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Largest ISP In Philippines: The Catholic Church
Cheshire Cat writes: "I came across an article at mercurycenter.com. It's about how the Roman Catholic Church is the largest ISP in the Philippines. While it is very low cost, it also filters out porn sites. An interesting quote from the article: '[A user] types in the Internet address for a Playboy Web site. Almost immediately, the computer displays this admonition: 'Thank God you were not able to enter that bad site. CBCPNet suggests that you access wholesome sites instead. God Bless You.'"
True, there are some areas in which the church really is the only service available, but I guess that's the price of development. If nobody else is willing to move in and provide service and the church is, well -- then it's their business how they want to run their service. Nobody is forcing people to get internet access in the first place.
On the other hand, I've never been fond of Christian mission work. "We'll move in, provide needed services like medical aid and helping provide agricultural assistance, and in the process, we'll wash them of their evil non-Christian beliefs by assmiliating them through our indoctrination".
Interestingly enough, the church doesn't have a problem allowing kids to play bloody shootem-ups in their Church-run internet cafes. I guess it's okay to blow someone's head off but not to reasearch breast cancer or track down a killer photo of Angelina Jolie partially nude.
Maybe another entity will move in and provide competition in these areas and then there will be a choice as to whether or not they want filtered service or not. Then again, since the church has so much political clout in the region, they may just move into the legal system and demand filtering by all ISP's so that only the word of the almighty (Christian)God is available.
All in all, this isn't anything different than what they'd like to do in the United States.
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seumas.com
real life the pope doesn't allow use of condoms, but this E-pope does allow surfing with a E-condom. It's a strange world...
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Filtering is totally consistent with the Catholic way. If they didn't filter, they'd be hypocrits.
At worst, I might say "Shame on you, say twenty Hail Mary's" if they didn't make an honest effort to get half-decent filterware, or they are intentionally blocking (for instance) Protestant churches or general medical websites.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
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You can also look to the following verses, which are also available on our website for guidance.
"If your keyboard is your problem, cut it off. Better to enter the portal of heaven with only a mouse, than to not be able to enter at all. If pointing and clicking is unseemly, then by all means, purchase VR glasses (from our website) and the new head mouse (also available on our website) and remove the mouse from thy presence."
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For humor purposes only.
krystal_blade
It will be easy to motivate our fellow man; there is hardly anything people treasure more than not being annihilated.
Not a government agency obliged to respect opposing views. Not a corporation bent on maximizing profit. Not a monopoly unfairly using its marketshare to bludgeon potential competitors into submission. A religious organization, part of whose stated purpose is to practice and promote a certain code of conduct.
The Catholic Church is about morality. They're supposed to instill moral behavior by word and by example. Of course they're filtering out porn, and probably other stuff that conflicts with the Catholic ideal. Would you ever take the Church seriously again if they were using their resources to make pornography readily available for all who want it?
Got Warez?
from the no-dirty-pix-of-amy-shaftoe dept
I've only recently started to read the from the ... dept part of the postings. Is it just me or does this seem to be the consistantly best part of Slashdot?
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
how many hail Mary's my newgroup subscription list would get me..
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Oh yes they do have the right to filter. If the filtered product is the only one they sell and customers know it, everything is totally legal.
Think about it. Do you get shell access on dialup connections? Oh my God, they are cheating! They have no right censoring me from a shell account? Get the point?
People in US should also understand that not all countries have unlimited bandwidth and cheap access. As mp3:s or Porn pics hog a lot of bandwidth and cause extra costs, filtering most of that is a small price to pay to keep costs at a reasonable level.
I won't comment on how good those filters are or how tackily that filtering was done. Filtering has problems but so does unfiltered access.
Yes they do. It's a free market down there for ISPs. If you don't like it, you choose another ISP. It's that simple.
If that ISP was the only one available to them, then it would be a royal pain in the arse. And most likely illegal. (Only if they dissuaded any other ISPs from setting up shop. It's not a monopoly if no one else is in the business through free will.)
And they are paying for the service, supposedly, with full knowledge of what is and isn't available. Or don't you read User Agreements?
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Give it a few years and you will find more and more ISPs will start to filter. Especially in the UK where there is likely to be some precedents set down in the future based around the Obscene Publications Act and transparent proxy caches.
If I, as an ISP, am serving you the customer, material which is deemed illegal in either your country or mine, I am deemed liable. It doesn't matter if the webserver it came from is on the other side of the world and I have no control, as under UK law I am responsible for the storage (transparent cache) and distribution (via my modem racks, DSL circuits, Frame Relay, whatever) of obscene material.
Trust me, give it 5 years and the "bad stuff" will disappear, but at least in the UK we don't have the strong Bible belt and we are more "European" in our attitudes towards this kind of stuff these days (read as "the British have loosened up in the past few years and shagging goats is almost acceptable these days"). This is especially good as the whole Obscene Publications Act defines material to be illegal in a highly subjective manner - the society deems it OK, so the law will as well.
Anyway, enough babbling..
Try calling up HBO and dictating their programming based on the authority that you pay for their service.
Keep a few things in mind when reading the mercurycenter article, and note some things that you may not have known when you read the leader above.
(1) Percentage-wise, the Philippines are heavily Catholic.
(2) People in the Philippines have a choice of ISPs. One ISP (initiated by the Catholic Bishops' Conference) is attempting to cater to what it thinks Catholics want. Are you angry that they are successful?
(3) If you don't want CBCPNet to filter your internet connections, all you have to do is fill out a request asking them not to.
(4) CBCPNet tells you how to report sites that you think were incorrectly filtered (either blocked when they shouldn't have been, or not blocked when they should have been.)
I know that a lot of people go berzerk when they hear the words "internet filtering" or "censorship", but it doesn't seem like this is worth getting worked up about. The gist of the article is that if you live in the Philippines, you have the option of using an ISP whose default configuration blocks access to pornographic sites. The popularity of this option surprised Mercury News, so they wrote an article about it.
I encourage you to read the CBCPNet faq (http://www.cbcpnet.com/faq/index.htm) or "About Us" page (http://www.cbcpnet.com/aboutus/index.htm), but I'll quote three questions here for ease of reference:
What if I find an objectionable site that gets through the filter?
Simply notify us and we will evaluate the site for addition to our blocked list.
What if I find a site that is unnecessarily blocked?
Simply notify us and we will evaluate the site to allow access.
Can I request RCNet to turn off filtering for me?
Yes, either when you sign up for service or anytime afterward. We can turn it back on for you anytime you request.
Just because the largest ISP in the Philipenes is the mother church, this does not mean that the Church is trying to 'wash them of their evil non-Christian beliefs by assmiliating them through our indoctrination', or at least, I certainly hope not! I thought that the point here is that there is a free market in the Phillipenes, and people there who choose the Catholic Church as their ISP are very probably already Catholics. Personally, I would like to have an ISP that filters content for me, at least when it comes to porn. Its one less thing for me to do! And the Catholic Church can be sure to spend its profits in a community minded fashion - by using a Church as your ISP, you are injecting money into the local community, rather than faceless shareholders, or at least, thats the way it seems to me. I would like it if more ISP's were not for profit, but for community. I would feel much better about my local ISP if it really were local. I think that the Catholic Church having an ISP service is a very good thing, and gives the commercial companies something to think about! Thanks.
--Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The
"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
-- Thomas Paine
"CBCP may try to restrict users to wholesome sites, but it tolerates violent computer games. . .
While Quitorio acknowledges that the church frowns on the violent arcade games, he has chosen to take a pragmatic attitude.
``We were convinced by Eman that we had to adjust to the priorities of the market, or we wouldn't earn enough money to open new sites,'' he said. ``Since the terminals in most Internet cafes are used for games, we had to accept it.''"
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- it is big (they say "biggest")
- it is relatively cheap (I am not sure you can afford to be expensive in Philippines)
- it filters out mass-oriented website (pr0n, etc.) so that you know you might usually have enough bandwidth to nerd around.
- you can (hopefully) get here from there.
So, yes.Actually, I don't plan to settle there and I also expect some people who actually used to to tell about their actual experience with them. I'd especially want to know if they filter more or less stuff as the Swiss Post where I work. (It could'nt actually be stricter
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Trolling using another account since 2005.
Then again, since the church has so much political clout in the region, they may just move into the legal system and demand filtering by all ISP's so that only the word of the almighty (Christian)God is available.
When the Ayatolla of Iran takes over militarily and forces a hyper-conservative flavor of Islam on the people, we shun the country and declare it a "rogue state." When Afganistan begins enforcing strict moral codes on the population (such as women are not allowed outside the home, ever), it makes it onto all the e-mail circuits as a crime against humanity. When the Catholic Church buys its way into imposing its moral standards onto a country.... then what?
In this case, the Church is running a business, not a governemnt, if you are unsure of the difference, read up on Libertarians (http://www.harrybrowne.org). Also the Church tends to comply with those silly UN resolutions on Human Rights, and International Law, unlike certain, Jihad obssesed countries I can think of. If a democratically elected government decides that certain actions should not occur, be it public nudity, suicide, smoking, or murder, this is generally considered ok. Heavily Catholic or not, the Philipines still claims to be a democracy.
Jihad -Holy War in which people are given a choice between life, as the aggresor chooses, or death, as the aggressor chooses.
Evangelism -Making people aware that they have a choice between the life they live now, and a new life that they might find more enjoyable if they would only think about it.
Stop this.
Don't just catalogize any Christians because you had some issues with some of them.
They are honest as you have the choice to go or not with them and you know it before signing at the bottom of the contract.
SO, it is totally normal a Priest gives you his advice about pr0n websites.
I agree with them as long as they don't change the rules every day.
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Trolling using another account since 2005.
For instance in many European countries there is in fact a State Church you're made a member of at birth and which gets its funding by public taxation (usually less than 1% of your income).
I'm sure that /. readers will focus on the filtering aspect of this article, and not the whole part about wiring remote areas. It seems to me that the Church is doing more to connect disparate parts of the country than any of the other providers. That actually sounds like something we could use in the US. Besides, you can request the filtering be turned off at any time, including when you open the account.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
Actually there is one but they sort of went out of business. Lynxus got bought by qwest earlier this year and then decided to shut down the ISP portion but they still provide ISP side filtering for schools.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
Seems like a strange name for an archbishop =)
--
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Agreed.
;)
I don't see anything wrong with what the Catholic Church is doing. They are providing a service at a price. Too high a price? Keep in mind that price has galaxies more significance than just money cost. Try to start another ISP. The fact that you can request the filtering to be turned off (and they'll turn it off) is telling, so in short this is a standard rubber-stamp slashdot overreaction.
I am not sure getting the internet for all is even a worthwhile goal, it just seems like progress without purpose. I know I spend my time on stupid sites like Slashdot rather than self-improvement type sites, so the 'net for me has a negative influence on my time.
If you think about it, the pOrn industry is the first to really profit from the internet. Do I really agree with filtering? Not really. Should an organization that is likely loosing money providing internet service to private homes be _required_ to filter or to not filter? No. I think even the Phillipines is a capitalist country with some amount of freedom in that respect.
Alas, much adeu about zilch.
Ok, which murderes are you descended from? America - killed the indians for no good reason. Brittain - India. France - South America. Portugal - South America. Italy - The knwon world 1700+ years ago. Russia? - Killed 50 million people while being communist and might be going back. China - kills anyone who might think of disagreeing with the government. The list goes on and on.
If you are part of a group with a long history, it's prettymuch guaranteed to be one that involves bloodshed or at least opression and exploitation.
Btw, do you think that the US government should pack it in because of the McCarthy era? Should every person who commits a crime pack it in either through honorable suicide or the gas chamber?
Have you never made a mistake? If you have, it's time to pack it in. I'll expect your bloody entrails all over your keyboard in 10 minutes.
What, going to forgive yourself for your mistakes? What a strange thought. Perhaps it might cross your mind to apply the same principle to others. Sure it might not be convenient, but intellectual honesty can be that way at times.
Oh, if you go back 500+ years, the world in general was a much more violent place than it is in the USA today. Torture was a pretty common thing. If you don't believe me, check out what the justice system was like back then.
Besides, if you don't know that the inquisition quickly turned into (if it ever began differently) an attempt by people to get revenge on their enemeies and grab wealth. It was a mostly secular affair, with a bit of religious infuence.
So when you get down to it, landowners are the real problem. I guess that they're the ones who should pack it in. I hope you rent.
They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- C. Sagan
Isn't catatonic the word you're looking for?
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they now be called the Philistines, as they allow
Quake, but ban Playboy?
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All rights reserved.
Historically, the R.C. Church has always aided the poor when it comes to money and technology.
:-)
Consider:
Once Gutenburg's printing press was perfected, it was the Church that was the biggest patron. For over 500 years, the most printed book on the planet has been the Bible. This allowed for spreading the word faster and cheaper.
They didn't pay for Voltaire's Candide to be printed, though.
46. The Hobo smiles, his eyes glaze over, and he burps. "Beware the man who has lived longer than the Wasteland."
You mean, there really are nuns wearing beepers!?
I wonder if they still run their servers on OS/2.
DUH
Every ISP is free to do whatever the hell they want.
--
Free Mac Mini
Here are some links for people suffering behind such censorware. Hopefully not all of them are blocked.
http://www.anonymizer.com/
http://www.idzap.com/
http://www.stas.net/xtcdraqon/space.htm
stories talking about their pedophile priests:
http://www.thelinkup.com/stats.html
The Catholic Church has been pretending this stuff doesn't happen for a long time. Sinead O'Connor may not have totally thought out her actions when she ripped that picture of the pope but she still takes shit for it now when all she wanted was some kind of acknowledgement that their may be a problem.
If the Catholic Church can't get their morality straight, then why trust them with something as serious as your internet service?
For some filtering software will also filtered on the "proxied" links, such as anonymiser.com/http://www.some-porn-site/ ...
It's the classic story - as the blocked find ways around the block, the blockers increase their block. Repeat.
In talking about the influence of the Church in the Phillipines: "Of course, building the Internet infrastructure also adds to the Church's considerable political clout. Two months ago, Jaime Cardinal Sin, the nation's influential archbishop..." [emphasis mine].
Their nation's archbishop's name is "Cardinal Sin"? Oh, those wacky Catholics...=)
[Put away thy holy flames...I'm Methodist.]
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-- Geof F. Morris
...by Dan Simmons then you'll know that the Catholic Church will be a major player in the future of technology in the galaxy. ISPs are nothing - just wait until they start dealing with AIs and making those cruciform things...
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-- SIGFPE
--
Game over, 2000!
First, I admit that no one in the Church is perfect, and that many in the Church have done ungodly acts through the ages. However, as a whole, I do believe that the Church is based on the truth of Jesus Christ, and it's mission is good.
It's amazing to me that the murder of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people over the centuries by the Church can be dismissed so easily. Doesn't the commandment say "Thou shalt not kill?" Did the Church find a loophole in the commandment that allows them to kill those who don't believe the same things that they do? How can people follow a religion that is responsible for so much suffering and death?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
There have been hypocrites, but why people have a prolem with Christ, a man who had nothing to gain by dying for us of His own will, is really beyond me.
I don't think I've seen anyone here saying anything against Christ himself. He got killed on a stick. If he was truly the son of God, then he got off easy. Many people die much more horrible deaths for no reason at all. Most people have a problem with the Church, which is largely responsible for thousands upon thousands of horrible deaths. Whatever Christ tried to teach, it obviously didn't get through to the people who lead the church.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
One more thing...
Even belief in the separation of Church and State is simply an Atheist faith
How is that a faith? Is the fact that I think my cat is cute also a faith? What about believing that the chair on the other side of the room is blue? Is that also a faith? Make some sense. Separation of Church and State is not a faith. It's more like an attempt at self-preservation. It's one of the most intelligent decisions that the founders of the United States ever made. I'd rather not have the Church ruling my life just because they believe that some guy who died 2000 years ago was the son of God and they think that they can figure out what the heck the Bible is actually saying (if anything, it rambles quite a bit and it's often tough to figure out what is to be taken literally and what is just God going on a rant).
The question is this: What is true, what has eternal implications, and what are we willing to do?
Since the first couple parts of that question can't be answered conclusively (unless God himself decides to make an undisputeable appearance again. Maybe go on Oprah or something), I think that Christians should just believe what they want to believe and leave everyone else the hell alone. Don't try to enforce your morality by making it law. If you believe that looking at porn is wrong, then don't do it. Don't let your kids do it. Don't try to make the decision for the rest of us though. Quit trying to get crap like the CDA passed into law. Quit trying to publicly humiliate and shame people who don't share your beliefs. If other people calling themselves Christian try to do those things, perhaps then you can have a discussion with them about minding their own business. Is it possible to be a good Christian without forcing others to comply with your beliefs? History seems to say no. I hope that's not true.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
1) Yes, nobody in the church (or elsewhere) is perfect. This includes the pope. But he has more leverage than most to express his ... imperfections.
2) The church is and has always been in the business of making money. So is every entity. But the church is more vicious about it than Microsoft, and has had centuries more practice. They nearly invented PR flack. They encourage unselfishness among the individuals that they preach to, not as an organization. Their "services" always come at a very high cost, and they frequently create the original need.
3) Indulgences. This is vile, but merely a technique. See 2 above.
4) Crusades. The church being ransacked? That has nothing at all to do with the crusades. The most recent time it might have occured, the church allied with Hitler and Mussolini (great morals, but they survived).
4a) The exile of the church to France was part and parcel of the church attempting to control the politics in Europe (s.a. christendom) as if it were its own fief. This is ordinary politics in a monarchy.
4b) The Romans saw the early diciples(sp?) as revolutionary guerillas. They may well have seen themselves the same way. This doesn't have very much to do with the Catholic church, as it has little connection with the original Hebrew group (and in fact, it may have organized to wipe it out with Roman soldiers. See Nazareens, and note the general in charge of the operation.)
4c) The morals that they preach to their "flock" are designed to make them easy to control. That's the original reason that the Romans eventually decided to accept them, even though they were disrespectful toward the gods that had been maintaining the Roman state (the emperors were quite cynical, and emminently manipulative -- as well as mad [see lead poisoning]). These morals have nothing to do with the practices used by the organization that preachs them (except to provide a contrast).
5) The Mafia. No information here, but a verbal denunciation that doesn't lead to any action isn't very impressive to me.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
If what you report is correct, then the church is not currently doing anything incorrect.
Their history does not encourage me to believe that this will continue. It rather encourages the belief that they are attempting to acquire a total monopoly over the ISP business before imposing their "revisions to the service contract". I would be very glad if this were incorrect, but it will likely require a few decades to determine this (unless, of course, it is correct, in which case it may be determined much sooner).
Then there is the question of what will happen when the next pope / bishop/ whoever-decides-the-policy takes over.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Nitpicking doesn't change the point. They have a history of being untrustworthy. And some people have even lived long enough to report it.
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The Catholic Church is a rather schitzo institution. On the one hand, it has a long history of intellectual thought (go to your local library and look at volumes of "The Catholic Encyclopedia" for examples of that intellectual thought). On the other hand, it also has a long history of suppression of intellectual thought that is viewed as incompatible with the Catholic faith. How to reconcile those two views of the Catholic church -- our history of intellectual thought vs. tolerance of ideas that seem anti-Catholic -- has long been a issue within the Catholic community. Even today, it is a current and active issue within the Catholic community, especially at U.S. Catholic universities.
All in all, I must say that I prefer a religion that is willing to debate such issues to one that says that all intellectual thought and discussion about moral issues is a waste of time (such as, e.g., the Southern Baptists, which bluntly state that all you need is faith and the words of the Bible and forget all that intellectual stuff).
[Note: I had a somewhat schitzo religious upbringing. Summers were spent with my Southern Baptist grandparents, Vacation Bible School, etc., winters were Catholic school and catechism... so my compare/contrast, while perhaps not fair to the Baptists, certainly does reflect personal experience.]
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
__________________
Yes, but even some of them seem to have forgotten their history. They still seem to regard the Pope as being one step down from God. In addition, they are taking the same path as the Catholic Church did in their attempts to enforce their beliefs on others. Sure, they don't actually kill people for it right now (or at least they don't take credit for it when their members do). They do certainly try to twist the arms of politicians by labeling them as immoral or unethical if they don't support legislation that is blatantly unconstitutional like the CDA. Get enough of that sort of crap passed into law and I bet texas will be the first state to execute someone for distributing pornography via their website. Sounds like a joke right now, but things don't usually stay the same for very long. All we need is a couple of Columbine-equivalents dealing with porn instead of guns and the politicians will be fighting each other to see who can introduce the most draconian anti-porn legislation.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer