UK ISP Filter Will Censor More Than Porn 329
The UK's on-by-default censorship, as you might expect, presses with a heavy thumb: coolnumbr12 writes "The Open Rights Group spoke with several ISPs and found that in addition to pornography, users will also be required to opt in for any content tagged as violent material, extremist and terrorist related content, anorexia and eating disorder websites, suicide related websites, alcohol, smoking, web forums, esoteric material and web blocking circumvention tools. These will all be filtered by default, and the majority of users never change default settings with online services."
"Web forums" (Score:5, Interesting)
...seriously?
On the other hand, more stuff they block, more users will opt out. I guess it can easily become a "traditional first thing you do with Internet", like removing IE and installing fox/chrome is now.
Re:Figured this might happen (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure royal babies are rich enough in content to keep a whole nation cooing for long.
I'm sure most people probably won't even notice or care anyway regardless.
When I was with O2 in the UK five years ago these things were already opt-in.
Nanny state. Pan. Water. Frog. Heat.
How will this be sold? (Score:4, Interesting)
Will they continue to call these connections "Internet" connections? At what point does it really become an "Intranet"?
I see what they're doing (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Esoteric material? (Score:5, Interesting)
"You can calculate the worth of a man by the number of his enemies, and the importance of a work of art by the harm that is spoken of it."
"Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him"
I think it's very easy to make this all unworkable. Every and any website, publication, speech or media appearance of a supporter of net cencorship should be analysed to death. Any remote measure that would fall under the terms of the ban should be reported. Make sure the supporters of this ban are the first to feel its bite.
Most religious sites are easy game. Not one of the backers of this legislation will be pure as the driven snow and there has to be a reason for them to be banned. Then it is so easy to show inconsistencies and favouritism that the whole lot will be abolished because the responsible minister will look like an idiot.
I give it less that 12 months from the day of implementation until its fall.
Re:Esoteric material? (Score:5, Interesting)
No doubt opting in for porn will get you on the 'special attention at MI5' list.
No. it will mark you as "normal", but with a less than ignorant approach to technology. Expect a movement to help people opt out of the filter altogether tough. If it happened here, I'd start one myself. Where in the world, except in the book "1984", the government decides what I am allowed to see? it only decides the media, anyhow: child pornography or else will not stop because Joe Soap does not see it by default. And the reasoning by which access to an uncontrolled internet is the fountainhead of social problem is beyond moronic, it's deceitful.
Re:Esoteric material? (Score:4, Interesting)
You don't even have to submit a lot of material. Just leave comments arguing in favour of having sex with 9 years olds (because Mohammed did it so it must be okay, endorsed by God and all that). Then submit the site for blocking due to the comments. Should be possible to get most many pages on the BBC and various newspaper web sites banned that way.
And more (Score:0, Interesting)
I've been in UK and their porn filter also censors a lot of spanish websites. Regular news sites nothing fancy.
Re:Esoteric material? (Score:4, Interesting)
Known Child Porn is blocked by all or most UK ISPs anyway. There is no opt-out of this.
Jason.
Re:"Web forums" (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd question how, rationally and with a sane mind, pornography is *at all* dangerous to children.
I have yet to see a sane answer not based on oppressive tactics invented by churches to perform eugenics on religious schizophrenics. (Who gets to have or even think about sex and who doesn't: Only those "married" do. And only if the church approves it, is it "marriage". At least that was the plan. And since everything else that's sex-related is a "sin", everyone is a sinner, and everybody has to "repent". Aka obey or be punished.)
Hell, I know of tribes where big sex orgies in the village center were a regular occurrence used for all kinds of reasons, much like parties are in the "western" world. And kids would run around the outskirts, and playfully imitate the grown-ups.
Am I the only one who thinks that's cute and so stunningly natural and healthy?
I mean, who else, apart from a religious nutjob who repressed his sexuality, to the point of being basically a compulsive predator, would think of child abuse in that situation?
Re:Just like 1984. (Score:5, Interesting)
With conspiracy theorists you must remember that, occasionally, they are actually right.
A year ago it would have looked like paranoid rambling if someone claimed the US government was secretly tracking every phone call and email, and could intercept any communication they wanted at will without any warrant or accountability. Turned out, the conspiracy theorists were spot on. They just didn't realise the British and French governments were helping.
The idea of announcing something very unpopular on a day when an event of great media coverage is certainly established. That trick has been used many times before. I don't know if it was deliberate in this case, but it's certainly possible - there is no evidence the filter speech was scheduled more than one day in advance, and Cameron must have read the opinion polls and know his filtering is actually quite unpopular.
The idea that the filter could be subject to 'scope creep' is also quite plausible too. After all, there are many things that various parties would like to see censored, for entirely well-intentioned reasons. Once the filtering is in place, it would be quite easy to pass a new regulation requiring blocks also be applied to sites giving instruction on suicide techniques, for example. Again, it would be justified as 'protecting children.' It should also be remembered that even if the current government is to be trusted, there is no assurance it will still be in power in ten or twenty years - Hitler came to power democratically via his political skill, and it could happen again in any country, so even a well-intentioned and well-administered filter could potentially be abused for political oppression in the more distant future. Note that China, known for their extensive political filtering operations, justify their 'golden shield' by claiming its first purpose is to protect public morality against the dangerous influences of pornography.
Re:Just like 1984. (Score:2, Interesting)
If these filters were opt in very few people would care about them. Most ISPs already offer opt in filtering, in fact. You can install software that performs opt in filtering. Not an issue.
What people are pissed about is that this is opt out. Once again the "We know best" attitude of UK politicians has kicked into gear and we're now all going to be treated like children, despite the fact that Cameron and the technically literate MP who's been pushing for this haven't got a scooby how it'll be implemented and why, in fact, it wont work.
Cultural Anomaly? (Score:5, Interesting)
The last time I was working in the UK, I was assigned a small house as my temporary residence. Where I did not have cable TV, yet at almost any time of the day I could find a nude or semi-nude figure of either sex doing something (generally streaking). My coworkers took 4 hour "pub lunches". I spent the nights pub-crawling with them (until I started wandering into the more "dangerous" parts of town to drink and pick up women - to someone from Houston, London doesn't have a ghetto). I generally woke up mildly hungover next to a woman somewhere between 18 and 36 who may or may not have been rescued from a freak show (depending on how much I'd drank). After kicking her out with taxi fair and a half-hearted promise to call, I stumbled over to the nearby Underground station and got a breakfast and cup of tea that, between the two, clogged my arteries to the point of failure and then rocketed everything back into place.
After which I'd go into work for 10 hours. On smoke breaks, I could enjoy the nude girls from the Sun or whatever that had been pasted all over the smoking area. The only time anyone looked at me funny is if I mentioned my firearms collection back home.
How did the British go from a relatively hard-drinking, smoking, swearing, fucking, nude, fighting-in-pubs, generally relaxed culture (I actually had a cop ask me nicely to throw up in a trash can once - in the U.S. I'd have at least spent the night in jail, possibly been in a fight and gotten tasered about four to eight times [it would help if I stayed down, I suppose]) to this? It just doesn't make sense from my experience...