
ISPs to include porn filters as standard in UK by 2014  - chinmoy
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/isps-to-include-porn-filters-as-standard-in-uk-by-2014/
======
wisty
They tried this in Australia, some time ago.

The PM told the minister to do it. The minister (who's reasonably tech savvy)
told the department. The department told him it was a joke - it wouldn't work,
and the government would get blamed every time a legitimate site was blocked,
or a kid got caught bypassing it.

It's political suicide. They will be blamed every time a teenage boy figures
out how to bypass the filter (hint - they all will). They will be blamed every
time they block a non-porn site. Tech sites will publish "10 ways to bypass
the government's joke of a filter" articles. Current affairs programs will
have concerned parents shocked that their unsupervised 14yo boy filled their
computer with smut (probably passed around on a USB). The next time an MP or
celebrity gets arrested for _really_ shady stuff, they'll say the filter
failed. They will look like idiots, and waste millions doing it.

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kunai
While I have no interest in pornography, this is one step closer to fascism. I
worry what will happen next. Journalism filters? Blog filters? International
video filters? And if this is the case, then what is the result for
neighboring countries? Will they decide to be as totalitarian as well?

I know this is mainly the ISPs' decision, but I can't help but feel that
government influence is a large factor in the filters.

~~~
im3w1l
It will certainly be easier to set up other kinds of content filters once the
infrastructure is already there.

[http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-05/17/australia-
int...](http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-05/17/australia-internet-
block)

~~~
coob
The infrastructure is already there
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanfeed_(content_blocking_sys...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanfeed_\(content_blocking_system\))

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venomsnake
On a unrelated news we observe massive increase in computer literacy among UK
male teens and the VPN traffic in and out of UK increased hundredfold.

~~~
drdaeman
This. Except I somehow doubt it should only apply to males.

~~~
venomsnake
Absolutely anecdotal evidence but I have noticed that men prefer generally
their porn visual while the women in written form. There is reason why the
slashfic writers and consumers are mostly female.

~~~
itsybitsycoder
Aren't yaoi artists and consumers mostly female, too?

~~~
deathhand
I am going to go out on a limb and say that there is more population
exposure(and thus consumption) of novels such as 50 shades vs any yaoi. Why is
there more exposure? Because it is delivered what women want(thrilling
erotica)Is it just because Yaoi hasn't broken out into mainstream? Perhaps,
but there are always erotic novels featuring a handsome men at the checkout
counter.

~~~
itsybitsycoder
Venomsnake mentioned slash specifically -- yaoi is much more mainstream than
slash, especially in Asia.

If you want to talk about more mainstream material, particularly what appears
at the checkout counter, one confounding factor is that written material in
general is less restricted and stigmatized than visual material. There is no
ESRB or movie ratings board for books, and parents who would never allow their
children to watch an extremely violent movie or a porno will let them read
absolutely anything at all. So written pornography can be put out at the
checkout counter in a way that visual pornography can't. Women who want visual
porn get it online or on late-night TV.

------
KaiserPro
This should article should be taken with a piece of salt. Firstly this was a
debate outside of Parliament. Secondly Claire Perry isn't really anyone of
note, and certainly doesn't have the power to force this through on her own.

Also I don't think this was in the queen's speech.

There isn't even a draft bill yet. Also depending on the press, this could be
silently dropped. The only people that really want this are the daily mail,
and the rabbid anti porn lobby.

~~~
VLM
"Secondly Claire Perry isn't really anyone of note, and certainly doesn't have
the power to force this through on her own."

I quote the fifth line of the article: "As ISPs are voluntarily rolling out
filtering technology, it will require no new legislation or regulations."

I'm curious how this works politically in the UK. My limited understanding of
the issue is pr0n censoring is a purely protestant religion hot button mostly
in the US, and the relationship between church and state in the UK is the
opposite from the US, where we pretend they're separate and pretend not to let
our clerics rule us, however with a nod and wink that our neocon party is
pretty much the political wing of our evang church and they're pretty
activist, in the UK they've got a state religion where the clerics directly
rule them, but they take a much more hands off approach than the USA such that
they meet the criteria for figurehead-hood. Or is their particular brand of
church/state merger more like liberation theology which would be a bit more
leftie explaining why .uk has a civilized healthcare system but the .us does
not. All of this speculation could of course be wrong, which is why I ask any
.uk folks (or people that understand .uk folks) how this all works politically
in the .uk. For example is pr0n opposition a primarily evangelical religious
issue like in the states, or how much teeth do your clerics have over your
.gov, or is this manufactured news to get on TV as a stunt, or manufactured
news to get the neocons in .us excited as the local population yawns/laughs...
It sounds from the "no new legislation" line much like if the FCC declared a
ruling in the USA, no legislation required or permitted, but that doesn't mean
its not going to be vigorously enforced.

~~~
testbro
To address your first point: the way the state religion works is a few bishops
have seats in the House of Lords. That means they have the power to kick back
legislation, but nothing else. That doesn't exclude the influence the Church
of England can exercise indirectly through lobbying/high profile members
issuing statements of course.

The advisor's statement is correct: this filtering does not depend on
legislature. The proposal was to compel ISPs to filter porn by default. If all
the ISPs sign up there's no need to create laws to force it. I don't get the
impression that this legislation is religiously motivated beyond the
puritanical underpinnings of the British public; it's based on "think of the
children" rhetoric alone.

~~~
VLM
"it's based on "think of the children" rhetoric alone."

If I'm reading you right, the .uk cultural outlook is something like pr0n
jumps off the screen and gives the kids cooties, so we have to block it like a
vaccine? Kind of like how some of our own .us leftward people blame inanimate
guns solely for violence, therefore ban the gun... Or perhaps more of a
"they'll end up addicts unless we stop them" type thing?

Culturally wrt to pr0n, waaaaay too many "journalist" stories about the self
proclaimed guardians of our morality getting busted while combining pr0n with
"think of the children" (creepily, I mean it literally) so its awkward enough
to totally avoid talking about. Its seen as hyper politicized in that the
neocons are simultaneously about 95% of the people both getting busted for the
hard core stuff while also being the ones working up an absolute froth about
banning the relatively mild harmless stuff. So its very difficult to provide a
"balanced news report" if one side makes fools of themselves all the time and
the other just sits back and points and laughs.

We (as in .us) generally mostly do the anti-pr0n thing via "Jesus personally
told me to force you at the point of a gun to do this because I will judge
you, not God, therefore no pixs showing bare ankles" type of thinking, or
something like that. There's more than a little hint of "no one believes this,
but we're all going to agree to say we do" going thru the motions. I'm not
sure how any of that is Christian as I understand it, but it doesn't bother
them, so it doesn't bother me, as long as they leave me alone, which they see
as a holy obligation not to do, so I guess it does bother me after all... If
this doesn't make any sense to people outside the .us, don't feel bad, it
doesn't make any sense to us mere consumers either (we used to be citizens,
with rights, but now we're just consumers)

When I was a kid (a while ago) there was some "journalist" coverage given to
feminist opposition to pr0n WRT exploitation / degrading or whatever, but
thats pretty much disappeared from media thus disappeared from consciousness
in the .us. We're lucky to spin up any agitprop over actual violent sexual
assaults much less merely a picture or two. It was sort of the refer madness
approach to anti-pr0n and it backfired and swung the opposite way, I think.
Does the .uk have much of that flavor of opposition?

~~~
testbro
I'm not sure I can really make an appropriate generalisation of the broad
attitude towards it. I can, however, cherry pick Diane Abbot's views because
she's often called upon for soundbites and political debates. As a
consequence, my comment is a subset of reality.

In this case the fears stem from the perception that children viewing porn and
sexualised content is damaging. In Diane Abbot's case [1] the concern is that
sexualised environments might construct inaccurate attitudes towards women/sex
in children.

I suppose that falls in the first and final scenarios you gave.

[1] : [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-
politics-21878027](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21878027)

~~~
VLM
That's an interesting cultural observation because in the .us we have about
the same attitude toward nudity, but not toward actually doing it. For example
there was a huge outcry about a half time entertainment show during a major
sporting event featuring a topless woman (although she wasn't having sex or
anything like that, just singing and dancing). But we have plenty of TV drama
shows and all that which seem to revolve primarily about having sex, and they
show almost everything except the fun parts (as mentioned above) in action and
that's considered great family viewing.

So in summary maybe the cultural difference is in the .us we don't ban the
action but try to ban the object, but in the .uk its the opposite and they try
to ban the action. That probably has some implications WRT dealing with
internet censorship by avoiding the whole topic, or maybe why it seems to be
hard to avoid offending someone somehow on one side of the pond or the other.

------
jrabone
If the filtering applied by mobile phone operators is anything to go by, this
will be completely obtrusive. For example, Reddit appears to be filtered by
default by Vodafone. Soon it'll be time to vote with your feet, or setup that
VPN virtual host.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _Reddit appears to be filtered by default by Vodafone_ //

Do you think that's wrong? Reddit hosts and links pornography and probably a
heap of other standard filter stuff, nazism, explosive making and such.

You can just ask for the filter to be dropped presumably. (Or like you said,
vote with your feet).

~~~
jrabone
Yes, I do think it's wrong. I disagree with filtering in the first place, but
also I'm on a contract which if I were a child I couldn't have legally signed.

It's certainly possible to opt out but only by providing ANOTHER set of
personal information (a credit card number) which there's no good reason for
them to have. More tracking possibilities, more data...

------
casca
This is a good thing. Filtering of porn, malware and other undesirable content
_if that's what the person paying the bill wants_ is a good thing. Asking
people to install protection on every device in the home is unrealistic so
having the ISP providing an on-network solution is excellent.

Of course, this is only true if the service is available on many networks and
opt-in. Otherwise it becomes censorship by stealth which is hopefully not
where this is going.

~~~
dillona
I think it depends on your goals.

I want my ISP to be as close to a dumb pipe as possible.

------
rotnewson
This is something of a major problem to solve with one of two major outcomes
that aren't mutually exclusive:

1\. The blocking comes up with many false positives blocking many things that
shouldn't be blocked (the John Graham-Cumming issue)

2\. They don't catch everything, which is very likely, and the work required
to get around blocking by teenagers is minimal.

~~~
VLM
3\. Log everything.

4\. Immense blackmail potential (see #3 above).

~~~
qu4z-2
Sorry, I thought we were talking about _problems_...

------
alex_doom
"peddling [pornography] to kids"

He tries to make it sound like there some creepy dude in a trench coat going,
hey kids wanna see some porn?

What are they going to do, block imgur.com?

------
JamesMcMinn
I'd be willing to bet money that any porn filter will simply be a DNS-level
filter, for which the solution will be to use another DNS server.

~~~
michaelt
The existing filtering reported to apply to 95% of British households [1] is
reportedly implemented as IP-level routing of traffic through a transparent
proxy. This is how they were able to censor only specific images on Wikipedia
without blocking Wikipedia entirely.

A VPN would be a superior way of bypassing the filter - assuming teenagers too
young to have a credit card can figure out how to pay for a VPN.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Watch_Foundation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Watch_Foundation)

~~~
thaumasiotes
> A VPN would be a superior way of bypassing the filter - assuming teenagers
> too young to have a credit card can figure out how to pay for a VPN.

This comment makes me very sad. It was a huge upgrade to my quality of life
when I got a debit card and was able to buy things over the internet. We
almost went to a system of paying cash for prepaid credit cards, but somehow
prepaid cards are generally not usable over the internet, which is a damn
shame for children who have nothing but cash. I don't think the ability to
attribute purchases is worth the (yes, minor in the grand scheme of things)
immiseration of everyone too young to have a bank account.

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cupcake-unicorn
Off topic, but I just want to say that I love HN - anywhere else, and you'd be
getting a bunch of crude comments about this. Glad that we're sticking to the
technological and censorship aspects :)

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gesman
Yay... time to invest in VPN businesses. Thanks for the tip!

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dreen
Is this on the router level or ISP level? The article doesn't say.

~~~
KaiserPro
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/06/big_4_isps_will_all_...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/06/big_4_isps_will_all_embrace_network_level_filtering_to_protect_children/)

ISP level

