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UK Mobile Providers Introduce WAP Censorship
godsmoke writes "UK mobile providers have formed an alliance to block 'inappropriate content' from cell phone users under the age of 18. 'It covers images, video, gambling, games, chatrooms and net access but not premium rate voice and SMS services', says a BBC News article. The Code authorizing the changes is called the 'Code of Practice', and: 'Content with an 18 certificate will only be available when the network operators verify the age of the user'."
"The new code is going to make many people ask why, if the mobile people can do it, the fixed internet people can't." - John Carr
Here we go again...
Cell phones are not the same thing as the Internet. The Internet was design such that if a node goes down, traffic will route around it. A similar thing would happen if censorship were to be pressed upon us at the ISP level (analogous to the cell phone service providers) as users would simply find ways around it with tunneling protocols, mirrors, and the like.
And I have a feeling that this "new code" will be exploited as well. Of course it's a good thing that the phone companies want to protect children, but there are many ways that censorship like this can aid them in having a monopoly over other providers of mobile phone chat services. We'll just have to see what happens.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Under 18... UK mobile providers have formed an alliance to block 'inappropriate content' from cell phone users under the age of 18.
So they can buy and smoke cigarettes, have sex, drink alchohol in a bar (with a meal) and join the army (die for their country), but they can't use mobile phones.
I'd prefer the sort of solution where under 16s (children) were not allowed internet phones period. What reason can they have to use phones for other than calling people and SMS (text, not pic)? Guess when I was 16 (1995) it was a different age...
But the phone companies insist on money-grubbing all the services they like while putting a net, with massive holes in it, under the users to absolve themselves of legal responsibility.
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It is not the commies, the government, the nigger, nor the corporates. It is your paranoia.
On the other hand, please don't answer that. It's a rhetorical question, meant to make people think.
It would be interesting to see what would happen if users tried to view some artwork from, say, the Louvre (or most other art galleries), such as:
:-) For those who wish to play it safe, here's the caption, so you don't miss everything:
Venus
Hermaphrodite
Diana the huntress
The Turkish Bath
I'm not sure whether to include a "Not safe for work" declaration or not, especially for the last one
"Completed when he was 82, this composition was the result of many studies which Ingres made from 1807 onwards of female bathers, a theme linking the female nude with Turkish exoticism. His illustrations of the harem might well have been inspired by the "Letters of Lady Montagu" (1764) which he read forty years earlier. The serpentile contours of the bodies and his repeated use of the same model add a note of abstraction to the sensuality of this accumulation of voluptuous flesh, a pure fantasy of an exotic, perfumed Orient which had entranced Europeans for over a century."
I can see text filters tripping on some of the descriptive terms too.
Hardly anyone uses WAP anyway.
siggy played guitar
I call troll. But otherwise, grow up. Not all porn is kiddie porn and not everybody who looks at porn is a pedophile.
I mean, it's just "another" logical step on the road that the UK has been rushing down--a "liberal" (in the classical sense of the word) surveillance state. And as a Yank, I'm not crowing--our current regime is doing its best to catch up to you guys. Each step is "logical" and defensible on its own--and it always leads to the next step, which is equally "logical" and defensible. And the grounds of the logic and defensibility are almost always the same: protect the children, defeat the terrorists, stop drug abuse, etc. In reality, the latter rationales are just specific example cases of the first--if "it" will protect the children from evildoers, "it" is good, end of inquiry. Bemoaning other consequences (such as the death of privacy, etc) is defeatism, unpatriotic, etc., etc.--and highly suspect.
/.ers, but it seems inevitable given the general sheepish nature of the populace at large.
This is the fate of the individual in the "advanced" countries in the 21st century: to dwell in a transparently "open" society, where as little as possible is hidden from the government. I don't like it any more than most
What if I as the parent of a 17 year old, give them permission to look at porn?
I'd be more worried if I was the parent of a 17-year-old who isn't already looking at porn, parental permission nonwithstanding.
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
I never cease to be amazed that the time, energy, and money people will spend trying to "protect" young people from the things they don't want them to see.
The reason for these efforts is simple, information control is the only effective means of mind control. Control what people see and hear and you control what they think. Much of child rearing seems to be institutionalized brainwashing. This made no sense to me when I was a child or a teenager and it makes even less sense to me now at 31, or at least no rational sense.
There is no rational reason to want to hide things from your children. There are plenty of irrational (and downright sick) reasons I can think of though, most of which are a combination of stupidity and insanity.
Unfortunately I don't think this will ever change because that would require human nature with all its failing and weaknesses to be improved and that hasn't happened in 10,000 years or more.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
and what about when the filters stop you child from seeing political party web sights? If they mention the word sex, or homosexual, or some other taboo words? In the end we all loose. I am sure it will just be a matter of time before they adopt the same policy in the US.
F**king politics!
I am a republican not by choice, but rather by lack there of.
I'm 17, in the UK, and have a mobile phone that I use with my Zaurus. I use the mobile's GPRS net access to chat to my friends cheaper than SMS. I pray this is just limited to WAP...
The really ominous thing about this though is most UK phone owners are under-18... and notice how the chatrooms and facilities will be 'moderated'? Can anyone say 'silenced disgruntled users' and 'targetted advertising'?
Censorship is wrong. I have absolutely no right to tell you what you may and may not view, read, or hear. By the same token, you ahve no right to tell me what I may view, read, or hear.
Will this stop at porn? After porn, will they go on to hacking, and by extension computer science and mathematics?
In other news, a teen was recently arrested for attempting to send products of prime numbers as text messages. He will be dealt with accordingly.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.