

UK Prime Minister: We have put in place Internet filters to block extremism - tamersalama
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm131023/debtext/131023-0001.htm#13102356000002

======
GVIrish
Well that didn't take long. First it was about porn, now the naked power grab
begins. Who gets to define 'extremism'? Will information that Snowden leaked
now be deemed extremist material? It seems only natural that the next step
will be blocking dissent and content deemed dangerous to the sanctity of the
state.

People of Great Britain, I hope you're not sleeping on this. Forget the
slippery slope, this is the cliff.

~~~
josephagoss
The people of England are stereotypically doormats when it comes to this sort
of thing. Standing up for rights is not something we/they do very well.

We are the most survillienced nation, the population the most docile. That is
one of the reasons I moved away, no one cares about this stuff, all they want
is TV and quite often dole money. Let the filter roll out!

Of course there are exceptions, but nowhere near enough to make a real
difference. The Government in England gets what it wants no matter what.

EDIT: I mean England, from my travels the other UK countries do not seem to
have the same attitude as England does.

~~~
bport
The study that made us think the UK was the most surveilled country was a 2006
report, which reported about 4 million cameras in the UK. This report was
published by the UK government's /own/ information comissioner as a warning of
what we could be walking into.

A more recent study a couple of years ago put the number closer to 2 million,
about 90% of which are privately owned. A large number of privately owned,
non-centralised security cameras are not a threat to me in any way. If the
government started networking private security for monitoring by the
government, /that/ would be the action that would get people (and private
companies) up in arms.

Other recent government aggression, such as suspicionless stop and searches,
extended detention for terrorism offences etc. were successfully challenged in
the European court of humans rights within a few years. I've seen a pattern of
worrying things slipping passed a sleepwalking public, then reverted later
when it comes to light.

Apart from all that, this headline in particular is really inaccurate. There
was no quote as strong as the subject, but the closest thing is that the PM
said they were going to 'block sites' related to extremeism. This isn't a
'filter', which implies it's something automated that affects all internet
activity.

The internet surveillance under RIPA /is/ genuinely frightening, but that
isn't unique to the UK.

~~~
jon-wood
> the PM said they were going to 'block sites' related to extremeism. This
> isn't a 'filter', which implies it's something automated that affects all
> internet activity.

That sounds very much like the the Internet Watch Foundation's filter list,
which was originally implemented to block access to child abuse.
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanfeed_(content_blocking_sys...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanfeed_\(content_blocking_system\)))

There has been at least one case of that list accidentally blocking access to
Wikipedia after an over-zealous block took out the entire domain instead of a
single page, and there's no reason to believe that it couldn't be used to
block far more content if the political will were there.

------
handelaar
Less shit link to the actual speech in question:

[http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2013-10-23a.299.8#...](http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2013-10-23a.299.8#g300.2)

But am flagging for the _outrageous_ misquote in the title.

~~~
basicallydan
Me too. The word "filter" is not in the text linked to, nor is "internet".

~~~
paganel
> nor is "internet".

There is this: "including by blocking online sites."

------
jsvaughan
The word "filters" is not in this text

What it actually says is far less inflammatory:

"We have had repeated meetings of the extremism task force—it met again
yesterday—setting out a whole series of steps that we will take to counter the
extremist narrative, including by blocking online sites."

~~~
agravier
How is "blocking online sites" different than "filtering"?

~~~
k-mcgrady
To me filter implies an automated system. This sounds more like they are
blocking specific sites after investigating them.

~~~
mhurron
I'm willing to bet the wording was picked very carefully to split this exact
hair.

Automated systems get their block lists from investigations.

~~~
vidarh
And I bet parliament is full of invisible pink unicorns.

We can speculate all we want, but making up claims that are totally
unsupported, and presenting them as actual statements made by a specific
person in this way is pure character assassination.

~~~
EGreg
I always wondered, if the unicorns are invisible, in what sense are they pink?

~~~
polymatter
I think that's part of the point of their proverbial existence. Their
description isn't self-consistent, which is just further emphasizing these are
objects that don't exist.

~~~
EGreg
But then they don't match the thing being compared with, which at least MAY
exist.

------
RyanMcGreal
MP Julian Smith: "Following the reckless handling by The Guardian of the
Snowden leaks..."

Cameron: "My hon. Friend is absolutely right."

Ugh.

~~~
mercurial
Considering how they interrogated Miranda, hardly surprising.

------
tamersalama
The Prime Minister: We have put in place some of the toughest controls that
one can possibly have within a democratic Government, and the TPIMs are
obviously one part of that. We have had repeated meetings of the extremism
task force—it met again yesterday—setting out a whole series of steps that we
will take to counter the extremist narrative, including by blocking online
sites. Now that I have the opportunity, let me praise Facebook for yesterday
reversing the decision it took about the showing of beheading videos online.
We will take all these steps and many more to keep our country safe.

------
vidarh
This is one of the worst cases of editorialising titles I've seen on HN.

Usually I'm for allowing some flexibility in the titles, but the current title
("UK Prime Minister: We have put in place Internet filters to block
extremism") is a total fabrication not supported by the linked text.

Frankly, the misquote in the title borders on libel.

~~~
prof_hobart
"We have had repeated meetings of the extremism task force it met again
yesterday setting out a whole series of steps that we will take to counter the
extremist narrative, including by blocking online sites."

The only distinctions I can see between this quote and the title are "filter"
v "block" and "have" v "will". I'm not sure I see either as hugely affecting
the meaning.

~~~
vidarh
"Block" has a wide range of possible meanings that includes going to a court
and getting a court order against specific sites.

The statement also does not indicate that this has taken place, nor does it
set out any specifics of a mechanism by which this will be done.

In fact, there's nothing remotely providing evidence that there's even any
actual intent to block sites, as opposed to a "series of steps" that _may_ be
used to block sites at some unspecified point in the future, subject to some
unspecified set of criteria.

The title strongly implies that Cameron stated that filters are already in
place. That claim is not supported at all.

Furthermore, the wording evokes filtering by type of content rather than
blocking specific URLs (though that is debatable).

In any case, the title is written in a way that hints that this was a direct
claim by Cameron, which in any case is outright false.

I'd love for him to have actually said this, as it would be an incredibly
powerful thing to attack him with, and I find him disgusting, but making up
stuff like this only serves to discredit legitimate criticism of what he is
saying.

~~~
jon-wood
> The title strongly implies that Cameron stated that filters are already in
> place. That claim is not supported at all.

Filters _are_ already in place, and have been for at least the last ten years.
They're currently maintained by the Internet Watch Foundation under the
premise of "won't somebody please think of the children", but repurposing the
technology would be trivial, and could quite easily fly under the radar since
its all centralised.

~~~
vidarh
You are quoting what I wrote out of context. The quoted statement specifically
is addressing the claimed filtering of extremist views.

> but repurposing the technology would be trivial, and could quite easily fly
> under the radar since its all centralised.

Could, yes. If someone wants to document that and/or make a claim about that,
then let them write an article about it. There are plenty of potential
problems with the IWF.

But lets try not to blatantly make up stuff and present it pretty much as if
it is a quote, and link it to a page that does not support the claim made in
the title _at all_. It does not benefit us in any way to be flat out dishonest
when there is so much that can be legitimately criticised based on real,
actual quotes.

------
1angryhacker
The actual quote:

The Prime Minister: We have put in place some of the toughest controls that
one can possibly have within a democratic Government, and the TPIMs are
obviously one part of that. We have had repeated meetings of the extremism
task force—it met again yesterday—setting out a whole series of steps that we
will take to counter the extremist narrative, including by blocking online
sites. Now that I have the opportunity, let me praise Facebook for yesterday
reversing the decision it took about the showing of beheading videos online.
We will take all these steps and many more to keep our country safe.

------
noja
It's like watching a horrible accident occurring and knowing that you can do
nothing.

~~~
lucaspiller
We are still free to leave the country (for now...).

~~~
ds9
VPNs are still legal, but may be monitored, maybe with help of the long arm of
the US.

Cameron has a warped idea of "democracy" if he thinks this is compatible with
it. Citizens are entitled to know the opinions of people everywhere, even the
hostile or angry ones.

Not to mention the likelihood of secret blocking of more than they're telling
the public. Hopefully there will be lists of what is actually blocked, from
groups in countries where such investigation can be done safely.

------
tamersalama
I wish politicians would one day face the same amount of word-scrutiny a
concerned HN poster/commenter does.

~~~
forgottenpass
Every so often the idea pops into my head that maybe people are just using HN
as a low-risk place to test their corporate communication skills.

Maybe they don't even do it maliciously. The same way a freemium game can A-B
test their way into an unaware but disgusting exploitation of human
psychology, all while the were just trying to use metrics to discover what's
fun.

So I see HN as a chance to practice, or (more specifically) organically
stumble upon rhetorical tricks that play to the audience's desire to let
reasonable discussion occur while not actually embodying it.

I mean, it's either that or someone is purposefully using a politician's
playbook for reshaping conversations.

------
secoif
Internet filters are extremism.

------
csmuk
[http://www.aaisp.net/](http://www.aaisp.net/)

No filters.

~~~
msy
AAISP are awesome and any self-respecting geek should be using them but they
would have no ability to affect filters of this kind, only the optional porn
filter, which they do disable.

~~~
mike-cardwell
I really wanted to go with AAISP when I moved house recently, but they're just
too expensive. To add a 16Mb unlimited/unmetred Sky Broadband connection to my
Sky package cost an extra £3/month, whereas AAISP want £25/month for 100GB
plus a £50 setup fee. I understand that Sky are subsidising their Internet
connection with the rest of their package, but still it's just too much of a
difference. I wanted AAISP mostly for the native IPv6, but I can get decent
free tunneled IPv6 from Hurricane Electric anyway.

[edit]: And any blocks Sky puts in place can easily be routed around via my
VPS anyway.

~~~
dingaling
It's no so much that _AAISP_ are expensive, rather that's the going rate for a
true Internet connection these days.

I'm with Goscomb.net, native IPv6, proper unhampered Internet connectivity and
clueful admins ( they did an rDNS for me in five minutes ) but unlike AAISP
they don't use metered billing, but capped throughput. Might be worth checking
if that works better for you.

How much extra is your VPS costing per month? Be sure to add that onto your
Sky cost assessment.

~~~
mike-cardwell
Interesting. I will take a look when our sky contract runs out.

You can get a VPS for $5/month from Digital Ocean with 1TB of bandwidth that
is ideal for these purposes. I use the $10/month 2TB version, but only because
they gave me $1000 of free credit for pointing out some security issues in
their login process a few months back.

------
meira
We need to stop create situations that create extremist groups. There is no
need for internet censorship.

~~~
forktheif
I think the argument is, having extremist websites accessible is a situation
that creates extremist groups.

~~~
meira
Just like the egg and chicken problem, so. But in this case, is easy to find
out which one came first :P

------
trekky1700
End of days big brother talk aside, it will be interesting to see how this is
actually used. Speculation aside, this could be an interesting case study in
internet censorship and government responsibility.

------
bad_user
Makes sense. Extremism, along with porn, is corroding childhood.

~~~
ds9
Well I'm glad you are so confident that HM government are going to protect
your children with a concept of "extremism" that coincides with your own. And
it's too bad you can't monitor or guide your own children's internet exposure,
or settle for an optional filter from the ISP or software.

What about your neighbors, though? Adults have a legitimate interest in
learning what is going on in the world, and reviewing the whole range of
opinion. If A is entitled to block B's access to communications that A
disapproves, is B then entitled to block A as well? Can you not imagine any
harm from living in a mental bubble of only what the government wants you to
think?

~~~
bad_user
That was sarcasm dude, put some batteries in your detector :-)

The "corroding childhood" expression was used recently by Mr. Cameron to
justify the nation wide ban on porn and I found his speech to be at the same
time hilarious and deeply disturbing. Personally I don't understand how the UK
electorate can be so stupid, but whatever, here it is:

[https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-internet-and-
porn...](https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-internet-and-pornography-
prime-minister-calls-for-action)

~~~
ds9
Oops, yes I apologize if your post was not face value bad_user.

------
josteink
Do we?

And if I were to accept such an _extreme_ stance, who gets to define
"extremism" mister prime minister?

------
mkaziz
In Pakistan, you can hide in a cave ... or in a house next to the Army's HQ
and no one will know where you are.

------
jsmithedin
Scottish independence can't come soon enough.

------
eli_gottlieb
Oh please. We all know that while al-Qaida will obviously be filtered, so will
the Socialist Workers' Party, and so won't English Defence League.

