UK To Block Internet P0rn By Default

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Internet p0rn to be blocked by default in the UK.
[bbc.co.uk...]

Every household in the UK is to have #*$!ography blocked by their internet provider unless they choose to receive it, David Cameron is to announce.

In addition, Mr Cameron will say possessing online #*$!ography depicting rape will be illegal, bringing England and Wales in line with Scotland.

[engine]

Here's where this goes wrong: Who decides what is and what isn't downloadable? Obviously, anything illegal should be blocked.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Personally, I think it is a move in the right direction. They are not banning the legal stuff. They are just ensuring that it is turned off by default.

[jinxed]

But what about the pages they mistakingly think are adult? This could never be *that* accurate surely?

[piatkow]

No connection with the cut in funding to the police agency that investigates child p*rn!

But you can't complain, at least not without being branded as a pervert.

[brotherhood of LAN]

Accuracy is an issue, as is 'the means'. IMO this should be met with some resistance before government get the idea that we're open to more filtering/blocking.

One of the motives being touted, is to hide p0rn from younger children as it is corroding their childhood. Sounds like a wise idea in that regard.

I think the most I seen when I was younger was the occassional film and whether a friend had 'nicked his dad's magazine'. Now dad's over the land are dreading the conversation with their other half about whether they should be opt-in to this or not ;o)

[piatkow]

IMO this should be met with some resistance before government get the idea that we're open to the idea of more filtering/blocking.

As I said before, by playing the child protection card all opposition is effectively silenced.

I think that the politicos are simply desparate to be seen to be "doing something" and are producing a quick fix regardless of the fact that the major search engines covered that aspect years ago. However when I think of the ways in which it could be extended once the principle is established I begin to think that a tinfoil hat might be justified.

[lucy24]

Obviously, anything illegal should be blocked.

Hmm, sounds like the sign prominently posted in my local grocery store: "Unauthorized recording devices are prohibited." Yes, and...?

Interesting to read this thread in conjunction with the one next door in, I think, AdWords about content g### deems Unsuitable For General Viewing.

Visual depictions of illegal actions are not necessarily illegal or even objectionable by "prevailing standards" rules. Consider how hard Star Wars fought to escape a G rating. "Oh, oops, did we just kill ten billion people? Better add some splatter..."

[engine]

Lucy, there's a big difference between illegal and adult themed.

I accept the local country laws should be accepted by anyone that participates in the country in question.

Google's definition in the AdWords and AdSense examples we've seen recently are up to google. As i understand it, it's not the illegality, but it's against the rules the company laid down. It's the same concept as the guidelines we have here at WebmasterWorld. Break our rules and suffer the consequences. It's up to us to interpret our guidelines, in the same way that Google has laid its down and we have to play by its rules.

The problem with this proposed block is that it's down to interpretation. In the instance of the UK's proposed rules, who decides what is and what is not acceptable? It's all the borderline stuff that is going to get swallowed up, i'm certain. Which would mean that there's going to be many people being stigmatised by having to accept the adult content option when they only want to view adult material. For example, I can imagine health-related sites falling foul.

It's going to be difficult to manage, imho.

[graeme_p]

Who decides what is banned by these rules. Is a rape in a non-#*$! film OK, for example?

It also only applies to ISPs who agree to cooperate with the government scheme.

It also means more powers given to the government to monitor what we do online. Bear in mind the British government already stores and examines all UK internet traffic and almost all transatlantic traffic.

Worst of all, automatic filters will block a lot of legal material.

[tigger]

considering the Uk government can't even make its mind up what is obscene or not what chance does this have!

I'm sick of parents bleating about there poor little children seeing naughty things when all the filters & blockers have been around for years...Parents should start being parents rather than blaming someone else and looking for a fit for all it doesn't work

[jecasc]

There was a similar plan some time ago in Germany. Lawmakers that did not want to fight and delete child #*$!ography, but simply block it from being viewed by means which could be easily be bypassed. DNS blocking.

Legislation that only pretends to solve a problem.

Then there was a public outcry and a campaign "don't block - delete".

Politicians argued that they could not do that because most websites were outside the jurisdictions.

This arguments where then ridiculed by tests from multiple private organizations that proved that a simple email to the hosting provider even in countries like Russia was enough to get the images removed often in a working day and most of the time less than a week. So the legislation was finally dropped in favor of more cooperation with providers and foreign law enforcment.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I'm sick of parents bleating about there poor little children seeing naughty things when all the filters & blockers have been around for years...Parents should start being parents rather than blaming someone else and looking for a fit for all it doesn't work

Parents no longer have control over what their kids see. It's daft to suggest otherwise.

Are you suggesting that they stop going to school where their friends can show them P0rn on their mobile phones?

[Old_Honky]

All censorship is wrong because no one should try to force people to accept their own version of what is acceptable.

If the government forces isps to set blanket controls which you have to opt out of they will only effect the legal stuff. The really nasty stuff is distributed by peer to peer and newsgroups.

Anyway why does the "moral minority" want to stop other peoples kids from watching videos of people having sex, but no one seems to give a toss about the brutal violence depicted in mainstream movies and even more so in video games?

[johnhh]

I'm with @tigger on this one

@BeeDeeDubbleU

Parents no longer have control over what their kids see

No longer , um, they never had if my 'long' memory serves me right. Kids are much the same as they always have been, the technology may be different - thats all.

Now you are going to make the point about watching by mistake... no worse than picking up certain books in a library or magazines at a newsagents( or more likely at school ), by 'mistake'.

Where do you draw the line on 'p*rn' ? who knows it's what makes an individual feel uncomfortable , either themselves or for people they are responsible for, thats my definition.

I get really fed up with pressure groups trying to run peoples lifes ( and their children's ), seems a common theme these days. No riding your bike to school now kids, way too dangerous, no climbing trees, no walkng on your own, no ... fill in the gap yourselves.

[lucy24]

What ever happened to the proposed ### tld, by the way? Way back when I first read this forum, it was THE hot topic, but it seems to have disappeared. Yawn. It would be a non-issue if ISPs simply blocked dot ### domains by default-- or by request at time of signup-- in the same way that the phone company blocks, uh, whatever that phone-sex prefix is.

[graeme_p]

There are also two separate issues, that the government is conflating:

1) #*$!ography involving children, being viewed by adults, which is illegal for anyone to watch.
2) #*$!ography that is otherwise legal, being viewed by children.

Two very different problems requiring different solutions.

The most pressing problem in the case of the first, is to prevent any more being made, because making it involves child abuse.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Now you are going to make the point about watching by mistake... no worse than picking up certain books in a library or magazines at a newsagents( or more likely at school ), by 'mistake'.

No I am not going to make that point actually but you seem to be forgetting that material on view or on sale in libraries and newsagents has already been censored and subject to legal controls. It has been that way for hundreds of years without causing any major issues.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Where do you draw the line on 'p*rn' ?

Perhaps when adults knowingly distribute it to children?

[graeme_p]

BeeDeeDubbleU, censorship HAS caused LOTS of major issues over hundreds of years.

That is why the UK ended its rigorous censorship of books (in the 18th century) and of the theatre (until 1968 all plays had to be government approved).

Furthermore, what is in libraries and newsagents is not censored: there are laws, the breach of which leads to prosecution after the event - there is no approval needed to print something.

You would have to look pretty hard to find material on the internet that is more capable of "corrupting innocence" (to use Cameron's words than some things available in bookshops (the works of the Marquis de Sade, for example).

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

You would have to look pretty hard to find material on the internet that is more capable of "corrupting innocence" (to use Cameron's words than some things available in bookshops (the works of the Marquis de Sade, for example).

It's more readily available and less easy to control on the Internet and bear in mind that no one is proposing a ban on p0rn.

But come one now, you are not seriously suggesting that bookshops are more of a threat to innocent kids than the Internet, are you? ;)

[lawman]

Let's all help the forum moderator - make sure the conversation remains civil.

[jecasc]

In my opinion this only causes a false sense of security. Parents will have opted out of p0rn and think they are save - which they are not. Not even remotely.

A ten year old can find instructions on the web how to bypass this filters in about two minutes. AFAIK they are using "Cleanfeed" in britain, which can simpy be bypassed by using a proxy or by using https instead of http.

DNS filters can simply be bypassed by using another DNS server.

And then we are already at the next step of censorship:

What? Information is available how to circumvent filters? Shouldn't that content then be blocked, too?

Not to mention the fact that filters are simply not accurate. And we are not talking 90% not accurate or 80% or 70%. Unless you want to block everything and then whitelist, only a fraction of websites will even be on any filter list.

[graeme_p]

@BeeDeeDubbleU, depends on the bookshop. I used to live just outside Soho....

More seriously, it COULD be. On the internet you rarely find #*$! unless you are looking for it, and you would not find illegal material at all easily (from what I have read things like child #*$! mostly circulate on private P2P networks and the like). A bookshop is there in the street where kids pass, and the books can be placed to draw attention. I have seen de Sade's books on a low shelf in the "general fiction" section once.

@jesac, exactly. There is what someone got while trying to read an article on Cameron's proposal through a filtered connection:

[twitter.com ]

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I have a friend in Italy. She was telling me that on the school bus a teacher caught several kids accessing hard #*$! on a phone on the way home from primary school. We are talking about kids aged from 6 to 11 here. I am sure that this situation is being repeated virtually every minute of the day somewhere in the World.

Kids, being kids, do look for it and they know how to find it. They are not stupid. The only way you will stop them from finding it is to put it outside their reach.

(And I would trust even Soho bookshop owners to deny access to this material to primary school age kids more than I would trust the Internet.)

[jecasc]

We are talking about kids aged from 6 to 11 here.

See. Responsibility of the parents is the problem. If you really have to give children this age a cell phone at all, the only responsible thing would be to give them one that can only be used as a phone and to write text messages. No MMS, no internet.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I think you are missing the point. They don't need to have a cell phone when their school friends are showing them p0rn. What do you want to do, take them out of school?

[lawman]

We didn't need smart phones or the internet when I was in grade school. My friend knew where his dad kept his Playboy magazine.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Yes exactly, your friend!

[brotherhood of LAN]

Apparently one of the government's advisors for the commercialisation of adult content has had their website hacked and mistakenly accused someone of 'sponsoring' the hack because they reported on it.

She is potentially facing a defamation case as it stands.

It's another example of those in charge lacking an understanding of how this interwebz thing works.