Research Confirms The Anecdotal Evidence: Internet Content Filters Are A Waste Of Money

from the bad-ideas-badly-implemented dept

Internet filtering -- whether it's for copyright reasons or "for the children" [INSERT FAVORED OFFENSIVE CONTENT HERE] -- doesn't work. It certainly never works as well as advertised. And when those ads are being paid for with your tax dollars to push filters that make the internet worse for the sake of making the internet "safer," you'd probably like to ask for a refund.

The UK is implementing porn filters and adding in fun stuff that's less definable like "extremist content. " Governments all over Europe want the biggest service providers to filter out whatever happened to be offending them this legislative session. Most recently, it was copyright infringement. Fortunately, the EU's proposed filtering legislation died before it could ruin the internet, but its unwieldy corpse is bound to be reanimated by seething publishers and performance rights groups.

But, hey, maybe a metric ton of anecdotal evidence isn't enough to convince you filtering doesn't work. Maybe you need more than failure after spectacular failure to erase your faith in harder nerding/legislative busywork. Maybe you're cool with overblocking and will simply close your eyes (and your browser) when the filter doesn't do any filtering at all.

If you're skeptical, there's always science. A recently-released research paper confirms what everyone (except politicians, moral majority types, legacy content industries...) already knows: internet filters aren't worth the bits they're expending.

In a paper entitled Internet Filtering and Adolescent Exposure to Online Sexual Material, Oxford Internet Institute researchers Victoria Nash and Andrew Przybylski found that Internet filters rarely work to keep adolescents away from online porn.

“It’s important to consider the efficacy of Internet filtering,” said Dr, Nash. “Internet filtering tools are expensive to develop and maintain, and can easily ‘underblock’ due to the constant development of new ways of sharing content. Additionally, there are concerns about human rights violations – filtering can lead to ‘overblocking’, where young people are not able to access legitimate health and relationship information.”

The lede isn't buried. The first paragraph of the article demonstrates that confirmation bias is a hell of a drug.

Results suggested that caregiver's use of Internet filtering had inconsistent and practically insignificant links with young people reports of encountering online sexual material.

If you want to believe it's working, you can. But you'd better not ask the people it's supposedly protecting. Because it isn't. As the report notes, filtering systems -- especially those erected through government mandate -- are the worst of both worlds. They both underblock and overblock, creating two problems and zero solutions.

Despite their wide adoption in the developed world, filters are expensive and imperfect technologies in three key ways: First, in financial terms, they are costly to develop and maintain, and even if offered free at the point of use, their costs are ultimate borne by the consumer or taxpayer. Second, in practical terms, they present the problem of underblocking, a phenomenon in which new problematic sites, content, and apps may slip through. Finally, in informational terms, filters also present the problem of overblocking, wherein the content is unnecessarily blocked, restricting access to necessary health, cultural, and social information. In practice, this means that filters offer only imperfect protection, and impose informational costs on children and adolescents seeking legitimate information, contrary to the information rights recognized in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Overblocking weighs most heavily on those who lack accessible sources of information offline; research suggests that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning adolescents, for example, are particularly reliant on the Internet for information about health and relationships.

Filters are a waste of time and money. The only value they add -- if it can even be called that -- is a slightly smug feeling of wellbeing for those who implement them. Politicians and caretakers like filters because it lets them believe they're doing something. But research shows they may as well have done nothing at all.

We found that this protective effect was modest, accounting for less than 0.5 percent of the variability we observed in our outcome variables. In other words, more than 99.5 percent of whether a young person encountered online sexual material had to do with factors beside their caregiver's use of Internet filtering technology.

It's one thing when a parent or direct caretaker spends their own money to buy something that doesn't work. It's quite another when a government mandates it, requiring every tax payer to pitch in for useless services. But there's nothing in this report that will dissuade filtering advocates from advocating for more filters. Evidence and research is no match for fervent beliefs.

Filed Under: censorship, copyright, eu, eu copyright directive, failures, filters, porn, upload filters

Congresswoman Says School Shootings Are Caused By Porn, Mental Illness, Single Parents... But Mostly Porn

from the pron dept

In the wake of any mass or school shooting that occurs in America, which pretty much means most of the time that exists, everyone immediately runs to their preferred corners to blame their preferred target for the latest tragedy. I've pointed this out as often as I can, but the truth is that both gun violence and the incidence of mass shootings in America is a terribly complicated subject that deserves all the nuance and sober-thinking it could possibly be afforded. But, since this is America we're talking about, we tend to do the exact opposite and instead pick a single target and heap as much blame as we can on it. It's guns that's the problems. Or it's violent movies. Or video games. Those are the typical targets, and they have been for some time. Meanwhile, the shootings continue, nothing is done, and on it goes.

House Rep. Diane Black of Tennessee knows why this is. We've had the wrong target all along. The real cause of school shootings is porn.

During a meeting last week with local pastors, Black raised the issue of gun violence in schools and why it keeps happening.

“Pornography,” she said.

“It’s available on the shelf when you walk in the grocery store. Yeah, you have to reach up to get it, but there’s pornography there,” she continued. “All of this is available without parental guidance. I think that is a big part of the root cause.”

Where, oh where, is this magical world where porn is acquired at the local grocery store without any parental supervision? I'm asking because teenager-me would have really liked this world and, if a time machine is ever invented, I would like to travel back in time and tell him/me how to get there. The link above also asks a relevant question: what the hell kind of porn is Rep. Black watching? Because I've, ahem, heard third-party accounts of what pornography generally consists of and looks like, and violence generally is left at the fringes, while violence to do with mass shootings is something I've never even heard of. Especially in the kind of porn you can reasonably get in the local grocery store.

Sadly, Rep. Black failed to clarify what the hell she was talking about, so we're left to imagine where she is getting her school-shooting smut from. On top of evil, evil pornography, she also suggested that mental illness and broken families were the problem.

Beyond naughty movies, Black said school shootings are on the rise because of the “deterioration of the family,” mental illness and violent movies.

These feel like they're on more solid ground than blaming porn, but only in relative comparison to the former. It's still the same old problem of picking out a few scapegoats and pretending they explain America's mass shooting problem, rather than having an honest and nuanced view of all the contributing factors. Were we Americans to actually employ this logical mindset, we could then proceed with a real discussion of what we want to do about all the factors that play into school shootings.

But, naaaah. Blaming porn is way easier.

Filed Under: blame, diane black, porn, school shootings, single parents

UK Gov't To Allow Citizens To Head To Nearest Newsstand To Buy Porn... Licenses

from the so-much-progress dept

The UK government's continuing efforts to save the country's children from the evils of internet porn are increasingly ridiculous. Filtering efforts applied by ISPs have managed to seal off access to plenty of non-porn sites while still remaining insanely easy to circumvent. The government -- with a straight face -- suggested there was nothing not normal about internet customers turning over personal information to ISPs in exchange for the permission to view porn. It's as if building a database of the nation's porn aficionados was the government's original intent.

Since nothing about this was working about the way the porn filter's architects (one of whom was arrested on child porn charges) imagined, the UK government decided the same non-functioning tech could be put to work filtering out "terrorist content." Bad ideas have repeatedly been supplanted by worse ones, and now it appears UK citizens may be able to opt out of ISP porn-related data harvesting by [squints at press report] buying a porn license from their local newsjobber.

High street newsagents are to sell so-called “porn passes” that will allow adults to visit over-18 websites anonymously.

The 16-digit cards will allow browsers to avoid giving personal details online when asked to prove their age.

Instead, they would show shopkeepers a passport or driving licence when buying the pass.

Trench coats are coming back! Somewhat of an ironic turn of events, given how much government effort was expended trying to limit the amount of public porn consumption by shutting down theaters and heavily regulating distribution of pornography. Instead of heading to porn shops in shady areas of town, porn consumers will be headed to newspaper kiosks to publicly announce their desire to consume porn in the privacy of their own homes.

I would imagine this will be regulated as well, with the government needing occasional access to porn license buyer lists to verify that newsagents are properly vetting porn license purchasers. Fortunately, the privacy-minded porn fan will now be providing personal info to someone other than their ISP. Unfortunately, they will be providing this to people in their neighborhood, possibly in front of their neighbors.

There is, however, a chance the purchase of a porn license may be treated as no different than a purchase of a pornographic publication: age verification only and no retention of records needed. Given the UK government's incessant push for a sanitized web, it seems unlikely this will be the case. Once you've gotten into the business of controlling access to legal content, the tendency is to continue expansion, rather than treat this as simply as a voluntary exchange between buyer and seller with only very limited government interest.

Filed Under: filters, for the children, internet, porn, porn license, uk

Could The DOJ Be Violating SESTA/FOSTA?

from the quite-possible dept

Last week, Gizmodo's Dell Cameron has a great report on how the DOJ's Amber Alert site was configured so stupidly that it could be used to redirect people to any website (this was also true of weather.gov and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). And it was being used. To redirect people to hardcore porn. Basically, the sites were designed such that just by knowing the right URL and adding a new URL to the end, it would redirect to those sites. Porn sites used this for a couple of reasons: first, since they'd now be getting referrals from high ranking sites, it can help their Google ranking. Second, because the primary URL would come from a trusted source again, it would help their Google ranking. And, finally, the links may look much more legit to people doing searches (though that would be more true of scam sites than porn sites).

Redirect scripts like this used to be fairly common, but they died off long ago. Except in the federal government. From Cameron's article:

“This is like the 1990s called and wants its vulnerable redirect script back,” said Adriel Desautels, founder of the penetration testing firm Netragard.

But, here's the thing: does this mean that the DOJ (and the NOAA) could be violating SESTA/FOSTA? It's possible! And that just goes to show how poorly drafted the law is. Remember, under the law, it is now illegal to "participate in a venture" that "knowingly" is "assisting, supporting, or facilitating" a violation of sex trafficking laws. So, if someone were to create a DOJ Amber Alert redirect to a sex trafficking website (or just an escort site, since people keep insisting those serve little purpose other than sex trafficking) would the DOJ be in violation?

The obvious response is that the DOJ isn't "knowingly" doing this. But... is that true? As Cameron's article notes, every time you hit one of those Amber Alert redirects, the DOJ gives you a nice little parting message:

Is that enough to "knowingly" participate? Maybe. I would bet that if non-governmental websites popped up similar messages, SESTA/FOSTA supporters would argue it's proof of knowledge. After all, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers claimied that merely "turning a blind eye" was enough to prove "knowledge." And here, clearly, the DOJ must be logging those exit pages. Is it ignoring them? Is that turning a blind eye? Does that count as knowledge?

Maybe it's a stretch, but the fact that the language of the bill even makes this a possibility just demonstrates how poorly drafted the bill is, and shame on all the politicians who refused to step up and fix it.

Filed Under: doj, fosta, intermediary liability, porn, prostitution, redirects, sesta, trafficking, unintended consequences

Just As Everyone's Starting To Worry About 'Deepfake' Porn Videos, SESTA Will Make The Problem Worse

from the what-is-congress-thinking? dept

Over the last few months, if you haven't been hiding under a tech news rock, you've probably heard at least something about growing concerns about so-called "Deepfakes" which are digitally altered videos, usually of famous people edited into porn videos. Last month, Reddit officially had to ban its deepfakes subreddit. And, you can't throw a stone without finding some mainstream media freaking out about the threat of deepfakes. And, yes, politicians are getting into the game, warning that this is going to be used to create fake scandals or influence elections.

But, at the same time, many of the same politicians suddenly concerned about deepfakes are still pushing forward with SESTA. However, as Charles Duan notes, if SESTA becomes law, it will make it much more difficult for platforms to block or filter deepfakes:

Under it, websites that have “knowledge” that some posted material relates to illegal sex-trafficking can be deemed legally responsible for that material. What it means for a website to have “knowledge” remains an open question, especially if the site uses automatic or artificial intelligence systems to review user posts. Therefore, this language opens the door to a potentially wide range of lawsuits and prosecution.

The worst case scenario is that, to avoid having “knowledge” of sex trafficking, Internet services will stop content-moderation entirely. This scenario, which some experts call the “moderator’s dilemma,” would most likely affect smaller websites—including message boards and forums that serve special interests—that can’t afford the advanced filtering systems or armies of content editors that the big sites use. These smaller sites have already faced difficult problems with content moderation, and would be even less likely to spend resources on cleaning up after their users if doing so might lead to a lawsuit.

Duan points out that it goes beyond just the moderator's dilemma aspect of this. Even if sites do decide to moderate, at this point Congress is making it clear that whatever moral panic of the day that excites it may lead to new laws demanding action. But if they're desperately chasing the last problem, they have even less time to deal with the new one.

One of the good things about CDA 230, is that it actually allows platforms to experiment and try out different ways of moderating content. If they fail (as they often do!), they hear about it from their users, or the press, or from politicians. In short, they're allowed to experiment, but have incentives to try to find the right balance. But if Congress is enacting carve-outs that make any failure to properly filter a crime, then it becomes almost impossible, and the incentive is just to avoid doing anything at all. That's not at all healthy.

Filed Under: cda 230, deep fakes, deepfakes, moderator's dilemma, porn, sesta

Vice Media Goes After Vice Industry Token, A Porn Crypto-Currency Company, For Trademark

from the pron-coin dept

The last time we checked in with Vice Media it was firing off a cease and desist letter to a tiny little punk band called ViceVersa, demanding that it change its name because Vice Media has a trademark for the word "vice" for several markets. In case you thought that occurrence was a one-off for Vice Media, or the result of an overzealous new hire to the company's legal team, Vice Media is again trademark bullying another comany, Vice Industry Token. VIT is apparently a pornography cryptocurrency company, which is a three-word combination that I bet god herself could never have imagined being uttered. The claim in the C&D notice that VIT got is, of course, that Vice Media has a "vice" trademark and that this use infringes upon it.

Vice Media sent a cease-and-desist letter to the digital upstart in November, alleging its "Vice Industry Token" trademark infringes on its rights to "Vice," according to a complaint filed Friday in California federal court.

As noted, VIT is going to court to declare its use of the word "vice" non-infringing. The complaint as filed does not offer up the reasoning VIT has for its use to not be infringing, but it's fairly easy to guess. Vice Media is a major media company playing in a variety of markets, from magazines to music and journalism. It is not, however, the following:

VIT offers its proprietary cryptocurrency and also operates an adult entertainment platform, which, according to the complaint, are together designed to "change the nature and monetization of pornography."

There is simply nothing between the two entities that represents a competitive situation. Given that, I have to expect that the court will side with VIT, which was quite smart in seeking this declaratory judgement. What that will not answer, though, is why Vice Media ever thought any of this was necessary to begin with.

Filed Under: cryptocurrency, porn, trademark
Companies: vice, vice industry token, vice media

Utah Senator Wants To Revive The State's 'Porn Czar' Office To Combat The Threat Of Women's Magazines

from the mortified dept

Todd Weiler, a state Senator in Utah, has appeared on our pages before. When last we checked in with the good senator, he was quite oddly attempting to purge his notoriously prudish state from the dire threat of pornography. His plan was more than a bit heavy-handed in that it centered on mandating porn-filtering software on all smartphones under his stated theory that "A cell phone is basically a vending machine for pornography." This tragic misunderstanding by a sitting state senator of what a phone is and exactly what its primary functions are aside, government mandates that infringe on free and legal expression are kind of a no-no in these here secular United States. Even setting constitutional questions aside, attempts like these are immediately confronted by the obstreperous demands from the public for a definition of exactly what constitutes "pornography."

Well, for Senator Weiler, it appears we may have something of an answer. See, Weiler has more recently decided to try to revive Utah's long-defunct Obscenity and Pornography Complaints Ombudsman position, or "porn czar", that Utah once filled but has left vacant for the better part of two decades.

For the past 14 years, Utah has made do without a "porn czar." The position—officially known as the "Obscenity and Pornography Complaints Ombudsman"—has been vacant since 2003, though it was never officially eliminated. Now state Sen. Todd Weiler (R–Woods Cross) may revive it, even as the Utah attorney general suggests legislators strike it from the books. Weiler suggests that an obscenity ombudsman could focus on things like providing guidance to retailers. But the position also has the power to monitor and punish business owners for daring to display magazines that mention sex.

If all of that seems so broad a mandate that non-pornographic magazines might accidentally be caught up in the fray, you're wrong. Those innocent magazines aren't collateral damage at all, in fact, but rather the primary targets apparently of Weiler's ire.

Weiler's definition of porn is apparently broad enough to encompass mainstream women's magazines. Weiler "says he became convinced that the obscenity and pornography complaints office may be needed because of an ad campaign attacking Cosmopolitan magazine as illegal porn," The Salt Lake Tribune reports.

"I've received some complaints...that stores are selling Cosmo at eye level to a child," he told the Tribune. "There's no blinder rack on it, even though we have some blinder rack language in the state code."

Cosmo is and has been the butt of many a joke, but pornography it most certainly is not. And, jokes aside, the magazine is a source and platform for women to discuss and learn about both women's general and sexual health. Painting a porn target on a magazine such as that says everything about why these sorts of efforts must be defeated. No matter how uncomfortable it might make a Utah state senator for women to be real live human beings with body functions about which they need to learn, and no matter how distasteful that senator might find women discussing their health and sex lives in print, it should be plainly obvious that Cosmo is not remotely pornographic by any traditional understanding.

Filed Under: porn, porn czar, todd weiler, utah, women's magazines

Campaigners For SESTA See It As A First Step To Stomping Out Porn

from the good-luck-with-that dept

There are obviously a lot of mixed motivations behind the push for SESTA -- the Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act -- with many of those motivations based on good intentions of actually stopping sex trafficking. Of course, we've explained in great detail how SESTA isn't likely to help at all, and is quite likely to make the problem worse. It also seems clear that many of those lining up in support of the bill see it as a wedge -- a way to slowly dismantle intermediary liability protections for platforms on the internet. And thus, some just see it as a way to attack Google and Facebook out of a general dislike for those companies -- without realizing (or without caring) just how much damage it will do to free speech online and the platforms that enable such speech. We've also been perplexed by SESTA supporters using completely bogus stats to insist the problem of sex trafficking is much larger than it truly is. As we noted, sex trafficking is both very real and an absolute tragedy for those caught up in it and their families. But we should be realistic about the actual scope of the problem -- and many SESTA supporters aren't actually able to do that.

But perhaps the motivation behind some SESTA supporters is... even more absurd. An email popped up in my inbox recently with a bunch of really strong language supporting SESTA, coming from a group calling itself the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCSE). They run the website "End Sexual Exploitation" and are strong supporters of SESTA. But what caught my eye is that the end of the email noted the true mission of NCSE isn't to end sex trafficking... but to rid the world of the "public health crisis of pornography."

You see, NCSE began its life in 1962 as Morality in Media, and was a reaction to a ridiculous moral panic over "pornographic material" being left outside of a school. NCSE appears to believe that all porn is pure evil and must be eradicated. The group has insisted that porn is a "public health crisis" and has worked to get states to declare it as such. It also posts a Dirty Dozen list of organizations that it needs to shame for "perpetuating sexual exploitation."

Want to know how totally fucked up the list is? They include the American Library Association and Amnesty International on this year's list. Really. They completely misrepresent the ALA's opposition to mandatory internet filters to claim that libraries have been turned into "a XXX space that fosters child sexual abuse." It put Amnesty on the list because Amnesty dares to call sex workers "sex workers" rather than prostitutes. They also list the Justice Department as an honorable mention for failing to enforce obscenity laws, which NCOSE wants to use to basically criminalize pornography. In other words, NCSE supports pretty blatant censorship.

Now people can certainly differ on their beliefs about prostitution and pornography, but having groups like this at the forefront of destructive, counterproductive bills like SESTA -- which will do nothing to stop actual sex trafficking, and plenty to harm free speech online -- raises some serious questions about what really are the goals of SESTA. NCSE certainly seems to think it's part of the plan to wipe out all pornography. Considering that other SESTA supporters insist (incorrectly) that SESTA won't have any impact on speech online, they might want to consider why one of their major coalition partners seems to be eagerly looking for ways to censor the internet.

Filed Under: porn, sesta
Companies: morality in media, ncse

Ugandan Government Obtains Mysterious, South Korean-Built Anti-Porn Machine

from the world-looks-on-in-partially-horrified-bemusement dept

At long last, Uganda's anti-porn "machine" has arrived. As The Next Web notes, the country's government placed an order for a porn-blocking machine last year, following on the heels of yet another anti-porn law. A company in South Korea has helpfully cobbled this together and presumably the Ugandan government will be deploying it shortly.

How does it work? No one knows for sure, possibly not even those in the government who spent $88,000 for it. TechZim has a theory.

The machine will detect pornographic pictures, videos or graphics taken or saved on phones, computers or cameras. Quite the super machine it seems. The minister did not however give details of exactly how the machine works, which makes sense as the machine will probably work better if people do not know exactly how and what it looks for.

How does the pornography detection machine work though? This machine is not the first attempt at detecting porn on devices. There are several products already available, the Paraben Porn Detection Stick being an example. The Stick uses advanced image analysing algorithms to identify facial features, flesh tones and body parts that are potentially pornographic among other things.

The Stick actually works to a certain extent. It errs on the side of over-zealousness as it flags normal photos as pornographic more frequently than the opposite. The Stick however only scans for images and not videos which are harder to scan. Uganda’s machine does both, which it should at $88,000 because the Paraben Porn Detection Stick costs around $129.

Why does it even exist? Well, one reason a porn-detecting machine might be put in place is to generate revenue, turning easy busts of easy bust-oglers into easy cash. Users caught looking at porn face steep fines (up to $3,000) and imprisonment. Another revenue stream would be helpful since the country's government is pretty much insolvent, even before shelling out $88,000 for a machine that might not actually do what the government thinks it will.

But it's not just about the revenue. There are other issues at play. On the surface, making porn illegal makes fiscal sense, thanks to the nation's cellphone users being tied to their SIM cards via government mandate. Other devices will remain relatively unsurveilled, but it's assumed the government's anti-porn committee will be pushing the nation's internet service providers to route their traffic through its anti-porn machine.

Rev. Fr. Simon Rokodo heads the government's ethics committee and has offered up an explanation of sorts for the technology's existence and deployment -- one that sounds like a statement from the Westboro Baptist Church.

We are going to attack and attack. I have fresh tactics. One of them is a censor gadget or machine. We are going to procure this machine and it will detect homos and porn actors, especially those misusing applications like Whatsapp with sex acts. The South Koreans are programming it. And very soon we will ship it into the country and all the evil will be busted.

This is a very cheery prognosis for a machine likely to develop a false positive problem, if it isn't defeated by quick and dirty workarounds immediately after deployment. And try as he might, Rokodo's anti-XXX-box isn't going to stand in the way of encrypted messages. Of course, the endgame might include banning encrypted messaging services and letting some form of deep packet inspection loose citizens' communications under the guise of running a superficially-clean country.

But once the government has become the censorious man-in-the-middle, all sorts of nasty things can happen. Criticism of the government might suddenly vanish along with the critics. Other entertainment sources not directly approved by the Rev might become inaccessible. Dissidents, journalists, and others with prior reason to fear their government might have their communications exposed. This may be the real endgame, with porn being the wedge. iAfrikan notes the machine reportedly traces VPN and Tor connections, which would allow it to block access to those seeking to keep their internet activity out of the government's hands.

Local reactions have ranged from outrage to ridicule with a few puritanical supporters speaking up for the government's plan to intercede on their behalf by making moral judgments calls for the entirety of the nation. Whatever it is Uganda is actually putting in place isn't just about porn. It's about government control of communications and access to information. It may be wearing a borrowed halo at the moment, but it's only a matter of time before mission creep sets in.

Filed Under: internet, porn, south korea, uganda, wtf