Cameron's Anti-Porn Program Tells ISPs To Do The Impossible: Only Block Bad Content; Don't Block Good Content
from the stop-not-controlling-things-you-can't-control! dept
The Great Internet Porn Firewall of Britain is now in full effect and, contrary to earlier reports, the no-porn filter will be mandatory even for smaller, "boutique" ISPs. How this will play with Andrews & Arnold, the ISP inviting customers seeking internet filtering to check with North Korea, remains to be seen.
All "questionable content" boxes are to be pre-ticked to provide maximum sanitization, per UK policy, and if someone wishes for a less censored internet experience, they'll have to go through the trouble of informing their ISP that they are indeed a responsible adult capable of handling NSFW material.
In addition, the UK government wants a guarantee that legitimate content won't accidentally get sucked into the filter. How it imagines this will be accomplished remains a mystery. I doubt anyone in Parliament will be staying up late trying to solve this problem as the government has decided to "allow" the ISPs to figure it out on their own.
Finally, DCMS demand ISPs give them magic beans (“We want industry to continue to refine and improve their filters to ensure they do not – even unintentionally – filter out legitimate content”) and threaten them with regulation if they do not answer to future demands, or “maintain momentum”.There's nothing quite like a faith-based technological platform crafted by a crack team of professional busybodies and bureaucrats, especially one that assumes the only fuel needed is good intentions and the "momentum" will sustain itself into perpetuity. OR ELSE.
The not-so-veiled threat on the end really drives the point home. What happens if the ISPs fail to deliver the impossible with their inability to prevent something that is by definition unpreventable? What are the consequences of failing to "maintain momentum" or "proactiveness" or whatever term the government is using to redefine "doing what they're told?" The "strategy guide" spells it out this way.
And while Government looks to the industry to deliver, through the self-regulatory mechanisms already established under UKCCIS, we are clear that if momentum is not maintained, we will consider whether alternative regulatory powers can deliver a culture of universally-available, family-friendly internet access that is easy to use.Jesus. That's frightening. If ISPs don't march in lockstep with Cameron's orders, they'll simply be beaten into shape by restrictive government mandates that ensure "a culture of universally-available, family-friendly internet access." If that doesn't sound like a slightly kinder, gentler version of any totalitarian regime's homegrown "internet," then I didn't just throw up a little in my mouth while typing out that quote.
Why would the government threaten to set up its own internet, one dangerously low on a.) blackjack and b.) hookers? For the children, of course. Every form of media, not just the internet, is subject to these guidelines.
This should be underpinned by a basic, common set of media standards, building on existing standards that already apply in many places. We would expect this to include:Well, Cameron might want to contact the Daily Mail and ask if it's willing to stop sexualizing minors, something it's never been shy about doing even if the front page is making all sorts of noise about rampant child pornography. I'm sure Cameron will also be clamping down on advertisers who push products pretty much anywhere they can aimed at the wide open wallets of teens and tweens (or ultimately, their parents). (P.S. Have the cast of Jackass shot.)
• Protection of minors: including protecting children’s exposure to material that seeks to sexualise them, strong sexual content, violence, imitable and dangerous behaviour, any specific health priorities, safety of children in content and protecting against commercial influence.
The UK government's neverending quest to turn the internet into a Disney-esque wonderland where no one sees anything they don't want to and are never even mildly insulted is pathetic. And disturbing. Cameron's plans infantilize the nation's children and adults, treating them both as precious bundles of stupidity too incompetent to make their own decisions on appropriate content.
If Cameron's ultimate goal is to govern a nation of infants, he's well on his way. But he's going to find the behavior behind the disturbing images will continue on unabated. His solutions will work about as well as slapping band-aids on someone bleeding internally. At some point down the road, he or his successors will triumphantly point at the unstained bandages as proof of their effectiveness. And if something should actually mar the surface, the call will out go out for bigger bandages -- and more of them.
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Filed Under: david cameron, errors, filters, porn, uk
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I bet gchq/NSA have some pretty good content analysis filters....
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They should also implement a selectable forward list of every idiot who had a part in this.
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It will need to be enough of the public that doesn't want to be babysat by their government to rally against this stupidity. However this will not occur either because the Internet filtering is being hidden behind the banner of it's for the children!! What citizen wants to look like a jackass for not wanting to protect the children?
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It's like 1984 all over again but with exponentially more severe collateral damage when they inevitable fail. (By 1984, I'm referring to the year when the Daily Fail crowd got worked up about video nasties and forced films to be ineffectively banned and the law to be changed, not Orwell's vision, although in this case they're close).
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you would be amazed with what you can do with computers these days !!!
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A solar panel engineer who lives in a den of Adobe thieves encouraged by the government.
You have no superior morality to speak of.
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Honestly this is scary as hell.
Maybe its time to see if firefox has an inbuilt plugin to get around this or if i should whip one up.
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Meanwhile all the children will be using the proxies they use at school with all the porn pop ups and porn banners included.
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Re: plug-in
https://www.torproject.org/
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The man is not fit to be prime minister.
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America, you think Obama is bad? Be glad you don't have Camoron.
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Freedom of the press always assumed competition in news gathering and in thought and was never conceived as an oligarchical monstrosity that produced one and only version of thought while vilifying all others.
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A brave solution to the problem...
Every time they click a link they get a page saying:
"This content you are trying to access may or may not be legal or it has been deemed morally questionable by the Government. Please enter your email address and name to confirm you wish to view this page"
Have this pop up for EVERY link the politicians click. Let's see how long it takes then to ban filters... ^_^
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Re: A brave solution to the problem...
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Remember
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Re: Remember
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"Ya Canna Change The Laws Of Physics, Cap'n!"
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Re: "Ya Canna Change The Laws Of Physics, Cap'n!"
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fatboycam...
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Re: fatboycam...
That's certainly debatable...
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Ridiculous really.
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There is exactly one way to achieve this, ofcourse.
Don't filter anything.
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HAL
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Good luck with that:
http://xkcd.com/468/
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Remember...
Where is V when England needs him now?
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However, I honestly believe that take-up will be low, and as people find legitimate content (i.e. non-porn) is blocked, they'll start contacting their ISPs to turn the filter off. In a couple of years it'll be be quietly cancelled as another giant waste of money.
The principle is, of course, an affront to a democratic society.
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Concerning Andrews & Arnold
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Filtering to that granularity is IMPOSSIBLE
Yes, in my example you could for now use plain http, but that is irresponsible if you have an administrator account, since it would expose your password and/or session cookies. And that is not an option for all websites; github, for instance, is only available via https. Ever since Firesheep (read about it at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firesheep), more and more websites are using https, and that will only speed up since the recent revelations about the NSA.
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UK internet censorship
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Cameron isn't just a zealot; he's an idiot
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Not to sound smug or anything, but as soon as the Tories were elected I saw this day coming, because they tried it last time they were in power... along with cutting benefits for the disabled, single parent families, unemployed and seniors. [all of which they've done again].
Cameron has no new ideas, he's just trying to relive the glory days of Maggie.
The oly difference being is people complained more when Maggie did it, and the scunners were forced to back down a bit. Nowadays, we're all too bloody apathetically British to give a crap.
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The first half of that sounds incredibly threatening - the government is going to step in and censor all kinds of things if the ISPs don't do it the way they want "voluntarily", and the second half sounds fucking like insane cult drivel. FAMILY FRIENDLY UNIVERSALLY INTERNET EASY FOR THE CHILDRENFORTHECHILDRENFRIENDLY FOR THE CHILDREN LORD CAMERON PROTECTS
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I just... wow...
Cameron and is ilk are the idiots of the week (if not the year) in terms Internet competence.
I mean, the idea that someone in the Duma over in Russia wants to ban profanity from the net ("vulgarity has no place in a civilized conversation." No shit Sherlock!) was bad enough, but this is just...
For fucks sake, Cameron's absurd belief that the filters can filter the content with 100% accuracy is making the late Ted "Series of tubes" Stevens look Internet literate.
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Turn that frown upside down...
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Sorry about this one UK People.Sounds totally disgusting and not Freedom at all.
You guys really need to do something over this somehow.
Could all ISP's do a Protest Shutdown of all Internet Services including what Connections the Gov Has ? This would make News all over the World.It would be a great Protest.
Could there be some kind of Hack/Proxy/Browser plugin to Circumvent this BS ?
Could you organize Street Protests/Petitions ?
And can you get enough people to Vote out the guys who want this Censorship to happen ?
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ALL questionable content boxes will be pre-clicked
So almost everyone is going to have to go through the process of filter removal.
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There's a parallel solution used in the US...
Whenever an ISP signs in a new client, they just have them tick the box to authorize receiving uncensored internet access. Company policy precludes us from provide any internet access unless you tick this box.
That way, everybody opts in. Problem solved.
A similar mechanism can be used to force current clients to accept this minor alteration in the ISP's ToS.
Tada!
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Debbie does the Telly Tubbies
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