What is the actual point of comment spam?

To game Google’s PageRank algorithm. More links from “quality” sites raises their position in the list when someone looks for that kind of porn. That’s worth money.

I’m curious about this Simon-the-porn-spammer aspect. What is the actual point of comment spam? Do porn sites really hope to gain subscribers via a blog/post like this? Or is it just about sites getting hits (however brief or unintentional) for advertising revenue purposes?

OTOH if it’s not spam and Simon is genuinely interested in the issues because he works in the industry, then surely he would provide a disclaimer to avoid confusing people and being regarded as a hypocrite or a spammer?

Hmmm, the plot thickens…Come in, ‘Simon’…

The government owes the Hillsong crowd - they promised this and one or two other pieces of weird shit to them if they didn’t come out in numbers for the tories.

That’s my suspicion also. The Australian Christian Lobby had some pretty specific anti-porn policies on their shopping list during the last election, including banning porno on cable TV during the daytime etc. The best part about running for the LDP was that I didn’t need to speak about our policies in euphemistic terms: I got to tell them bluntly that I didn’t like most of their policy emphases.

http://chester4solomon.com/posts/the-australian-christian-lobby/
http://chester4solomon.com/posts/acl-forum-report/

Nerdy aside: ACL can also stand for “Access Control List”.

Personally I wouln’t have an issue with my son, once he becomes old enough to be take an interest in such matters, viewing pornography (excepting of course obvious extremes such as rape/paedophilia). Does that make me an irresponsible parent?

There’s no excuse for the ABC on this, but.

As Jason suggested, I suspect that what Catherine Lumby was really saying (as opposed to what the ABC had her seem to say by misleading editing) was:

(1) No responsible parent is happy about their children viewing pornography, especially the more repellent kinds;

The problem isn’t responsible parents and their own children (already well catered for with free web filters and the sensible method of putting your PC somewhere it is easily supervised).

The problem seems to be *other peoples kids*. There is a section of the community that is seeking to impose their own views on others with little consultation and even less evidence. It’s the basis for the whole moral panic (lordy! other peoples kids are looking at bums, boobs and stiffies!). Something must be done about other peoples kids!

I say: let them grow up in the country and watch animals do it. It doesn’t seem to have harmed anyone.

Your charitable interpretation of “Simon Simth’s” motives doesn’t sit very easily with the apparent nature of the material on his site. Simon mentiones “a fair slew of the stuff on the net [is] distinctly nasty”. I didn’t linger to examine his site very closely, but a cursory inspection of the front page indicated that “distinctly nasty” was an accurate description. Why would someone who genuinely had the concern he professed, about children accessing porn, post a link to a non-password-protected “porn nasty” site in a comment on a post like this which might well be accessed by children? And what better way to get a spam comment left undeleted than to post content that gives the opposite impression unless you think to check the link behind the name. I only did so by sheer chance. I thought Simon’s comments seemed thoughtful and interesting, and I was going to check his blog to see if it should be added to the Missing Link list!!

At the same time, I’m very uncomfortable with the repellently misogynistic tone of much current pornography (bukkake etc) and if had children of either gender I’d hope to limit their exposure to it until they were of an age to be forming sexual attachments with real partners.

I have to admit that I haven’t seen much current pornography Laura but, whatever it is, I can’t see any real value in trying to restrict exposure. Better, I believe, to instill values in the kids for which we are responsible for a time that allow them to cope with whatever they find. It worked for our kids, I think, but then we didn’t wait until their hormones started to get mobile.

(1) No responsible parent is happy about their children viewing pornography, especially the more repellent kinds;

(2) However, mandatory Internet filtering is neither a feasible nor responsible way of assisting parents to deal with their concerns;

(3) Whatever we do (short of a totalitarian state), quite a few kids are going to find a way to access porn anyway;

(4) Luckily, the research indicates that the effects of (at least casual) exposure to porn are not too serious, so we don’t need either to engage in a moral panic or adopt extreme measures.

If that is what Lumby was REALLY saying (and it may well be), then it precisely reflects my own views. Of course, that isn’t the impression you get from viewing or reading the ABC story, but that may well be because we didn’t hear the whole interview, only selected bits chopped up and out of context, interspersed with statements from others who clearly WERE pushing a moral panic/pro-filtering line. If that’s what has happened, it’s scandalously dishonest journalism by the ABC.

But since my son learnt how to video-phone his mother-in-law on msn before he turned four (now four and a half, he knows our password and can even do it when we aren’t logged in!), I’d say my chances, or the government’s, are limited if he really wants to.

So I figure we’ll have to rely on educating them. Which I always thought was kinda the point of being a parent anyway!

I think I agree with him on some points, too. The filter seems like an ominously dumb idea to me for numerous reasons. At the same time, I’m very uncomfortable with the repellently misogynistic tone of much current pornography (bukkake etc) and if had children of either gender I’d hope to limit their exposure to it until they were of an age to be forming sexual attachments with real partners.

I understood what you meant. And I agree. Everything I’d previously seen from Lumby would indicate that she isn’t likely to have the sorts of views she seemed to be spouting on 7:30 Report. Your suggestion about the real context in which she was probably saying those things rings true. In those circumstances, this would be a radically dishonest piece of journalism by the ABC from a couple of perspectives. I wonder if it will get a guernsey on Media Watch?