Stefan Mileschin

You would think that while it is faced with all these calls for referendums on its future the European Union would be keeping its head down.

Instead it seems that Brussels is signing its own death warrant by calling for ISPs to ban porn.

While most people don't understand the ins and outs of the EU trade policy, they are almost certain to understand that anybody that attempts to stop them watching porn is doomed to fail and want that level of control abolished completely.

The move is being carried out under something called "Eliminating gender stereotypes in the EU".

Although the proposals offer ideas that should generally benefit humanity, it also notes that porn is becoming more mainstream, and is "slipping into our everyday lives as an ever more universally accepted, often idealised, cultural element," manifesting itself "particularly clearly within youth culture: from teenage television and lifestyle magazines to music videos and commercials targeted at the young".

So the idea is that since porn shows women having sex with men it can only be construed as showing gender differences. While porn might show stereotypical behaviour, the fact that any sexual depiction involves gender issues it will have to be banned. We would have thought that would lead to much wider bans on art, literature indeed anything which shows that men and women are different.

The resolution calls on the EU and its Member States to take concrete action on its resolution of 16 September 1997 on discrimination against women in advertising, which called for a ban on all forms of pornography in the media and on the advertising of sex tourism.

This is fair enough although it might require the shutting down of Italian television, which is probably not such a bad thing.

The resolution calls on the EU to conduct research into the links between child pornography and adult pornography and the impacts on girls, women, boys and men, as well as the relationship between pornography and sexual violence.

Again this would be fine. So far there is no evidence that shows that the rise of Internet porn has had any effect on crime levels or much impact on the development of men or women. The EU often commissions reports like this and they gather dust somewhere.

But Rick Falkvinge, founder of the Swedish Pirate Party has warned that a policy to eliminate stereotypes in the media will of necessity involve action in the digital field.

He said that this requires the launching of initiatives coordinated at EU level with a view to developing a "genuine culture of equality on the internet" and calls on the Commission to draw up in partnership with the parties concerned a charter for ISPs.

Falkvinge said that not only is it a measure to ban porn, it is passing the buck for policing sexual content on the Web to ISPs. It wants regulatory bodies "with the aim of controlling the media and advertising industry" and the ability to sanction people and companies which promote "the sexualisation of girls." So in otherwords we will have a world where hardcore gay male porn is acceptable but porn which sexualises girls is not. This sort of thing happened to Queen Victoria when she criminalised homosexuality between men but struck out the law against women because she could not believe it existed..

So why is the EU going for something this backward? The wording of the law is so right on and talks about great things like "promoting gender equality and killing stereotypes" that it would get approved.

The Pirate Party said that it is so ambiguous and broad that it could result in EU banning porn from the net.

Christian Engström, a Swedish Member of European Parliament representing the Pirate Party, claimed on his bog that those trying to reach MEPs to voice their opinions about the new law are being silenced.

He discovered that the European Parliament's IT department is "blocking the delivery of the emails on this issue, after some members of the parliament complained about getting emails from citizens."

It might be worth remembering that if there is ever a referendum on the future of the EU.

http://news.techeye.net/internet/eur...-death-warrant