*sigh*

James Whatley (inactive)

@Whatleydude

Surprised Loch Ness isn't trending tbqh.

---

James Whatley (inactive)

@Whatleydude

Searching for Loch Ness on Google Maps is certainly an eye opener if you decide to look around once you get there.

Ahem.

Night night.

---

What could this possibly mean? I searched for Loch Ness on Google Maps.

Oh! Hey! Someone's posted a 360 photosphere from the very centre of the Loch!

Huh... That doesn't look like the beautiful Scottish countryside. I wonder what happens if I pan around...?

🚨 🍆 🚨

(Redacted for his privacy and your comfort.)

It's pretty easy to upload spam to Google Maps. I suspect that whatever BIG DATA ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ALGORITHMS they have simply don't work on panoramic photos.

Anyway, I reported it - yay for doing unpaid labour for a megacorporation - and it has vanished.

The thing is, this isn't a mistake or a glitch. There's a user who literally enjoys repeatedly posting these photos to scenic locations.

I know the "wisdom of the crowds" means that large companies don't have to worry about bad actors⸮ But perhaps Google could spend a little of its time and money moderating the content it displays. If one determined user is able to gain this many views - what could a more malicious user accomplish?

Be seeing you!

You trust the Government, you voted for them, you and your friends have nothing to hide with regards to your sexuality.

But! Shock horror! After creating the database, the Government loses the election and the homophobes at UKIP get in to power!

Now they have a database of every gay in the village, and can harass then, try to "cure" them, or make their lives a living hell.

Far fetched? Not really. With Cameron's inane web filtering plan, the "black boxes" in ISPs which can record every click you make, and the selling of the your NHS details to private parties, we're in a situation where a malicious government could cause serious damage to us.

The security expert Bruce Schneier wrote a wonderful article for CNN on how the existing surveillance state is leading to disastrous breaches of our private information. He concludes by saying:

It's bad civic hygiene to build technologies that could someday be used to facilitate a police state.

-- Bruce Schneier on CNN

We have to be careful that the apparatus we build cannot easily be misused for evil purposes. Sure, even an innocuous toaster can be weaponised if someone is willing enough, but we should not fall into the trap of making systems which can easily be turned against the people.

It's probably sensible to build a database of which car belongs to which owner - it has an important civil use and would be hard to abuse (although not impossible).

Should we have a national database of, say, religious beliefs? Almost instinctively the answer is no. The memories of fascist dictators haunt our collective consciousness. We have seen countless times how race and religious identity become death penalties. We wouldn't countenance it.

Civic hygiene isn't about saying we distrust our current government - it's about not trusting the next government.

I've talked before about my time working as an "Adult Material Classifier" for Vodafone UK. In short, my team and I used to watch pornographic videos and classify whether they were suitable for inclusion on Vodafone live.

There were the usual limitations (no more than two participants, all over 18 etc) we also had a list of banned words.

It contained the usual sexual and racial slang which was verboten - as well as strawberry and teabag.

I had obviously lead a very sheltered life. I had no idea that "to teabag" was a thing. Nor that one could "procure a strawberry" to defile. But, you can, and people do.

I can understand that David Cameron wants people not to be able to search for "obvious" search terms - but how do you block ambiguous terms? It's not hard to imagine to sort of depraved search query which would produce this image: As people see what is being filtered, it's fairly easy to switch to a slang which has no "official" meaning. In China, the Government regularly censor discussion about the massacre at Tienanmen Square. Forbidden from mentioning the date of June 4th, locals instead refer to May 35th.

So, how does any search engine filter out "innocent" terms which may lead to "illegal" images?

I'll leave you with a quote from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in the Global Times (emphasis added):

Web regulation in public's best interest

Many countries are trying to regulate their Internet services. Under pressure from public opinion, many well-known websites are becoming more self-disciplined. For example, Facebook has started to provide training for its website regulators to help identify and delete inappropriate remarks. In Turkey, where chaos and turmoil are running rampant, the Turkish government criticized social media as the top threat. Similar denouncements have also been heard from the British Parliament.

What exalted company our wise and infallible government are keeping.

So, O2 has apparently angered the Internet Gods by switching on its Adult Content Filter. This means anyone who wants to look at adult material on the web will have to pay a fee to prove they are over 18. Of course, their filter is broken - so it's caught sites like Google Translate and B3ta and banned access to them. And, naturally, there's no easy way to unlock this bar without walking into an O2 store and shouting loudly and proudly "I LIKE MASTURBATING AND WOULD LIKE MY PHONE UNLOCKED SO I CAN LOOK AT PORNOGRAPHY AND MASTURBATE. And then translate it into Russian via Google Translate."

I've written before about censoring the web. I also used to work for a Mobile Network Operator looking after, in amongst everything else, adult media. You can watch my video from SMC London discussing how (some) MNOs approach adult material. I think it's fair to say I know a little bit about this subject.

In my attempt to educate the world, let me explain some things about mobile Internet filters.

There are only five things you need to know...

Government Isn't Involved

There is no government regulation, nor law telling mobile phone operators they have to block adult content. The government has said "Regulate yourselves, or we'll impose regulation upon you."

This is a fairly common trick. You may have heard it expressed as "Nice business you've got there. It would be a shame if anything ... happened to it..."

But, as we will see, it's not just the threat of red tape that keeps people up at night.

Fear Is A Great Driver

What every MNO live in fear of, is the Daily Mail headline which runs...

PERVERTS! Now Sick Mobile Phone Bosses Peddle Porn To YOUR CHILDREN (and you have to pay for it!)

That's it. Game over. Share price plummets, you lose your job, your name's in the papers and you lose your kids in a custody battle. Fear drives people to be ultra-conservative even when they realise what they are doing is irrational.

This Isn't Porn

I know what you're thinking. That's a porno-shot of Linda Lusardi. Obviously, that's unsuitable for children.

You could not be more wrong. Ever since 17th November, 1970 - when The Sun published a nude photo of Stephanie Rahn - shots like this have been counted as "family friendly".

Essentially, Rupert Murdoch doesn't run a porn empire - therefore, anything which appears in The Sun is family friendly. And if you try to classify it under "Adult" they'll sue the arse off you. Allegedly.

Simply put: porn isn't porn when it appears in The Sun. That's why most UK MNOs don't block page three - indeed, it's why they're quite willing to sell soft-core pornography to anyone, regardless of age.

The hypocrisy of the tabloid media is quite something to behold.

This Is Banned

Campaign's like Brook's Sex Positive often fall foul of automated content checking. Because they have words like "vagina", "orgasm", and "contraception" - it's easy for computers to get confused and think that they are porn.

Brook🏳️‍🌈

@BrookCharity

One of our delegates tried to access our Sex:Positive site on his @O2 phone and it was blocked to U18s! What's with that, O2?#o2fail

---

So, kids can see topless women but they can't learn how to put on a condom. Helpful.

It Doesn't Work

There are two things which regularly fail with censoring.

1. False Negative. You can't catch every dirty image on the Internet.
2. False Positives. It's easy to misclassify "safe" sites as "bad" sites.

Conclusion

Wanking is legal in this country. There's no good reason why anyone should have to go on record as saying that want to look at wobbly bits.

Because it's easy for a kid to find a site that isn't blocked - or to "borrow" mum or dad's credit card - it's of no serious concern to the intrepid kid. It does suck if they want to find out how not to get AIDS though.

So, we're stuck with a situation that's expensive for MNOs, embarrassing and annoying for consenting adults, and trivial for a child to bypass.

Everyone knows that mobile web censorship doesn't work. But it has to be done otherwise the media will get upset. If the press get upset - then you get upset. So it's all for your own good.

This Is What A Feminist Looks Like (AKA spot the odd one out)

The conference was inspiring, depressing, uplifting and infuriating in equal measures. That's probably a good thing. I'll briefly discuss some of the sessions I attended and also what I think the organisers could do better next year.

The Conference

Kate Smurthwaite expertly chaired proceedings and kept the event running to time.  Not an easy task with several hundred people to shepherd.  I found the talks by Beatrix Campbell and Susie Orbach very inspiring but was very conscious of the fact that many of the aspects of feminism they addressed did not directly affect me. There was no doubting the passion and ire that the speakers felt and they held the audience spell-bound. A few interesting titbits I picked up...

• Labiaplasty is being "aggressively" marketed to young women.  That's the surgical mutilation of the sex organs for cosmetic reasons.
• Plastic surgery in general is specifically targeting young women and girls.
• The rise of photoshopping models is creating a idealised body image which is literally impossible.
• In 2006 the US spent $56 billion on education - it spent $100 billion on diet industry.
• If dieting worked - you'd only have to do it once and the industry would go bankrupt.
• For more discussion on body-image issues - visit AnyBody.

At the back of the hall were a pictures of amusing subvertising - that is sexist adverts which had been defaced.

Somewhat Strident has a set of stickers that you can use to "accessorise" any sexist material you find.  Zazzle sell a "This is offensive to women" sticker which can be stuck on to any poster you find offensive.

"It's easy out here for a pimp" anti-porn slideshow

This was simple a slide show with a commentary - no time for Q&A.  It was also quite US focused.  The material was from Stop Porn Culture.

The first half was about the pornification of society - especially that targeted at children.  There were audible gasps of horror at the "Hooters Girl (In Training)" t-shirt.

Is this suitable for kids?

Then there was the superb juxtaposition of these album covers.  One from Tiffany the other from Shakira.  Both aiming at similar demographics but separated by 20 years.

Tiffany Album from 1987

Shakira Album Cover

The essential point was that children are being groomed to believe that they are merely sexual objects.  That the only way to happiness is hyper-masculinity - guns, girls, bling - for boys, or hyper femininity - guys, stripping, submissiveness - for girls.

The porn aspect - as in the deliberate watching of sex acts - only covered a small portion of the talk.  It covered contemporary attitudes to pornography among young people, such as

"From what you've said, it sounds like your relationship is fulfilling otherwise, so it might be best to keep his porn-watching in perspective and to try deal with the feelings that come up as a result of your recent discovery." Gurl.com  answer to "My Boyfriend's Into Porn"

And the way that pornography producers don't just try to feature younger and younger models - they also seek to attract a younger audience.

"[Playboy] knew that this would really appeal to the 20-something crowd," said Playboy spokeswoman Theresa Hennessey.

Given my former involvement with the porn industry, you will be unsurprised that I didn't agree with all the sentiments presented.  However, it's very clear from watching modern music videos that women are usually presented as little more than sex-objects and men as all-powerful beings who can control women.

It may even be said that groups like the Pussycat Dolls are little more that strippers marketed at children.

I don't think that we need to protect children from their own sexuality - nor should we seek to regulate consenting adults' sexual urges.  But I do find it very worrying how highly sexualised images are being used in the most mundane and inappropriate places.

What's Wrong With Prostitution?

I've never visited a prostitute.  I've never known anyone who has gone - or admitted going - to a prostitute.  My knowledge is, essentially, from Belle de Jour and Band of Gold.  Presented by Rebecca Mott, Anna Travers and Denise Marshall of the Poppy Project.  What I heard was distressing, uncomfortable and yet, somehow, filled with hope and optimism.

I've linked to their sites so you can read their words rather than my interpretation of them - but I'll summarise some of the points which came out of the Q&A.

• "Prostitution isn't the oldest profession - agriculture is."  Prostitution hasn't been going on for ever - it is not inevitable.
• "Do a privileged minority of women prostitute oppress the vast majority who don't want to be involved?"  There are a few, well educated women for whom prostitution is a choice.  But their voices tend to drown out the vast minority for whom it is abuse.  The case for prostitution is often skewed towards the minority at the incalculable expense of the majority.
• Prostitution is rape. It is rape on an industrial scale. Too many left leaning / liberal groups ignore the mental, physical & sexual abuse of prostitutes.  Instead they concentrate on the "liberty" to sell oneself.
• The GMB have a union section specifically for sex workers.  However, they allow pimps, brothel-keepers and other "abusers" to be member.
• "Prostitutes don't need a union because prostitution isn't a job - it's abuse"
• Prostitutes shouldn't be criminalised - paying for sex workers should be.
• When Sweden criminalised paying for sex, their was a massive drop off in prostitute numbers.
• New Zealand's legalised brothels have lead to a massive increase in trafficked women.

It's fair to say that this session did change my opinion.  I'd previously been fairly blasé about sex workers.  I'd assumed that it was a person's right to sell their body if they wished.  But the reality of the massive scale of abuse has lifted the scales from my eyes somewhat.

As Rebecca Mott said (and I paraphrase) "You can't say that women choose prostitution. If you'd asked me, I would have told you I entered prostitution as a free choice and that I really enjoyed it. It was only after I was free that I realised what terrible abuse I had been through."

Poverty and motherhood: How society undervalues women's work🔗

I'm not a mother and I have no intention of being one.  That didn't stop the final two sessions of the day being inspiring.

• Abi Moore from Pink Stinks was hugely entertaining and moving on the needs to prevent "pinkification" of women's culture.  You can hear her on Woman's Hour.
• "Early Learning Centre - teaching girls their place since 1974."  Specifically in relation to their stifling lack of choice in girls' fancy dress.
• The average age of a single mother giving birth is 31. Not, as the tabloids would have you believe, 14.
• Less than 2% of new single mothers are teenagers.
• "Women's rights do not come cheap - neither do women"
• "Liberation does not look like Gok Wan!"

A full list of all speeches is available.  The event was also videoed and, I hope, will be available later.

So, on to the inevitable critique of the day...

Organisation

This was one of the most well organised conferences that I've attended. Sessions ran to time, everyone was given a handout showing where and when each workshop would be, the PA was loud enough so everyone could hear. However, there were some traps that they - and many other organisers - fell into.

Queues

It's the nature of events that there will be queues - but there are actions you can take to mitigate your patrons' annoyance.

• Tell people which queue is which.  It's incredibly frustrating to get to the front of one queue only to be told you were in the wrong one and have to go to the back of another.
• A simple sign or a few volunteers is enough to ensure people know where they are supposed to be.
• Get everything done in one queue if possible.  Rather than queue for a meal ticket and then queue for lunch, consider integrating the two queues or selling tickets directly to those standing around.

Dissent

There was a noticeable lack of dissenting opinion.  I'm not talking about getting Richard Littlejohn in to abuse people, but having someone from Red Thread or the English Collective of Prostitutes in the prostitution section may have been interesting.

However, it wasn't billed as a debate - so it's a fairly minor quibble.

Audio Visual

I've never been to a conference where the AV equipment has worked flawlessly.  FiL was better than most in that not too long was spent fiddling with microphones.

• Make sure you have enough mics. If you don't, make sure your cables are long enough to reach all participants.
• Do a dry run so you know your slides work.
• Don't position anything between a projector and its screen unless you want to make shadow puppets.

Microphone Shadow

Payment

I was surprised that this was a paid-for event.  After attending several free conferences / BarCamps, it's temping to think that every event should be free.  Given that the hall was full to busting, it's obvious that a sub £5 ticket isn't a barrier for entry.

The event was sponsored by The Maypole Fund - although there was no overt sponsorship.  No schwag, banners, leaflets etc.  I wonder if getting a few more organisations to sponsor the even could have lowered the cost further or paid for lunch.

There were several stalls - such as those from The Fawcett Society and Pink Stinks - who were selling membership, books, giving out fliers.  I'm not suggesting that they should be charged for exhibiting - but I wonder if, say, a Fair Trade chocolate stall would have been able to help fund the event.

Conclusion

Feminism isn't dead.  It's not even resting.  It is a living force with thousands of millions of women and men pushing forward for equality.  We're in a better position than we were, but are a long way from where we want to be.

This is not what a post-feminist society looks like. Not yet.

Further Reading

• The F Word - Charlotte Cooper reports back from the capital's second Feminism in London conference
• Subtext Magazine - Laura from Subtext also reviews the event

Video originally by Damien Austin-Walker - rehosted by kind permission.

Contemporary Tweets

Terence Eden is on Mastodon

@edent

@smclondon I'll be presenting "Working in the Sex Industry - Social Media & Porn" #SMCLondon

---

Annie Mole

@Anniemole

Funny & informative session on porn by @edent at #smclondon http://is.gd/uuWk @reyes will have a qik video of it later

---

Rob Day

@robday

Listening to the Porn talk by @edent - it's pretty funny so far. #smclondon

---

Mauricio @Reyes

@reyes

Replying to @edent@edent just said 'penis' tee hee hee #smclondon http://qik.com/video/1545493

---

Chris Applegate

@chrisapplegate

Watching @edent's presentation on pr0n at #smclondon - we must make it clear this is personal and not endorsed by his employers, who are V..

---

James Whatley (inactive)

@Whatleydude

Today's Qotd goes to @qwghlm for "I'm just going to start with Porn and see where it goes from there..." #smclondon

---

Photo by
Basheera Khan CC by-nc-sa