According to reports, a Mormon anti-pornography group has petitioned ICANN to become a recognized committee of the GNSO of ICANN, with the proposed formation of a new “Cybersafety Constituency.
The drive is being promoted by CP80.org, calling it an “Internet Zoning” censorship campaign.
CP80.org wants all adult material banned from Port 80, the standard protocol port for the web, and confined to a new port. It also suggests that “ISPs could simply block all IP addresses originating from a non-compliant country”.
According to the cp80.org site:
“””The CP80 Internet Zoning Initiative uses a three-pronged approach to solve the Internet pornography problem:
- A Technical Solution
- A Legislative Solution
- Internet Governance Solution
The technical solution leverages the current structure and technologies of the Internet to categorize all of the content on the Web into Internet channels, similar to cable television channels. With content categorized into Internet channels, consumers could easily choose which channels they wanted to access or block in their home and office.
Besides the technical solution, federal legislation is critical to effectively implement this solution. The CP80 Foundation has drafted legislation, the Internet Community Ports Act (ICPA), which will balance regulation and free speech.
Finally, the Internet Zoning Initiative enables Internet governing bodies to take action against individuals and entities that violate content categorization regulations and laws”””
“”””The CP80 Foundation supports enforcement of its initiatives through carefully crafted and constitutionally-sound legislation. This includes the Internet Community Ports Act which would require that anyone serving adult-content be held accountable if that content is accessible on the Community Ports. This patterns existing zoning laws in the real world. The Foundation is working with representatives to assist in adapting the ICPA for other nations.
CP80, at the request of state governments has also written legislation that state and local governments can pass to help protect children from Internet pornography. These legislative pieces can be easily adapted to work in any state. Legislation already written includes:
- Marketing Support for ISPs who Fight Pornography
- ISP Record Keeping
- Restrictions on Unfettered Wireless Access
- TechGap Education Program
- Wireless Device Manufacture and Sale”””
As I keep saying there are groups hard at work seeking to regulate material on the web and all such groups are United States based.
The Mormon church is largely credited with the overturning of gay marriage in California by funding up to $25 million to fight Prop8 in November.
No way this will pass. Just read this on http://www.theRegister.co.uk about it: “Utah is 58 per cent Mormon, and according to a recent study has the highest consumption of internet pornography of any US state, boasting an average of 5.47 porn subscriptions per 1,000 broadband users.”
I have a couple of porn sites and most of the traffic comes from….muslim countries.
Nothing new to report….
David
It will never pass if people become aware of it and object.
Otherwise what you have is a proposal that receives a ton of favorable supporting e-mails and comments by supporters of the group.
If ICANN hears and gets no objection, it could very well pass.
We will work hard to make sure it does not
What ever happened the the Mormon belief in teaching people proper principles and letting them govern themselves? Joseph Smith taught that=)
I am a Mormon and I live the religion but one thing that I have had a hard time dealing with is the idea of legislating morality that seems to be more and more prevalent in many members of the church today.
Like I said, I have no problem with the Mormon church, (obvious since I am a member), stuff like this is not usually sponsored by the church but by individual members of the church.
I just wish as a people we could reach back to our libertarian roots of letting people have liberty, even if we disagree with what they do with it. It was the legislation of morality that drove the Mormons to Utah in the first place and now many of them have forgotten that history and simply seek to legislate morality on others.
Excellent point, Troy.
Excellent points Troy!
Also, what is the definition of pornography? A Victoria Secrets catalog of clothing on the Net?
And we could cut off all the countries who don’t agree to do what some Utah Mormons want, just by accusing them of having porn on port 80.
Is it a coincidence that Mormons always vote Republican?
The title, and some of the content of this post is extremely misleading and dishonest.
First of all, proposing that all pornography be required to appear on a specific port other than port 80 is not banning porn from the net. It is merely creating a virtual red-light district on the net where those who pursue lecherous material can find it and those who want to avoid it can easily do so.
Websites that run under SSL are by convention on port 443. They are still “on the net,” even though they are on a different port. In the same manner, if pornography is required to be on port 1001, it is still on the net.
We already use ports to produce zones in cyberspace, just like we use zoning laws in real space. Creating a zone for pornography seems like a reasonable proposal, consistent with free speech and the individual choices of both those who avoid pornography and those who do not.
So stating that the group wants to “ban porn from the net” as it does in your title is clearly dishonest.
Secondly, your claim that CP80 is a “Mormon group” is also dishonest. The LDS is church does not appear to be in control of the group, and it is not listed among the sponsors of the site. But if you do look at the sponsors you will see familiar names like Apple Computers, Amazon.com, iTunes, BestBuy, Disney, Nokia, Target, and Wal-Mart.
You could just have easily said that Apple, or Wal-Mart, or Disney is trying to ban porn from the net. But you didn’t, you tried to claim it was the LDS church.
While some of the members of CP80 are Mormons, they are not a church organization in the same way that Family Search or LDS Social Services are.
The only other connection between the CP80 website and the LDS Church is that the group presented at a conference on pornography that was sponsored by BYU and promoted by the church.
But to claim that it is a “Mormon Group” trying to “ban porn from the net” and making wink,wink mentions of Mormon opposition to same-sex marriage in California and the success of Proposition 8 is plainly dishonest and anti-mormon hate mongering.
I am asking you to update your post with a retraction and an apology.
J. Max Wilson:
You may also want to have a chat with these people: http://www.theRegister.co.uk
Here’s the exact link: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/18/mormons_icann/
@J. Max Wilson, i use the internet DAILY for MULTIPLE hours and i do not ever run in to porn unless i want to look at it…LOL. What i am trying to say is why put it out of the way and make it a quest to go find something when the person searching on the internet can take in their own precautions while surfing the internet.
On top of that there is always 2 sides to an argument. You make a port for only porn sites, the porn industry will want to disrupt the rest of the space. For instance making organizations that fight porn on port 1001 or something like that. This is just ridiculous and just needs to be left alone. It does defeat free speak by segregating a site to a specific location.
When you walk down the street do you here people cussing or making rude comments? If so then why shouldn’t there be a law you can only cuss or say rude things with in a certain parameter around a fire hydrant. That’s how stupid this idea sounds to me.
Simple fact is, kids are going to try to get the things they can not have. You block one thing from them they will find a way to get it.
Mr. Wilson
I don’t hate.
I don’t care how people live there lives.
However, we all know who is behind this movement, theregister.co.uk already outed you.
Of course the church name does not appear on the site, that how it operates.
The Mormons involvement in Prop8 is well known and not even worthy of debate.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-jacobs/mormon-church-on-prop-8-w_b_140804.html
However, unlike prop8 opponents who were blind sighted by the church and did not know where the $25 Million came in from until after the vote, we are on to the Mormon activists this time their involvement its going to be put out in the light and met with a fight.
Moreover why is the this particular church always the first one who actively wants to legislate how everyone lives their life?
Ever see the show Big Love?
Links to the proposed Cybersafety Constituency Petition and Charter can be found at http://icann.org/en/public-comment/#cybersafety . The comment period closes on April 5th and individuals with an interest in this should definitely avail themselves of that opportunity. The proposed charter is very exclusionary in that all commercial entities, trade associations, and parties having a contractual relationship with ICANN are ineligible to join– which seems like a very myopic stand for a constituency that ostensibly wants to bring concerned entities together to address “Cybersafety”.
The ICA opposed the proposed .xxx contract in February 2007 for several reasons, but the main one was that it would have turned the DNS into a zoning system for segregating and censoring content, and would have put ICANN into the content review and rating business which is far outside its mandate of technical coordinator. If the goal of this proposed and narrowly constituted constituency is to pursue DNS zoning that is a major concern.
Yes, this needs to be stopped. Serious domainers need to voice their opinion here:
http://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/#cybersafety
@David J Castello: Thanks for the links.
@Ross: Reasonable people can disagree about the relative merits (or in your words stupidity) of the proposal, but I think that all reasonable people can agree that proposing restricting lecherous material to a certain port on the web does not amount to “banning pornography from the net” as the title of this post claims. And that kind of dishonesty should be corrected, regardless of whether you agree with the proposal or not. Likewise, while Mormons certainly favor the restriction of pornography, we are also big believers in the freedom of speech, so restricting such things to a certain redlight district port seems to us to be reasonable compromise. Other than that, the connection between the proposal and the official LDS Church is so tenuous as to be disingenuous, especially when the proposal is officially sponsored by such other recognizable companies unrelated to the church. It is the claim that this proposal represents a Mormon effort to ban porn from the net that is patently false and which needs to be corrected, regardless of the merit of the proposal itself.
@MHB: I think you are operating under some common misconceptions. The Church’s involvement with the Prop. 8 campaign in California was completely public and transparent. The church officially asked its members to contribute their time, talents, and money to the campaign. They also publicly disclosed their in-kind contributions as the law requires. Their was nothing subversive about it. Contrary to what you say, it was all out in the open and even reported in the papers many months before the actual vote on the proposition.
Secondly, while members of the church contributed a great deal to the campaign, the Catholic and Evangelical Christian churches contributed more, and had a lot more voting members in California. To claim that Prop. 8 passed only because of a secret Mormon conspiracy is simply false.
The only reason why this pertains to the conversation at hand is that you have tried to imply that this CP80 proposal is a secret Mormon conspiracy, and have used Prop 8. as a parallel example, and so I am forced to correct the false information you are inadvertently spreading.
The participants and apparently many supporters of the CP80 proposal are LDS. As I explained earlier, that make sense because Mormons want to protect their families from pornography while still protecting freedom of speech, which they highly value, so they would naturally be attracted to what they view as a decent compromise.
But the fact that the CP80 proposal is sponsored by organizations like Apple, Disney, Wal-Mart, etc, shows that it has broad appeal well beyond Mormonism.
Like I said to Ross, I am sure you have reasonable objections to the proposal. I can respect your difference of opinion. But to paint it as a Mormon conspiracy to ban pornography from the net is dishonest on all accounts and should be corrected.
Concerning Big Love, I hope you realized that Big Love is about an apostate polygamist group that is not Mormon. In the first season, the show included a disclaimer that clarified that the main characters in the show are not members of the LDS (Mormon) church.
As A life-long Mormon, I would be happy to clarify any misconceptions you might have. There are a lot of them out there and I don’t blame you for inadvertently perpetuating falsehoods. But I hope you will be reasonable enough to recant them once it is clear that you are mistaken.
Another post on the same subject
http://lauren.vortex.com/
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I think porn should be relegated to its own dark corner of the web. Allow parents and grandparents to regelate what sites their childrem can surf by being able to exclude certain ports and TLDs.
I REALLY resent porn being shoved into my face. Of course I know to avoid sites with certain keywords, but sometimes innocuous-sounding names take you right to some pretty slimy sites.
And what about those porn mongers who infect, say, one’s poetry forum (often with members under 18) with hard core filth?
Yeah, I certainly want my four-year-old grandchild to click on to some creepy swinger’s site when all she wants is Barbie.
What are porn dealers doing to stop child pornography?
What are porn dealers doing about stopping human trafficking, mostly vulnerable women and children from poor countries?
It seems to me that all you purveyors of porn want are “rights,” but I hear nothing about responsibility in keeping the web safe for kids and for people who simply find graphic one-night stands and adult films distasteful.
I say if you want to keep your porn sites, then do so, but keep them away me and the children I love, all children, actually. Your horny customers will find you whether you are on .xxx, .sex, or Port80.
I’m not some religious wing-nut who hates sex, just a parent/grandparent who is tired of having porn shoved into my face at every turn.
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Ms Domainer,
I agree with a lot that you have said. I think that porn does tear down a lot of things that are importiant (families, relationships, etc…) but do you see the “slippery slope”?
Pretty soon people will say that they want all religious sites on their own port, all political sites on one port, all national sites on one port, etc… By giving groups the ability to do this you are giving then the keys to unlock a door that will quite possibility lead to some serious internet censorship in the future.
sure, porn spammers are the lowest of the low in my opinion but that is only a reason to watch your 4 year old when they are online. You need to be present, you wouldnt let the girl run around a large city all by herself but you seem to think that she should be able to access the internet all by herself… that is simply failed logic.
I would love to live in a world that is completely moral but if that morality came at the expense of freedom it would not be worth it for me.
Whoops. Looking more carefully at the site, I see that iTunes, Amazon, et all are nor actual sponsors. They are simply contribution channels in that if you click the affiliate link and buy something, part of your purchase fee goes back to CP80. My mistake. I’m sorry.
With that clarification, however, let me state that the relationship between these companies and CP80 is as tenuous as the relationship between the LDS Church and CP80, and just as I have corrected my misconception, so should those who are perpetuating the view that this is an effort by the Mormon church.
Mr. Wilson
Those “links” are place for the exact reason you thought at first, to give “false” credibility to their movement and make it look like those companies somehow support their action.
@MHB: You may be right that the links are there to give false credibility to their website to those who do not carefully read it. I have no idea if that was their intent or just an inadvertent misconception. And unless you have a copy of an internal memo or email to that effect, you are just throwing around accusations with no evidence. I agree with you that you could be right in this one observation.
But the actions of this company have nothing to do with the LDS church. And since you are unable to refute the facts I have previously presented, I hope you will be a good sport and recant your accusation that this is a Mormon conspiracy to ban porn.
The religion or lack thereof of anyone involved with proposing this constituency is irrelevant.
The threshold question is should ICANN allow this type of constituency to exist? I think not. Up to now GNSO constituencies have been based upon contractual relationships with ICANN or specific commercial interests in the DNS (keeping with the overarching objective that ICANN be a private-sector lead organization). This is a non-profit sector initiative based upon a particular concern. If you start allowing constituencies based upon concerns that have no direct relationship to the technical management of the DNS you allow a proliferation of political causes to propagate within ICANN, introducing politics from the inside at the same time the ITU/UN try to impose politics from the outside. This is a nightmare scenario.
Next, if you’re going to have such a constituency is its proposed charter acceptable? Again, the answer is no. Cybersafety, broadly defined, is an issue of major interest and concern for a broad array of parties within ICANN — including registries, registrars, ISPs, IP interests, general business interests and domainers. But the proposed charter proposes to exclude all of them, and should be rejected on those grounds alone. If such a constituency is to be created it must be open to all who share cybersafety concerns – including the private sector that is supposed to guide ICANN – and that inclusiveness will guarantee that its agenda and activities cannot be captured and controlled by a narrow interest.
Third, is there an apparent absence of transparency on the part of the proposers? Yes, and it must be addressed — no Board decision should be made until the constituency’s proponents have responded to press allegations that their overriding aim is to establish an ICANN-sanctioned body to advocate a segregation of certain content to a designated port. ICANN says it is devoted to transparency, and the community deserves transparency on this matter. If the constituency’s proponents intend to utilize it for the pursuit of a specific policy agenda that it is a critically important fact that should inform the ICANN community before it comments and the Board renders a decision.
Finally, if the aim of the constituency is to segregate defined content onto a specific port, should that be furthered? Again, the answer is absolutely and positively no. To establish the use of the DNS as a content zoning mechanism would be a huge threat to the freedom of speech and information that the Internet has fostered. To require “pornographic” content to be directed through a specific port requires establishing a content judge to decide what is pornographic, as the Internet is a global medium and the subjective judgment as to what is generally viewed as unacceptable content varies widely by country and culture. In the end you get lowest common denominator, politicized decisions that do maximum damage to the free flow of content and information. Port specificity also abets attempts to require ISPs to block certain ports, which is the obvious next step in this strategy. Plus, once you set the precedent that one type of content can be segregated to facilitate its blocking, you lay the groundwork for China, Iran, and the Taliban to seek new targets.
This proposal is so flawed even divine intervention might not save it.
Oh, and one more thing — if you care about this and other ICANN issues please support the ICA http://www.internetcommerce.org/membership_application . Thanks!
Phil
Your brilliant and clear thinking is a reason we are a huge supporter of the ICA and all urge all who read this blog to become a member.
Mr.Wilson
I said nothing about the LDS church. I was talking about CP80 in general. Don’t know why you brought up the LDS in your address against me.
Also would like to point out that most people that are leaving comments are discussing CP80 as an organization/group not a “LDS” sponsored group.
On top of that the title of this post might be a little misleading but it is prolly meant more for link-baiting rather than bashing the church itself. Evey medium has its casualties and in this case it was the church.
Excellent points all, Phil.
Guys
To be clear the title did not mention the church just a “Mormon group” which is clearly linked by the original article.
@MHB: Perhaps the title did not mention the Church, but the post itself tries to draw parallels between the LDs Church’s official support of Prop 8 and this effort, as does comment #12, so don’t be disingenuous.
Anyhow. I’ll stop distracting from the main issue. Over and out.
The more you guys talk about sex, the more I want sex!!!
The “Contributions Partners” is a complete scam towards credibility. Obviously intended to imply that all those companies are in support of this group.
Also, I believe that most certainly violates the Terms Of Service agreements that every one of those companies has regarding such unethical maneuvers.
Might I suggest we all start sending some emails to the TOS violations departments at those vendors?
Still don’t think the deception is intentional?
Go to the “SPONSORS AND PARTNERS” choice under the “GET INVOLVED” Tab — That takes you straight to the affilliate links page.
Frankly, I don’t care if the LDS Church supports this or not… but I sure as Hell know that all those companies did not willingly and knowingly become “Sponsors”…
Yeah… “Let us define Morality for the world – Never mind how unethical WE are!”
oh this is good… from http://www.blog.rmdstudio.com/index.php?s=yarro
Matthew Yarro, VP Marketing for the CP80 Foundation, thinks that Internet is a toaster!
…and he wants to fix it and control it.
“There is this assumption that you can’t control it (the Internet),” Yarro said. “It’s a toaster, we made it, we can fix it. … We can solve the Internet pornography problem tomorrow if we decided to.”
————–
the author of that page then goes on to make a good point… (NOT Mr. Yarro)
—————
I think Internet is a collection of interconnected computer networks. It is distributed and diverse by nature, and cannot be controlled and dictated by an entity from the top. What computers do, computers can undo, which is exactly why top notch dictators such as China or Iran spend tons of resources and still have a difficult time censoring the Internet. Internet by nature is democratic. An element of control and locking mechanism placed today by a small group of people, can only withstand for so long the wisdom of millions who attempt to crack it.
Politicians would wish if Internet was just a series of tubes or a Toaster, so they’d have had an easier time understanding the nature of it.
I recently lost my husband. We had a temple marriage. I met this man in my ward we dated and I noticed how he kept looking at other women especially their breasts. He was on the computer alot. Asked him if he was into internet porn he said no. My daughter has breast implants he was attracted to her or her breasts? I found hard core porn on the internet 7 1/2 weeks into our marriage. It has never been the same. He says that garments are not sexy. He wears them to. Why is porn so big in the church. Why do we have to be lied to. i did not deserve this. I have lost respect for him. I can never feel beautiful with him. Do not men understand the damage this causes in their mariage. Men like this do not deserve good women like myself or others. Why are we not found beautiful in the church?
why do men have to lie and be cought up in porn. Why lie to their wives? Why are we not found beautiful? I was a victim. I lost my beautiful husband. Started to date again. Remarried and found on the net hard core porn. I asked him before we got married ahe said no. 71/2 weeks into the marriage found out. Why lie to us? Why are we not beautiful? He says garments are not sexy. He wears them to. Why porn???????????????? Why ddi dthis have to happen to me?
Karen
Sorry to hear about your sad situation.
However, I can’t make the jump from the fact that certain people can’t properly use material in a responsible fashion, to banning it from everyone’s use.
I call this the Hersey Bar theory.
Millions of people eat Hershey Bars everyday. However if you eat 25 of them everyday, your going to die.
Now should be ban the sales of Hershey Bars because some people abuse them?
For every person who can’t handle porn and wrecks their lives, there are thousands how do enjoy it and use it to add to their monogamous relationships.
On a personal note some counseling would seem in order to get some closure and answers to your question
Thank you MHB. I can handle porn however its the fact that why lie? I have been to counseling therefor being told lying was the worst. What ever happen to trust? I understand that people have problems. My heart goes out to all men and women who deeply get hurt. Hershey bars? Could you not have done better than that? Thank you for your time but I wasen’t expecting a slap in the face.
@ Troy:
There is no reason that porn categorization would lead to any of the things you suggest. Why would it? Broadcast Television has moral restrictions that have not lead to religious or political censorship.
Maybe you should read up on the idea of a “slippery slope.” It’s a common logical fallacy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope
People need to understand that this effort is not taking away from “free speech”. If somebody wanted to look at porn, they can still do this if they chose to. They just need to go to a different domain.
Also, they need to understand that yes, we have our ability to choose what we look at while surfing, but what about those who use our computers such as our children who are too young to understand the choices that they make.
Just like how children are too young to understand the consequences of what smoking can do to a person, and the addiction that follows. So now they have laws that basically say, if you want to smoke in public, do it away from those who want the right to clean air. But you also have people are are trying to break the smoking habit, and it’s extremely difficult to break the habit if they are around people in their families, or friends, coworkers, who smoke. So you also have people who are trying to break away from porn addiction, and going online knowing that porn is easily accessible, it can be too difficult to break the habit.
Everyone should have the right to go online knowing that they don’t have to worry about something popping up online, or in their emails. So if our kids want to look at an .xxx porn domain when they turn 18 or 21, then so be it. Just because it’s easy for some people to go online and avoid porn because they “chose” to, it doesn’t mean it’s easy for others who may have grown up not understanding what it can potentially do to a person.
Also not much different for some cities that outlaw fully nude dancing. So some clubs like in Lincoln, Nebraska, they’ll locate out in the country nearby…… just not in the city. So if you want the nude dancing, then do a little traveling. If you want the porn online, then by all means go get it on a different domain because you would still have that right.
Yes, we have anti-porn filters out there, but they hardly work very well because if, for example, your filter is going to block out anything with the word “lesbian” or “gay” in it, then it’s going to block out all of the other news articles along with it, too when it comes to reading the news. That’s just one example of many downfalls of these porn filters that fail miserably.
Just because this organization has a few Mormons in it, it doesn’t make it a bad idea because there are plenty of other Christian religions, or other religions altogether that would support this.
And as for MHB, that is such a horrible analogy with the Hershey bar, and a very poor response altogether. My reasons for saying this can be explained in my previous response.
J. Max you must hate the ” dumb dumb dumb” episode of South Park.