
New broadband users shun manditory porn filters, (UK regulator) Ofcom finds - RobAley
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28440067
======
rikkus
Says the BBC: "The filters block pornographic websites, as well as pages
promoting self-harm or drug taking."

One of the major concerns raised about these filters at the time the
government announced them was that they _also_ block sites which people go to
for help.

The BBC have decided to ignore this concern (which they know about) and
copy+paste the government's promotional text.

~~~
higherpurpose
I've noticed BBC tends to do that a lot - publish government's stories (mostly
in the way they want them published).

~~~
gmac
Yes. BBC News nowadays is essentially Government Press Release Hour.

Probably because the Government is continually holding the threat of a licence
fee review over their heads (the BBC is funded by a flat-rate tax of ~£150 per
year on each UK household that owns a TV). "Nice little broadcasting
corporation you got there. Be a shame if anything were to happen to it".

It got appreciably worse after they got in hot water and backtracked over
Andrew Gilligan's patently correct claim that Tony Blair knowingly lied to get
the UK into the Iraq war.

It has also got worse under the present Tory ('coalition') government, which
the BBC knows would like nothing better, ideologically speaking, than to
eliminate one more public service.

Probably a lot of this agenda has been internalised by BBC staff. Nobody ever
got fired for broadcasting the Government line, after all.

[http://www.medialens.org/](http://www.medialens.org/) is great on this stuff.

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richardwigley
'Porn filters' while getting your attention isn't the whole story. There's a
whole list there. Very few adults would tolerate this much censorship.

Categories blocked across the major ISPs include: Dating, Drugs, Alcohol and
Tobacco, File sharing, Gambling, Games, Pornography, Nudity, Social
networking, Suicide and Self-harm, Weapons and violence, Obscenity, Criminal
Skills, Hate, Media Streaming, Fashion and Beauty, Gore, Cyberbullying,
Hacking and Web-blocking circumvention tools

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Unit...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_United_Kingdom)

~~~
citricsquid
Your comment is quite disingenuous. The major ISPs offer parental filters that
can be used to block many different types of content, and specific websites,
but they are not the default: they are opt-in. The default (opt-out) filter
with BT for example is "Light"[1], which only blocks the content you'd expect
to be blocked by a "family-friendly" filter. To block Media Streaming,
Fashion, Sex Education and File Sharing you have to opt-in to "Strict"[2]. If
someone opts out of the default ("mandatory") filter they are opting out of a
porn filter, not a sex education filter.

[1] [http://i.imgur.com/5IN6VGC.png](http://i.imgur.com/5IN6VGC.png) [2]
[http://i.imgur.com/PinT3xy.png](http://i.imgur.com/PinT3xy.png)

~~~
richardwigley
My experience was: my ISP was talktalk, under a business account run from home
(SOHO?), One day, un-opted, they started censoring sites - dating sites -
which would seem to be strict under the BT definition. While that might be as
expected for a business it wasn't a service that was asked for.

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digitalengineer
The nanny state in action. There are plenty of solutions available if you wish
to block certain content. This just _looks like_ it's doing something good.

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higherpurpose
Clearly this shows the public is widely against it, and they will promptly
shut down this program?!

~~~
alexbilbie
It doesn't show that, it shows that users who have a new broadband connection
(since the end of 2013 for BT and Sky customers) have not opted-in - existing
customers aren't presented with the choice.

35% of TalkTalk customers since 2011 is surprisingly high though.

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jqm
Am I missing something or why couldn't users have just installed a net filter
of their choice in the first place? Why did there need to be government
involvement? Or is this like the opt-out vs. opt-in debate?

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umaar
I was curious as to what URLs are blocked by some ISPs in the UK. Here's a
(maybe NSFW) list: [http://uk-blocked-sites.herokuapp.com/](http://uk-blocked-
sites.herokuapp.com/)

~~~
jcbrand
Did you notice that torproject.org is blocked? As well as various torrent
sites (including of course pirate bay).

~~~
umaar
Yeah, also that list is specifically excluding the "strict" filters. There's
also: \- defcon.org \- ethicalvoiceforanimals.org.uk (don't know why) \-
hackthissite.org \- rapidshare.com \- gaylifeuk.com/helplines-a-support-
groups.html

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cjg
Why is there such a difference between TalkTalk and the other ISPs?

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eric_h
Why is talktalk's adoption of the filter so much higher? The article mentions
the fact, but doesn't dig into it at all.

~~~
jiggy2011
I think Talktalk is one of the cheapest ISPs in the UK, their customers
probably don't use the internet enough to notice.

~~~
eric_h
Ah, that makes sense. Thanks!

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thisjepisje
Do the filters really block all porn on the internet? That's quite impressive.

~~~
AlyssaRowan
No, they don't. They have plenty of overblocking too.

Please see [https://www.blocked.org.uk/](https://www.blocked.org.uk/) for
details.

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eric_h
tor.eff.org is one of the blocked sites... This is clearly not just intended
as a porn filter, gchq must have a hand in it.

------
mercurial
What's "manditory" about the porn filter, if you can opt out of it? Not to say
that the filter is a good thing, but the title of submission is an oxymoron

~~~
coob
It's mandatory for the ISPs to offer it by default.

~~~
AlyssaRowan
(Not a lawyer. Lay opinion, not legal advice.)

Not actually true. While it is the stated policy of some Government ministers
and the PM, there is no primary or secondary legislation forcing ISPs to adopt
filtering of any kind (even "Cleanfeed"-style blocking of sites implicated in
child pornography on the IWF blocklist, or terrorism): the Government in
negotiations strongly stated that _if_ "voluntary" agreements weren't reached
by the ISPs, they would make such a law, but this has not come before
Parliament.

Obviously, such a proposed law would face significant legal and political
challenge, were it made, as would any attempt to, via legal or regulatory
hurdles, coerce an ISP into participating in this scheme. Any such challenge
would have a wealth of data supporting the ineffectiveness, unaccountability,
overblocking, and unwantedness of the various filters.

Existing case law regarding site blocking of sites accused of the facilitation
of copyright infringement are targeted against individual ISPs which already
have site blocking infrastructure in place, and explicitly does not address
any coercion to fund any such censorship infrastructure, or (if it were
mandatory) its legality: it was found to be orderable only on the basis that
the respondent ISPs already had the means deployed and available to do it.

~~~
mercurial
Clever maneuver: get the result you want, and bypass the democratic process
because it's inconvenient.

