UK's Web Filters Blocking Nearly One-Fifth Of The World's Most Popular Websites

from the no-edgy-web-commentary-for-you,-kids dept

Remember UK Prime Minister David Cameron's China Lite® web blockade, the one that was set up to keep British children from stumbling across Internet Pornography™ and other assorted subjectively objectionable material? While being ostensibly "for the children," the default settings (applied by ISPs at the request of the Foster State) are blocking a whole lot of non-porn.

Nearly one in five of the most visited sites on the internet are being blocked by the adult content filters installed on Britain's broadband and mobile networks.

A Porsche car dealership, two feminist websites, a blog on the Syrian War and the Guido Fawkes political site are among the domains that have fallen foul of the recently installed filters.

The Open Rights Group, which campaigns for digital rights, surveyed the 100,000 most popular sites as ranked by digital marketing research firm Alexa, and found that 19,000 of them were blocked by at least one fixed line or mobile internet service provider.

By the end of 2014, every internet user in the UK will have the opportunity to browse the truncated web, with porn and other assorted nastiness blocked by default. Users will have the opportunity to opt out (oddly by "opting in" to an uncensored web) or, if they really want the ultimate in sanitzation, flip further switches to filter out even more content.

But what's being blocked by default on most services goes far beyond pornography. Following close behind porn is the blocking of "copyright infringement sites," something usually the result of a secret court order. At this point, every single mobile provider offers some sort of web filtering, in many cases switched on by default.

So, while the UK works hard to keep porn and piracy blocked, the blocking of actual technical threats (malware, phishing, etc.) to users' devices still remains completely optional and, in most cases, unimplemented. Compliance with the government's wishes has basically disappeared a full fifth of the most popular sites on the internet, of which pornography only contributes 4% of the total.

Torrentfreak, a site that doesn't have anything (directly) to do with file sharing or porn, reported being blocked (a situation that was straightened out once the BBC got involved). Numerous other false positives are sure to be uncovered in the coming weeks by the Open Rights Group web blocking test, which runs submitted URLs through a variety of ISPs and returns blocked/unblocked results.

As was pointed out repeatedly when Cameron began pressing the issue, what's being asked of ISPs is both censorious and impossible. False positives were a foregone conclusion, as was the fact that objectionable content would still sneak past filters. While ISPs are generally willing to investigate incorrect blocking, there's only so many employees they can throw at the problem. ORG's investigation turned up 19,000 sites being incorrectly blocked, and if each is subject to its own investigation at every ISP that's blocked them, it will be a long time before the situation is corrected. In the meantime, more sites will find themselves snagged on filters meant to stop other content.

One of the other problematic aspects is that the filtering system is actively being made worse in order to service a few choice industries. Adding corporate pressure to an already terrible idea is a recipe for full-blown disaster.

On a more personal note, Techdirt still seems to be available everywhere in the UK, the word "dirt" and all that might conceivably imply notwithstanding.


It appears TalkTalk (the service provider with the most restrictive filters) blocked it at some point in the last few days but is entirely cool with it for the time being. (The time listed seems to coincide with the release of this post [which has the word "sex" in its title] or possibly this slightly earlier one [which deals with Tor].)

Filed Under: censorship, david cameron, porn, uk, web filters

More Nation-Level Web Censorship, As Sri Lanka Blocks News Sites It Doesn't Like

from the is-this-really-the-precedent-the-US-wants-to-set? dept

It appears that more and more countries are viewing web censorship as a viable political tool. As the US government considers going down that road by requiring DNS blocking on certain sites over copyright infringement, Sri Lanka has decided to jump into the game as well, blocking five news sites that officials found insulting. Even though the law doesn't appear to allow such blocking, the government has declared that these sites committed "character assassination," and that makes such censorship okay. Amusingly, among the countries protesting this action is the US, who has said it's concerned about press freedom in Sri Lanka. I'm sure the Sri Lankan diplomats, in turn, will simply point to PROTECT IP/SOPA and say "um, guys... you're trying to do the same thing..." Once again, the US obsession over copyright is undermining State Department's efforts on internet freedom.

Filed Under: censorship, journalism, sri lanka, web filters

Amtrak Lets You Surf The Web While Traveling, But Don't Try To Read Anything About Gay People

from the wtf? dept

The Maryland Juice blog has been following a story in which Montgomery County, Maryland's local government has instituted an overly aggressive web filter for government employees, that seems to block all sorts of sites that mention things about gays or lesbians. And they're not just doing sitewide blocking, but picking out news articles on the subject -- suggesting that it's not just a case of an overactive blacklist of sites, but a system that specifically blocks pages with words related to gays and lesbians. For example, a CNN article about a transgendered basketball player was completely blocked. After getting some more info on this, the blogger at Maryland Juice noticed that there was WiFi on the Amtrak train he was on, and tried to check out another news site that someone told him had been blocked by the County... and discovered that Amtrak appeared to be blocking news about gays and lesbians, too: This, of course, is one of the serious problems with any sort of plan for government mandated filters. They tend to significantly over-filter perfectly legitimate content that is protected free speech.

Filed Under: censorship, glbt, web filters
Companies: amtrak

The NYT Discovers That, Lo and Behold, Web Filters Don't Work

from the finally-figuring-these-things-out dept

Web filters are seen by lots of people as some sort of silver bullet for so many of the ills they see on the internet, whether it's stopping piracy or blocking child porn or just "cleaning up the internet" in general. But there's just one small problem with filters: they don't work. Despite claims from politicians and other groups, they simply aren't effective, and often end up blocking desirable content while letting undesirable stuff flow through. Given the long history of filter failures, it's a little surprising to see people who seem shocked that filters don't work. The latest example comes from The New York Times, which has discovered that YouTube's Safety Mode filters don't really work at all. The company's weak defense of its poor filters seems more like a shrug of the shoulders than anything, creating an impression that the filters are there for appearances and little else. The NYT does deserve some credit, though, for recommending that parents take an active role with their kids in helping them determine for themselves what's inappropriate viewing material on YouTube. That's really the bottom line: you can't expect filters to replace parenting.

Filed Under: web filters
Companies: nytimes