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Well, this was predictable
TheTruth1983
Posts: 13,462 Forum Member
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http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/24/internet-filters-block-sex-abuse-charities
Charities offering advice to victims of sexual abuse have found their websites being blocked by the Internet filters championed by government and implemented by ISPs.
Anyone with a modicum of technical knowledge could see that perfectly legitimate sites would get caught in these filters. It has happened time and again when child ‘porn’ sites, torrent sites and ‘extremist’ sites were blocked. It won’t stop government (be it red or blue) from pushing ahead with it’s pro censorship agenda because, in politics, it is always better to be seen to be tackling a problem than to actually do anything constructive about it.
Charities offering advice to victims of sexual abuse have found their websites being blocked by the Internet filters championed by government and implemented by ISPs.
Anyone with a modicum of technical knowledge could see that perfectly legitimate sites would get caught in these filters. It has happened time and again when child ‘porn’ sites, torrent sites and ‘extremist’ sites were blocked. It won’t stop government (be it red or blue) from pushing ahead with it’s pro censorship agenda because, in politics, it is always better to be seen to be tackling a problem than to actually do anything constructive about it.
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What's the constructive alternative? Genuine question not being sarcastic.
Better information and personal responsibility?
Educate parents of the dangers on the Internet and the tools to implement whatever filters they want themselves. The default status of the Internet should be free (as in freedom) and open, after that it should be up to individuals how they deal with what they don't want their children to see.
Off the top of my head, maybe all browsers should come 'pre-locked' and filters are only disabled by logging into an account which has been verified by a debit/credit card. I expect that it wouldn't take long for 'non-safe' browsers to appear on the market or workarounds made available but I take the view that once you're old enough to understand how to by-pass filters you're old enough to handle the internet.
Not using a nuclear bomb to crack a nut.
I would suggest education being the first thing (of course the whole point of this is that the porn blocks are stopping the education getting to you in the first place).
ie this
I have to say that this sounds like another shockingly bad idea. One that, thankfully, I cannot see Microsoft, Google or Mozilla going for.
Is there no mechanism where they can request that the ISP reviews and un-blocks access?
Statutory fine of £10,000 per false block, and make it illegal to charge customers collectively for the filters, so if you opt out you don't fund them (including public wifi).
Then they would have to live or die based on their competence like any other commercial enterprise, which means a statistically unlikely staggering improvement or the free market will decide they shouldn't exist.
No doubt there is, but how long will that process take? There will probably be formal written requests to be made, a review carried out and approval to have the site white listed sought.
If a business or charity depends on their website, 24 hours will be far too long.
It is impractical given the number of websites that it might actually cover.
Well, anyone with the correct access to the account.
Which might not be the case with all victims of sexual abuse
See my answer to Martin - you won't know that something is blocked and contains something useful so really we have no idea how many but you can measure it in thousands. It is just not practical to white list such a number of sites.
This is why the only answer is for parents should do what parents do and act like parents - controlling what their kids are looking at if required and do it at the level of the home (or the local router).
Nor is ignorance that much of an excuse - go and find out - there are even tools which allow you to control what time children spend online.
Then we have chat apps and a porn filter is going to do next to nothing about the child being groomed online.
Do nothing. Adults are mature enough to decide for themselves the content they see on the internet and parents should be monitoring what their children access and when they access it. That's what parents are meant to do.
Nanny doesn't always know best.
That said, in a way I am actually in favour of these measures because all they will do is drive more and more people into investigating how to circumvent filtering and censorship of the internet.
The web is ours, and with a better educated userbase, ours it will stay :cool:
It's not insurmountable. Just have a link when the block kicks in to report an incorrectly blocked site. Enough people report it, they can easily white list it. This happens all the time with corporate web filtering.
If domestic users are that pissed off - there is nothing stopping them turning off the filtering completely.
I really don't see this as such a big issue.
Not the owners - the users report simply by clicking a link.
Investigate what? The filtering is optional and can be turned off. You don't have trawl the dark web or hacker sites to find out how. Just login to your account on the ISPs website.
http://help.sky.com/articles/sky-broadband-shield-explained
http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/46768/~/bt-parental-controls---'how-to...'-guide
So a website should remain blocked until enough users report that it should not be blocked? Hardly satisfactory if you are relying on your website for business/charity.
Daddy, I need your permission to get our ISP to unblock some websites so I can tell them that you sexually abuse me...
I was just thinking about the same issue - its not very satisfactory is it?
And if you're not the account holder?
No mandatory filters, if people want them then they opt in.
I disagree. It should be the decision of the bill payer as they will be liable for what is done with their internet connection.