Slashdot Mirror
BT Blocks Access To Pirate Bay
Barence writes "BT and other mobile broadband providers are blocking access to The Pirate Bay as part of a 'self-regulation' scheme with the Internet Watch Foundation. BT Mobile Broadband users who attempt to access the notorious BitTorrent tracker site are met with a 'content blocked' message. The warning page states the page has been blocked in 'compliance with a new UK voluntary code.' 'This uses a barring and filtering mechanism to restrict access to all WAP and internet sites that are considered to have "over 18" status,' the warning states. It goes on to list a series of categories that are blocked, including adult/sexually explicit content, 'criminal skills,' and hacking. It's not stated which category The Pirate Bay breaches, although the site does host links to porn movies."
What.. the... f*ck? Is the rest of the world watching China for guidance in this matter? What's happening? Seriously, this is just insane.
Here is how it works...
1) They tell you blocking will ONLY be used for child porn etc (they promise!)
2) Then blocking is added to terrorist material to "protect the public"
3) Then blocking is added to "violent sexual material" to "protect women"
4) ???
5) Now it is open season in the UK to block anything
Welcome to a free democracy. We're totally better than China's government, I promise ;)
I'm guessing BT are targetting a particular market demographic, judging by their adverts and the pricing structure they have. For me, their service is overpriced and I can get faster speeds, a lower price and a higher (unlimited actually) data cap with other ISPs. BT seem to be going for the "bewildered middle aged computer user" market with their Home Hub and associated services.
Really then I'm not surprised that they're blocking TPB, since they're probably fairly confident that this will have little effect on the customers they're targetting, whilst it raises their reputation with watchdog groups and copyright associations.
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
Wikipedia explains cum shots here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cum_shot
With the Wikipedia block and Internet archive blocks in recent months I couldn't help but think the IWF was testing the water for a general power grab, trying to move far beyond their remit of producing a black list of child porn sites.
I just found this FTA:
http://www.iwf.org.uk/public/page.113.243.htm
So it's true, the IWF has decided it has to be the moral crusader of society and should now start censoring all that it feels like.
Bets on how long they try to extend this voluntary code which covers all the UK's main mobile providers to hardwired, static internet connections?
The problem here isn't BT, it's not The Pirate Bay. It's the fucking IWF again.
Time they're disbanded, the problems they cause now go far, far beyond any benefit they can ever provide.
And they can fuck off right now.
Other than the quoted text, what will you do about this?
I think that it generally has always been this way but the scope of what is not acceptable is expanding. The same companies provide the bulk of internet access as have provided the bulk of other communication for a long time and those companies are more tightly intertwined than ever before. The people who decided you shouldn't hear a toilet flush on TV will be the ones deciding which web sites you an visit, because they provide both your TV signal and your internet signal.
Abso-fucking-lutely. If BT starts doing stuff like this for home broadband as well, I'll move to a new provider who doesn't. And so will most of the rest of their customers. Do we really need to block this stuff "For the children"? or are we blocking it because people are scared of Big Content (Which, by the way, includes a number of pornography providers.) I am thoroughly sick of watching as these unelected scumfucks whittle away at our rights through lobbying and dishonest legislation. They kick up a fuss about people stealing their work, but nobody kicks up a fuss when they steal our rights by paying politicians to add secretive riders to legislation. Even people who don't file-share should be worried by this kind of move; if you read the legislation and 'voluntary guidelines' these people are producing, you'll see that they're not just interested in protecting their work; they're interested in controlling, utterly, how you use what you buy from them. DVD zoning is small potatoes compared to what these people want. They want a tiered internet, so they can control what content you see, and how fast. They want a 'music tax' so you pay them whether you use their content or not. They want 'three strikes' rules, so they can strong-arm you into obeying their rules. They want, in short, to be absolute dictators over everything we do, watch, and indeed create on the internet, and they're winning. They're winning because ordinary people are remaining silent, leaving the business of protesting to a hard-bitten bunch of activists. There nneeds to be an awareness campaign that show big content for what it is, and how it will affect not just file sharers and young computer users, but everybody who even vaguely uses the internet, including businesses. If people realise that what Big Content wants is to break their digital legs, I think they'll make it very clear that it's not what they want, with both their wallets and their votes. We need to remind politicians who they're supposed to be working for, because no amount of lobbyist money or donations will get you elected if everyone knows you're a corrupt, nepotistic shill.