to broadband connectivity by ISPs in Europe 
and the US, and their ubiquity was a main reason that the cost of 
broadband has stayed low. Forrester Research reported five years ago 
that, in order to shore up businesses that offered affordable broadband 
access, "telecoms were forced to drop objections to transmission of 
adult programming for download." And that a lack of rich, 
broadband-specific content and not cost was the main barrier to 
widespread broadband adoption. Telecoms encouraged the proliferation of 
adult sites as a (forgive me) come on to users to adopt broadband 
connectivity.

In other words, while adult content may be exploitative, is certainly 
offensive to large numbers of people and while child pornography is a 
repugnant, reprehensible and unforgivable crime, throwing around "facts" 
(you know, like, "All websites with 'fun' in their name are smutty") 
about this changes nothing: adult content is there, it always will be, 
and the BEST way to defend against it is to talk to your children and 
encourage them to not look at it.
</rant>

CAN WE PLEASE MOVE ON NOW AND LIMIT THIS DISCUSSION TO HELPING ALAIN GET 
SQUIDGUARD OR SOMETHING HOOKED UP AND RUNNING?


I SOLEMNLY SWEAR TO SHUTUP ABOUT THIS ISSUE NOW.