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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."

4 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. In the interests of inflammatory discourse.... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Funny

    It is my duty to point out that "Taliban" is Persian for "Students".

  2. At least... by justin12345 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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    Cool art gallery, if you're into that sort of thing.
  3. Re:Of course it doesn't hand the list out by sir_eccles · · Score: 5, Funny

    Knowing how lazy students are, they probably just copied the list off someone else.

  4. Re:It's simple by PPH · · Score: 5, Funny

    If they're using a feather, its erotica. If they're using a chicken, its porn.

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    Have gnu, will travel.