Rather than trying to block all the unsuitable sites in the world can they not instead only let in appropriate sites into a child safe version of the internet. In effect a limited version of the internet for children that websites can apply to be included in, with websites included dependent on age settings.
But at least the starting point is that the sites are blocked.
But what sites would you block? Define 'Porn'
It's one of those things which tends to be 'I can't really define it, but I know it when I see it'
OK then fair enough, unfortunately not all porn sites have obvious names, so you certainly can't do it by simply blocking sites with 'dubious' domain names.
No the ISPs would need to compile lists of sites which they consider porn sites - sounds simple except at the last count there were something like 500 new web sites (or at least new domain registrations) added to the internet PER MINUTE. Just how many people would they need to employ to manually check each and every site on the internet?
OK then this is too much for humans, we'll have to turn it over to machines automatically scanning sites - which brings us back to the original question, define 'porn' in a perfectly rational way which a machine can understand and which doesn't also block sex education sites, medical sites etc. Believe me, it just doesn't work.
And of course your definition of porn may be different to someone else's - how long until some over-sensitive parent sues their ISP because little Timmy saw a picture of a scantily clad actress walking up a red carpet at a film premier in a perfectly legitimate newspaper's website. 'Why wasn't this filth blocked?, they'll demand - we want compensation'
The ISPs don't want to do it - it's a massive legal and costly nightmare for them, and if they are forced to, who do you think will pick up the eventual bill? That'll be you, me and everyone else.
And there's a second problem here? How would the age verification work?
So I want to browse to a porn site - somehow the ISP correctly identifies this and requests credit card info, which I provide. How long is it valid for? How can they tell if I walk away from the computer and my daughter starts to use it? Does it require me to enter the same card details every ten minutes say or if I browse to a different website? Who has these details, just the ISP or are they passed on to each website in turn - no I can't see any possible problems with that at all!
That's going to get very annoying, very quickly - in fact I might just say 'to hell with this' and proxy my connection via a VPN through to somewhere else in the world and blow a massive hole right through the filters, because, of course, the internet is global and most of it wouldn't care less about any laws that the UK might have in place.
It's not that I don't agree with the basic principal, yes ideally children shouldn't be exposed to some of the images etc. on the internet, but the suggestions and proposals being put forward, while sounding reasonable, are actually hopelessly simplistic in trying to deal with what is a massively complex issue.
The internet was designed from day one on the basis of everything being linked to everything else and being accessible. To believe that somehow you can easily filter out a poorly-defined subset of it is just wishful thinking.
Rather than trying to block all the unsuitable sites in the world can they not instead only let in appropriate sites into a child safe version of the internet. In effect a limited version of the internet for children that websites can apply to be included in, with websites included dependent on age settings.
Rather than trying to block all the unsuitable sites in the world can they not instead only let in appropriate sites into a child safe version of the internet. In effect a limited version of the internet for children that websites can apply to be included in, with websites included dependent on age settings.
Same issue as I mentioned above - who compiles the list of 'child safe' sites. There are a lot of very good sex education sites out there, personally I would like my daughter to have access to them. But I'm sure there are many parents who would regard them as obscene and demand they be blocked.
Or imagine something like a new website to give advice and information for children suffering abuse is launched. Naturally no child can see it because it isn't on the safe list - no doubt the ISPs will get around to reviewing it but with a couple of hundred new sites being launched per minute there's a bit of a backlog - never mind they'll get around checking and approving it in a couple of years time.
Again the principle sounds OK it just isn't practical to do simply because of the way the internet works.
Same issue as I mentioned above - who compiles the list of 'child safe' sites. There are a lot of very good sex education sites out there, personally I would like my daughter to have access to them. But I'm sure there are many parents who would regard them as obscene and demand they be blocked.
Or imagine something like a new website to give advice and information for children suffering abuse is launched. Naturally no child can see it because it isn't on the safe list - no doubt the ISPs will get around to reviewing it but with a couple of hundred new sites being launched per minute there's a bit of a backlog - never mind they'll get around checking and approving it in a couple of years time.
Again the principle sounds OK it just isn't practical to do simply because of the way the internet works.
People don't realize that the internet was (originally) an idea for the military to be able to have a resilient form of communication. So it's literally designed with the goal of withstanding any attempts at blocking or disruption.
So would it be feasible for ISPs to provide a smaller internet for children that contains only websites deemed appropriate for various age settings, rather than trying to filter the entire internet and block all inappropriate websites. Two versions of internet access one for adults to the whole internet and one to a smaller children's internet containing only websites admitted and nothing else.
Same issue as I mentioned above - who compiles the list of 'child safe' sites.
Since the government wants the internet to be more child safe a government created regulator possibly funded by the ISPs and if it was successful websites paying a one off application fee to be checked and admitted into the children's version of the internet. It could be just by age certification like films, tv shows and video games or websites could be categorized giving parental control over what they deem suitable.
So would it be feasible for ISPs to provide a smaller internet for children that contains only websites deemed appropriate for various age settings, rather than trying to filter the entire internet and block all inappropriate websites. Two versions of internet access one for adults to the whole internet and one to a smaller children's internet containing only websites admitted and nothing else.
Not really. In theory we already have something like this in force, you need to be an adult to buy a broadband package. The problem though is that there is no way to subsequently verify who is trying to access a site. Is it the adult in the house who paid for the broadband, someone who we can agree is entitled to visit a porn site if he wants, or did his 14 year old son/brother type in that address?
Rather than trying to block all the unsuitable sites in the world can they not instead only let in appropriate sites into a child safe version of the internet. In effect a limited version of the internet for children that websites can apply to be included in, with websites included dependent on age settings.
That's essentially what will happen with the darknet as the clearnet is more heavily censored.
Under 18? Any child that actively wanted to bypass filters could easily learn how to. Filters plus parental supervision is what is needed to reduce the risk of accidental exposure to unsuitable material or idle curiosity. The only thing that could stop a determined child deliberately trying to access unsuitable material would probably be not having any internet.
The same would happen with any nanny state 'we don't like it' censorship...
It doesn't reduce the risks at all. It just adds more things to go wrong, more expense to us personally to do exactly the same as parents couls if they got off of their backsides and actually parented their own children!
Only if they managed to circumvent the blocking. The fact that some may manage to do that is not a rationale for allowing default access.
At the end of the day, it is fairly painless for someone to prove they are over 18. If it's a balance between that and making it harder for minors to access porn, why would someone not support the latter?
So are you happy to apply this to all age restricted items?
You have to be 18 to buy alcohol, should the cans/bottles have locks on that can only opened by verifying your age with the brewery?
Guess what it isnt going to make it harder in any way, they would just set up workarounds to circumvent the government censorship.
Anyway, getting round internet blocks is a piece of cake, I have a browser plugin that does it automatically.
Making nudity even more of a taboo than it already is in this country is only going to make things worse not better!
If lazy sh!te parents can be bothered to implement the existing content blockers tjat are available not only on your internet connection, but also on the devices themselves, what makes you think they will keep it enables on their broadband?
Anyway, it isn't the natural human form that has a nwgative affect on children, it is the actions that make them think nudity is a taboo that does! We are born naked for fecks sake!
I mean seeing breasts, a penis or a vagina is not going to do them any harm, but their parent freaking out making them think nudity is something to be ashamed is. Other cultures don't treat nudity as a taboo, and it is the norm so those people are not affected by it in the slightest.
That's essentially what will happen with the darknet as the clearnet is more heavily censored.
But filtering can be bypassed via proxies or VPNs so why would they need to resort to the dark net. The dark net seems to be for services where the providers and users wish to avoid being traced by the authorities in western democracies I expect that is mostly going to be criminals up to no good. What percentage of UK dark net users are using it for legal activities?
But filtering can be bypassed via proxies or VPNs so why would they need to resort to the dark net. The dark net seems to be for services where the providers and users wish to avoid being traced by the authorities in western democracies I expect that is mostly going to be criminals up to no good. What percentage of UK dark net users are using it for legal activities?
And internet censorship will stop the use of proxies and vpns how exactly?
Anyway, it isn't the natural human form that has a nwgative affect on children, it is the actions that make them think nudity is a taboo that does! We are born naked for fecks sake!
I mean seeing breasts, a penis or a vagina is not going to do them any harm, but their parent freaking out making them think nudity is something to be ashamed is. Other cultures don't treat nudity as a taboo, and it is the norm so those people are not affected by it in the slightest.
There is a very big difference between seeing nudity and viewing sex.
There is a very big difference between seeing nudity and viewing sex.
So what do you propose happens then? Individual sites putting their own kind of age verification is one thing but when the government starts sticking its nose in and censoring stuff, people tend to visit the blocked site anyway because of the Streisand Effect and as a way of sticking their fingers up to the idea of censorship.
I still don't understand why the UK government complains that North Korea and China are blocking their citizens from having access to the open internet, claiming it's an abuse of their human rights yet now they plan to introduce a similar measure here in the UK (for porn...) at a cost to the taxpayer
there is a far simpler alternative - make it the responsibility of the parent/guardian for what their children see on the Internet, as they are the ones paying the bills so they should be responsible for its use
I still don't understand why the UK government complains that North Korea and China are blocking their citizens from having access to the open internet, claiming it's an abuse of their human rights yet now they plan to introduce a similar measure here in the UK (for porn...) at a cost to the taxpayer
There is no difference between the two. People in denial will say "ah but China censors political stuff, this is just a porn filter" while failing to realize that's exactly what the Chinese and Iranians said their censorship was for. "Just keeping children safe from paedophiles and the general public safe from terrorism". People bought it and now they are paying the price, having to leap through many hoops just to visit a site that isn't state approved.
But filtering can be bypassed via proxies or VPNs so why would they need to resort to the dark net. The dark net seems to be for services where the providers and users wish to avoid being traced by the authorities in western democracies I expect that is mostly going to be criminals up to no good. What percentage of UK dark net users are using it for legal activities?
When ISP porn filtering fails to work, as it will, the Government, having made the case that such state protection is necessary, will pursue more overt censorship. So people will switch to using TOR.
The Tories are making the mistake of legislating on morality. Children are best protected by their parents. Parents who can't be bothered to do this also won't be bothered about leaving 18+ internet connections open so their kids can use them unsupervised.
When ISP porn filtering fails to work, as it will, the Government, having made the case that such state protection is necessary, will pursue more overt censorship. So people will switch to using TOR.
The Tories are making the mistake of legislating on morality. Children are best protected by their parents. Parents who can't be bothered to do this also won't be bothered about leaving 18+ internet connections open so their kids can use them unsupervised.
I think that Iran has criminalized the use of any VPN that isn't in bed with the state intelligence agency. Britain could potentially go down that road which is a scary thought. I don't think it would be enforced but I think they would deliberately use it as a sort of threat to scare people, and as a "charge of last resort" for any time when they can't make anything else stick.
the internet was,invented to allow,different types of incompatible computers to "talk " to each other. Not for military reasons, although darpa funded. Many people will remember Kermit as the only way different computers could talk ...
Comments
But what sites would you block? Define 'Porn'
It's one of those things which tends to be 'I can't really define it, but I know it when I see it'
OK then fair enough, unfortunately not all porn sites have obvious names, so you certainly can't do it by simply blocking sites with 'dubious' domain names.
No the ISPs would need to compile lists of sites which they consider porn sites - sounds simple except at the last count there were something like 500 new web sites (or at least new domain registrations) added to the internet PER MINUTE. Just how many people would they need to employ to manually check each and every site on the internet?
OK then this is too much for humans, we'll have to turn it over to machines automatically scanning sites - which brings us back to the original question, define 'porn' in a perfectly rational way which a machine can understand and which doesn't also block sex education sites, medical sites etc. Believe me, it just doesn't work.
And of course your definition of porn may be different to someone else's - how long until some over-sensitive parent sues their ISP because little Timmy saw a picture of a scantily clad actress walking up a red carpet at a film premier in a perfectly legitimate newspaper's website. 'Why wasn't this filth blocked?, they'll demand - we want compensation'
The ISPs don't want to do it - it's a massive legal and costly nightmare for them, and if they are forced to, who do you think will pick up the eventual bill? That'll be you, me and everyone else.
And there's a second problem here? How would the age verification work?
So I want to browse to a porn site - somehow the ISP correctly identifies this and requests credit card info, which I provide. How long is it valid for? How can they tell if I walk away from the computer and my daughter starts to use it? Does it require me to enter the same card details every ten minutes say or if I browse to a different website? Who has these details, just the ISP or are they passed on to each website in turn - no I can't see any possible problems with that at all!
That's going to get very annoying, very quickly - in fact I might just say 'to hell with this' and proxy my connection via a VPN through to somewhere else in the world and blow a massive hole right through the filters, because, of course, the internet is global and most of it wouldn't care less about any laws that the UK might have in place.
It's not that I don't agree with the basic principal, yes ideally children shouldn't be exposed to some of the images etc. on the internet, but the suggestions and proposals being put forward, while sounding reasonable, are actually hopelessly simplistic in trying to deal with what is a massively complex issue.
The internet was designed from day one on the basis of everything being linked to everything else and being accessible. To believe that somehow you can easily filter out a poorly-defined subset of it is just wishful thinking.
North Korea already does something like that....
Same issue as I mentioned above - who compiles the list of 'child safe' sites. There are a lot of very good sex education sites out there, personally I would like my daughter to have access to them. But I'm sure there are many parents who would regard them as obscene and demand they be blocked.
Or imagine something like a new website to give advice and information for children suffering abuse is launched. Naturally no child can see it because it isn't on the safe list - no doubt the ISPs will get around to reviewing it but with a couple of hundred new sites being launched per minute there's a bit of a backlog - never mind they'll get around checking and approving it in a couple of years time.
Again the principle sounds OK it just isn't practical to do simply because of the way the internet works.
People don't realize that the internet was (originally) an idea for the military to be able to have a resilient form of communication. So it's literally designed with the goal of withstanding any attempts at blocking or disruption.
Not really. In theory we already have something like this in force, you need to be an adult to buy a broadband package. The problem though is that there is no way to subsequently verify who is trying to access a site. Is it the adult in the house who paid for the broadband, someone who we can agree is entitled to visit a porn site if he wants, or did his 14 year old son/brother type in that address?
That's essentially what will happen with the darknet as the clearnet is more heavily censored.
It doesn't reduce the risks at all. It just adds more things to go wrong, more expense to us personally to do exactly the same as parents couls if they got off of their backsides and actually parented their own children!
You have to be 18 to buy alcohol, should the cans/bottles have locks on that can only opened by verifying your age with the brewery?
Guess what it isnt going to make it harder in any way, they would just set up workarounds to circumvent the government censorship.
Anyway, getting round internet blocks is a piece of cake, I have a browser plugin that does it automatically.
Making nudity even more of a taboo than it already is in this country is only going to make things worse not better!
I mean seeing breasts, a penis or a vagina is not going to do them any harm, but their parent freaking out making them think nudity is something to be ashamed is. Other cultures don't treat nudity as a taboo, and it is the norm so those people are not affected by it in the slightest.
There is a very big difference between seeing nudity and viewing sex.
So what do you propose happens then? Individual sites putting their own kind of age verification is one thing but when the government starts sticking its nose in and censoring stuff, people tend to visit the blocked site anyway because of the Streisand Effect and as a way of sticking their fingers up to the idea of censorship.
there is a far simpler alternative - make it the responsibility of the parent/guardian for what their children see on the Internet, as they are the ones paying the bills so they should be responsible for its use
There is no difference between the two. People in denial will say "ah but China censors political stuff, this is just a porn filter" while failing to realize that's exactly what the Chinese and Iranians said their censorship was for. "Just keeping children safe from paedophiles and the general public safe from terrorism". People bought it and now they are paying the price, having to leap through many hoops just to visit a site that isn't state approved.
The Tories are making the mistake of legislating on morality. Children are best protected by their parents. Parents who can't be bothered to do this also won't be bothered about leaving 18+ internet connections open so their kids can use them unsupervised.
I think that Iran has criminalized the use of any VPN that isn't in bed with the state intelligence agency. Britain could potentially go down that road which is a scary thought. I don't think it would be enforced but I think they would deliberately use it as a sort of threat to scare people, and as a "charge of last resort" for any time when they can't make anything else stick.