UK “Porn Filter” Triggers Widespread Internet Censorship

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Kinda makes you wonder if the "hard" in our name will get us censored. :eek:

A new tool released by the Open Rights Group today reveals that 20% of the 100,000 most-visited websites on the Internet are blocked by the parental filters of UK ISPs. With the newly launched website the group makes it easier to expose false positives and show that the blocking efforts ban many legitimate sites, TorrentFreak included.
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Heavy handed government at work. I'm all for protecting children from dubious content, but to do it by default and have it perform that badly is just wrong.
 
I do like double entendres, so I guess it is all in the interpretation :D

Out of curiosity, also realizing that you can find anything on the Internet even by accident, since when has it become the government's job to keep an eye on kids accessing the Internet? We know that the UK is more liberal than the US, but seriously, can't parents control/monitor what their kids are doing online themselves?

I am reminded of a George Carlin skit where he talks about parents being able to raise their kids without interaction so that they can say they had nothing to do with that when their kid grows up to be a failure, but try to take all the credit when their kid grows up to be a success :rolleyes:
 
MrCaffeineX said:
Out of curiosity, also realizing that you can find anything on the Internet even by accident, since when has it become the government's job to keep an eye on kids accessing the Internet? We know that the UK is more liberal than the US, but seriously, can't parents control/monitor what their kids are doing online themselves?
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We're talking about some of the same people that get worked up about knives with points on them. What else would you expect?

These types of people want to be the provider of all things and protector of all the people. That way you will always have to turn to them when you need help. Keeps them employed. Weak minded people with no desire to take care of themselves or take responsibility for their own personal failures fall for this garbage all the time.
 
In the UK, I have to say I have not noticed any issues at all.

Oh and most parents are either too busy or too lazy to monitor their kids. However, I would say with kids one of the best ways to get them to DO stuff you DON'T want them to do...is make a big fuss about it.

My parents wouldn't make a big fuss over stuff I shouldn't touch. If there were hedge cutters or knives out for say their gardening when I was 3 years old, they would let me pick them up while keeping a close eye on me, I would inspect, find them not very interesting and never bother touching them again.

Same with booze, my parents kept a big drinks cabinet, neither of them were big drinkers but they liked to entertain. I was never told I couldn't touch it or drink it dry. I could drink what I liked at any age. Therefore...I never did.
 
ravx25 said:
Heavy handed government at work. I'm all for protecting children from dubious content, but to do it by default and have it perform that badly is just wrong.
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They should just have run an optional DNS that blocks the unwanted content and offered Firewall software.
 
daglesj said:
In the UK, I have to say I have not noticed any issues at all.

Oh and most parents are either too busy or too lazy to monitor their kids. However, I would say with kids one of the best ways to get them to DO stuff you DON'T want them to do...is make a big fuss about it.

My parents wouldn't make a big fuss over stuff I shouldn't touch. If there were hedge cutters or knives out for say their gardening when I was 3 years old, they would let me pick them up while keeping a close eye on me, I would inspect, find them not very interesting and never bother touching them again.

Same with booze, my parents kept a big drinks cabinet, neither of them were big drinkers but they liked to entertain. I was never told I couldn't touch it or drink it dry. I could drink what I liked at any age. Therefore. did.
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Exactly what my parents did, I remember being 16 and having my mom run in to grab me beer for a cabin party i was having for my friends at my grandparents lake cabin. She encouraged me to do things in moderation as long as I told her about it. Some people may think "omg she let you drink underage!" But I never felt the need to drink excessively or sneek booze or do something dumb like drink and drive cause I knew my parents would never get mad, they would be happy I was respecting the rules.She kind of ruined the fun of underage drinking when she drops you off, hands you the beer and says "have fun honey I love you!" It was very tricky mind games but it worked.

Every parent needs to pick their battles but find and enforce compromise, says "NO" makes it fun to sneak behind thier backs, saying "ok but im picking you up at 1 and if you barf in my truck you clean it up hungover" makes it fun
 
On the other hand, my parents never did the drinking or smoking stuff at all and they constantly looked down on and made fun of the lower classes of people that did that kinda thing and nowadays, though I kinda disagree that not everyone who drinks or smokes is lower class, I would never ever think of doing anything like that because, in some ways, I still kinda link those things to trashy or unintelligent uncouth people.

As for the UK porn filtering the Internets, I think that's a good idea to repress those urges and also make them scandalous and socially unacceptable. It's the best we can do until we can figure out how to do the whole breeding thing more intelligently using deep genetic analysis to get rid of unfavorable traits like the tendency to be gluttonous, obese, violent, or addicted to controlled substances.
 
Steve said:
Kinda makes you wonder if the "hard" in our name will get us censored. :eek:
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This actually happened to me believe it or not. Last job, IT guy (who was cool) came up to me and said (paraphrasing): "hey man, we installed a new logger and it's picking up that you're spending a lot of time viewing a porn forum. You should probably stop doing that stuff at work because I won't be able to stop them from seeing that going forward - and you're cool and all and I don't want you to get in trouble."

LOL

I showed him the site and we had a good chuckle. But ya, dat name... :D
 
Kongar said:
This actually happened to me believe it or not. Last job, IT guy (who was cool) came up to me and said (paraphrasing): "hey man, we installed a new logger and it's picking up that you're spending a lot of time viewing a porn forum. You should probably stop doing that stuff at work because I won't be able to stop them from seeing that going forward - and you're cool and all and I don't want you to get in trouble."

LOL

I showed him the site and we had a good chuckle. But ya, dat name... :D
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Try having a teacher over hear you have some php in your locker...
 
jpm100 said:
They should just have run an optional DNS that blocks the unwanted content and offered Firewall software.
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The filter has been forced onto the "Big four" ISPs, but it is optional.

Sign up a new account, and you have to tick "I want to see the porn" box. Though it is sold to you as a "safety filter" keeping the "bad guys" away from you.

Current users can opt-in to this firewall. Though I was at a BT supplied house the other day only to find when I added my tablet to their BT supplied router the BT firmware had clearly been updated by the ISP. I had to jump through hoops to even get online. Ended up just logging into the router and disabling it for the house.

Of course, we all know the biggest joke with this is the only people who will know how the filters work are not the parents, but the teenagers. Or they will just learn how proxies work a lot quicker.


As to who chose to bring this in... a weak government that panders to the newspapers. A minority of people want this, but they have big mouths and are generally clueless about technology. Once certain rags like the Daily Mail jump onto this kind of thing, they make a lot of noise.
 
daglesj said:
My parents wouldn't make a big fuss over stuff I shouldn't touch. If there were hedge cutters or knives out for say their gardening when I was 3 years old, they would let me pick them up while keeping a close eye on me, I would inspect, find them not very interesting and never bother touching them again.

Same with booze, my parents kept a big drinks cabinet, neither of them were big drinkers but they liked to entertain. I was never told I couldn't touch it or drink it dry. I could drink what I liked at any age. Therefore...I never did.
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If my kids are curious, I'll let them check out a lot of things. My 15 year old sips a couple my the beers I try. Some he says aren't bad (they aren't bad, either). Others he says taste like ball sweat (they do). He's smelled scotch, but I wouldn't let him try that... I let my wife try it once, and she spit it back in my glass. Ruined the whole thing. Dammit.
 
Someone needs to tell the British that 1984 was a warning, not a guidebook.
 
Sexual education and medical sites get Chinese Firewalled and the country kinda needs that stuff.

In the 2000s there was a news story about a little chav girl who had a child at age 12 with her slightly older boyfriend. Her mother had the girl in question at age 12, also with a slightly older buyfriend, making her a 24 year old grandmother.
 
Ur_Mom said:
If my kids are curious, I'll let them check out a lot of things. My 15 year old sips a couple my the beers I try. Some he says aren't bad (they aren't bad, either). Others he says taste like ball sweat (they do). He's smelled scotch, but I wouldn't let him try that... I let my wife try it once, and she spit it back in my glass. Ruined the whole thing. Dammit.
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Yeah its just taking the mystery out of stuff. My parents would let me drink from about the age of 5. I'd be offered on occasion a sherry glass of wine with Sunday lunch, sometimes I'd partake, sometimes not. At a wedding or similar dad would give me a small glass of beer. Didn't happen often but cherished times. Basically I was taught that booze is nothing sacred but it needs to be taken in moderation.

Then fast forward to when I was 17 and at sixth form college, all my friends who were kept away from booze as kids were the ones being carted off to hospital and stomach pumped after a party drinking eight double scotches in an hour, while I was sipping my second beer.
 
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