UK Porn filters block sex education websites

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25430582

by rb2e • 13 years ago

205 175 13 years ago

throwwit• 13 years ago

Fahrenheit 451: Digital Edition

NAFV_P• 13 years ago

... Where each one of us has to memorise a web page in html format.

fakeanon2• 13 years ago

You get to choose if you parental controls on or not Maybe there is something like that in the book, but the point is, company are now choosing to, by default, have sexually explicit content blocked, and it can be opted out of. Do you believe this is bad? The UK government forcing ISPs to block stuff may not be the best way to do it, but it looks like David Cameron is just recommending it and that the ISPs have agreed.) Have I misunderstood the situation?

sb057• 13 years ago

"Hello, Internet Service Provider? I would like to have access to porn sites."

Also, it blocks a number of other stuff, including "extremist" views.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/c...

andygates4• 13 years ago

Not all ISPs. Andrews & Arnold are aggressively anti-censorship, for example, and if you sign up asking for a censored feed they tell you to move to North Korea. :)

They're getting my money as soon as the holidays are over. I'm done with BT since they added anonymizers and proxies to the block list: that's massive overreach, and I'm voting with my wallet.

voyou2• 13 years ago

"company are now choosing to, by default, have sexually explicit content blocked"

But that's not what they're doing. They are choosing to block a wide range of material, some of it pornographic, some of it educational, some of it merely to do with gay and lesbian identities which some people find immoral (or to do with the occult, or computer security); and also to not actually block a lot of sexually explicit material that slips through the filter. And they are "choosing" to do this because Cameron said he would legally require them to do so if they didn't do it voluntarily.

lvturner• 13 years ago

Mission accomplished.

hobs• 13 years ago

Anyone here surprised? No? I didn't think so. Reposting because I know someone else is about to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem

greglindahl2• 13 years ago

It's not too hard to mostly fix the Scunthorpe problem by generating word lists: shitake, oshita, acunto... and don't forget that Dikshitar and Dikshit are (high caste) Indian names.

InclinedPlane• 13 years ago

The problem is that it's far more trivial to bypass the filters than it is to make the filters work well and not have false positives.

Consider: sh1t, cu|\|7, a55, f00ker, and so on and so on.

Plus you have to constantly update to take into account new slang which can have double meaning. Some kid might say "she's just a thirsty ratchet" and there's no way in hell that a simplistic automated system is going to be able to flag that as being a use of expletives or filthy and derogatory language.

ankitml• 13 years ago

I tried to create email id for one of my interns "harshit" and my email provider outlook.com didnt allow me to do so.

weland2• 13 years ago

Dikshitar and Dikshit are (high caste) Indian names.

I'm sorry, I know it's impolite, but I chuckled and nearly spilled coffee on my keyboard.

kzrdude• 13 years ago

One of the biggest Starcraft progamers is known as Jaedong (realname is Lee Jae Dong) everywhere, but can't use this nick in the game client..

acheron• 13 years ago

The clbuttic mistake.

smnrchrds• 13 years ago

In Iran the Wikipedia page for Dick Cheney is blocked, as well as anyone else with that first name. Way to go Britain!

gaius• 13 years ago

In the early days of the BBC they referred to the Dutch cities of Rotter and Amster.

loceng• 13 years ago

Wait, what? That news about planning to block all Porn in UK actually happened?!

vixen993• 13 years ago

I try not to do it myself and sometimes fail but please read the news item properly before commenting.

Pitarou2• 13 years ago

Oh for heaven's sake.

Isn't it enough just to install a blacklist system that blocks, say, the top 99% of porn sites? No. Apparently not. Some wiseguy with a smooth line in "meeting legal obligations" sold the ISPs an "intelligent" porn blocker, with all-too-predictable consequences.

yourad_io4• 13 years ago

From the article seems like each ISP is rolling their own:

"TalkTalk's filter is endorsed by Mr Cameron but it failed to block 7% of the 68 pornographic websites tested by Newsnight."

"Sky's filter fared much better, blocking 99% of sites, but it did block six porn-addiction sites."

Anyone else still waiting for someone to jump out of the bushes and "April fools!" this whole thing away?

Pitarou2• 13 years ago

I stand corrected.

justincormack• 13 years ago

One of the "porn" sites Newsnight tested as Reddit.

al2o3cr• 13 years ago

I'm pretty sure there are plenty of sane persons in the UK who are holding out hope that the entire Cameron administration is a giant "April fools" joke.

andygates4• 13 years ago

This underestimates the preposterous volume of porn - and the agility of site owners. 1% is still "enough porn" by any definition.

That's what makes this such a failure: not only does it stop legit material like sex-education and rape counselling sites, it also doesn't prevent access to porn. The only box that is successfully ticked is "something must be done".

vidarh17• 13 years ago

Nothing stops access to porn. I grew up in Norway, which until recently did not allow sales of anything but soft core porn. Yet illegally imported German hardcore porn magazines that someone had thrown in the garbage circulated through my primary school class (mostly to the sound of "ewwww", before being thrown away again), and a few years later BBS's ensured that once we were old enough to not find it as disgusting, any of us who cared had trivially easy access (if willing to wait for the grainy GIFs to download with 2400 bps modems).

It does however give those in a moral panic a way of lulling themselves into the belief that something is being done.

yourad_io4• 13 years ago

Hooray! Common sense prevailed. Oh wait - wrong thread.

booruguru• 13 years ago

Freedom is slavery! Ignorance is strength!

Houshalter• 13 years ago

I disagree with the law, but why be upset over this specifically? Of course there are going to be false-positives and false-negatives. A half-hearted approach to manually blacklist sites would be trivial to get around, thus defeating the purpose.

beedogs• 13 years ago

Typical ham-fisted conservative/authoritarian approach to something which isn't even a real problem.

warfangle3• 13 years ago

Please defer to Hanlon's Razor.

makomk2• 13 years ago

The current Conservative government defies the assumption behind Hanlon's razer; their malice and stupidity are one and the same, because so much of the harm they've done is the result of maliciously-held views that cause them to do really stupid things.

alexeisadeski3• 13 years ago

I thought Europe was less conservative than the US.

pantalaimon• 13 years ago

the UK is not the entirety of Europe. Actually there is even http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_withdrawal_from_...

lewispollard• 13 years ago

Well, the party in power who introduced the filter is called the Conservative party, you can see why.

adamors6• 13 years ago

Europe has almost 50 countries. The UK is one of them. I thought this was common knowledge.

x0054• 13 years ago

Is this an opt in or an opt out filter? Does any one, even for a moment, think that this is going to stop any kid from looking at porn? The techsavy kids are going to brake the system by using free or paid VPNs or TOR, and then tell their friends. Hell, if I was a kid in UK right now, I would make money selling preconfigured FireFox instances with VPN credentials to my peers. Hmm... maybe really it David Cameron's roundabout way of getting teenagers interested in hacking and computers?!?

rpedroso2• 13 years ago

The article itself actually discusses this. All new internet customers are greeted with a prompt asking them whether or not they want parental controls [1]. The design of the choice menu seems to encourage choosing the porn filter.

As for existing customers, I'm not sure. The article says that "BBC's Newsnight has discovered all the major ISPs that have launched full default filters", which could mean that these filters have been turned on by default for existing customers, but the wording is fairly unclear.

Edit: It get's even more confusing. According to this[2] BBC article, the filter is automatically set to "on" for new users. This contradicts their claim that new users are offered a choice, though admittedly the choice is skewed in one direction. I think I'll wait for someone from the UK to chime in...

[1] http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/71795000/jpg/_71795679...

[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25400009

diminoten• 13 years ago

Wait, you can opt out of this??

What's the big deal, then? If you want porn, you get porn! Life is as it's always been, and to all you people who say that there are those who can't figure it out, show me a man who wants to see boobs, and I'll show you a man who can solve any problem presented to him if said problem prevents him from seeing boobs.

DanBC5• 13 years ago

New users are opted in by default, but can opt out.

Existing users get the menu option choice.

psionski2• 13 years ago

Or just sell and swap CDs like we did before the (broadband) Internet? This could be more lucrative as you're not giving out the source.

goggles992• 13 years ago

They are blocked because they didn't file for (or were denied) an exemption. Everyone was told for some time now about this. If they were denied, it is because a three year old could access adult material there (no verification of any type). Where are these facts in the article?

It is likely they didn't comply to generate a reaction like many of the comments in this thread.

PhasmaFelis• 13 years ago

I'm not sure why you think any of that is relevant. Educational sites should not require Big Brother's approval, even if they involve biology you'd rather not think about.

goggles992• 13 years ago

What determines an Educational Site as you have stated that they should not require big brother's approval? Anyone can say their site is "Educational".

Calling BishUK an educational site is how this story even broke daylight. The term Educational site is very misleading in this context IMO. I suppose that you can call hardcore porn educational as well though (if you learn something from watching it then you were educated right?).

Traditional "Sex Education" in school is all about discussing the basics of how anatomy works and the responsibilities and consequences that come along with sexual activity.

BishUK appears to go much further. Discussing in detail sexual positions, techniques ETC. Hardly what most people think of when they hear the term "Education" and hardly appropriate for kids.

rpedroso2• 13 years ago

Do you have a source for this? How did it work -- the individual ISPs contacted websites they intended to blacklist and gave them the opportunity to appeal?

I find this hard to believe since Justin Hancock, who runs BishUK, claims to not have been aware that his website was being blocked until Newsnight alerted him.

If you are right, then perhaps he got some kind of form email alerting him of this possibility and assumed it was not relevant to his business?

voyou2• 13 years ago

"they didn't file for (or were denied) an exemption"

That's nonsense. Every ISP is implementing its own system, and none of these systems include a way to check if your own site is blocked. So, even leaving aside the question of why website operators should be having to plead with companies to let users access their sites, who, exactly, are they supposed to apply for an "exemption" to?

adamors6• 13 years ago

Excuse me, but why is a three year old browsing the internet without any adult supervision?

If parents want to "protect" their children from porn they should set up filters themselves, or just opt out of the internet entirely if they are unable to do something that mundane.

It's not like their kids are getting strapped to a chair and forced to watch pornography.

darklajid4• 13 years ago

Did you actually look at that site?

I'm so far unable to find content that I wouldn't consider very much okay for minors (the 'What the hell would a 3 year old do on the net?' question from a sibling still applies). It's a wall of text and weird cartoonish videos/images, paired with the sexual education pseudo FAQs that you get if you buy a teenage magazine over here.

What adult content, on this site specifically?

Glossary:

Adult as in 'of age', legally responsible for himself. 18 for now

Minor as in 'anything below, from 17 downwards'

(And really, show me a 5 or 7 year old kid that would actually look at this site for more than 2 seconds. If you show me that kid, I'd say you can start talking about the content and drop the bee's talk)

notastartup• 13 years ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcVkYD3o910

jds375• 13 years ago

This whole filter is an entirely ridiculous idea. Blocking people from watching sex? It is absolutely asanine that we are so controlling and "scared" of one of the most important aspects of life. Sex shouldn't be something that we hide and don't talk about outside closed doors. It should be openly embraced as a beautiful thing, not some dark pleasure.

vixen993• 13 years ago

Reminder: You can argue about the pros and cons but no one is blocking anyone. It's merely a default device (which many parents have requested) which you can choose to have lifted.

acallaghan2• 13 years ago

Also a reminder: Families with these porn filters deployed will also not have access to LGBT advice websites, sexual health websites (other than probably the NHS's), and porn addiction websites.

If I were a 13/14 year old now, and had these filters, I'd see it as a challenge to find a way to overcome.

girvo8• 13 years ago

I find that way of thinking about it terribly close minded, and ignores anything that doesn't fit the standard "nuclear family" situation.

BlackDeath3• 13 years ago

Until it's opt-in, it is a blocking device. It is censorship. Even then, the whole thing is fucking stupid. Our species is dangerously idiotic.

thaumasiotes• 13 years ago

Question: some species of animals are happy to have sex while being watched by their own kind, or humans. Some are more private.

How much effort should we expend training modest animals to have sex in front of humans? Is it a problem that they don't like to?

mhaymo5• 13 years ago

We're expending considerable effort in the opposite direction. Let's just stop doing that.

retube12• 13 years ago

I am not sure that anything on redtube or pornhub etc could be construed as a "beautiful thing". How would you feel if your 6 or 7 or 10 year-old daughter unsuspectingly clicked on a tube link?

girvo8• 13 years ago

They'll say "eww" and close it. Stop the "appeal to emotion" "think of the children" hypotheticals, that frankly aren't particularly believable.

lazyjones• 13 years ago

Can this censorship infrastructure be tested from the outside, i.e. non-UK-ISPs? We'd like to know whether any of our sites are affected (since we don't patrol them much for naughty content ...).

mogrim• 13 years ago

Not sure about external testing, but it's not a single "censorship infrastructure", all the operators have their own, proprietary filters. (Which is, of course, worse: your website may be visible to BT clients, but not to O2 users...)

andygates4• 13 years ago

And the list is secret. Don't forget that bit: it's "commercial confidential" to the private companies contracted to do the filtering.

I don't like to use the f-word, but private companies acting as sanctioned departments of censorship stinketh strongly of that corporatism bordering on fascism.

sgt• 13 years ago

This may be an obvious question on HN.. but.. how.. HOW can British people stand for this?

vixen993• 13 years ago

Appalling that folk have to make a choice about whether to make it possible to view pornography or not? Parents certainly stand for it though you can argue whether the default should be the other way round. It's amazing how one's views on the subject of access to pornography can change once one is a parent.

retube12• 13 years ago

Yes absolutely. Most on HN are not parents. They will feel differently when their 9 year-old daughter clicks on a redtube link that someone posted somewhere.

snogglethorpe• 13 years ago

It's amazing how one's views on the subject of access to pornography can change once one is a parent.

Sounds like an opt-in filter should satisfy your desires perfectly!

girvo8• 13 years ago

Not all parents have that same view, though. I personally default to the "let the parents make the choice, and the state can butt out of it". I got that from my parents. :)

eterm• 13 years ago

All that rhetoric about "Hard working familes"? That's because a large part of the voting public are indeed familes. They are also able to be manipulated by appealing to a sense they're not doing enough to protect their offspring.

JonnieCache2• 13 years ago

Deference is our default setting. We never had a revolution here.

bigfudge• 13 years ago

We've had our moments:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasants'_Revolt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_I_of_England https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poll_Tax_Riots

I'd argue the British _had_ a default intolerance for authoritarianism, which seems only to have waned relatively recently. We didn't have a revolution because we already had Magna Carta.

andygates4• 13 years ago

They're playing the "motherhood and apple pie" card, and playing it hard. If in doubt, invoke Paedogeddon and push your legislation through.

Agitating in favour of porn isn't a popular public opinion and the UK doesn't have the hardon for free speech that the USA does.

Agitating against stupid broken censorship is a bit of a wonk issue - privacy people, law people, tech people.

summerdown2• 13 years ago

As someone who marched in the largest peacetime protest ever in the UK, then saw the Iraq war happen anyway, I long ago gave up having any influence on the establishment.

retube12• 13 years ago

Becuase I don't want hard core porn like the tubes being freely and instantly accessible to my kids.

1) No I am not "abdicating" my responsibilities as a parent. I will teach them appropriatre netiquette etc. There will always be other consumption vectors and work arounds, but I just don't want it shoved in their face, as is inevitable when it's just a click away.

2) Yes there are work-arounds to filters. But just becuase you can't perfectly block something doesn't mean you shouldn't take preventative measures.

3) I am not against porn. But access needs to be regulated.

4) The internet is a form of media like any other. We have restructions on buyng adult DVDs, magazines and cable channels. Why does internet delivered content qualify for special dispensation?

adamors6• 13 years ago

I just don't want it shoved in their face, as is inevitable when it's just a click away

But you're perfectly content with shoving your views down everyone else's throat, right?

If you want to block porn in your house you're free to do so. If you're not able to do that, either hire someone to do it for you or just don't allow your kids near the internet. Problem solved.

mhaymo5• 13 years ago

So install a filter on your own home connection. What's it got to do with the rest of us? And why allow the government to define what is and isn't objectionable for you?

seabee2• 13 years ago

But access needs to be regulated.

Regulated by whom? Why is it insufficient for people to install their own filters? After all, ISPs have offered (often given away) such filtering software to their customers for many years now.

betawolf33• 13 years ago

1) I've browsed the internet happily for many a year without having pornography 'shoved in my face'. If they find it, they were almost certainly looking for it.

2) If they're looking for it (see above) then an imperfect filter just means they don't find the known, safe sites.

3) Yes, it does. It is your right as a parent to decide what's appropriate for your child. It's not your right as a parent to force other people in households without children to report to a government-friendly list about their sexuality.

4) Well, such restrictions can still exist online. Paid porn sites can prevent the underage getting access. But really, why do we do this? Why is a young teenage girl or boy to be prohibited -- by law rather than parental consent -- from seeing sexual content? You say the internet should fall in line with these restrictions, but maybe those restrictions should be done away with.

dgesang• 13 years ago

1) No I am not "abdicating" my responsibilities as a parent.

Then be responsible and setup some filter at home yourself. Problem solved. Now leave the rest of the world alone.

girvo8• 13 years ago

That's your choice. But it certainly changes... Well, nothing. It's no more forced in their face that they can go to one URL and see it, vs using any dumb rot13 proxy and accessing it that way instead (like I used to 10 years ago). Misplaced priorities, in my opinion

acallaghan2• 13 years ago

I haven't. I've written to my (Tory) MP, asked all my friends to (and two have), repeatedly tried to win over the pro-filter people I know.

I've also educated them on why it'll block sex education websites (like 6 months ago, not just today) and given examples of 8 year old kids I've taught that already have a private VPN, and give out access to their friends.

el_shayan• 13 years ago

An attempt doomed to fail. Iranian government has been trying this type of filtering from the day one, people still manage to go and find whatever they want... and believe me Iran is more aggressive than David Cameron the last time I checked.

DougBTX• 13 years ago

EE blocks news.ycombinator.com as adult content too.

seanhandley• 13 years ago

There's a big problem with them blocking gay, lesbian and transgender content as well. Basically labelling any content along those lines as censorworthy, whether it's pornographic or not.

TazeTSchnitzel• 13 years ago

IIRC email inboxes of some state's legislature blocked emails about same-sex marriage due to the word "lesbian"

vidarh17• 13 years ago

Clearly we need to do as they did with Rick Santorum, and effectively "redefine" all of their names as something highly offensive.

k-mcgrady• 13 years ago

Where are the violence filters? I'm betting these filters don't block beheading videos etc. (Please correct me if I'm wrong).

alan_cx• 13 years ago

BT have bought rights to football, where racism, sexism, homophobia and violence are rife, despite what apologists try to have us believe. But that's fine. And thats just the UK. In Europe, football is too often associated with far right fascism.

The other bit I don't get is how come its fine for my kids to be encouraged to watch the news, which is often horrific, and real.

This has nothing what so ever to do with protecting kids and so on. This current UK government is driving more and more kids further below the poverty line, and that far far more negative consequences than kids seeing naked bodies and sex.

DanBC5• 13 years ago

UK broadcasts normally replace the crowd noises if there are racist / homophobic / etc chants.

scrrr• 13 years ago

Oh the stupidity..

salient• 13 years ago

Wait for them to sell this as some sort of "collateral damage that we just have to accept", like the US gov is selling drone strikes, and NSA is trying to sell their "errors" when collecting data on Americans.

slashdotaccount• 13 years ago

Are these filters implemented as real-time DPI filtering by keywords (then it can be circumvented by using SSL/TLS?) or it's some kind of blacklist?

kefka• 13 years ago

I'm not shocked. The idea that "pornography" is bad is purely a christian idea. If they block legitimate sources of information, well too bad. Its the tragedy of evils of immorality.

If the UK wants the Christians to run their internet policy, so be it. That just made them similar to China and their firewall.

awjr• 13 years ago

I have to say this stuff is a complete joke. If you want to find porn, you can find it on twitter, here's a tame search https://twitter.com/search?q=boobs&src=typd (SFW)

Please feel free to experiment with 'harder' search terms.

The problem is that a medium most politicians use to interact with the public with, is also a medium through which anyone can search and view hard core porn.

Will the UK ban twitter?

Chromozon• 13 years ago

Did anyone else see that the purpose of all this was to stop children from accidentally stumbling across hardcore porn? Because, yes, that happens frequently with kids.