“BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin will be asked to offer customers the option to block adult content during subscription According to new measures to be announced by Prime Minister David Cameron, online pornography watchers will have to place a special request with their Internet Service providers (ISPs) to watch pornographic or sexualised content online. The prime minister is holding a summit at No.10 today with 30 media and retail executives, including broadcasters, magazine editors, trade bodies and advertisers, said the Daily Mail. Cameron is expected to announce the crackdown after Mothers Union charity chief executive Reg Bailey submitted a report on the matter after six months of study.” The fact that this can happen in Great Britain just goes to show how brittle concepts like freedom of speech really are. Where people in the Arab world fight for the kinds of freedom we have, we in the west just hand them over to extremists. Un-frakking-believable. Any British folk in here? How on earth did you guys let this happen?
…is that this will only apply to new subscribers of the various ISPs. Existing consumers will not be forced into admitting they watch porn – also, as mentioned in the article, the choice will be presented at the time of subscription, not afterwards. There is no suggestion of this being a special list that the government will have instant access to – it will be individual to each ISP, and subject to data protection legislation. Having said that, it could be argued this is a slippery slope.
All they will probably do is offer a more restrictive DNS service which is trivial for any knuckle-shuffler to override anyway. As a British person, I am not awfully worried about this current proposal, although I do agree it sets a worrying precedent.
Edited 2011-10-11 15:54 UTC
I read through the article linked, and I don’t see much in the way of surrendering freedom of speech. Mostly what I’m seeing is that children age 15 and under can’t be “brand ambassadors (not sure what exactly that is), can’t be used for peer to peer marketing campaigns, and that ISP’s will have consumers opt-in to access adult material.
I don’t see anyone of already legal age’s ability to view adult material being limited in any way. Have we really reached a point where we are up in arms over having to click a checkbox under account settings or during signup that allows us to view adult material? All it does it make access to a certain part of the internet *optional*, not restricted. This could be very useful for parents, businesses, public computers, etc. I honestly don’t see much difference between this and optional software and services that already offer this.
I would just like to clarify that this system is opt-in, as in, if you want adult content to be blocked you have to opt-in. Those people who dont opt-in will have unrestricted service as usual.
Whilst I appreciate that OSAlert publishes many informative articles in the interest of protection of the freedom of expression, this freedom has not been removed in the UK. could you please alter this rather sensationalist headline to reflect the truth.
edit: third parties have been offering this service for years, move along people, nothing to see here.
Edited 2011-10-11 16:03 UTC
Read more carefully. Adult content will be blocked – unless you specifically tell your ISP you want access to it.
@Thom
Please do your research, the link you provided is to a random news outlet. So I will link to a different random news out:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15252128
Specifically read paragraph 8. This is something that concerned parents have to activate.
If anyone can find the original announcement it would be much appreciated.
The article I read in the Guardian stated that this was an “opt in” feature, however you had to opt in to receive porn (which essentially makes it an opt out feature regardless of how the government tried to spin it)
I’m all for ISP’s having filters to allow concerned parents block their kids from dodgy sites. Kids know more about computers than most parents and kids can easily work their way around most firewalls, so this measure is a good idea. However it should be something the parents opt into and not something that’s enabled by default.
Not entirely true.
the ISPs will simply tell parents who sign up for net access to either activate child-friendly protections or choose to disable the filters
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/12/isps_refute_pron_restrictio…
Consider this:
A leaked list of subscribers who have opted out (or neglected to opt out) of the ability to access porn is not very interesting. On the other hand, a similar list of people who have opted *in* would be real juicy stuff. I wonder who you could find on that list. Politicians? Memebers of the “Mothers Union”? I wonder what your tabloid press would be willing to pay for something like that…
(edit: typo)
Edited 2011-10-11 16:11 UTC
If that sort of information was easily available and interesting, we’d already have seen leaked proxy logs, or leaked telephone bills showing who called expensive sex lines. Except we haven’t.
Thats because this isn’t 1970, nobody of any importance or wealth is going to waste time and money on a POS phone sex line when they can just as easily find an “escort” or “massage” online.
Blocking porn will also block these sites. Then again, what if they find that they’re into tentacle guro hentai or are into water bondage or I dunno, milk enemas. Theres far weirder stuff then that these days because, lets be honest with ourselves, humans are nasty, creepy and horny critters that can get off to damn near anything.
hmm… me thinks you’re gonna make it into that list
XD
The proxy logs probably wouldn’t tell you much unless you can map ip-addesses to subscribers. The telephone bills are interesting, though. Seriously, why aren’t they leaked? Any ideas?
Mapping ip-addresses to subscribers is exactly what happens when people are taken to court for bittorrent copyright infringement allegations via file sharing.
Chances are if someone is to leak the logs, they’ll also have leaked the information that matches them to the subscriber… or they’ll gointo the subscribers account and retreive the logs for that account and leak those logs.
Whatever happens, its not very nice for anyone involved. Even more so if their machine becomes infected and they get nasty popups for a few days until they get it in the shop to be cleared…
Edited 2011-10-11 20:06 UTC
To be honest, if they opt in to access the internet .. or rather parts of it, then they’re removed from the filtering system so your account or logs of sites you visit shouldn’t be there anymore.
What I’d be more interested in is the logs of the blocked site that members of the mother’s union, cameron etc have tried to access. These logs will have to be kept so to prove that the filtering system works. I’m sure that’ll get leaked soon enough.
Edited 2011-10-11 16:46 UTC
“… and that ISP’s will have consumers opt-in to access adult material. ”
Which should be opt-out, not in.
Otherwise, sorry, but yes that’s by default institute Internet censorship.
Today it’s presented as legetimate thanks to the fight against child pornography flag, but who could warrant you that it wont expand tomorrow to illegal downloads sites, then wikileaks like sites, and so on?
In fact, I bet it will expand *exaclty* this way, because it’s already written on the wall. The wikileak story show it, with absolutely no legal ground either for PayPal, Amazon, the swiss bank, it’s mirror french hosting company. But you could bet that may this *feature* where there, they’ll have use it as crisis control, and still outside any legal ground.
Any opt-in ISP censorship/filtering is de facto the proof that by default you don’t have anymore access to Internet, only Internet but all Internet.
Regarding child and pornography specific issue, I fail to see why an opt-out would not work as fine: parents will be fine I guess with that.
And explain me how this *feature* in a family with both adults and kids, kids could be protected from porn while adults living there too could still access it (and don’t tell me that parent have no right to watch porn )?!
This opt-in is a Troy horse. Dressed in a moralist cover.
Best solution is that all new subscribers ask systematically for opt-in, which will goes back to square one this madness.
Edited 2011-10-11 16:51 UTC
+1 !
From what I’ve read this will only apply to new subscribers on an opt in/opt out basis, obviously that doesn’t make it any better, nor does it give any indication of where blocks might be applied tomorrow but it’s not being forced on every current internet subscription at present.
As for how did this happen? Unfortunately that’s the typical state of matters in the UK, if the media doesn’t cover it, no one is any the wiser.
One look at Cameron will tell you that his wife wears the trousers in their household and given their “oh so holy” attitude you can bet that she’s right onboard with the whole Mother’s Union, MumsNet crap.
Anyhow, total futile bullshit.
The British government is a total joke, rocked by near constant scandals since being elected and showing that the Conservative party are nothing but a buch of self serving arseholes…
People who have no experience of money, other than running to daddy to pay for the restaurant they’ve just trashed*, running a country? You couldn’t make it up!
I had to opt-in to watching porn on my iPhone as O2 decided to block this in 2009… Altering your DNS had the same effect, but it was simple enough to click “yes I love Pr0n” on the O2 website (though it did require credit card varification).
*this is true, search for “Bullingdon Club”… Bunch of wankers
Haha glad someone mentioned the Bullingdon Club. Amazing how the free press barely ever brings this issue back to the surface…
Oh God, this is getting way out of hand. So apparently, having to click on a button to unblock content that would otherwise be readily accessible to my children equates to handing precious rights to ILLUMINATI extremists who are getting ready to kill us all in about 6 years time? Is that it? Sigh
Watch some Brit girls in solidarity of repealing this draconian measure?
I’ll load up the Karianna Dietrich, Sahara Knight, Holly Dee, Roxy Jezel and of course Kelly Stafford.
There was never actually freedom of speach in the UK.
But yeah, it think this is just one more step into being charged for different web access or controlling other sites not deemed fit for consumsion.
How about Mothers Union’s Reg Bailey take that 6months research into how to be a responsable parent and teach their kids how to use the internet rather then just bitching about their kids looking at adult stuff because they can’t do their parenting job right.
The fact that Cameron has backed this just goes to show how bad the youth of today are going to have it. I mean, who serously thinks they can block sexual content from kids on the internet,.. but to be honest, they might want to start by blocking all the skimpy women and men on the media and songs about sex that kids are freely allowed to watch and listen to.
Do you have kids Thom? Not that I want to know, but it may change your view, or at least open it up a little…
Edited 2011-10-11 16:53 UTC
No, but I probably know more about developmental psychology and how to raise children than even some parents do. I have a rather… Complicated past, you see (none of your business
).
In any case, my point is not that parents should not be able to block their children from seeing porn (although some porn won’t harm any child – especially not when compared to the kind of government-sanctioned violence kids get to see). My point is that it’s not the government’s job.
If you want to block your kids off from the world until they’re 21 – fine (it’s a bad idea, but your prerogative). However, you can do so client-side – not server side, and ESPECIALLY not with the government forcing it down everybody’s throat.
I’m glad this kind of thing is against the law now in The Netherlands (we recently enacted an unconditional net neutrality law).
Is this going to cover cellular Internet access? As far as I know, client side blocks are usually impossible there. And if you think that circumventing the ISP’s filters makes them a joke, then most client side filters must have you laughing on the floor. After all, why circumvent it when you can just turn it off?
And what about privacy issues related to third party client side filters? Some of them literally pipe every request you make to a third party server. So not only will your ISP know every site you visit (which they will know anyway), but a third party. Yes, you can avoid that by choosing filters carefully — but how many do.
Why does a kid need a cell phone in the first place, let alone one that does more then you know, make phone calls?
You nanny staters are all the same, “common sense is too hard for me! Please watch my kids for me because I can’t handle even the most basic concepts of keeping after my kids let alone be able to talk with them about anything that makes me feel icky!”
I swear you guys are nearly a justification for sterilization since you clearly can’t handle kids.
Just in case you didn’t realize it, a lot of “nanny state” types do believe in parental responsibility. Yet we aren’t as naive to believe that we have the ability to isolate our children from all of the people in this world who would gladly exploit them (and even abuse them) either out of negligence or a desire for personal gain.
A parent is perfectly justified in isolating their child from porn because it is ultimately the parent’s responsibility if the child misinterprets what they see and goes on to get pregnant or get a girl pregnant. Worse yet, there are corners of pornography that go beyond the acceptable. You only have to read the newspapers to discover the latests busts in child pornography and I’ve heard that there are many sites that glorify rape. Then there’s the run of the mill stuff, the stuff that represents women as sex toys. Now I don’t know about you, but I would not want a daughter to grow up thinking that it’s okay to be subservient to men or to value themselves as sex objects. Of course, you may differ in that opinion. But you’re also free to have the filters removed if you do differ.
Whats that sound? Oh, its the sound of everything said screaming past your head at mach 12 @ 20k feet…
If you’re worried about your kids dehumanizing each other you should stop sheltering them and be open with them about sex, drugs and life in general. Sheltering them pushes them into a state of rebellion against you and everything you told them not to do.
90% of current “child porn”is made by children and traded to other children via their camera phones. The odds of kids meeting an actual pedo online and not a troll or the FBI is so insignificantly low, the only reason you keep hearing about very possible instance is to push ever more restrictions on the internet “to save the children”. Just look at all the riders attached to ills that help fascist causes that make them political suicide to vote against because they sate something like “Voting against oil subsidies means you’re for reducing sentences on child molesters” which is a tactic that is often used here in the US.
Sites that glorify rape? You mean far right Ayn Rand types like the Republicans and Libertarians here in the US that worship her and her child mutilating murderer “supermen”? Or do you mean troll havens like 4chan which will deliberately target whatever you hate most to keep you going for their own amusement irregardless of their own personal convictions?
Dishing out insults, using pop psychology, making up statistics, and using hyperbole is distracting from your point.
Until then, I will stick by my point: the British proposal offers the best compromise. Yes, there are privacy concerns. On the other hand, anyone who is acutely sensitive to privacy should not be using the Internet. That’s true regardless of the protocols used, though the web is especially bad.
So backing out so soon, after towing the same line in every post, never actually posting a direct response to any of my arguments? Way to win Buck-O! I’m insulting and condescending to those I know it annoys the most, if only for my own amusement and the simple fact that it’s the way I think in real life.
So I’ll take this as you admitting defeat since you’ve added nothing to the conversation, only direct dismissal of anyone’s arguments contrary to your own dead set ideals and convictions, never seeming to actually read what others thoughts are.
The government is not doing it. The government is mandating that it be a technology option. ISP’s are told they need to ensure this is ‘off’ unless a person of legal age turns it on.
Your being ridiculous now. An iPod Touch or a tablet does not have the means to block porn and adding it would such a hassle for any technology provider that it would only be done if the government mandated it at which point you would rail against that.
Look this is not rocket science. You have to just turn porn on by checking a box, probably in a web page somewhere.
If your a grown man or woman and your into porn why is it a big deal to say so? It’s not illegal. The sitting president of the united states has admitted to doing cocaine. You can admit you like to see pictures of naked women (or men or whatever).
]{
SIMPLE< YOUR kids are not THEIR responsibility, they are YOURS. Thus if you are smart enough to know said devices can’t be filtered, at least without massive hassle then why don’t you just, I dunno, be a responsible parent and not get them said items and instead get them a phone that is actually suited to their needs like a Samsung Jitterbug which does one thing and one thing only, MAKE CALLS.
Locking down your home computer is so trivially easy and if you’re too mentally deficient to figure it out via “teh google” there are plenty of mom and pop computer repair shops that’ll be more then happy to do it for you, for a fee of course. I used to make a killing doing exactly this.
It’s even simpler.
When it comes to my kids, they won’t be getting a computer in the room before they’re in high school (age 12-13 here). And at that age they’re more than free to watch porn. I honestly don’t care. Of course, part of that is that I actually, you know, educate my kids about these matters – what porn really is [fake, not the real world, etc.].
Same with alcohol and soft drugs. I’d rather they learn about these things at a young age, and responsibly learn how to deal with them (like I did when I was 14-15), then me locking them away from it, only to have them go nuts when they leave the house at 19 to go to university. I’ve seen what happens with over-protected children when they hit the bottle for the first time when they’re 19 and in university. It ain’t pretty. People like me? Who progressively learned ho to handle alcohol, bit by bit, from age 14 and onwards?
Not a single problem. Ever.
Of course, this is the ideal situation, and chances are you’re going to get kids who need a different treatment. Some kids need more boundaries, or stricter rules. Not all kids can handle those kinds of freedoms – and as a parent, you’ll then have to adapt. But guess what: THAT’S YOUR JOB AS A PARENT.
Locking kids away from the big bad world is silly, and will only come back to bite you in the ass. Every parent should be forced to memorise the Bluebeard Principle.
“Two guys are in love but they can’t get married because you don’t want to talk to your ugly child for fucking five minutes?”
– Luis CK
Sorry folks. It’s not the place of the government or private business to raise your kids for you. It’s called “being a parent”; take five minutes to talk to your ugly kids about the tough topics.
I wonder what Gert Wilders and Hirsi Ali think about the “freedom of speech” conditions in the Netherlands.
As someone who has kids (but is not british) I would have a problem with this. I don’t think people should have to make a “special” request in order to watch “porn” (what exactly IS the definition of “porn” anyway?).
Maybe we should also require those who read The sun and watch the Page 3 girl to register with the government?
How about people who check out “pornographic” books at the library? Or those who order porn videos? Come on, lets register them all.
While we’re on it just require everyone who reads anything subversive to register. What’s the harm?
Edited 2011-10-11 17:08 UTC
We won’t need to if the Liberal Democrats get their way. In their party conference they accepted a motion to restrict newspapers and general circulation magazines from publishing content unsuitable for children.
They want press content to be governed by rules like those restricting pre-watershed broadcasting. Page 3 was specifically mentioned as something that would be banned, in the name of protecting women and children.
There isn’t any mainstream party in the UK for people who think that the government should stop playing nanny and mind their own business.
And having kids matters how?
You should never give up everyone’s freedom just because of your own misguided prudishness and laziness. Especially since it’s so easy to control what your kids can access online with such an incredibly small amount of effort. Linux + Firefox + not giving them the root pass or the Firefox pass + any of the multitudes of porn blacklists online loaded into the router blacklist and you’re done.
Though you have to be careful with your blacklists since many also like to put non right ring news sites and blogs in the list.
Giving up freedom? You are free to ask to have the filter disabled (or enabled, depending upon who you believe).
It is also incredibly less restrictive than broadcast standards were in the past and less restrictive than they remain today. There was a time when certain types programs weren’t produced, then a time when you had to watch certain types of programs at certain time, and even today we have things like ratings and the v-chip.
All they are doing is saying that you have the option to block sexually explicit material at the ISP level if you want to protect your children or protect yourself. If you think that’s stripping people of freedom, you clearly haven’t been reading real newspapers and history books.
Simple, you shouldn’t have to ask big brother if you can have access. Further more, who’s to say what counts as porn and what counts as art?
Whats to stop them from expanding upon it?
Will it be admissible in court that you wanted access to porn and are thus a sexual deviant in any case you end up in that has anything to do with sex?
It’s just like all of the CCTV cams there, they’ve done nothing but make everyone guilty enough to be on near constant surveillance whenever they’re outside their home, this just adds more to what they can keep tas on you for.
Just to keep a few things straight:
You are telling your ISP that it is okay to access sexually explicit material. This isn’t a case of asking “big brother” for permission.
There is no need to distinguish between art and smut in this case because a person who doesn’t want their internet connection used for smut probably won’t want their internet connection used for sexually explicit art either.
The “slippery slope” type arguments are getting pretty damned old too. If they had an ounce of truth to them, we would have been living in a police state decades ago. Yet we aren’t. That’s because there is a continuous negotiation between individual rights and social responsibilities. In this case there is a balance between the individual right to access sexually explicit material and the social responsibility to restrict that material to minors (unless there is parental consent).
But thats exactly what it is, the internet is an unbridled public pace, provided you aren’t committing any actual crimes it’s nobody’s business what what anyone looking up.
You mean you haven’t realized you’re already in one? They’ve learned not to tighten their grasp too much else it causes rebellion, but you can already have anything happen to you in the name of national security just because they label you an extremely ill defined “terrorist”.
I’d find the slippery slope less worrying if the British government didn’t slip down it so often.
When possession of extreme porn was banned in the UK, people defended the law (despite the ambiguity of what constitutes “extreme”) because it would only be targeting the nastiest and most violent material. Since then people have been prosecuted because they’ve had gross-out jokes on their mobile phones.
How long until whether you’ve opted in to view porn turns up on background checks for people who want to work with children?
Gone are the days where parents will take some responsibility in teaching their children how to be wise to the dangers of the world.
The bigger question is: how did society degenerate that it can call watching porn a freedom of speech issue.
Obvious troll is obvious…
Interesting. So this is something that you’re ok with the government regulating.
What happened to free enterprise?
The internet has porn?
I won’t believe it until I see it for myself.
And I think I’m in the mood for a little believing once the wife finally goes off to bed.
Er, for science.
The sacrifices we make, eh?
I’d rather engage in some, uh, “husbandry duties” with the better half though.
While it is f–king stupid law, how are they going to censor things like rapid share links and Google images?
This doesn’t work with my organisations WebRoot censoring … as I found out while testing whether Android VM in Win7 worked … there was a panic “ALT+F4” moment.
TBH I was living with 4 of my step brothers who are all under 18 (12-17) … and I used to be basically be in house tech support … and not once did any of them check any porn out, since all the traffic went through my soekris box running OpenBSD … in fact they were more interested in chatting to girls they knew from class on MSN and Facebook.
I wonder whether the House of Lords will actually accept this?
Internet Explorer has a set of parental controls built in Since Windows XP … If parents are worried they should just give advice on how to enable this.
TBH kiddys that wanna check out porn will … Top shelf mags you can easily get some bloke or an older friends that looks “old enough” to go into the shop and get you the stuff … same with booze and fags.
Edited 2011-10-11 19:36 UTC
So … someone suggests rearranging the default settings for benefit of the vulnerable and it’s somehow a free speech issue? Yeah right.
This strident assertion of unashamed adult rights to access this stuff. Followed by a terror that a data leak might be embarrassing in the media. Frankly I think few people would be interested.
Statistically: a surprisingly high proportion of child molestation comes from slightly older children. Adding easy child access to porn into that blend will not improve the mix.
Doubtless I will be derided for holding an apparently minority perspective that questions a certain kind of “political correctness” – so be it.
From research done till now, it’s not very clear if porn makes things “worse” or “better” – but, it does leave open the possibility that it very well might even do the latter; or not be much of an influence on average.
But, curious thing: according to the experiences of my a-decade-younger female buddies, the widespread phenomena of child molestation, of the type which you mention (mostly groping of any “blossoming” girl), went quite a bit downhill at my place, between middle of the 90s and middle of the “noughties” …which would at least correlate with emergence of the times when web is available, giving easy access to porn.
Or is it that by a certain kind of “political correctness” you mean inconvenient, not mythologically-inspired, facts?
Edited 2011-10-19 00:18 UTC
It is just too difficult for common mothers and fathers to prevent their children from accessing the wrong kind of stuff. This should have been a mandatory solution years ago.
David Cameron has been talking to the a Christian Group and has been swayed … he also has the “back to basics” which says that we should be going back to “traditional family”. So everything fits in with his campaign.
Nobody in UK politics anymore isn’t somebody that has actually any interest in the public good (this was different before the 60s) … it is a career and they are in it since their early teens. Before that many politicians were members of a party because they were well known in a community … They wasn’t obviously 100% altruistic … but their motives were from their community.
I have numerous Step siblings, many step mothers and a good few step fathers and I have lived with other children that I consider my brothers and sisters … and the notion of a “nuclear family” is outdated … and I wish people would get away from “ideals” because they help nobody.
Edited 2011-10-11 21:39 UTC
When tyranny comes to * country it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying * book of holy shit.
I agree.
I wish to leave soon because of the mental stuff that is going on … but I still have to count my lucky stars I don’t live in Iran or China
I have yet to understand why the right wing are so prudish. For crying out loud, sex is a natural party of life. The reason people are offended by sex is because they were taught to be. We can teach our children differently.
The main two problems I see here are that I should not have to ask permission to see boobies. Second, these filters always target things that aren’t porn. Sites like gay lifestyle sites, sites on sexual health. These are sites that should never be blocked no matter what you think. Even as a parent you have no right to stop your child from seeking out health information on their own. That is a basic human right, not something that begins at age 18 or 21.
I have subscription for life for sites like http://www.govermentfucks.me AND rapebypolice.gov.
Perhaps they should have written down the rights that they expected from their Government in some form of document which would CONSTITUTE a written promise.
<3 “How could you let this happen”
Well said!
“Where people in the Arab world fight for the kinds of freedom we have, we in the west just hand them over to extremists.”
You have gone far over the line as far as an Operating Systems blog is concerned. You are free to promote your own views on how the Internet should be used (although at the risk of becoming a blog about Internet freedom instead of Operating Systems), but to go completely off-topic and equate Mothers’ Union to Arabic despots, such as Gaddafi and Al Khalifa, is irresponsible in my opinion.
I know very little about MU, but a little investigating shows the most ‘extreme’ thing about them is their Christian and socially conservative beliefs. They work in collaboration with other reputable organisations, such as Unicef and the Church of England doing things like promote women’s rights, and aid development in Guyana. The ‘extreme’ abolishment of Freedom of Speech (actually just a restriction on Internet access which may be opted out of) is promoted not just by this Christian group but also by Mumsnet and other groups such as Girl Guiding.
Perhaps you should apologise?
Perhaps you should see their affiliations and funders their equivalents here in the US are the ones that would love nothing more then to make us a christian Iran with guiled age era working conditions. I.E.they made $8 a day, but eggs cost $3 each.
Thanks for that Lucus Maximus. So the UK aren’t even doing what this charity proposed.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/12/isps_refute_pron_restrictio…
So I think you can apologise for insinuating that a Christian group were going to take away our rights like Gaddafi and Mubarak. I don’t like to see Christian groups labelled as morally equivalent to dictators simply for being Christian and/or socially conservative – if you hate what they stand for, that’s fine, you can say that, but don’t equate them with Gaddafi until you have gathered enough evidence to support this claim (e.g. links to hate groups, plans to subvert democracy, cult-like behaviour, telling people to avoid medical treatment, etc).
I’m sure if it wasn’t a Christian group advocating Internet censorship/filtering then you wouldn’t have called them extremists.
Disclosure: Yes, I’m a Christian (and socially quite conservative), but I have no affliation with Mothers’ Union.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/12/isps_refute_pron_restrictio…
I’m glad about this.
I think it is a good idea. People living in england will be able to more effectively control what their children see. I just hope this doesn’t work by using keywords… I would still like my children to be able to access encyclopedias and other authoritive sources of information about the human body, and sex, but not have access to porn and such.
Can’t see that this has anything to do with freedom of speech, no ones freedom of speech has been taken away… if anyone wants to see this stuff they can, if anything some peoples freedom to silence has been removed… they must now stand up and say I want to watch simulated rape and so on… which is a sacrafice I can live with.
The people who want this kind of stuff are adults, so they shoudl be adult enough to admit to wanting to watch it…
Just hope it blocks stuff like 2 girls one cup on youtube too…
Edited 2011-10-12 13:31 UTC
No, they won’t. DNS filters are trivial to circumvent.
As has been explained multiple times in this thread, it’s a DNS filter. Word filtering on this scale would result in a return to dial-up speeds.
Then keep the PCs out of their rooms, put them in an open area, put a password on the PC, install filtering software at home. Any of the above. There’s no reason why you have to wait for your gov’t to do it. You were never powerless, only ignorant and you don’t have that excuse any more.
Creating a DNS filter that blocks out web sites, is enabled by default and is marketed as being ‘anti child exploitation’ is actively silencing sites that end up on the filter list. Even if it were strictly limited to porn, porn is still a valid form of speech.
This sentence doesn’t even make sense. It’s a binary: it’s either on, or it’s off. You don’t get to tick each sub-genre of porn you want to watch.
Well all I can say is may all your indiscretions and proclivities be listed and potentially published, too.
“Then keep the PCs out of their rooms, put them in an open area, put a password on the PC, install filtering software at home. Any of the above. There’s no reason why you have to wait for your gov’t to do it. You were never powerless, only ignorant and you don’t have that excuse any more.”
I shouldn’t have to filter this stuff it should be done by the isp. Nobody wants to do this setup this stuff because it is to difficult and complicated except for nerds who have nothing better todo as they have no social life. It’s not an excuse, that’s what nerds say to belittle people who don’t share their interest in computers. Should I have to grow plants and crops before I can eat vegetables? Customise a car and tune it before I can drive one? What a lot of shit – you only ever hear this from nerds who think that everyone is as interested in computers as them.
”
This sentence doesn’t even make sense. It’s a binary: it’s either on, or it’s off. You don’t get to tick each sub-genre of porn you want to watch. ”
Then try re-reading it again it makes perfect sense.
“Well all I can say is may all your indiscretions and proclivities be listed and potentially published, too.”
This doesn’t even make any sense. What has this got to do with what I said or the topic at hand?
If you want to coddle your kids, do it yourself. Making it everyone else’s responsibility (and making everyone else pay for it, in every sense of the phrase) is a cop-out.
Buying a box and following a wizard isn’t ‘too difficult’. If you can’t do that, then get the same geek who installed Office for you to do it. The reason most people don’t bother is that they really don’t give a shit; they’ll just give the appearance of caring if asked. If you were really that worried, you would have sought advice and installed filtering software back when you first signed up with an ISP.
Good job lashing out. You’re responsible for kids, did you say?
Depends, are you going to die if you see some titties? Shit analogy.
Now you’re just childishly contradicting me. Again, you’re responsible for kids?
It’s called special pleading, dear. If you think people who want to watch porn, “shou[ld] be adult enough to admit to wanting to watch it”, you should be willing to front up and divulge all your deepest, darkest secrets, as an act of good faith and logical consistency.
“If you want to coddle your kids, do it yourself. Making it everyone else’s responsibility (and making everyone else pay for it, in every sense of the phrase) is a cop-out. ”
Well we live in a society… well non-nerds unlike you. And you see, socities do things together. Otherwise we would all be osnews reading nerds at home wanking over porn instead of having wives and girdlfriends.
Why don’t you want people to protect their children? Do you have some kind of ulterior motive? Why is it so important that children are left to protect themselves? Does it help you in someway if they are not protected?
“Buying a box and following a wizard isn’t ‘too difficult’. If you can’t do that, then get the same geek who installed Office for you to do it. The reason most people don’t bother is that they really don’t give a shit; they’ll just give the appearance of caring if asked. If you were really that worried, you would have sought advice and installed filtering software back when you first signed up with an ISP.”
Again I shouldn’t have to buy anything when the ISPs can and should be doing this. Why ar you so childish that you can’t admit to wanting to watch women sleeping with horses? If it does soemthing for you, be man enough to admit it.
“Good job lashing out. You’re responsible for kids, did you say? ”
Just behaving the way you are… I can see why you don’t have children.
“Shit analogy. ”
You mean it’s an analogy you can’t understand or to scared to admit that I was right. The analogy was perfectly sound… I guess your some dumb Yank who thanks to a poor US education thinks for some strange reason that apples and oranges can’t be compared.
“Now you’re just childishly contradicting me. Again, you’re responsible for kids? ”
Just showing you how annoying it is when someone behaves as childish as you… yes I have children… something your never know about, as inflatable ingrid can’t give you any… Try living in the realworld with real people instead of plugging acomputer up your arse 24/7 and maybe your have some too… but I doubt it.
“It’s called special pleading, dear. If you think people who want to watch porn, “shou[ld] be adult enough to admit to wanting to watch it”, you should be willing to front up and divulge all your deepest, darkest secrets, as an act of good faith and logical consistency.”
Dear? Are you gay? Is that why you dislike this proposal? Comeout if you like that kind of thing… and admit to it.
I don’t need to own up to anything… bad bid of logic there. Your the one who wants to watch porn not me.
Wow, now that is some blatant trolling. Well, at least you forfeited the debate in style.
Your talking about yourself…. always resort to calling the other person a troll when you see that you have lost your argument. Very childish
OK, try never maintaining your car, how long before it dies from old oil and dirty filters, you can’t pass emissions and get pulled over for having blown signal lights?
There are plenty of computer shops out there, that just like mechanics, will do for you what you are too incompetent to do.
Also, everything you’re for is plain ass ignorance, and last I checked ignorance doesn’t hold up in court, hence why you would be held responsible for running an open wifi router that someone else used for any nefarious act, just as in many places you would be fined if someone where to steal your car that you left the keys in and running.
Ok you numpty, do you have to install airbags yourself in your car? Seatbelts? A speeddial so that you can see how fast your going or maybe breaks so that you can slow down?
If any of the above is correct then your post is ok… otherwise your just talking crap… calm down and think about it form the point of view of someone who isn’t interested in computers 24/7 unlike you…
You can already use the internet just fine without tuning. What you want is customization and for that you’ll have to either learn how to do it yourself or pay someone. Just like when customizing and tuning a car.
Edited 2011-10-13 15:30 UTC
Every time I read news like this, I cant escape the feeling that we’re heading to a new medieval era.
And people salute their “hallowed” governments for striping them of their basic rights, one law at a time.
As others have commented here before, it is the parents duty to educate their kids or even block them from accessing the sites THEY THINK are inappropriate.
… although on a much more trivial scale. One of the big ISPs here gave in to pressure a while back to block The Pirate Bay from all its customers. They lost heaps of customers as a result – and I suspect not because those customers needed TPB (most users looking for things on TPB would know a hundred other places to look anyway), but because they didn’t like the idea that their internet could be censored. They’re still like that, and it’s still a little worrying to think how it could progress…
Seriously, what is this doing on here? This is nothing new for some of the ISPs. BT already offers the facilty. You have to opt in to be blocked.
Seems a perfectly sensible service to offer customers to me. The only reason this is even news is for political reasons. I cannot believe intelligent people have sensationalised it to this extent!
If you look at the opt-in situation at the moment, Thom should be told off for a sensationalist headline and initial description in this posting. Yes, it’s opt-in – if the user does nothing, they get 100% porn all day and night. How is this abolishing Freedom of Speech?
It’s no different than *optionally* installing a Net Nanny program on their PC – that is also opt-in and almost no-one does it nowadays because Net Nanny-type programs are pretty discredited.
However, what Thom should have focused on is that whilst it’s opt-in *now* (which to me means “zero change”), it is the start of a slippery slope to opt-out, which should be hugely resisted at all costs (hint here: filtering doesn’t work because innocent sites get blocked without being told they are being blocked and it can be worked around fairly easily [e.g. rent a US VPS for $5 a month and proxy from there]).
Also, Thom, you do realise that virtually every UK mobile provider has had an *opt-out* policy for such filters (aka their dreaded “walled garden”) and they don’t make it easy to opt-out either! Heck, I run a UK lottery site that does no advertising and makes no money and that is simply banned by T-Mobile in the UK because the domain has the word “lottery” in it! I’ve got an aliased domain without the word lottery in it and T-Mobile lets that one through (showing how totally moronic such domain filters are).
A sadly mis-informed article from you, Thom, and I’m quite surprised you posted it up in its current form.
Edited 2011-10-13 00:04 UTC
Whoops, sorry, missed the last part of your post.
Edited 2011-10-13 03:28 UTC
If the system makes you opt-in to receive adult content (or, alternatively expressed, opt-out of the filtering which prevents delivery) then this is very worrying.
If the system makes you opt-in to the filtering, then I’m not so bothered, except to the extent the government has taken it upon themselves at the request of the “Mother’s Union”, whatever that is (presumably, an organization full of conservative, worry-wart busy-bodies — the type we also have here in the States, unfortunately.)
What worries me about the government being involved, is that this sounds like an awful good way to test out a system which might block content that the government deems objectionable in the future. Although no suystem will be impenetrable, if you wanted to see how people might attempt to circumvent a filtering system 10 or 20 years from now, you could pick a worse place to start than looking at what today’s kids are doing to get at porn.
The overall trend in Britain recently is quite disturbing though. They’re now the third most surveilled state in the world, just behind, IIRC, China and North Korea. Now their government may be preparing to implement the types of filtering that China and N. Korea already do — and yet, the populace seems to be sitting by and saying “sure, but it won’t be used that way here”. It never is, until it is.
Of course America is faring only marginally better over the past 10 years, and we have many other problems with Government.