
Cameron's Internet filter goes far beyond porn - and that was always the plan - r0h1n
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/12/camerons-internet-filter-goes-far-beyond-porn-and-was-always-plan
======
southpawgirl
I don't think there's a full-fledged conspiracy at play - it's more like a
progressive process of disneyfication of the internet: apps and not websites
(easier to control and monetize), progressively more bland content, soon
preferential allocation of the band for the majors, and so on. This is what
happens when a resource becomes economically appetising: the stakeholders try
to enlarge the user base as much as possible by means that include the
sanitisation of the image of the media (cinema too, for example, was
considered dangerous when it was young).

Soon enough they will be able to sell 'the internet' to people like my mother
('omg, you work "on the internet"? but there are pedophiles "on the
internet!"' 'Mum, am thirty' [sic])

We knew the internet while it was the Far West. It was (allegedly) dangerous
to some extent, it was fun, and very much free. I hope it will stay such
(well, it still isn't that much anymore, but still) to the maximum possible
extent but I don't feel very optimistic, bar for some marginalised areas like
IRC.

~~~
belluchan
> it's more like a progressive process of disneyfication of the internet

That Disney hides any reference to notion of gay and lesbian lifestyles kind
of bugs me.

~~~
southpawgirl
Can't stand Disney tbh. Also, sanitisation is always accompanied by a drop in
quality. I am rather flabbergasted by the suggestion of an LGBT filter, but
then again, the whole of the available categories is a religious
fundamentalist's wet dream, and not a representation of the mainstream. I
wonder why this clumsy heavy-handedness...

------
smtddr
_> >Of course it’s impossible to see what’s been blocked other than through
tedious trial and error. One website owner (@pseudomonas) asked BT on Twitter
for information about whether their site was blocked, and their experience was
something like talking to a brick wall who only speaks French._

Oooohhhh, don't you worry about that. The folks over at dslreports.com, who
revealed the comcast torrent tampering[1], and HN and slashdot and neogaf.com
and even Reddit will be _sure_ to keep an eye on any sites access mismatches.
In today's world where we can spin up a linux cloud server in almost every
first-world country for less than the cost of a family dinner at a nice
restaurant, it'll be noticed. I think even Google made a tool to test your
internet-connection for tampering. There will be a site where you can put in a
URL and see what it shows from all kinds of ISPs around the world. And proxies
sites like [http://hidemyass.com/proxy-list/](http://hidemyass.com/proxy-
list/). Then they'll have to ban those too, and then other blogs will also
start posting info about what's blocked by who... then those sites will be
blocked... and eventually... the internet will look something like this:
[http://feross.org/images/tiered-internet-service-
fail.png](http://feross.org/images/tiered-internet-service-fail.png) ...with
an addition for adult-content that cause 2x your regular bill.

(HINT: Focus on checking any sites that wouldn't align with conservative
values & beliefs. Those will be blocked first, as proven in this article)

1\. [http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r18323368-Comcast-is-
using-S...](http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r18323368-Comcast-is-using-
Sandvine-to-manage-P2P-Connections)

~~~
desas
Don't rely on reddit, HN or /. to report on your sites availability help the
Open Rights Group to create a tool to monitor it yourself.

[https://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Censorship_Monitoring_...](https://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Censorship_Monitoring_Project)

------
evoloution
And now the discussion shifts from WHY there should ever be a filter to a
never ending discussion of WHO is behind it, WHAT the filter should and
shouldn't block and HOW. Minds distracted, efforts diffused, mission
accomplished.

~~~
Freestyler_3
Answering who is behind it can help answering the why. It doesn't matter what
you ask anyway, once something like this is in place it takes a lot of
bureaucracy to get rid of it.

~~~
evoloution
You are right, knowing who was behind its creation is very helpful. Focus will
swiftly turn to who currently controls it and then the tracks can be lost
though.

~~~
desas
The daily mail was the main media organisation putting pressure on the
government about it. It's completely inline with the values of their print
production.

------
PythonicAlpha
It seams, that porn, crimes and terrorism are the honeypots of choice for the
voters into any form of surveillance. 1984 is over, long live 1984!

~~~
sirsar
"terrorists, drug dealers, pedophiles, and organized crime."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyps...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse)

------
bostik
This is the same premise we've seen already in Finland.

First, you introduce some level of mandatory filtering for ISP's in the name
of protecting the children. (The fact that shoving one's head in the sand does
nothing to protect the children is never acknowledged.) Check.

Then you offload the collection and maintenance of the list to an
unaccountable third party, who is not bound by law on what they can introduce
on the list. Furthermore, you make sure that the police are not only
understaffed to deal with any fallout - they are actively avoiding any and all
responsibility. After all, the list is provided by an outside party. There is
no judicial overview, no audit trail and absolutely no way to tell who was
responsible to introducing erroneous or just opinionated domains on the list.
Items are added to the list far more aggressively than they are removed from
it. Check.

As a logical next step, you start to build up propaganda to the tune of
"inclusion on the filter list implies criminal and/or abusive activities."
Ending up on the list or any reason is stigmatizing, regardless of the reason
or validity. Check.

After that it's trivial to start snuffing out content you don't like. Just add
the domains that deal with inconvenient subjects and if there is too big a
backlash for any single item, backpedal on _that particular domain_ with a
lame apology, while at the same time emphasizing that such errors are
unavoidable but will be eventually corrected - as the very case itself is
shown to prove. Note the disregard for the previous point, where ending up on
the list is bad enough for any entity not big enough to get non-negligible
public support. Check.

Once you have the filtering in place and opposition firmly silenced and/or
marginalised, you start adding entirely new categories which are legal but
just otherwise inconvenient for any reason. Check.

All of this has already happened in Finland. The one thing the advocates of
the filtering system did not anticipate was that the filter system would
become so universally loathed that it was the operators who started to push
back against maintaining it. Nowadays the list is not really maintained any
longer, but it is still in place, and as one can imagine, used to silence at
least one source of criticism.

The saddest thing about these filtering systems is that they really do
absolutely nothing to aid the victims of the genuinely repulsive and dangerous
trades. (Such as trafficking, child prostitution, etc.)

Don't get me wrong. Child pornography is despicable. It is repulsive. And it
is most certainly criminal. The recordings of the acts are themselves 100%
evidence of a children getting abused in the most horrific way one can
imagine. Blocking a site that deals with such filth may help the individual
doing the blocking in the short term, but that's it. If they don't report the
incidence to international police forces and assist in tracking down the
actual dealers, they are in my eyes guilty of criminal negligence of
astronomical proportions. By blocking the content but not doing anything else,
they are _actively helping the perpetrators to continue their abuse and allow
them to find more victims_.

~~~
rhizome
There is a parallel "next step" in that non-filtering countries will try to
impose filtering in the name of harmonizing international law and policy.

~~~
EricDeb
I think I just threw up a bit in my mouth but this is totally true.

------
indlebe
It's cut and dry that this will empower abusive parents/guardians and even
spouses.

------
summerdown2
Unfortunately, as a UK voter, there's no way to do anything about this. The
position of every party at the next election will be the current position plus
more control in one form or another.

I think we're living through a massive societal change, as big as the end of
feudalism or the invention of the printing press. The internet is the first
mass peer to peer communication system, and it works like the Christmas Truce
in World War 1:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce#Fraternisation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce#Fraternisation)

Ultimately, when people can talk unmediated by elites, they begin to want
similar rights (eg Arab Spring), to share ideas about oppression (eg Womens'
Movements), to share information (eg piracy, wikileaks), and trade (eg
Amazon). They essentially stop seeing borders as being important. This is
revolutionary, and it's not surprising that the establishment is resisting it.
The whole theory of nation-states is based around the primacy of local laws
being the only way the people in a country can live. No country is going to
want people doing an end run around that. Rules about pornography and the
control of public morality are just one form of this.

It's essentially the Shirky Principle: institutions will seek to preserve the
problem to which they are the solution.

~~~
desas
Have the lib dems ever said anything about it? I'd expect them to be against
it, if they weren't in coalition.

~~~
summerdown2
I think that's a general problem of power. Senator Obama hated surveillance
and loved whistleblowers ...

------
Freestyler_3
I wonder what the big picture is here, who is really behind it. There has to
have been some company lobbying their asses off, a company either already in
this business or a company expanding.

Is it true that its Huawei?

~~~
MisterWebz
I've been thinking about this as well. A lot of people seem to think that the
plan is to, at first, block porn under the guise of protecting the children
and then move on to full blown censorship.

If that is true, then who are the people that came up with this plan? Has
there been a company that has been lobbying just to sell more equipment? Are
people in the government realizing that free flow of information makes their
jobs harder? Or do they want to trick people into believing that they care
about the children?

What's really frustrating is that, while people report on things like this,
you never really seem to understand what the main driving force is behind
decisions like these.

~~~
spiralpolitik
For a little bit of history for those outside of the UK check out the
Wikipedia history on Section 28
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_28](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_28)).

The same political party that legislated Section 28 in the 80s is the same
political party pushing the filters today.

It's simply about suppressing information about ideas and lifestyles the
Conservatives and Daily Mail readers do not approve of. It really is that
simple.

------
seiji
When I was in Ireland last year, many torrent sites were blocked at the ISP
level (with big scary "you are doing something illegal" pages in their place).
I found it kinda amazing they were so blatant in their censorship. (Only some
ISPs did it though. I got around the cable Internet censorship by tethering to
my 4G iPhone on an EE SIM.)

~~~
k-mcgrady
I'm in Northern Ireland (so different ISP's to the Republic - not sure which
you're referring to) and the reason torrent sites are blocked here is due to a
high profile court case in which ISP's were legally required to block specific
sites. AFAIK they actually fought against it. When you visit the sites you get
a message from your ISP explaining that it's blocked because they "received an
order from the Courts requiring us to prevent access to this site in order to
help protect against copyright infringement".

~~~
dingaling
Hello fellow NIer! Bout ye.

Bizarrely, only some UK ISPs are legally required to implement those torrent
and 'piracy' blocks: BT Retail, Virgin Media, TalkTalk and O2.

Even BT's subsidiary PlusNet wasn't subject to the order, nor was O2's sibling
BE. So I don't really know why the judge bothered.

~~~
k-mcgrady
Hello!

I wasn't aware of that, good to know. The blocks are useless and easy to
bypass with a proxy. I've noticed recently though they've started to block
some of the proxies specifically setup to help people flout the blocks.

------
dfraser992
Isn't there a large body of existing knowledge on how to help the average
Chines person get through the Great Firewall of China? Considering how
relatively easy it is to get onto The Pirate Bay and other sites one way or
another, despite the present ban... Like all Tory policies, dead in the water,
totally a waste of effort and money, and thoroughly without integrity, to
boot.

I'd recommend Tor, but the Tor Browser Bundle does not work -at all- out of
the box like I'd assume it would (on OS X). I spent over an hour fiddling with
it trying to get it to work (10.8) and it would always die on starting up.

This is only good in the long run because it is further proof of how out of
control the UK government is, and is bound to keep waking up the apathetic.

~~~
Jack000
the Chinese firewall is easy to get around, it's just there to make it
inconvenient enough so most don't bother. I use vpn when I'm in China and
offer to set it up for my relatives, but the response has been "it's too
complicated". Most people don't want to learn the tools just to access
youtube/google, especially when there are Chinese equivalents that cater
specifically to a Chinese audience.

------
sdrinf
Hi, UK resident here, living in N7.

Tell me operational steps I can take at the 27-28-29th of Dec that will
exercise leveraged optimisation pressure against this.

------
dude3
If they are going to give you half of the internet, they should talk half off
your bill. Same goes with NSA I want a discount.

~~~
vladimirralev
But to do that, they must raise taxes.

------
BenjaminBunny
FYI, I'm using a BT business account at home and there's no sign of any
filtering yet. Are companies excluded from this nonsense??

~~~
desas
Yes. It's just to protect the children. You probably don't have child
employees

------
Havoc
So how long until piracy related sites are included? Seems like the next
logical step given the secret agreements about that & FUD.

------
summerdown2
Welcome to the twenty-first century UK internet. We've taken a leading company
from the twentieth century as our model: AOL.

------
fthssht
I think we should be looking for technological solutions. I want tor VPN etc.
To be widespread. We can't count on politics

~~~
nwp90
You could not be more wrong. Technological "solutions" can only punt the issue
down the road a few months or years, after which your "solution" will also be
outlawed, and never mind the collateral damage.

The problem lies in folk lacking understanding and being scared. That's what
needs fixing.

Your problem, on the other hand, is perhaps in lacking understanding and being
scared of politics... unfortunately politics is all-pervasive. You cannot make
that fact go away by burying your head in the sand and trying to work around
the roadblocks that it throws up. While you're busy trying to avoid politics,
those who are playing the game are winning.

Just remember that every time you are tempted to put your head back in the
sand - while you are trying hard to pretend politics doesn't exist, the
fundamentalists, spooks, industrialists, bankers etc. are playing hard & to
win at all costs. The easiest targets for them are the ones who don't push
back because they aren't playing. Which means you.

Avoiding politics == getting shafted.

------
BrownBuffalo
pr0n. pr0nblem solved.

------
booyaa00
All these filters by ISPs are optional. Is it that hard to say "hell no" when
they ask you "do you want us to block stuff?"

The amount of misinformation spread about this mythical "UK porn filter" is
astounding, but I guess unsurprising as it fits completely into the orwellian
surveillance state conspiracy theory agenda.

Cameron is pandering to worried parents who believe the internet is a bad
place, and little Johnny must be protected by a filter. The government believe
it will mean they'll win the next election. It's just politics.

It's nothing whatsoever about censorship. Anyone can opt out of the filters,
and anyone can get past the filters with a couple of clicks.

edit: anyone downvoting actually live in the UK? Any of you actually have any
hard facts? Or are you just regurgitating the crap you read on the internet.

~~~
dangerlibrary
I was under the impression that these policies are opt-out, rather than opt-
in, so many are on by default. Since default settings are pretty much never
changed (organ donation rates are the canonical example here), that's
potentially an issue.

Second, and this is important, the filters aren't controlled at the level of
an individual user, but at the level of a subscriber. So as the article says,
an abusive partner/parent can prevent their spouse or children from accessing
resources that could help them - that's why there is outrage about blocking
Childline - a site where you can report child abuse.

Combine on-by-default with "blocking resources for abused minors," and you
have what people are complaining about, here.

~~~
booyaa00
Totally depends on the ISP.

Any mobile phone bought on O2 for instance in the last 10 or so years, had
filtering enabled by default.

You just call them up and ask them to disable it. It's not a big deal.

I don't buy the ridiculous notion that the only means a child has to report
child abuse is via the internet...

~~~
kintamanimatt
Some people will be embarrassed to make that phone call. Some people won't be
able to do it because they don't have a credit card (if they're on PAYG, for
example) and will have to go into a store, which is inconvenient, time
consuming, and potentially embarrassing. For others, in the case of a wireline
internet connection, the account might not be in their name and they will be
unable to do it. I've had situations where the internet connection wasn't
under my name but my housemate's name, and, of course, I couldn't have just
called up or clicky clickied and disabled the censorship. I'm not someone that
embarrasses easily but there are those that might not want to have that
conversation with their housemate. What if those housemates decided that they
didn't want porn going over the household's internet connection, or were too
embarrassed themselves?

The next few generations are going to grow up with the idea that nanny filters
and censorship is fine, or that porn is something shameful that you have to
ask permission from a CSR to see. Then there's the sophisticated central
apparatus in place for the government to trivially block any sites that they
deem unsuitable, content they might deem exempt from their opt-out procedures.

Just because O2 and other UK mobile operators have been censoring for a while
doesn't make it okay. Now you're arguing that censorship-by-default is fine
because it's been going on in some capacity for a while already! See how this
works?

