UK Porn Filter Will Censor Other Content Too, ISPs Reveal

[The Straight Story]

UK Porn Filter Will Censor Other Content Too, ISPs Reveal

This week prime minister David Cameron announced further details of his crusade to have adult material censored in the UK. It’s a controversial topic for a number of reasons, with even those unconcerned about losing access to porn wondering what will be censored next. Apparently the government have already thought that through. According to ISPs speaking with the Open Rights Group, the filter will target a range of other content too.

On Monday David Cameron told his citizens that by the end of the year broadband subscribers will be required to go through a compulsory system which will decide what they can and cannot see on the Internet.

Starting from a position of ‘porn banned’, subscribers will have to systematically unblock things they require access to. This, Cameron says, will help prevent the nation’s children from gaining access to “corroding influences” online.

While the idea of protecting children is a commendable one, censorship opponents leveled several criticisms at the scheme. Would it work? Would it lead to over-blocking? Would the system be easily circumvented? What about the privacy implications?

...

The Open Rights Group are reporting that they’ve had a nice little chat with some of the ISPs that will be expected to introduce Cameron’s porn filter. Unsurprisingly the list of websites and content to be blocked by default won’t stop at porn.

ORG speculate on categories of content that might be filtered in future, but for a clearer idea of where we stand today we can take a look at the system currently being operated by ISP TalkTalk. The HomeSafe system, which was singled out for praise by David Cameron earlier this week as leading the way in this field, currently covers several categories as detailed in the image below.


http://torrentfreak.com/uk-porn-filter-will-censor-other-content-too-isps-reveal-130726/

[cthulu2016]

1. Games and social networking are gateway content.

Scrabble. Rape porn. All the same, really.

Can't be too careful.

[matthews]

2. It's censorship plain and simple. Orwell's spirit is laughing its ass off.

We're up next no doubt.

[The Straight Story]

3. Yep, and we welcome it to protect the kids and keep us safe from terror (nt)

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. Hell, the kids are better at navigating the web than I am.

Cameon acts as if households only have ONE puter, which is in the hands of the parents only.

transparent as hell censorship ploy.

[bemildred]

4. Once they get it, they will lie about what they do with it. nt

[JimDandy]

6. Of course they will. Imagine how much easier it will be for

the govt to develop possible sex crime suspects when the pool of suspects has been substantially narrowed because every internet user starts out with porn eliminated through a non-affirmative filter. You get dumped in the pool of possible criminal suspects as soon as you uncheck the no-porn box.

[Apophis]

5. What the hell is with every world government's obsession with online porn?

FFS. Parents should do their job and censor their own Internet if they're worried about junior seeing a booby. Government should never be involved with this.

[JimDandy]

8. All the easier for the government

to target everyone using a file sharing service as a potential music file pirate. Better not uncheck that box you free citizen, you.

[AllINeedIsCoffee]

9. This is simply unacceptable. nt

[hunter]

10. I'm certain many people here have had experience with stupid corporate and school filters.

Many IT departments, especially in high schools, have absurdly complex procedures for unblocking specific sites, especially "safe sex" sites that high school students and their teachers should be seeing.

I don't know why any adult would tolerate this kind of filtering. Reasonable adults close the tab whenever they stumble into a place they don't like. My dislikes are gory violent photos of human or animal suffering, and sex-object eighteen year olds who look like twelve year olds. (I was one of those...) Sometimes these sorts of things even show up in DU advertisements and posts.

Our kids got their own computers in the seventh grade and I did set them up with a filtered proxy server. But by the time they were in high school the filtering was clearly useless. My kids were not much interested in sneaking past the filters, but some of their friends were. It was the computer viruses they picked up from disreputable sites that irritated me the most, not so much the occasional "stolen" celebrity sex tape.

My wife and I could talk about sex with our kids and we did, just like our own parents. I knew a lot about sex before I started kindergarten. I wasn't much interested in sex until middle school, but I did hold hands with a girl in sixth grade and I liked it.

My wife has a funny story from middle school when she asked her mom a very specific question about sex, and her mom's first answer was, "It's fun!" followed by the obligatory Catholic "Not until you are married..."

I had such detailed knowledge about sex, sexually transmitted diseases, and abusive or potentially abusive relationships, that I was a virgin for a long, long time. It didn't help that my "choose life" mom said she'd be happy to add grandkids to our overly large family. I'd changed younger sibling's diapers, I knew what that was about, no thanks.