Comments on: Dear Deidre: what the hell do you know about web censorship?

By: Nigel N

Nigel N — Thu, 03 May 2012 11:23:37 +0000

Whilst it is very easy to say that filtering will be optional, only apply to new contracts, and only there to protect the children, we will still be left with a simple question every time we change our ISP contract:

“Are you a dirty old man, sir, or will you be happy if the content filter is left in place?”

By: colin robinson

colin robinson — Thu, 03 May 2012 08:26:59 +0000

Re deirdre- Government policy influenced by news international??? Surely not!

By: Ron Graves

Ron Graves — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 11:33:23 +0000

@Tim
April 19th, 2012 at 12:24 pm

Trouble is, Tim, what you’re talking about here is NOT the population as a whole, which for the most part manages parenting pretty well. What you’re really referring to is the lowest common denominator – utterly clueless or deliberately neglectful parents – and the LCD is never a good basis for legislation.

If this comes to pass, I’ll be among the first to sign up. Not because of any specific interest in online porn, but because I will not submit to censorship.

Mind you, I suspect it will be a very short time before those of us who do sign up, even for the best of reasons, find ourselves on some sort of perverts watch list!

By: Ben Benson

Ben Benson — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 07:16:16 +0000

The Talk Talk filter is easily bypassed by a 14 year old kid that wants to. The filter is all presentation without substance, easy to convince those ignorant enough to believe it. Using a list is downright criminal, and would have to be so long as impractical. What about the other social media sites that are easily accessed and closed user groups many of which are children setup. Some of these areas are even worse but totally hidden. Site encourage children to put up embarrassing pictures many of which are pornographic in nature, many of drunk youngsters.
Commercial pornography should all have a fixed ending to the domain name but instead of .com .co.uk make it .PORN then a filter would work well, but trying to get this level of co-op across the globe would be nigh on impossible. But thinking of what pornography is leads us to graphic / video base viewing. Flesh colour being predominant there are already filters for blocking colours if you have a picture which is mainly flesh then it gets blocked. Not infallible but it is a start.

By: Pintcrusher

Pintcrusher — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 05:57:16 +0000

The Three fone seller has blocked access to “adult” sites for some time but will let you see them for a small fee if you pay by credit card. That should keep the spotty, young teens from being corrupted. NOW Three have, without notice, blocked access to any site related to “torrents”. I wonder what else they are preventing their “smartfone” users from accessing. Anyone had any problems with Three?

By: Paul C

Paul C — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 18:42:35 +0000

Strange that the government wants to censor the internet because it thinks parents are too stupid and lazy to take care of their children but incongruously allows such people to vote in general elections. Or perhaps they intend to withdraw that right too?

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 21:36:48 +0000

I suspect surprisingly few. It would make sense that the parents who keep an eye on their children are the ones most likely to install filtering to avoid accidental search results etc.

Incidentally the government proposal is only to ask new users whether they want filtering turned on.

By: Yeah

Yeah — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:45:17 +0000

@Tim
“If you want some figures. In 2011, only 53% of parents used any sort of parental control. The 47% of parents that did nothing is the reason the government is considering action.”

These figures aren’t necessarily reflective of the whole story. Of the 47% who answered that they do not use any parental controls, how many used non-technical parental controls, i.e. supervision, PC-usage limited by time/location etc as opposed to software-based controls?

By: wittgenfrog

wittgenfrog — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:59:45 +0000

POSTED in 2Parts to confound the ‘Spam Filter’
On a slight tangent, but it is related, events in Norway have shown that the Internet and PC are dangerous tools in the wrong hands.
But ultimately what is (largely) harmless to one person can bet horribly destructive to another.

Violent computer games are on the same nasty continuum as porn videos of perverse, violent sex. The former are part of a repectable multi-billion dollar business from which governments make money, and so are relattively’immune’ to interference. The latter are largely more ‘underground’ and therefore ‘fair game’ for the self-appointed moralists.

It will always really be parents who are responsible for what their offspring see and do online, and for mediataing \ mitigating the impact of that on them. The State has a role in trying to criminalise \ prevent exploitation, but not in blocking ‘leagal’ materials that ‘might’cause harm.

By: wittgenfrog

wittgenfrog — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:58:31 +0000

There are problems with both how you define ‘ponography’ and with the technology of ‘blocking’ it.

As a simple ‘frinstance my old dutch is a teacher in East London, where there are lots of Muslims. To many of these Muslim parents , even using line-drawings to illustrate various points in the Science curriculum is ‘pornography’.
Other religious groups (LIFE for instance) have similar, but differnt views, whilst many others are much more ‘liberal’. One man (or woman)’s ‘porn’ is another wo\man’s ‘educational diagram’.

But let’s put that to one side and assume we can agree what ‘porn’ is, we’re still stuck, becuase any centrailsed (ISP \ National level) system will generate both false positives (the ‘Scunthorpe’ effect) and leave easily navigated loopholes (as exploited regularly by paedophiles).

In truth if you don’t want your kids to ‘access’ porn, take responsibility.
Kids are curious about Sex and will find ways to find-out about it, but parents can ensure that their investigations are ‘controlled’.
We did and whilst I’m sure both got to see some, it wasn’t by ‘accident’, and it wasn’t sufficient to have too many bad effects.