Slashdot Mirror
UK ISP Asks Religious Groups To Set Parental Controls
Barence writes "A British ISP is inviting religious groups to help set parental controls for its customers. Claranet says it is recruiting volunteer 'Guardians' from a number of different organizations — including religious organizations, schools and child safety experts. A press spokesman for the ISP said that an 'Islamic advisor' was among the first batch of Guardians, but refused to identify them. The Claranet Guardians will be asked to choose whether they think 140 different categories of internet content are appropriate. Within those categories, the Guardians can choose to add or remove individual websites from the blacklists, which are created by a third-party company that Claranet also refused to name."
Remember that these parental filters are voluntary. Much worse filtering - one that western people are creating themselves - is called Google Filter Bubble.
What is Google filter bubble
I'm glad you asked. It's a filter you're creating to yourself without thinking. It's a bubble you're creating around yourself, letting only your opinions and knowledge ever reach you. Everything else is censored.
Religious groups can go and fuck themselves, I've had enough of superstitious groups trying to change the world to their liking, really it's too much. if some idiot needs to censor what he sees, install dans guardian or similar. geeze, leave the net alone
http://chimpbox.us
We need controls to prevent kids from overdosing on religion. There's a maximum safe dose of religion, maybe around an hour a day. Kids who substantially exceed that dose may turn into cult members, Jesus freaks, non-working yeshiva students, or Islamic militants. It's not the brand of religion that matters as much as the dosage.
How about Jedi?
I mean, nobody expects the Inquisition.
No child should be exposed to religion !
Neither should adults really, but if they want to indulge in unhealthy behavior that is there own business.
It's not just religious groups, it's several different organization types. Singling out religious groups in the title is merely inflammatory and designed to ignite a flamewar. While I think what this ISP is doing is wrong, I also feel it wrong for Slashdot to engage in the same zealous behavior against a certain group.
Call ISP:
(20 minutes on hold)
Them: "Hello, how may I help you today?"
Me: "Please opt-in me on any blacklists started, managed, or endorsed by any religious individual or organization. Thank you."
Them: "...okay?"
-SaNo
They'll all wipe each other's religions off the Internet!
...since that would prevent on-line access to the Quran.
"You can only go to the CoS sites, the rest of the sites don't exist and if they did they are evil and corrupting."
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
We can envisage a situation where people would only block known malware sites... and they can allow everything else.
That appears to be not the desired situation. They're marketing it at parents, but taking a bet each way.
When I scanned the summary I thought it meant that an ISP was implementing parental controls to shield minors from dangerous religious sites. That seems like a far more worthwhile endeavor....
Reposting, but similarly short-sighted even if it's voluntary on the part of the parents at the customer-end of the service.
So now we can have a filtered ISP for the weirdy religious types, and they can stick to that and leave the other ISPs alone for normal people.
It also means that detecting people who spend a worrying amount of time looking at the wikipedia pages for explosives, ebay auctions for chemical equipment and downloading illegal copies of the talmud can be spotted and chucked into Broadmoor before they hurt someone.
The paedos could be looking forward to catching a break for once.
I don't understand why the gov't, isp, etc. want to be in the business of parenting.
.. that may get more intrusive over time. Something beginning 'W' perhaps. Ah yes, a wedge indeed.
You just can't "un know" and "un see" things.
As so many times in the past (seriously- back to like 200 A.D.), those censors and monitors will be corrupted. Some will be found to have large collections of porn- some of it illegal, etc.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
They tried with an atheist but she left the blacklist empty.
There's a hidden treasure in Python 3.x: __prepare__()
They are going to ask a great number of organisations for input into the filters. That includes religious organisations.
Since the communists failed to eradicate religion and all their other traditional enemies as defined in their pyramid charts in their last attempt, the remaining shambling, rotten corpses who still haven't gotten their brains blown out keep trying to do the same thing today. Never mind, in about a decade or so most of them will be dead or senile.
This just seems like a bad idea. I'm not saying that religion itself is a bad idea, but giving them control over something is just asking for problems. They can't even uniformly decide what is right in their own sects...
While acknowledging that this is just one ISP and that they may want to corner a small market of parents who are concerned about such things, I do have to wonder at what point we say it is unacceptable and a form of child abuse to withhold information from children.
Suppose I am a parent who in the future decides to sign up to the 'creationist' package, that filters out anything on the internet that relates to evolution, geology, etc etc. If the child was being sent to a school which also indoctrinated such ideas, then there are few avenues left for the child to get access to proper scientific information, and possibly come to question their beliefs. It scares me just a little bit to think that an information resource like the internet can be used to possibly decrease knowledge in people whose parents decide what information they consume....
A private company offers an opt in filtering service, and they hire religious people to help them set up that service. Okay, sounds like something I absolutely do not want. But who am I to tell other people they can't have it. It's not bothering me any.
Which is fine if they limit themselves to themselves. I'd hate to have my whole neighborhood burned to the ground, the women raped the men decapitated the children enslaved all in the name of religious tolerance because some nutjobs happened to see some porn or worse, something Jewish.
Allahu Porqchop!
Here, as long as tax dollars are not used to support the ISP and if it is not a government sanctioned utility, I don't see anything wrong in a private company doing it with their own money and capital. You don't like it, use a different ISP.
Further recognize it is UK, it is not a secular nation but a Christian/Protestant nation and their laws will differ from ours, I mean the USA's. We did not like their laws and so we said adios way back in 1770s.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
The difference between censorship committees and regular people is that the censorship committees want to watch and read their smut in a group setting rather than at home alone. It's rather kinky when you think about it that way.
I am officially gone from
As a parent, honestly, I'd prefer religious websites to be blocked by parental control, over religious nutcases deciding what to block.
I'd want the option to filter content based on my own beliefs and opinions by NOT GOING to the sites that I find objectionable.
What method of "NOT GOING" did you have in mind? If you mean just not keying in the URLs of objectionable sites, what should you do if someone cites a document in support of his argument, but when you click the link to view the document, it ends up being a shock site?
Asking whether the UK is a secular nation or not can get a bit confusing. Technically we are a theocracy, since the head of state is the monarch, and the monarch rules in the name of god (according to constitutional tradition). For practical purposes though, that's all bollocks. Our actual government has no religious element to it. The bishops that sit in the house of lords are forbidden to rule on anything other than the internal laws of the church, and are mostly ignored. For everybody else, religion in government is a major taboo.
Compared to the US, the UK is very strongly secular indeed.
When our household got cable for the first time, it was great.
The first thing we did was put the parental lock on the God Channel.
Here's a good idea that will be only implemented after thoughtful, contemplative consideration of all its implications and effects are throughly explored with invitations to discussions for all affected parties extended I'm sure.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
... to block sexual content for their child they will also have to block scientific and atheistic websites as well, because they will be on the same backlists?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Well if it is like my experience it will help produce more atheists. When I was young so many things I enjoy were declared satanic by the church. For example I used my own money I earned from mowing lawns, and shoveling snow to buy dungeons and dragons books. I had all of them. I also would play D&D with a few friends of mine. I was a early teen and still hadn't discovered women yet. I appreciated the thought aspect of the game in thinking about your decision and the mathematical aspect as well. I also appreciated a lot of the original artwork contained in the books. Which if you seen the original AD&D books then you know what I mean. Even Deities and Demigods had some of the real mythology behind the characters contained. I mean seriously I look at it as an adult and an inspirational way to get a kid to use his brain and read and calculate all the math, is that such a bad thing?
Well I came home one day to find all my books gone. I asked my mom where they were and she threw them all out. Why, because the church said it's satanic. I realized even at an early age the church was a nothing more than a mass of stupid people that couldn't think on their own. I went all the way up as high as I could go as a kid questioning my mom and the preacher of the church she went to if they even read any of the books. Which they all said no. Which I asked how did they know it was satanic. It was all word of mouth. People in mass just blindly following and not thinking. That's when I knew church and organized religion was a sham. Admittedly I became agnostic, later as I seen more and more of the stupid things people of all religions do. I became Atheist. We can only hope that children raised in homes that blindly just shut off access to things that kids use grow up to hate the stupidity of religion and see it for that. The world needs a lot less ignorant sheep.
I am eagerly awaiting the first reports of abuse. For example, how long until a Muslim, Buddhist, or Atheist website is marked as "objectionable"? How about Spongebob Squarepants' homepage (he's in a gay relationship with that starfish, ya know). Or randomly blocking Liberal blogs or politician website, since we simply must protect children from abhorrent ideas like class equality.
On the other hand, others do have the freedom of expression to disparage the idea and the company. Again not using public funds or resources.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
As long as it is always opt-in, I don't really see a big issue. TV's have parental controls that can be easily enabled/disabled by an adult with the appropriate password (how effective they are I dunno as I've not used them). If a customer wants to ring their ISP and say
I'd like the "Christian standards web filtering package", it doesn't affect me or bother me. Heck, some people would probably pay for such a "service" (which is probably what the ISP will aim for)
The issue becomes when such filters become "opt-out", and are on by default. I believe the register coined it well when they asked how many people would be willing to check off the following box on their internet-service application
[X] Yes I am a dirty pervert
Indeed, Tony Blair concealed his religious leanings quite assiduously while in office, sometimes with the intervention of his director of Communications. In the UK, someone who openly made state decisions based on religious reasoning would be ridiculed in the popular satirical comedy press, and probably regarded as being "a bit barmy" by everyone else.
don't click on a link going there (assuming the link is not masked/hidden).
That's exactly what I was referring to: links that are masked/hidden. And on a browser for a tablet, which has no gesture to show the target URL in a status bar, pretty much all links are masked/hidden.
But filters are like virus definitions.. only as good as your last update.
Microsoft at least seems to think "as good as your last update" is good enough, seeing how strongly Windows Security Center recommends installing a real-time antivirus.
If I name a porn site 'Puppiesandkittens.com' and don't use any 'bad words' in the content I'm pretty sure it will defeat the filters.
For a short time, until other subscribers to your filter click "Report this site" enough.
"including religious organizations, schools and child safety experts."
I think are smarter that you think ! There is no way those set of people are going to agree with each other!
Who better to be trusted with the well-being of children than priests.
So they're pro-censorship, got it. Will avoid.
I am John Hurt.
That's not what the article says, did you read it? No?! I'm stunned!
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Methinks you're creating a strawman here. Can we argue about reality, not made up hypothetical situations?
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Having a secular nation doesn't mean banning religion, or trying to prevent religious people from taking part in the economy. It means that religion is given no privilege. If a belief does not clash with the law, then the law should be entirely blind to it. If a belief does clash with the law, then it should be treated no differently to any other crime.
Well, in the UK, it is not legal to discriminate in employment on grounds of religion (except for the obvious exceptions. It's OK to require that the priest that you employ actually follows your religion.) It is not legal to discriminate in the provision of goods and services on grounds of religion (you can't open a coffee shop that only accepts Christian customers). It's completely OK to open a coffee shop that plays Christian music, disseminates Christian literature and prays for people, as long as you don't refuse to sell coffee to the Sikh in the turban.
If you're not running a business, you are much freer to discriminate. It is OK to set up a charity to specifically serve Muslim women, or atheist lesbians in wheelchairs, or whatever else you like, and to only serve those people. It is OK to run a youth club and require that members follow your religion.
Nothing brainwashes a kid more than religion and has started more wars than anything else. Just ask all the religious guys what sites they do like and filter that.
Start with http://www.conservapedia.com/ and work from there on.
Is it illegal in the UK for a private company (without any government funds) to mix religion with its business? It is illegal in USA? If there is no public resources involved, there is no standing for others to sue them.
On the other hand, others do have the freedom of expression to disparage the idea and the company. Again not using public funds or resources.
If a private company provides a service that their customers can explicitly opt into which allows those customers to prevent their computer from visiting certain websites, then that is their right. It's the "explicit opt in" which is the important part; it makes whether or not the government is involved irrelevant. Nobody has the right to force anyone to go to any particular website (much to the enormous disgust of the whole marketing profession). Yes, I deplore the fact that some feel it necessary to try to shut out the world, but it is their decision. I hope that they'll try to avoid becoming over-insular, as that's always a danger with religious groupings, but I also think it's important to let them choose.
It's perhaps worth noting that the UK is far more relaxed about the whole Church/State business than the US, and that the established Church here is definitely not purely a force for conservatism (in contrast to many US churches). Mind you, the UK (like the rest of Europe) is a lot more secular than the US; there's very few ISPs who would choose to alienate the majority of their customers by imposing censorship at the behest of any religious group.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
Religion has started zero wars. It has occasionally been an excuse for a war, but never the cause. In its absence, other excuses can and have been employed.
It is utterly moronic idea to allow any kind of filtering at a service-provider level. If you don't want to see something you are free to configure your internal router to do as you like, but keep your $RELIGIOUS_GROUP bullshit to yourself and away from my ISP. /First they came for the goatses...
You were a dick.
(It's "I am Spartacus", not "Hey, they are all Spartacus")
That is all.
correlates with psychosis?
Stop the presses.
Oh and this:
"Frequency of NDE was affected by how we defined NDE,..."
To quote the philosopher B. Simpson:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
I scanned the article. I do not think it says what you think it says.
Hi everybody, My name’s Alan Tavernor and I am Sales and Marketing Manager for Claranet Soho which is the division of Claranet that has just released the Childsafe product that is being discussed. I just wanted to clarify that the product we have created is about the free choice of parents to choose what their children can access online rather than to subscribe to any particular view ourselves. It has been designed to allow parents to easily protect their children whatever their knowledge level of the internet themselves. They can do this by either allowing or banning any one of 140 categories that exist for over 6 billion webpages on the internet. The option is there for parents to either choose their own selection or to choose the recommendations that are made by something called a Claranet Guardian. Claranet Guardians could be any one of a number of different people ranging from everyday parents, to education authorities, to relevant high profile people and to religious people. It’s worth noting that the religious angle is to cover the section of people in society who are religious and would find this beneficial rather than as a blanket for all. It’s really about increasing the level of choice for parents. The Childsafe service is an option available to any of our consumer Broadband subscribers but is not mandatory and is something that a customer can select to have when signing up for a service. I hope that clarifies everything but if anyone has any questions then please feel free to email me directly to alan.tavernor@uk.clara.net. Kind Regards, Alan
Case in point, Rev. Ian Paisley
"ISP Claranet is inviting religious groups, schools and child safety experts to set parental controls for its customers."
"How it works
The Claranet Guardians will be asked to choose whether they think 140 different categories of internet content are appropriate. Within those categories, the Guardians can choose to add or remove individual websites from the blacklists, which are created by a third-party company that Claranet also refused to name. For example, a Guardian may decide that Bebo is acceptable within the Social Networking category, but choose to block Facebook.
Claranet customers can choose to set up and customise their own filters, or accept a pre-selected list from one of the Guardians and edit that themselves if they choose.
Schools may, for example, create lists suitable for different age groups. However, because the filtering is applied at the network level, parents can only apply one set of filters across the board, potentially creating problems for households with children of different ages."
Don't see any problem personally.
It's opt-in, and the groups are only classifying pre-existing blacklists into subcategories.
captcha: superset
All science websites should be rated XXX, and the name Darwin and evolution bleeped out. What next thing they'll mandate holy water sprinklers installed on each display that will go off every 15 minutes to keep the lords lambs safe. Evolve, people!
to prevent them from censoring us!
So who, exactly, are the customers ClaraNet will be "protecting"?
I was a ClaraNet customer for years, from way back in the days of dial-up. Over time I watched them slip from one of THE best UK ISPs for home users to a company that clearly only wanted corporate business and wasn't interested in its, even then, dwindling home market. I finally gave up when (a) the originally 24-by-7 helpline had slipped to weekday office hours only, (b) they were looking to start charging for stuff that, until then, had always been free (and spinning the change as a huge improvement), and (c) I couldn't even find the home-user account information on their web site any more, to find out how badly they were proposing to rip me off. It was clear that the management bean-counters had taken over, and didn't want the likes of me or my business, so I did my research and moved on. In all honesty, I've barely heard anything of them since. I can't help feeling that this sort of attention-grabbing hype is precisely that - a publicity stunt to raise their visibility. I hope it backfires - I seriously wouldn't want the sort of people they're suggesting having anything to do with the choice of my, or my kids', web sites. Frankly, "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."