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UK Users Overwhelmingly Spurn Broadband Filters
nk497 (1345219) writes "Broadband customers are overwhelmingly choosing not to use parental-control systems foisted on ISPs by the government — with takeup in the single-digits for three of the four major broadband providers. Last year, the government pushed ISPs to roll out network-level filters, forcing new customers to make an "active" decision about whether they want to use them or not. Only 5% of new BT customers signed up, 8% opted in for Sky and 4% for Virgin Media. TalkTalk rolled out a parental-control system two years before the government required it and has a much better takeup, with 36% of customers signing up for it. The report, from regulator Ofcom, didn't bother to judge if the filters actually work, however."
If those filters blocked only porn and gore... instead, they block innocuous things like urbandictionary.com
Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
Maybe the government has censored the report of their censorship failure?
Dear internet user, would you like the Tory Party to think for you?
[ ] Yes.
[X] No.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
That is, the concept of 'objectionable content'' is itself objectionable. There is NO SUCH THING! That is why certain countries have things called freedom of the press.
What happens is quite simple - certain people (Group A) dislike something. They don't want to see it or hear it. They falsely and incorrectly believe that even seeing said things is damaging - despite zero scientific evidence to it (instead they make up badly designed studies that talk about tendencies and thoughts as if they are actions). Other people (Group B) do want to see it. This makes group A angry. So they try to make a law against letting anyone see it. But the people making the law argue about what exactly is objectionable. They quickly find out that Group A(a) wants to stop people from seeing things that most of Group A thinks is fine. Or they quickly realize that their 'objectionable' content has valid reasons to be seen - such as medicinal and political discourse.
They get angry and try to work out a logical way of differentiating between what is really objectionable and what isn't. The problem is their original hypothesis is totally illogical. There was no real problem with what they thought was objectionable so as soon as they try to apply logic they find it doesn't work.
You can't use logic to decide something when logic says your base assumption is wrong.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Because they don't know, and don't care if they work.
This is just another "oh god, we have to protect teh children" things, and there wasn't evidence to make the choice, so they're sure as heck not collecting evidence as to how well it works. This is purely a "we have to do something" kind of response.
Most of us know these things simply do not work, and end up blocking stuff they shouldn't, and missing stuff.
That most people have no interest in being baby sat by a state sponsored filter comes as no surprise.
But, hey, when you're still considered subjects to an archaic monarchy, that's what you get.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The article linked in the summary requires you to answer survey questions or post it to your google+ / facebook before you can read it.
Don't put up with that crap. It's even worse than forcing you to watch advertisements before reading something. Filter out pcpro.co.uk with your hosts file or whatever other method instead.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
I haven't dealt with any of these British ISPs because I am not British, but it seems like these filters are done at the ISP level, and the connection owners have to call in to turn the filter off. Filters are already enough of a pain for both parents and other places that wish to use them. An example of this:
I went to a Catholic high school. During my Freshman year, the school's sysadmins implemented a very restrictive web filter that was on at all times and that only they could turn off. The sysadmins didn't come in every day - I think they were only there three days a week and even then not there full-time. Right away, conflicts started to form between the teachers and the sysadmins. One of the things the filter blocked was Google Image Search, which a lot of teachers wanted to use for school projects and in the classroom. The school's administration insisted that Image Search stay blocked entirely on the vague chance that someone could use it to find porn (never mind the fact that the filter they were using automatically blocked those results on its own) unless a sysadmin was present to oversee its use.
The end result, between the GIS filter and several other ones, was that it was virtually impossible to use the school's computers for schoolwork. I only stayed in that school for another year, but they never managed to resolve the issue.
I can only imagine what would've happened if the teachers had to make a phone call to the school's ISP every time they wanted the filter off, and then a second call every time they wanted it turned back on.
The vast, vast majority of households that are interested in such filters are those that include minor-aged children. So, to measure uptake you'd want to look at what percentage of those households are opting in.
The US has "Christian ISPs", with server side porno filtering. They're very small. And very retro. One has terms that say they reserve the right to disconnect your dial-up connection after 10 minutes of inactivity.
That's as maybe but we have Healthcare that is FREE at the point of delivery.
Some readers in the US might regard this as a Commie plot to overthrow the world but personally, the treatment I get from the NHS is wonderful.
I got Cancer 5 years ago. From initial diagnosis to first Chemo was less than a week. No constant calling my healthcare provider to check to see if the test or treament was covered by my healthcare plan.
Because I'm gaddamned tired of those motherfucking cocksucking bastards posting that foul language shit all over the fucking internet.
Filter options are given at sign up now or when renewing a contract so it makes it easy to say no. mobile internet comes filtered and you have to either ask for it to be turned off (again asked at sign up if you didn't have mobile data as part of your plan or some of them will determine this from your payment details and disable the filters automatically. mine (3uk) had no filters on the handset from the start but some become apparent when tethering.
With regard schools, it depends on the setup, but ours was filtered by a school specific isp through a proxy, the techs like myself had a different proxy and port for mostly unrestricted and we had just a different port for the teachers to have access to youtube.
...has already captured the market on people who have any desire at all to use a filtering service. Good on them for giving the customer what they want.
Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
Try placing an order for broadband with this ISP:
https://order.aa.net.uk/h1orde...
and choose the "I want a censored connection" option.
And that is just wrong
Unless things have changed since I was interested in this, they never supported a White List.
If you are managing your little kid's access, you want to pick and choose sites/review the before giving them the OK.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I live in England, and I set up a new British Telecom Broadband internet account for a work colleague recently, 30 dollars a month 8Mb/s unlimited use. Options for the filter were off, low, medium and high. He said "I have kids, put on the maximum filter option please." Two hours later, I receive a phone call "internet explorer(!) won't let me access Facebook." Yup, the filter on the highest setting blocks Twitter and Facebook. He removed the filter then, without even trying the other choices.
It's sorta like the signs in the parking lot. "Surveillance Cameras In Use," and then a lawyer files a request for footage in a case, and danged if the cameras don't work.
In the matter we have here, what if a kid navigates to a porn site and momma finds out?
Will the ISP be held accountable?
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
That will be the % of voters who turn out to vote for our current political crop. A plague on ALL their houses (especially the ones bought on expenses).
My wife wanted pictures of the virgin Mary. Oh boy.
I had to help her. I started with adding negative search terms like -porn and -sex. Nope. I finally got it after I added stuff like -visa and -mastercard.
FREE health care. Do you really think you are getting awesome service from homeless people? What? Your docs aren't homeless? They must get really tired from all the moonlighting to pay for their mortgages/rent, etc. or they have very understanding spouses.
4% of Virgin's customers is a pretty hefty number of people. We must be talking 10's or hundreds of thousands.
So those who want filters have filters. Those who don't want filters don't have filters.
I seriously don't see a problem here. Far too many slashdotters are so scared of any form of filtering that they object even to entirely voluntary filters, that are demonstrably nowhere near as hard to switch off as they originally claimed.
...we're British.
Your comment would be much more insightful if you're read all of the way to the end of the first sentence of the post that you replied to.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
That's as maybe but we have Healthcare that is FREE at the point of delivery.
That's not quite true for dental work, but the price is capped, so you'll typically pay £18.50 to see a dentist, £50.50 if you need something done, or £219 if you need something serious. It's only free if you qualify for extra assistance, which is automatic if you are under 18, under 19 (25 in Wales) and in full-time education, on income support or similar.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
This content blocking in the UK has been reported for a while by Torrentfreak. http://torrentfreak.com/porn-to-be-blocked-in-the-uk-whats-new-say-pirate-bay-users-130722/
Later they revealed that the ISPs won't just filter out porn: they'll filter out filesharing sites as well many others the government deems unfit for children. http://torrentfreak.com/uk-porn-filter-will-censor-other-content-too-isps-reveal-130726/
As predicted, Torrentfreak wound up on the automatic block list. They are nothing more than a news site and do not link to any kind of infringing material. They report mainly on copyright legislation, lawsuits and whatnot against filesharers, infringing website blocks, etc.
In February 2014 http://torrentfreak.com/wrongly-blocked-websites-to-be-added-to-isp-whitelist-uk-govt-says-140201/ "The controversial website filtering systems operated by the UK's major Internet service providers have wrongfully blocked many sites, this one included, since their introduction in recent months. In response to the problem the government now says it will introduce a website white-list system so innocent domains aren't automatically blocked in future."
Always the same damned excuse: It's for the children!
Always the same damned results: Innocent bystanders get caught in the crossfire.
Bought a while ago a T-Mobile (.co.uk) SIM and got stuck with "you are not allowed to view user-generated content".
WTF!? Whole internet is "user-generated". I mean they were blocking youtube and flickr.
They unlocked it on the spot in the shop once I managed to get there during working hours (of course weekend was a bust as they closed early Saturday and opened Monday 10:00). Of course, you couldn't do it over the phone, they really wanted to check your age.