Starhub, one of the largest ISP in Singapore recently added 2 video sharing porn sites to their ban list. According to Asiaone, if you are accessing these sites with a Starhub home account, you’ll land at a Starhub notice page, saying the site has been restricted by Media Development Authority (MDA) Singapore.
Jason Hoong, MDA Senior Assistant Director says the reason they have these two sites blocked is because they delivers free hardcore contents and are easily accessible by the youths. Neither MDA nor Starhub has mentioned which were the two sites, but Asiaone did mentioned these sites were among the 19th and 33rd most popular sites in Singapore (according to Alexa). So out of curiosity, I did a quick look up on Alexa, and here they are.
Is this move efficient in blocking the young ones getting exposed to the pornographic material? I certainly don’t think so. There are tons of sites like this, and they are really easy to get to. Come on, we are talking about the World Wide Web here. Banning two of the most popular will just lead the desperate crowd searching for more alternatives out there. I mean how many can you ban? Besides, the banned sites can be easily accessed with proxies, if one knows how. In my point of view, this measure taken by MDA and Starhub might be successful in banning 2 porn sites, but what about the rest out there?
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Posted by hongkiat in Tech News , at 05.23.08 |
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Comments
Kay May 23rd, 2008
They surely cannot ban all. This move just encourages teenagers in looking for more similar websites to replace the old ones. If they really want to ban, ban Geylang’s prostitution first. :P
Replyblah May 23rd, 2008
why don’t they leave the moral lessons up to the parents?
Replyjialat May 23rd, 2008
SingNet also banned this 2. I think it is across all the ISPs in SG. However, stupid enough, by removing “www” in front, you can still access it…
Replyhongkiat May 23rd, 2008
@Jialat you are so right, they banned ‘www.youporn.com’ instead of the entire thing. That’s really silly of them.
Replyghostz May 25th, 2008
The news makes me wana laugh! They think nobody could get in? i went to those website few days ago and i don’t mean im underage….what i wana say is there are still way to get into those site with a easy way which they never thought of it. Sad for them….but how to get in? Well those kinda way gota keep a low profile but still there wont be a way to block it totally. Peace =)
ReplyLoL May 25th, 2008
this is just a really desperate move.. i think that parents should teach their children.. Banning these 2 sites doesnt stop underaged ppl from visiting the sites.. there are too many sites.. This doesnt do much.. sg nvr really educated youths abt pornography..
ReplyDanny May 26th, 2008
so what they gonna do. Ban all the porn sites on the net? hahaha… hilarious
ReplyJAJAJAJA May 27th, 2008
Its wun be useful. There is more “anti-kid” nowadays. Soon they will learn about proxy which they will visit it on purpose to defy MDA. More on nurture than set the rules.
Replydonald September 20th, 2008
well i dun think they meant it to be 100% effective to ban against porn sites because they are smart enough to know that such banning is never going to be 100% effective because there are plenty of such sites online and also there are bypasses…
BUT they still have to do something to prevent easy access to http://www.youporn.com etc right? If not, someone else in singapore will just start to complain again..and want them to do so..
it is just like you know there are always going to be crimes happening no matter how good your police is, does that mean that you will just abort and do away with a police force in your country?
this is the world.. face it.. and stop trying to find bones in an egg…
Replymaple October 5th, 2008
why not?! it’s a first step in the right direction (finally!) and [kay], (nothing personal but,) the whole prostitution thing is related to crime rates as well. I’m pretty sure we don’t want rape cases to become common?! besides that can’t be equated to surfing porn sites.
on the other hand all this is pretty ironic you know, it’s like spreading something on purpose and then trying to stop it. since you’ve got porn pretty much everywhere. over-sexualised models/ singers and celebs and you can probably see soft porn in every other movie. sheesh.
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