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UK Internet Porn Blocking Rejected

Posted by timothy on from the y'kin-never-take-our-freedom dept.

Gordonjcp writes "The BBC are reporting that the proposed automatic blocking of porn websites by UK ISPs has been rejected by the government. Only 35% of the parents who responded to a survey on filtering wanted an automatic block. The report (PDF), drawn from over 3500 responses, found that 80% of all those who responded were in favour of no filtering of any kind."

4 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How is there overlap? by CheShACat · · Score: 3, Informative

    35% of [i]parents[/i] wanted an automatic block.

    80% of [i]all those who responded[/i] wanted no filtering of any kind.

    --
    CheShA: Manchester Breakcore / Drill and Bass Yes I'm a s
  2. Re:The numbers don't make sense by BasilBrush · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's no overlap. You just didn't comprehend what was written in the summary. 35% was of parents. 80% was of all people responding to the survey.

    Hardly surprising that the subset of parents were slightly more in favour of filtering than the entire group, which included non-parents.

  3. Re:Math fail by Nonesuch · · Score: 1, Informative
    Actually, it does add up, when you consider the breakdown of the total people polled:

    There were more than 3,500 responses to the 10-week consultation - which included those from members of the public, academics, charities and communication firms as well as 757 from parents.

    So parents made up less than 20% of the total respondents, and some parents were in favor of no filtering of any kind. Even in the UK, people understand that government shouldn't be in the business of filtering lawful material, and that automatic opt-out filtering has a chilling effect.

    --

    I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
  4. Re:The Internet is not a babysitter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    IMHO that is not even the biggest issue here. It has already been proved in Finland, that the (child)porn filtering is
    - Used to block local websites that tell people the truth about the porn filtering (e.g. by providing a list of websites that are blocked and don't contain information that according to the law should be blocked)
    - The websites that are blocked, have absolutely no way to get out of the list (the owner of the website has tried for over a 4 years now)
    - Already discussions have started about extending the block (e.g. the pirate bay is already blocked)
    - It was not written into the law, but the creators of the law explained that it should be used only on foreign websites, yet right from the start a local website (mentioned above) was blocked.

    This is absolutely insane.