
3UK treats political satire as porn and blocks it - rahoulb
https://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20130107/11190721597/uk-mobile-operator-3uk-filtering-new-class-mature-content-including-political-satire.shtml
======
Peroni
3UK user here. Came up against this block for what I assumed was a relatively
normal site. I phoned the company and had to jump through hoops to prove my
age after being asked _So, just to confirm Mr Buckley, you wish to access
adult content on your phone?_.

Eagerly anticipating the end of my contract next month.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
And then join up with who? All of the 3G operators have similar opt-out
filters.

Orange makes you give them your credit card number. GiffGaff made me give them
my drivers licence number.

I like that with GiffGaff I didn't need to talk to a person, just do it
online, but in general you'll have to deal with this no matter who you sign up
with.

I think even Imgur (Reddit's image host) was blocked at one stage.

~~~
arethuza
Out of interest, how are you finding GiffGaff - £12 for a plan with unlimited
internet and texts and no contract looks too good to be true!

[Edit: thanks to everyone who has replied, I think I will give them a go!]

~~~
jrabone
It is. They will collect your personal information, and make it available to
their parent (Telefonica, via O2) and one of the other subsidiaries set up
specifically to do this, and then re-sell it to the highest bidder. See
[http://www.fastcompany.com/3002010/telefonica-sell-
customer-...](http://www.fastcompany.com/3002010/telefonica-sell-customer-
data-retailers) for example.

If you then subsequently leave them for another network, you will get more SMS
spam than you can possibly imagine.

[http://zingongle.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/o2-selling-my-
deta...](http://zingongle.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/o2-selling-my-details-to-
marketing-companies-result-spam/) for more details.

~~~
thedrbrian
Interesting. Thankfully I signed up with one of my disposable gmail accounts.
Another problem with giffgaff/O2 is that they compress and artefact every
video or large picture one tries to send over their network. They claim its to
save you money/bandwidth/data , which is funny as I'm on an unlimited account.

~~~
DanBC2
All the mobile providers crunch images. T Mobile attempt it for all images.
It's frustrating when HN page load is delayed because their stupid proxies are
struggling to serve the tiny voting button gifs.

I mentioned before the weirdly broken system they use for this too - 1.2.3.9;
1.2.3.11; etc are all annoying IPs to use.

I too am on an "unlimited" account. Unlimited being the normal definition of
"has limits" - they'll insert interstitial warnings about fair use limits and
they'll stop flash working.

~~~
PJones
Interestingly, O2 seem to compress CSS as well. Had a client with a problem on
a mobile site I just could not reproduce. Turns out it only happened when
connected to O2s data network.

~~~
DanBC2
Awful.

T Mobile insert <script src="<http://1.2.3.8/bmi-int-js/bmi.js>
language="javascript"></script> after the opening <html> on every page. Pretty
lousy behaviour.

------
belorn
ISP today gets to define what approved content is, and there is no end to the
methods use to define it. ISP's will continue to expand the sometimes rather
arbitrary rules until either government steps in to regulate the industry, or
a anti-censorship _open by design_ system will replace the current industry.

First the network allowed everything. Then ISPs started with forbidding child
porn as the one and only one exceptional rule. Then it was everything except
"illegal content", being everything before with the added inclusion of
copyright infringements. Then extreme porn was added, because anti-porn can
always be advertised to end-users as a mechanism for protecting children. Then
it is "mature content", including anything an ISP might get a letter of
complain about, but which does not hurt any business partners. This meant that
they can cut cost on support, but at the same time protect any revenue from
advertisements. That mean items such as tor, political satire, all form of
porn, unpopular religious sites and (anti)social hangouts get listed, but
things like alcohol, commercials directed to children, political
advertizements, violence and sexual hinting content will be left alone. After
that, they start to add items to the list which competes with the ISPs' own
products, such as VoIP, but also products that put a strain on their network
such as video streaming. The last bans tend to be less severe, as to show how
slow competing products are with their low quality of service. This also allow
for a mechanism to extract levies from larger companies such as Google without
going with a full blown ban that might create outcry from ones consumers.

The market won't regulate itself. There are too few options of consumers, and
there exist a clear asymmetrical information gap between buyer and seller.
Lemon laws for services could help here, but it would be the same effort or
even more effort than to create industry regulations for ISPs.

~~~
madaxe
Of course, when they first started censoring CP, plenty went, "Well, yes, it's
abhorrent, but what about the slippery slope?", and got shouted down by our
government, the press, and peers, who all said words to the effect of "Don't
be ridiculous, you're hysterical, what are you, a pedophile?".

Even now, as we gracelessly tumble down the well-greased-incline, they will
merrily argue that there is no slippery slope.

As to regulation, there already is, and it actively encourages ISPs to censor.

<http://www.mobilebroadbandgroup.com/content-code.pdf>

~~~
DanBC2
You know these filters are optional, right? Comparing these to the filters for
images of child sexual abuse is bizarre - they're operated in very different
ways.

~~~
belorn
Are filters for images of child sexual abuse written into law? It is a
industry standard in Europe, but I never heard that UK actually made a law to
force ISPs to use it.

as for the linked content-code, it is true that its is not a industry
regulation but a rather a industry practice code written by large ISP
themselves.

~~~
DanBC2
I don't know if it's a law, but it's done differently to the normal filters.

The Internet Watch Foundation provides a list of sites that are involved in
images of child sexual abuse. While they're an industry group, they are a bit
more serious about their mission than other filter providers.

(<http://www.iwf.org.uk/about-iwf>)

I guess they were formed to avoid the need for legally mandated filters.

------
Angostura
This is excellent news "Yes, I opted out of the filter darling - so I can
access satire, you understand."

------
lucian1900
Back when I was using them, they blocked almost all Romanian news sites on the
same basis (I don't know if they still do). I went through their stupid
procedure for proving I'm over 18 and instead of unblocking everything, they
opened up their own page where they sell porn!

~~~
vacri
I spent a few months doing general customer support (not technical) for a
telco/isp. We had two isp products, a general one 'foo' and a rural-oriented
one 'bar'. We could see the homepage for 'foo' and it was helpful in getting
customers to the right spot to login (but what they saw after that was a
mystery). No dice with 'bar' - our own product. I emailed the management
saying "please whitelist 'bar', it's not like we're going to waste time
looking at it, and it improves the service". Management droned: "That's not
our decision, it's IT's".

I emailed IT with the reply and said the same thing to them. "That's not our
decision, it's Management's".

Ah, the life of a drone. Can't say I miss it. The same place had an email
quota so strict that I couldn't keep more than 2-3 weeks worth of emails. It
also made me a lot more forgiving of callcentre drones.

------
vacri
I've always thought it funny how porn is 'mature' content, but the people who
use it are considered 'juvenile'.

I've always wanted to hear the voiceover in a cinema say "This film is rated
for mature audiences", and have the film be a political thriller of which
juveniles wouldn't understand the politics...

------
JosephRedfern
I'm with 3UK, and have rang them up to get this filter removed. The person on
the phone assured me it would be lifted within 24 hours - it's still the same.
This was about 5 months ago.

~~~
Limes102
When I tried to do it, they added a £5/month thing to my account, but then
also added a £5/month goodwill, so I wasn't paying for it. I have no idea what
it is doing, but there is no filter anymore. I had to phone a few times before
it worked though.

~~~
PJones
Be careful with that, I had them do the same thing to me (after I asked them
not to) and the goodwill suddenly ended after a few months. Took hours to get
it sorted and refunded, and to top it off they put the flaming restriction
back on!

Edit: I just checked, and it looks like it was removed again at some point,
possibly when I renewed the contract? Ah well.

------
Herald_MJ
An interesting side-effect of "cloud browsers" (browsers that proxy your
traffic through their servers and compress the data on the mobile data end)
like Opera Mini and Amazon Silk is they completely bypass these filters.

------
Herald_MJ
Orange UK have a similar overenthusiastic filter - I've noticed it blocking
online dating websites, a beer festival website and even reddit, in it's
entirety.

It's also opt-out, and although this can be done through their mobile app, it
has the annoying habit of occasionally re-enabling itself. Very annoying.

------
jstanley
They have no place censoring the web at all, let alone censoring things that
aren't even pornographic.

~~~
chii
indeed no isp or gov't should be allowed to censor any information, unless
that information's critical to national defence or something (and even then, i
would be really dubious of the claim). Whether it is porn or not doesn't even
come into the argument, because the issue is not with the contents, its with
censorship itself as a concept.

~~~
jiggy2011
If an ISP web filter is the only thing stopping people from accessing
classified military documents then I would be very concerned for your national
security.

------
peteri
I just change the APN to 3internet from three.co.uk which gets rid of the
censoring. Settings / Wireless and networks More / Mobile networks / Access
point names on my Nexus S.

So far (nearly two years) no ill effects with billing, I'm on the one plan
which allows tethering YMMV.

The only gotcha I'm aware of is that bits of three infrastructure such as the
MMS server and I think the "mythree" stuff don't recognise the phone anymore
but thats no big deal for me. So the couple of times I've received an MMS I've
changed the APN back.

------
rahoulb
I'm on 3 and it once blocked a page on the NME (New Musical Express) - I just
thought it was a one-off and couldn't really be bothered digging into it. It
appears that I was wrong.

------
Millennium
Not that the ISP should be doing this anyway, but it's worth noting that porn
as political satire has a long history. The Marquis de Sade, for example, used
to write stories featuring politicians of the day finding... creative... uses
for the French Constitution.

------
gambiting
GiffGaff has been doing this as well, couldn't access reddit, 9gag or any of
the sites that "might" have adult content. Had to go to my account settings
and input my passport number to get the access unlocked.

------
DanBC2
>First, because many people will be unaware that this kind of "mature content"
censorship is taking place at all, and therefore won't ask for it to be
stopped.

You get a huge interstitial page telling you that the site is being blocked
and telling you what you need to do to have it turned off.

I agree that the block should be off by default. Sellers could ask the
customer if they wanted the block turned on when the phone is bought. I agree
that the blocks are too broad.

T-Mobile didn't ask for any ID. I guess I'm pretty obviously over 18. They did
ask for my name and address.

------
ZoFreX
This is Not News. Many mobile networks offer content filtering, and it's often
turned on by default until you turn it off (this is true in the UK at least).

Just like the crappy filters you had to fight constantly at school these are
extremely broad, badly curated lists of sites that they get from a third
party. Three hasn't gone "let's block political and sex education sites", they
just subscribe to a list made by another organisation, and often that list
will mark a site as adult content purely because it has swear words on it.

~~~
netcan
I wouldn't call that "offering content filtering."

------
robmcm
O2 in the UK blocks craigs list...

It's a real issue that this stuff is blocked by default, especially when you
sign up to a contract where I expect you have to be over 18 anyway!

~~~
iamben
They block lots of non pornographic things. They also told me it's to protect
children who have been given a phone by their parents (who would have taken
out the contract). Pretty ridiculous.

------
jrabone
VPN to your own network. It's the only way to fly.

------
billpg
Dear operators.

I would like it very much if you'd block any malware sites. I don't even mind
if there's a reasonable number of false positives caught in the mix when a new
exploit is found and I might not have updated my software yet.

Apart from that, please don't block anything. I am an adult and the sole user
of the account.

------
tomp
Among other sites that are blocked is also reddit.com/r/sex . I cannot
understand how preventing children to access educational sex-related materials
could be construed as "protecting" them.

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
I agree that the filters are overly broad, but in fairness /r/sex isn't just
about education. There is educational material on that sub, but there is also
"adult" content in the strictest sense.

I always viewed these filers as being in place for actual children (age 1 to
11), teenagers (12+) should have them removed. If I had kids I would have no
issue with them watching porn (aside from 3G data usage) and I wouldn't want
to accidentally stop them from accessing information on sexuality.

I think a lot of parents have this strange idea that if you stop kids getting
at the information (or condoms) that that will somehow stop them from having
sex (or doing other stuff). But the research and statistics are contrary to
that.

Frankly my biggest concern would be so called "sexting" (i.e. sending erotic
pictures or video to their teenage love-interest). Which unfortunately only
education can combat, there are no workable technological solutions that I am
aware of.

------
speeder
And so we continue failing to protect our freedoms, and slowly we remain in
the path that will take us to 1984.

~~~
white_devil
The problem with this line of thinking is that "protecting our freedoms" would
pretty much require an immediate full-on revolution, everywhere.

------
dan1234
Is this block only for PAYG users? There doesn't seem to be any block on my
3UK Pay Monthly deal.

~~~
rahoulb
Sort of - you need to prove your ID to them (and contracts include that ID).
But I was using a 3 contract broadband SIM in my phone and that wouldn't let
me access stuff on the phone's browser.

------
themanr
Does anyone know the censorship policies for all UK network operators? My
contract is up.

~~~
ubercow13
All have filters on by default and all will allow you to disable them

