Image: Maja desnuda censurata by Twice25 (via Wikimedia Commons)

Adult content. Pornography. Legal. Criminal. Consensual. Fantasy. Responsible parenting. Child abuse.

What do these words and terms mean to you? How do they make you feel? And if I asked you to separate them into ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ buckets, what would you put where?

In the wake of the U.K. government’s plans to default censor pornography (David Cameron announced last week that all British households will be required to ‘opt in’ if they wish adult content to appear in search results), these questions will become more and more pertinent. Everyone, and I mean everyone, regardless of whether they feel they’re directly affected by these proposed changes, needs to be asking themselves ‘How do I feel about government imposed censorship?’ and ‘What value do I place on my right to discover legal content on the Internet?’

I’m willing to bet money on the fact that any normal, well-adjusted person reading this post will have put ‘criminal’ and ‘child abuse’ into the ‘Bad’ bucket and ‘legal’, ‘consensual’, ‘fantasy’ and ‘responsible parenting’ into the ‘Good’ bucket. But where did you put ‘adult content’? Where did you put ‘pornography’? Continue reading →