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Britain's Broadband Censors: a Bunch of Students
nk497 writes "British ISPs have been told by the government to offer their customers parental control systems to block content like gambling sites and pornography, but the McAfee system used by BT and Sky leaves the tough censoring decisions to a small group of barely-trained students. While much of the categorization work is done using an automated system, decisions on whether porn is 'hardcore' or merely 'erotica,' or whether a page contains hate speech, is left to a team of five to ten people with a day of training — and the job is apparently popular with students. McAfee doesn't publish the list of sites it hands to ISPs to block, making it difficult to see if your own site has been misclassified."
Would you want work done by a bunch of students with a single day of training to be up for review?
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Well, Crowdsourcing Captchas are about to get a lot more interesting...
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Shifting through and categorizing thousands of pages a day requires cheap untrained workforce.
It is my duty to point out that "Taliban" is Persian for "Students".
Well, at least no one saw that one coming. No one could ever have predicted that a government mandate issued to private company would wind up being sourced to the cheapest possible labor.
Cool art gallery, if you're into that sort of thing.
Inflammatory summary, why is being a student a bad thing? Also if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
Inflammatory summary, why is being a student a bad thing? Also if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
As a monkey, I find the equating of our noble species to students inflammatory. Monkeys have far more class.
I have just flung virtual poop at you as my sig.
Does it matter if it's a group of students or a group of politicians? or a group of little old ladies? or a group of aliens from Betelgeuse?
In all seriousness, it doesn't matter *who* does the censoring, they'll always get it wrong. Only the end viewer requesting the page can decide if something is "hardcore" or merely "erotica". Nobody can decide what standards are acceptable to anyone else.
Is there a fist in an ass?
Yes=Hardcore
No=Erotica
Does reading it make you want to commit genocide?
Yes=Hate Speech
I could care less who is doing the categorization. There are going to be mistakes. The important thing is being able to challenge the rating. Most of these content filtering products have URL category lookup and you can report sites that need further review.
McAfee http://www.trustedsource.org/en/feedback/url
BlueCoat http://sitereview.bluecoat.com/sitereview.jsp
The rest are easily found via google or from their respective support sites.
I am envious
They are not qualified to do what is wrong in the first place. Sue the shit out of them.
[...] decisions on whether porn is 'hardcore' or merely 'erotica' [...]
Where do I apply?
I explicitly release the above into the public domain.
I've seen far too many political sites and blogs ranging the entire political spectrum being labeled as "hate speech". While true, the opinions are very strong. But I would hardly call that HS.
I'm sure they could do it cheaper anyways. :D
I called it a mighty Sperm Whale, she called it Finding Nemo.
I understand we want to protect the pure eyes of the public from disgusting content. Well, actually I don't, if nobody gets harmed in the making of the images, to each one is fantasy. Furthermore, it is not like bestiality is around every click, and seeing a nipple is not going to traumatize anybody, we all have two, don't we ? For the sake of the argument, say we buy the idea that internet 'needs' to be filtered to protect the public from seeing "things". Doesn't it defeats the purpose, when little Johny is protected from porn from 1 to 18, then gets to watch objectively offensive and disgusting porn, the kind of things that makes you despair about humanity, but for 20 hours a week, as a student job to pay tuition ? Am I the only one to think that the work-watchers are going to increase by a wide margin the exposure to insanely offensive material, that otherwise nobody encounters without actually looking for it ?
I don't see the point. I was able to get around content blockers when I was a child. I am sure kids today can do the same with a little effort.
Those who want blocking on THEIR OWN PCs should have it. The more the better. :)
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
What about sfw.chanarchive.org? (claims to be SFW)
So this is why my website was blocked forever ago at my high school for "hate speech". It was actually nothing more than a little programming blog with some flash games on it. I actually felt popular when I discovered it was blocked lol.
TFS and TFA make it clear that this is a service being offered to customers as an opt-in system. What the heck is wrong with offering customers that choice, especially given that they can presumably change their mind at some point in the future (when their kids are old enough to view porn).
Customers will be asked to make a choice over whether they want filtering on their connection or not. Adult content blocks will not be implemented by default.
I don't particularly like the idea but common, how is an educated student views in categorization any worst then a so called expert. It's just categorization which requires only minimal common sense. This is perfectly valid and expected. There will always be mistakes in any large listing, the important thing is being able to quickly resolves improper categorization. The biggest news/issue is the fact that they don't publish the list as it can effect website owners without them ever knowing it (other then reduced traffic which can be attributed to many things).
I always find it funny when governments think they can actually censor the internet. If it doesn't work despite the great cyberwall of China, what makes you think it'll work anywhere else?
America is trying as well, like with the whole recent domain name shutdowns thing. Yet people have already come up with very simple ways to get around it, from browser extensions, to their own DNS servers, to simply editing your hosts file.
Governments, like corporations, don't understand technology; they simply screw it up for all the average people by trying to.
It is a government problem, industry can't solve it cheaply or likely any better.
A cheap solution would be for sites to publish their rating (meta tag) or setup something like the cert authorities for it but allow self rating. Maybe have some laws for badly rated websites so porn can't label itself for elementary children without a fine. Verification authorities would merely allow a backdoor to non profits, businesses, or peer to peer to go above the self-rating system.
Schools, parents can then BAN all sites who are not rated. To optionally go further they could require the verification of the rating by a trusted party or peer 2 peer system. The base system would work MOST the time as any legit site would put ratings on itself as huge numbers of people blocked them if they did not - it would be cheap and easy to self rate. As long as the rules for rating are not too crazy to solve everything it would be ok... until idiot lawyers try to make laws to do everything...but that is another problem: legal "feature creep".
The peer 2 peer system could be like wikipedia for verifying ratings of sites or to services with paid reviewers-- or governments like China (where the system could be abused and there is no point in trying to make it not work for their purposes - they'll do what they want anyhow, it likely wouldn't do enough for their needs.)
I've said it before, we need a global standard rating scheme created by scientists not industry monkeys.
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You mean... there are no monkeys anymore in Gibraltar? But that's terrible!
Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!
"A sfw chanarchive? Sounds like a challenge!"
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I would say that so long as the system is both opt-in and voluntary, it shouldn't be a problem. As long as the censorship system isn't mandated by government AND people are free to choose filtered or unfiltered access, where's the harm?
So what if the implementation sucks?
The goal of offering parental control will be met, and then can be pointed to as giving customer choice. Make it as restrictive as practical. When in doubt, block.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
This is far less disturbing and harmful than the fact that the majority of the security in airports is handled by armies of uneducated gorillas as opposed to a smaller more intelligent and more motivated group of individuals. Of course, I have yet to meet an intelligent, educated and motivated person that would be willing to work in such a position.
At least in this case, we're talking about students and not day labor. At least students are people who should in theory be bright. As for training... well let's be frank... they'll surf and find these sights and when there's a question regarding site which are so gray you're not sure which side of the line they sit on, they'll discuss it or seek guidance from a trained nanny.
Can we please get the names and addresses of these students?
Until the early 1980s, there was a lot of pornography tourism (not really sex tourism, they only came for the "dirty" magazines and films, getting hookers or hook up with someone for casual sex have always been easier in UK then in Sweden, not even weighting in the language barriers, which was considerable for English speaking tourists in Sweden during the 1960s) from United Kingdom to Sweden. British men coming to Sweden only to buy a suitcase full of porn. There was even some Swedish cinemas, catering pornographic films chiefly to British porn tourists. When the pornography tourism from UK diminished, most of the then existing sex shops and cinemas in Stockholm and Gothenburg was closed down.
Until the early 70s, there was also lot of British women who visited Sweden to buy sex toys, and even condoms and lubricants. Nowadays only a small trickle of women from Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain and similar Catholic countries do that.
The related sex tourism to Denmark (where prostitution is legal, but with some restrictions) from UK have never diminished, but in this tourism the UK men is not alone, there are plenty of sex tourists from other countries visiting Denmark too, ironically, even some Swedish sex tourists (Sweden have some of Europes hardest laws against prostitution, and the Swedish police uphold them meticulously).
Being as students seem to be in the majority when it comes to sperm donation, ISPs could - not literally - clean up here...
Dear God, Please make sure that Senator Stephen Conroy doesn't hear about this. He'll have the asylum seekers reviewing porn sites for $1 a day. Thank you, hail mary, and all that jazz
However, he admits the very sites the small team is asked to judge are those that are the most subjective. âoeDrawing the line between erotic and hardcore pornography is probably the most difficult," he said. "Another thing is websites that go into extreme left or right side [politically], but still do news or something like that."
Anti-nuclear - extreme?
Anti-abortion - extreme?
Anti-GM food - extreme?
Right to wear burka- extreme?
Calling politicians corrupt - extreme?
Calling politicians scumbags - extreme?
Muslim sites that are not in English - extreme?
Christian fundamentalist - extreme?
The gov't should not be supporting this company in any way.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Not that any self-respecting human being would mind if sankaku was blocked by their ISP.
It's pretty easy to figure out if something is hardcore porn or softcore. It's simple to pick out hard language etc... If parents are so concerned about there kids, they should grow up and realize it's time kids get a crash course in the Internet. If my 6 year old son see's a nice set of juice tits and asks what they are I'll respond with "Fucking TITS!!! :-)" . Kids are far to protected with what there parents will and will not let them see and do, if you want to train the kids to see content as inappropriate they have to see the content in the first place.
If an internet filter is to be optional then this should be a job for the free market. Different ISP's or even specialised filter companies can come up with their own lists and classifications of material and they can thrive or die by their reputation. This should provide parents with a competitive selection of internet filters and those that do not want to filter their internet can be spared the expense.
If we are talking about a mandatory list then this is suppression and censorship on a national scale and I will concede that this is a task for the government.
Privoxy is setup such that you can download blocklists from whomever you prefer, or you can roll your own. Why isn't their solution so simple, and flexible enough to allow choice? Why is it assumed that one blocklist fits all preferences?
Twinstiq, game news
How much must the student pay for the task of 'examining' and 'categorizing' porn all day?
There's some strange filtering imposed by the last two mobile operators I've used. Orange and T-Mobile have blocked various pages that I've tried to access from Google searches with the claim that they're adult content. Boring stuff like recipes or how to install a phone extension (yes, dangerous territory). Following their link to review the block page always results in them confirming the block was valid. The occasional times I've been able to see the Google Cache link, it's always been innocuous. Sounds like people with a day's training, but I doubt they were smart enough to be students.
Porno, porno, porno, clean, anarchists, porno, clean, ET cover up expose, clean.....
Is anyone surprised that students are signing up for the job?
From TFA:
"Normally, the entire site would be banned, not only the offending page. However larger sites such as The Sun have "markers" to prevent them from being slotted into a category and subsequently blocked."
So a quick "<meta mcafee="dont-block-me"> in the HTML should be enough for a site to avoid blacklisting?
Quality
The UK already has strong laws to apply against material such as hate speech and child abuse pictures, surely a better system to monitor, report and prosecute such sites is preferable to just hiding them away?
I have also not heard if this is to be opt in or opt out, anyone want to go on record as ticking the 'yes I'd like as much porn and gambling as I can get' box, even if it is just for a free and unsensored internet.
Lastly, Governments seldom take away personal freedoms in one big chunk, with little public backlash the scope of what is moral is easily expanded, and the system goes from opt out, to opt in, to compulsory - government mandated, unaccountable sensorship for all.
Watching Porn has a delayed effect. Students have very high estrogen and other levels. If the watchers are femaie, some will become pregnant within 6 months,
If it guys, the are going to do a lot of exercise to burn away the desires, melt away the desires, or even dream away the mental stimulation effects.
It should be left to old farts like me (age 70), who are still shy, though comfortable with a pinch or two a week from my wife.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
1) only filtering software would read the meta data
2) filtering software could BLOCK all unrated information; creating motivation for ratings rather than shrink your user base. The more people using such software the greater the motivation to provide self made ratings. All public schools would be a good starting point. Anybody targeting them would be quick to adapt.
3) diverse rating options; self-ratings + 3rd party ratings (either signed onsite or offsite) 1 such service would be a black hole server which just blocks media which fails to properly classify itself. Such as showing porn to small children by rating it safe would get you in the black hole. IFF the law can touch them then action can be taken; otherwise, yes they can't be stopped.
4) This DOES mean that the government could list people they'd like to prosecute; you could choose to use them as a black hole service. This is a better solution to screwing up DNS and doing other big brother moves to control the internet -- if it is China, they maybe could let up and instead require all software to use the rating system with the government ban list (they already oppose software that gets around their network tampering, so it is just a sideways move.)
5) this could be part of HTTP or other protocols not necessarily in file meta data; which would allow ratings to be added by a server or proxy without the user configuring a 3rd party service; which is not ideal etc. but again, it is not the tech it is the policy makers at fault. Would be nice to set a webserver to mark up all your website instead of you doing it on each file... which may not support such meta data.
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