Slashdot Mirror
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
I see no reason why when somebody purchases the phone, the account can't have a birthdate associated with it... if I wish.
Then my daughter's phone only allows age-appropriate material.
I like it. If I could set it to keep all the older guys from calling her, I would pay triple what I pay now.
Ac
What if I as the parent of a 17 year old, give them permission to look at porn? Can I have that block removed from their phone... a phone I most likely bought and paid for in the first place?
--
In London? Need a Physics Tutor?
American Weblog in London
They are implementing something on their own before a regulatory body tells them to implement it. Kudos to them. Basically they are implementing on cellphones exactly what a vast number of the public have been calling for in the internet, namely making the place safe for kids, and since pretty much every kid over here in the UK has a cellphone, I think this is going to be seen as a positive step forward. Yes, by all means shout the generic shout "but the parents should supervise the kids", but seriously, wap enabled cellphones are an epidemic with the under 18 population over here, and its trivial for someone to purchase one without a parents knowledge, so its a lot easier to supervise a kid on a PC than it is on one of these.
Surely you are trolling.
16 year olds don't need internet phones? Who do you think will be programming these things for the next few years?
If I were 16 right now, I would be hacking away at my cell phone like nobody's business.
I have no problem with my kids checking their email or schedule or updating their website from their phone...
I just want a way to know what they are viewing is age appropriate.
AC
I say "Three Cheers" to free speech, Slashdot, OSDN, and even competition sites to Slashdot such as ******.com or ***********.com
Thanks again for keeping it real, Slashdot!
I hate to be RAH-RAH, but I totally agree.
Under 16s have no need to use the phone for anything else than making a call or texting. They don't need internet or pay-per-view type content on their phone. Parents should not let them have this sort of phone (hard law) and providers who provide this content (who can be traced as it is through a mobile network) should be prosecuted as hard as possible. But, of source, mobile phone/content providers will be as aggressive in marketing any kind of pay-per-view content possible.
Why it is under 18s and not under 16s I don't know, typical UK bifibrcation I guess.
I always found it funny that, in the UK, you can get married and have sex at the age of 16; yet you can't look at porno until you are 18. So it's possible to indulge in the most depraved sexual acts imaginable, but you're not allowed to view depictions of the same acts. Crazy!
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
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.
You are posting on /., surely you are not naive enough to realise unsupervised access to the internet is truely unsupervised.
Kiddie filters are always being got around. Why do they need to check their email at any moment?! Why do they need to access a schedule, can't they remember their school timetable?! Why do they need to update a website from on the go?!
Children need to be taught value in activities, else they'll live their life thinking everything is easy come, easy go.
If you don't supervise your children's access to the internet but instead expect a phone company (who want to sell as many services and make your child a 'good little consumer') to do it for you, then that is up to you, not me and not your child.
--
It is not the commies, the government, the nigger, nor the corporates. It is your paranoia.
All say 'aye' those who would gladly welcome providers blocking annoying ring tones and overly loud 'SMS received' beeps ! Never mind innapropriate content, these social nuisances are enough to make you kiiiilllll !
"I am not bound to please thee with my answers" [William Shakespeare]
Hardly anyone uses WAP anyway.
siggy played guitar
Like all horror stories related to children, the actual number of reported cases is small. However, it does actually occur from time to time according to news reports of specific incidents.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
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
- Purchase pR0n
- Purchase tobacco products
- Purchase alcohol
- Vote
- Join the armed services
- Get married
- Enter into legally-binding contracts
In most of these cases, parental consent lowers or eliminates this age barrier. If the technology allows it, I don't see it as being anything new or different. And parental permission (mom or dad registers the phone under their own name, instead of in the kid's name) would still apply here. I am a firm believer that parents should not ask society to do what they are unwilling to, and that society should not restrict everyone's access to anything based on a least common denominator mentality. However, I do support the concept that there are areas outside of a parent's control, and assisting parents to gain appropriate control in those situations is a good thing.R David Francis
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.
How will the kids/adults turn the censorship off when they reach 18? they can hardly go to their parents and say 'hey, I want to look at porn now, could you unblock the phone please?'. Or will control automatically pass to them when they reach 18, and why doesnt it say anything about this in the article?
95% of all computer errors occur between chair and keyboard (TM)
I can't wait for this to hit the U.S.
"Your request to 'verizon.com' has been blocked due to inappropriate content. Thank you for using Cingular"
_______
2B1ASK1
I dunno how UK phone companies bill, but why not list the URL's and the phone numbers accessed by each phone on the bill? That way Mom and Dad will know what Junior has been looking at.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
BBC Radio 1 reported this earlier. One of the final comments was that the operators were concerned about kids telling fibs about their age to get around the censorship.
Any kid who listened to this now knows they can lie about their age and probably get away with it.
Well done Radio 1.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
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'?
Of course it won't make the "uncensored" phones any more popular with the kids...
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.