
David Cameron's Internet porn filter is the start of censorship creep - iamben
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/03/david-cameron-internet-porn-filter-censorship-creep
======
netcan
I'm really disappointed with this whole situation. The government. The
parliament. The people & the media. I resent all the apologizing and
explaining and the "don't attribute to malice…" excuses. I also think that
it's very possible that unrelated "side effects" like surveillance and control
of the internet "media" have always been an intended unstated goal.

This article is right on the right track. This is an attempt to control the
discussion, the definition of normal and public morality. It's is not a
response to an actual problem. It's old fashioned conservatism and
paternalism.

The bottom line here is choice. Parents everywhere have easy solutions for
voluntary porn filters. You can have them set up by your the people you buy
your internet from or the people that sell you your computer. It's cheap or
free and it's available. I do not buy the "it's too complicated" argument.
This is parents responsibility and it just ins't that hard to meet that
responsibility.

~~~
DanBC
I think the filters are bad.

But buying and installing filters is hard for many people. They don't know
anything about networking or the internet. These people need help setting up
wifi.

This is just movong the filter from existing software providers to the ISP.
It's not at all ISPs so you can shop around[1] if you want to avoid it. It's
optional so you can tirn it off if it's on bu default for you, and not all of
them are.

[1] shopping around isn't possible for broadband because of the weird way it's
provided in the UK.

~~~
netcan
A - Nonsense. It's not hard. You can take your computer to any "computer
repair" shop and get it installed. You can install something yourself or you
can call your ISP and ask them to install it. You can get help from your kids'
school or you can get help from whoever it is that helps you set up your email
or home wifi network. It may not be absolutely trivial, but it is a solvable
problem for an adult willing to invest an hour or two and/or a little bit of
money. I just hate this "people are dumb, this is hard for them" argument.
People are capable if they are interested.

B - You can use legislation to make it easier while preserving freedom. I
don't like this option, but it's much better than mandatory. Make it mandatory
for ISPs to offer free filtering.

This is a case of not trusting people to manage their own families' affairs.

~~~
mattlutze
The argument is an extension of the reason we don't let stores sell porno mags
to 13 year old's -- it is ridiculous to assume the parents will always be with
their child to make the decision for them.

I've no measured and thought-out opinion on porn filtering or censoring at
ISPs one way or another. But a lot of recent research on the subject of youth
and lewd material consumption suggests the current free and unfettered access
to pornographic material is unhealthy.

Is there a "slippery slope" to cry out with where this line of thought goes?
Sure. But in societies that decide their federal system should be arbiter of
its health care system, it makes no sense to argue when that government takes
measures to act on information regarding the health of its citizens.

~~~
netcan
_in societies that decide their federal system should be arbiter of its health
care system, it makes no sense to argue when that government takes measures to
act on information regarding the health of its citizens._

I really hate that argument. It's extremist and righteous.

~~~
mattlutze
I guess this news simply feels like a natural conclusion to me -- why wouldn't
the British government see it within its powers to act in what its medical
research suggests in the best interest of its people?

I think the contention would be must lower on this site, if the news didn't
involve making laws about the Internet. If it was about a food or something,
it'd be a relative non-issue.

~~~
whatevsbro
> why wouldn't the British government see it within its powers to act in what
> its medical research suggests in the best interest of its people?

Should the British government forcibly prevent you from drinking Coca-Cola
because it's bad for you?

~~~
DanBC
Since thw british government isn't forcibly preventing anyone from getting
porn your point fails.

But, trying to answer your question: if coca cola marketed their product as
having health benefits they'd be stopped by one branch of government. If they
advertised it as being totally safe in inlimited quantities they'd be stopped
by another regulator. The food industry haa been warned to make labelling
clear and to reduce sugar, salt, and fat content or face strict regulation.
So, yes, i'm happy for government to regulate the food supply.

~~~
whatevsbro
> So, yes, i'm happy for government to regulate the food supply.

Do you think there could not conceivably be a private company doing quality
assurance on various food items, or any other product for that matter?

------
bmj1
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
(1)

As a UK citizen, I've been very disappointed by this debacle. I suspect that
Cameron's heart was actually in the right place (protecting the children, etc)
but he does not understand the significant number of unintended consequences
that we are likely to see (and are already seeing).

I would suggest doing the following to make this workable long term:

\- Centralise the list of sites categorised as obscene/pornographic/etc (why
should it be different for different ISPs?)

\- Make the list of these sites publicly accessible and searchable

\- Ensure the list is maintained by a non-political and balanced panel (is
this possible?)

\- Implement a process for removal requests where a site is mis-classified and
ensure that this appeal process is separate from the initial panel

\- Implement KPIs on the effectiveness of the filter that take into account
false positives + false negatives

\- Remove any automatic categorisation based on keywords, this is too crude

\- Make publicly accessible the guidelines for classification

Unfortunately, I don't expect the above to actually happen :(

1\.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor)

~~~
bambax
I downvoted your comment because I could not disagree more with what you are
saying. If I understand you correctly, you're arguing that this is a good
idea, only with sub-par implementation.

But it's the idea that is bad; more than bad, it's despicable, it's an
abomination.

The government should not be in charge of what my children can or cannot read
_in my own home_ ; I'm in charge of that, thank you very much.

Besides, what raising kids teaches you is that in many ways, kids are little
adults; they grow better and are more happy when one treats them with respect.

~~~
IanCal
> The government should not be in charge of what my children can or cannot
> read in my own home; I'm in charge of that, thank you very much.

That's _exactly_ what this filter is though. It's not implemented by the
government, it's an opt-out filter implemented by your ISP. If you want to use
their defaults then it's there and free, if you want to allow access to
everything then control it yourself then fine.

I don't think this should exist, but you're hurting the fight against it by
not even bothering to check the most basic of facts.

~~~
Eupolemos
I think you're skirting over the more complicated issues here, contained in
the fact that UK citizens have to officially opt out on what society deems
prudent.

IMHO he was spot on.

~~~
melling
So, if they set default to opt in to the filter, can we end the conversation?

~~~
cs02rm0
Yes (at least as far as I'm concerned).

But that's what ISPs were doing. And Cameron said it wasn't good enough, which
is how we've ended up here.

------
sbt
If I was British, I would do anything I could to urge politicians and the
public to dismantle this firewall. Our biggest problem, not just in Britain
but in all countries, is that the public does not understand how serious this
is at all.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Even many people on HN don't realize how serious it is.

------
GotAnyMegadeth
> The category of "obscene content", for instance, which is blocked even on
> the lowest setting of BT's opt-in filtering system, covers "sites with
> information about illegal manipulation of electronic devices [and]
> distribution of software"

WTF

~~~
cjrp
"Respect for a partner" is another WTF topic:

[http://www.newstatesman.com/sites/default/files/images/3_Scr...](http://www.newstatesman.com/sites/default/files/images/3_Screen%20Shot%202013-12-20%20at%2019_09_57.png)

~~~
GotAnyMegadeth
Wow, that whole section is staggeringly stupid. Is that seriously going to be
blocked? Seriously?

~~~
andygates
They have since changed the wording on that section to be less obviously evil.
The "homosexual lifestyle" part is discrimination against a Protected
Characteristic just as badly as if it said "black culture".

I have an ongoing complaint with BT as to whether the actual filters have
changed. Nobody has yet said "no, it's secret"...

------
petercooper
The _start_? Cleanfeed has been running for _10 years_ already:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanfeed_(content_blocking_sys...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanfeed_\(content_blocking_system\))

~~~
jstanley
Plus, last year we started to see filtering of file-sharing websites: the
Pirate Bay is now blocked on every major UK ISP.

~~~
blueskin_
...as well as about 4 proxies out of thousands.

Censorship never works because it's so easy to turn it onto a game of whack-a-
mole with next to no money and effort even aside from all the other flaws.

~~~
vidarh
And it's also taught anyone who use TPB in the UK that the first thing to do
if you can't get to a site is to search for proxies. Every extra hurdle makes
people better at avoiding the next one...

~~~
aaren
I'd like to think that the uk web filter and the wider government surveillance
narrative of the past few months is actually a ploy by our leaders to slowly
educate the public in circumventing censorship and to stimulate the
development of a free internet - like the Socratic method, but for culture.

Then it gets cloudy outside and I stop thinking that.

------
matthewmacleod
Censorship is bad. That said…

This is not censorship. It's an opt-in web content filter, operated by the
largest ISPs, with no statutory backing. It's intended to encourage ISPs to
provide optional parental controls for every subscriber, and no more.

Frankly, I think this is actually a pretty good outcome, if not deliberately
so. It completely kills the arguments for _actual_ Web censorship by
eliminating the "think of the children" argument, which is probably the one
which the media bang on about most, without imposing any legal requirements or
mandatory filtering.

So there are plenty of options for users who don't want to be subject to the
filter. Switch to another DNS provider, or don't opt in to the filtering, or
even better – switch to one of the ISPs that don't offer this feature and
never will.

Ironically, I think that these filters are going to encourage the preservation
of Internet freedom in the UK in the long run.

~~~
nodata
It's opt out, not opt in.

How does it stop being censorship just because there is no centralised list?

~~~
DanBC
Cameron's filter is opt our for new customers, but opt in for existing
customers.

It's not government censorship if the government isn't providing a list of
banned sites. And the filter is optional - selling adult magazines in modesty
sleeves isn't censorship.

~~~
coldtea
> _It 's not government censorship if the government isn't providing a list of
> banned sites._

First, it's still censorship.

Second, the government can start supply a list of banned sites at any time.

Third, the way telcos/ISPs work with governments (and how they have to work
with them, in order to get certain contracts, favors, bandwidth etc) it's very
easy for government agencies to supply lists (not only of "adult content" but
also of "extremist content", whatever that is), under the table. Who will let
you know that the sites ISP x blocks were given to them by government
agencies?

> _And the filter is optional - selling adult magazines in modesty sleeves isn
> 't censorship._

Well, the very role of "modesty sleeves" IS censorship. It might be to censor
those covers from childrens eyes, and we might agree with that, but it still
is censorship.

~~~
DanBC
I genuinely don't understand how some companies voluntarily providing filters
to their customers, that those customers can chose to use or not to use, can
possibly be censorship.

It's fucking insulting to people living with real censorship.

~~~
cs02rm0
I've lived in countries with what seemed like real censorship to me.

I guess there were warehouses of people somewhere with black marker pens, it
was interesting to see the way they took different approaches as individuals
applying the rules. Adjacent Nirvana Nevermind albums stick in my mind; one
with a perfect rectangle drawn over the naked baby, one with swimming trunks
creatively drawn on.

There's nothing amusing about this, no creativity to find in the black. It
stinks of blanket censorship on a very inhuman level to me. But maybe my idea
of censorship still isn't real enough. How much further does it have to go
before it's real, how close should we get to that?

~~~
DanBC
What changes need to be made to the uk system to make it more like proper
censorship?

1: make it mandatory for all ISPs to provide it.

2: make it mandatory for all people to use it.

3: have a government supplied list of banned material

4: have penalties for being in possession of such material.

At the moment ISPs are chosing to offer these filters (albeit with the threat
of potential legislation).

People don't have to use the filters. Not everyome is opted in by default, and
for those who are there are proceedures to opt out.

The government isn't supplying any lists of what to ban, they've just asked
ISPs to make sure that under 18s are not getting access to pornography.

And there are no penalties for possessing any content blocked by these
filters. Someone can have terabytes of this stuff with no problems.

------
x0054
Perhaps a solution to this is a very public campaign to opt out of these
filters. This would achieve 2 goals:

1\. Good plausible deniability excuse. If asked why one has opted out, or
would like to opt out of the filter, one could always answer: "Because I saw
comparing X and it has convinced me that this is the right thing to do to
secure my rights to free speech..."

2\. The more people opt out the more likely this project is going to be either
a) abandoned or b) made mandatory rather then optional. If the latter happens,
I am sure the people are going to take to the streets.

Technical solution to this would be to create a simple website that tests your
Internet connection, tells you if it's possible filtered, and based on your
ip, tells you who to contact to remove the filter.

~~~
girvo
Are you really sure they'd take to the streets? I, sadly, wouldn't be.

------
hoggle
I always thought of the UK as highly educated and less gullible. This is the
entry point for a world as described by fellow UK citizen George Orwell. It's
a shame that people's honest hopes & beliefs in conservative "leaders" seem to
be what could turn this into 1984.

Death by a thousand cuts.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creeping_normalcy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creeping_normalcy)

------
JunkDNA
Reminds me of this recent editorial (which is hopefully not paywalled) in the
Wall Street Journal about "the Good Intentions Paving Co":
[http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230402070...](http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304020704579276942556236158)

~~~
twic
Paywalled, but a freedom-hating pirate has fortunately given us what i believe
to be a copy of it:

[http://casinocap.wordpress.com/2013/12/31/the-road-to-
hell-i...](http://casinocap.wordpress.com/2013/12/31/the-road-to-hell-is-
paved/)

------
jackweirdy
Obviously, living in a house of 5 male students, I won't opt into this.

I will be sending my MP a weekly write up of what we've been watching though.
I hope you join me! (In writing, that is)

~~~
Fuxy
Great idea. I may be joining you in that.

Although the links will probably have a lot of pornography in that since i can
bypass it pretty easily without opting out.

But since they really want to know I'm going to give them a list.

------
Fuxy
Anybody else think the hacker community will suffer a bit since it will be
just that much difficult to learn hacking since the information is in some
mysterious way related to pornography?

I keep getting blocked by T-Mobile's porn filter even while accessing certain
posts on HN.

I'm referring to people just starting out that have no clue how to bypass the
filter just yet. Not someone who already knows some stuff and it's quite easy
for them to bypass it.

Say using SOCKS5 and SSH tunneling to a box not covered by this bs filter.

~~~
DanBC
Why haven't you opted out of content lock?

~~~
Fuxy
It's my company phone and it requires a credit card (which i don't have).

I only use debit cards which they don't accept.

It's a personal choice but i shouldn't have to be forced to own a credit card
to unlock my fking porn filter.

Did I mention anything i see on HN most certainly doesn't qualify as porn?

Does qualify as hacking though if technical blogs on device vulnerabilities or
back doors are considered hacking.

I would qualify it as security research but that just another loose term the
ISPs can play with to ban important information on potentially insecure
devices.

------
DanBC
At present the UK has a variety of different filtering systems.

There's the IWF list, there are the mobile filters, There are the voluntary
ISP filters and if they're not good enough there's the proposed mandatory
filter. Edit {there are also the court ordered blocks of file sharing
websites}

This is a serious problem because some of the filtering is too broad and
catches stuff that shouldn't be filtered. There is often no way to get things
taken off the list.

Sometimes things that should be filtered are not, and again there's no way for
users to report that.

The IWF list claims to have a tight focus on images of child sexual abuse and
other pornography that is illegal in the UK. But that means the list of sites
and news groups and etc are not easily available. I'd hate to be a researcher
testing those filters because it'd be easy for police to spin the collection
of information into something sinister.

Some kind of standards process might be handy. That would list things the
filters must do, should do, must not do, and should not do. It would cover how
to report mistakes in filtering, the evidence needed for proof of age, etc.
that would improve the filters but keep the government out of providing the
filters.

Ideally politicians would know enough about technology to understand what
people are telling them about filters - i find it hard to believe that
politicians are that stupid.

EDIT: interesting to hear the US reaction to these optional filters. They're
in place but I'm happily playing poker with money on my phone.

------
salient
I'm very disappointed with UK people. They should've known better. They
should've seen this coming from miles away. But they've been reprogrammed to
think that surveillance, and to a degree even censorship is "okay" if it's
done for "good". They should've known that censorship even for "good" always,
and I mean _always_ , leads to censorship for evil, too. It leads to
politicians censoring anything they don't like. And the worst part about
censorship, is that you may not even find out what has been censored, and what
you weren't allowed to know.

David Cameron is nothing short of a dictator. It's just that he doesn't have
all the dictatorial powers he would like yet. But he seems to be working hard
to get them, and this porn filter, the charging of _friends_ of journalists
with terrorism, and other such things are only the beginning. Throw Cameron
David and his party out of office, and go to the streets and demand the
banning of the porn filters at the next elections. Otherwise, expect much
worse to come over the next years.

------
leopardkarate
This is just bad. First of all even though the filter is optional - most large
scale ISP's are rolling them out as an opt-out option. I bet a lot of people
will not even find out there is such a filter. Secondly, with such ambiguous
categories like "obscene" and "extremist" content that have proven to block
sites that contain information on LGTB issues and helplines for abuse people
get trapped in filter bubbles. People are treated like mindless zombies and
it's a self fulfilling prophecy because without alternative opinions or a wide
and diverse specter of information people do indeed become mindless zombies.
Finally, this is the most lazy and stupid solution to the problem - does the
state not want it's people to be able/learn to deal with various information
that's out there (because remember - if you can't see it doesn't mean it's not
there) and to think critically? Or is this a vile and through-through attempt
at gagging the internet?

Bonus food for thought: remember how Tories recently deleted their internet
archives... ?

------
mcgwiz
The basic notion of empowering corporate and political entities to judge for a
people what information is and is not "acceptable" is scary to me, and I would
imagine, to most Americans. (I expand on this here:
[http://blocvox.com/americans/93Mz6FfGIku-
CcH8JHndIg](http://blocvox.com/americans/93Mz6FfGIku-CcH8JHndIg) )

To my knowledge, the word "acceptable" is never used in any pertinent legal
code, but it is used by MPs and other officials, and therefore represents the
cultural understanding of the law. So one must then ask, what is culturally
made of people who are interested in material that is not "acceptable"?

I wonder if my repulsion to this is a cultural thing, Americans having more
governmental skepticism and having a tradition of individualism, versus
Britons having more faith in (to put it nicely) the potential of government to
foster order and maintain cultural heritage.

------
chunkyslink
If you live in the Uk and you want to do something about this you can join the
Open Rights Group [https://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaigns/cameron-stop-
sleep...](https://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaigns/cameron-stop-sleepwalking)

------
blendergasket
This will lead to a blossoming of linguistic creativity. People are going to
grow a new sexual slang that evolves arms race pace in order to get around
this.

If this happens a person will need to be able to trace the evolution of the
slang/code words for whatever they're looking into in order to trace a topic
back throughout its history.

All this happens now in a lot of ways and in a lot of different subjects, but
I think it's going to become much more important.

------
neverminder
Judging from natural progression that usually follows such decisions made by
any government following is highly likely to happen: The blacklist will
expand, not shrink, becoming tight with political agenda. Pressure to stay
opted in will increase. Process to opt out will become more complicated in
order to keep people from opting out. Final blow - blacklist will br enforced
by default and opting out removed.

------
spiralpolitik
Let me refresh your memory.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_28](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_28)

I'll give you a clue which party implemented this legislation.

It's always been about censorship of lifestyles the Tory party and the Daily
Mail don't approve of in an attempt to return Britain to some golden age that
never happened.

It's censorship and social control, plain and simple.

------
NAFV_P
There could be an unintended side effect of this mess. People will get so
fucked off with Cameron and Co., it could lead to a dramatic increase in
(black) hacking activity in Britain. I've already bought a black hat in
preparation (similar to the one that is sported by Odd Job from Golfinger).

------
ommunist
In fact, it is not the start. Its a finish. Once the system is in place all
you need is to add URLs to block. And it is already in place and seems to work
fine. Except it is still avoidable via proxies.

------
3stripe
Where can you check if BT or O2 is blocking sites?

The O2 status checker is down:
[http://urlchecker.o2.co.uk/urlcheck.aspx](http://urlchecker.o2.co.uk/urlcheck.aspx)

------
melling
Someone is just using the "slippery slope" argument, which may be true but
this article wasn't that convincing to me. The internet for most people is
only 10-15 years old but somehow life is not possible without it?

"The internet is a lifeline for young LGBT people looking for information and
support – and parents are now able to stop them finding that support at the
click of a mouse."

How does the filter work in Britain? Can you go to a cafe with your mobile
device and use different settings?

~~~
justincormack
A lot of public internet like cafes is filtered, and this is likely to
increase with these new filters.

~~~
melling
Can someone explain how the filter actually works. Google has a filter, for
example. Is it a bunch of checkboxes or do you actually talk with someone on
the phone?

------
staticelf
I just have one thing to say about the censorship, fuck everyone that is pro
this stuff.

------
Havoc
To what extent are private commercial interest driving this vs politics?

------
ericcumbee
what is the thought on Clean Port 80?

------
goggles99
Look, I am against censorship of the internet - but a line has to be drawn
somewhere. The internet is ubiquitous. Four year old kids can surf the web
proficiently these days and easily get to hardcore porn by accident. That is
by design of pornography marketers.

The porn industry blew it. They shamelessly market to kids. anything to get
them interested/hooked. Do you think that they would get away with putting
porno mags on the lower shelves of toy isles?

There are laws to keep tobacco companies from marketing to kids. There are a
slew of laws which prevent marketing all sorts of things to kids. How is the
gist of this any different.

I agree that this should have been done in a different way. Each ISP
potentially having a different blacklist is ridiculous. The organization and
execution could have been a lot better. An exemption list should be standard
across ISP's rather than only offered by a few and not shared (exemption list
where say an actual sex ed site with an approved/compliant password protection
and validation system for people to use to sign up for it is Not Blocked by
default if it's owner registers it)

BTW, those of you who say that parents could install filters locally to block
this content are out of touch. These filters need constant updating or the
fuzzy logic is very poor. Today, most kids today are more computer savvy than
their parents. They easily get around these filters, anyway what about smart
phones and tablets? What about friends houses? Unfiltered internet devices are
ubiquitous. Putting a filter on your home PC would be like putting a band-aid
on a severed limb to stop the bleeding.

I wish there were a better way besides censorship. Anyone have any ideas?

------
retube
Oh give me a f*cking break. Attempting to regulate the distribution of
pornography on the internet is no different than attempting to regulate the
distribution of pornography via other media - magazines, video, television
etc.

We've had rules and regs and laws for decades on pornography, these were/are
no more an attempt at "censorship" than this attempt is.

It may be badly implemented, it may be impractical, it may have issues, but
lets stop all this 1984 conspiracy bullshit.

The Guardian is just churning out more bollox tailored to the world view of
it's largely young, largely left-wing, largely public sector readership who
believe David Cameron and the Tory party is some sort of devil incarnate.

~~~
jsilence
I wish I could downvote.

~~~
DanBC
Engaging in the discussion is a better way to get the karma that allows you to
downvote.

Why do you think parent comment is wrong?

