This is just attempting to gain the control they had before and have now over every other media. They can prevent hard porn on TV or in the window displays of high street video rental shops. Why not the internet?
From their perspective the internet is a loophole they are trying to shut down.
Internet freedom happened incidentally as a side effect of how the technology worked. It wasn't brought around by ideology like traditional "free press" was.
I agree, but I think that you might be looking at it a little bit too much as of a conspiracy as well.
IMO it's not even about closing loopholes and stuff; it's about increasing their popularity to make sure they get reelected / get more money. That's it. I think short-sightedness of politicians explains pretty much all of it.
Current democracy as a system optimizes strongly for popularity, and optimizes people with any kind of long-term agenda out of the system.
This is what democracy has always done.
It's not one or another. It's a group of people with diverse agendas. When their interests align enough then a change is introduced in the system. There might be a predominant reason but unless you're in politic groups I think we can only make guesses. I believe that we are as disconnect to them as they are to us.
Remember there have been court cases about whether contraceptives, pornography or abortion was legal. There are people who want to go back to the "good old days" when condoms, porn and sex outside marriage was illegal.
I am not saying that's true for every one of them, nor that it's everywhere like that. But I feel that this happens frequently enough to cripple the system.
Your sexuality is the most personal, most intimate part of your life. By enforcing "morality" - the state exerts control over your sexuality; it exerts control over the most intimate part of your life; for those in authority, it is the most potent symbol of their power possible - and the most intoxicating validation of their status.
Those in power are there because they are pathologically inclined to seek it. They cannot help but expand that power, to intrude and control others to the maximum extent possible.
Gosh, can't understand how an MP and member of his community could possibly be in favor of that.
Just like most of the anti-terror security theater, it's not about being effective in any way, it's about slowly getting the general population to accept increasingly repressive measures and a tighter grip of the "ruling class" on society in general.
Once filtering has been generally accepted, they can gradually start figuring out how to censor the things they really don't want us to see (and guess what, it isn't porn) without having to worry about further social or legislative hurdles.
There is no technological gap between "us" and "them". There's a gap in political savvy between "them" and "us", and we're on the wrong side of that gap.