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Comment by booyaa00 | Hacker News Reader

All these filters by ISPs are optional. Is it that hard to say "hell no" when they ask you "do you want us to block stuff?"

The amount of misinformation spread about this mythical "UK porn filter" is astounding, but I guess unsurprising as it fits completely into the orwellian surveillance state conspiracy theory agenda.

Cameron is pandering to worried parents who believe the internet is a bad place, and little Johnny must be protected by a filter. The government believe it will mean they'll win the next election. It's just politics.

It's nothing whatsoever about censorship. Anyone can opt out of the filters, and anyone can get past the filters with a couple of clicks.

edit: anyone downvoting actually live in the UK? Any of you actually have any hard facts? Or are you just regurgitating the crap you read on the internet.

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The fact that we are even discussing this as option should be alarming. This is how to erode personal privacy.

You dont just put up cameras on every street corner pointing at citizens. You attach them to traffic signals. You tell them CCDs have become cheaper than other sensors. You tell them you will never actually even record the images- it'll just be processed by a computer to control the lights. Then later you tell them- we have these cameras here, we might as well stop red light runners. Oops the court wants to see the images we'll just turn on the record feature. You know what would be great? Face recognition and software that tracks an individual as they move through the city.

Putting infrastructure in place for "opt-out" filters will lead to mandatory filtering of esoteric materials such as asking the question- why is this country so wealthy yet cannot afford to give their children quality university education the way neighboring nations can?

Living in the UK does not make you an expert. You should ask someone who lives in China. Specifically, find a college aged kid and ask them what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

>You should ask someone who lives in China. Specifically, find a college aged kid and ask them what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Do they really not know or are they just saying what the gov wants to hear to avoid difficulties? As much as this filter is a bad idea, because it should be opt-in, it is quite beyond the pale to say it will lead to a way to prevent questioning of education funding.

I was under the impression that these policies are opt-out, rather than opt-in, so many are on by default. Since default settings are pretty much never changed (organ donation rates are the canonical example here), that's potentially an issue.

Second, and this is important, the filters aren't controlled at the level of an individual user, but at the level of a subscriber. So as the article says, an abusive partner/parent can prevent their spouse or children from accessing resources that could help them - that's why there is outrage about blocking Childline - a site where you can report child abuse.

Combine on-by-default with "blocking resources for abused minors," and you have what people are complaining about, here.

Totally depends on the ISP.

Any mobile phone bought on O2 for instance in the last 10 or so years, had filtering enabled by default.

You just call them up and ask them to disable it. It's not a big deal.

I don't buy the ridiculous notion that the only means a child has to report child abuse is via the internet...

I didn't make the claim that it was "the only means," though I don't necessarily think such a scenario is ridiculous.

I do wonder why anyone would want to make it more difficult to report child abuse, though.

Have you ever been abused? Children in abusive situations are scared; the internet provides some mild form of anonymous comfort, and is most likely where a child would report abuse. That or to their school, but often they feel that the school is "in on it" and the internet is safer because they are "an outside authority."

Source: I know a few adults who have been abused in the past. Anecdotal.

Some people will be embarrassed to make that phone call. Some people won't be able to do it because they don't have a credit card (if they're on PAYG, for example) and will have to go into a store, which is inconvenient, time consuming, and potentially embarrassing. For others, in the case of a wireline internet connection, the account might not be in their name and they will be unable to do it. I've had situations where the internet connection wasn't under my name but my housemate's name, and, of course, I couldn't have just called up or clicky clickied and disabled the censorship. I'm not someone that embarrasses easily but there are those that might not want to have that conversation with their housemate. What if those housemates decided that they didn't want porn going over the household's internet connection, or were too embarrassed themselves?

The next few generations are going to grow up with the idea that nanny filters and censorship is fine, or that porn is something shameful that you have to ask permission from a CSR to see. Then there's the sophisticated central apparatus in place for the government to trivially block any sites that they deem unsuitable, content they might deem exempt from their opt-out procedures.

Just because O2 and other UK mobile operators have been censoring for a while doesn't make it okay. Now you're arguing that censorship-by-default is fine because it's been going on in some capacity for a while already! See how this works?

Child line is not blocked in the default o2 filter. Its blocked in the opt-in filter, as is most of the net (it's a whitelist). This is clear if you use the o2 URL checker yourself.

While not agreeing with the filters, it seems that there's a large and vocal contingent who are being hysterical and getting the facts wrong. They are not helping.

  > anyone downvoting actually live in the UK? Any of
  > you actually have any hard facts? Or are you just
  > regurgitating the crap you read on the internet.

I haven't downvoted you, but I do live in the UK, and I am informed by at least three colleagues that their sites are now being blocked whereas they previously were not blocked. Further, they are reporting serious difficulties getting them unblocked, one spending over 40 minutes on the phone trying to get the person on the other end to understand that they are the site owner, and not simply someone wanting to get access to the site.

So yes, I can confirm that I live in the UK, and am not just "regurgitating the crap [I] read on the internet."

What kind of site are they running?

The ones I work with are math sites - one example is http://nrich.maths.org/frontpage, another is http://www.samholloway.co.uk/.

Here: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BcME5NvCAAAeslD.png

I'm also told that Boots, CEOP, Childline, HM Govt, NHS, Police, and Samaritans sites are blocked, although I don't have first-hand confirmation.

Math sites are blocked as unsuitable for kids?!! That's utterly absurd. The British government needs to abandon this puritan initiative.

That screenshot says it's blocked on the opt in under12 filter, that's been running for years. It's a whitelist, those sites have probably always been blocked on it.

On my UK cellphone provider to remove the "adult content" filter I am required to provide my 44 digit passport number. Needless to say this IMHO rates as significantly more than "just a couple of clicks".

It was always about censorship and suppression of ideas. A revamped Section 28 for the digital age.

> edit: anyone downvoting actually live in the UK?

Yes.

> Any of you actually have any hard facts? Or are you just regurgitating the crap you read on the internet.

Ok, what counts has hard facts and not just "read on the internet" that you have that the rest of us don't?

> It's nothing whatsoever about censorship.

Drivel. Pure and simply wrong. This is the infrastructure of censorship. The fact that it's only going to be applied to censor "think of the children!" things may be true, but it is handing enormous power to censor whatever they chose to this government, the next government, and the governments after that. The boundaries can change. Actually that's the point of the article, did you take anything on board from that?

There are several posters elsewhere in this discussion who have witnessed it firsthand in other countries. Is that hard fact enough? it's not a forgone conclusion that the UK will slide down the same slippery slope, but that's no reason to be complacent about it. This is a nasty thing that should be resisted.

Because only filthy degenerates and pedophiles don't opt in for censorship. You aren't a pedophile right?

so it's ok to be able to opt in to blocking child line, stonewall and samaritans? or sites that "promote gay and lesbian lifestyles"? it's not like it's hard for abusive parents/partners to opt in.

also, the filesharing filters are very much not opt-in, and you can't disable them at all. I'm extremely worried about all these filters being rolled into that

Because how would you like it if I gave you a hamburger (opt-out!) and didn't mention that it came intentionally mixed with e.coli ?

1. When you sign up to an ISP, they explicitly ask if you want a filter. 2. Asking your ISP to stop filtering is simple, easy, and immediate.

Seriously. This is a non issue.

Several cellphones have come with filtering enabled by default for years and years. It's not a big deal, you just call them up and say "Yeah when I bought this phone, I wanted to use the internet. So disable your crappy little filter, and we'll say no more about it"

The thought comes to mind: why isn't filtering an add-on that costs extra? "You want kid- and church-safe internet access? Order our CleanStream product."

Other way around: opting out will cost extra.

Incomplete sentences confuse me. Of course "pay for opt-out" is kind of how it is now, since those who opt out will still have to subsidize the support burden of filtering.

Some ISPs (talk talk) already offered it for free butit was opt in. Strong arming other ISPs into it and making it opt in was done because politics.

Making it Opt out, you mean.

Everything I'm reading at the moment suggest that this is not the case in the UK. Apparently as of about now, ISPs are turning on filtering by default without asking, and you must explicitly contact them to get it turned off. People I know who use O2 are, without being asked or contacted, finding that sites are getting blocked.

Some ISPs are, apparently, asking for explicit confirmation with a phrase such as "So you are requesting access to sites that carry pornographical material", and if you want to access anything that the Government has decided to block, you must reply "Yes."

I have no doubt that lists of people who have opted-out will, at some point, be leaked.

When signing up for fixed line broadband with any of the biggest ISPs you have to make a choice between filtered and unfiltered. As the GP said, mobile broadband has filtering enabled by default and has done for years.

Source: Am in the UK & have opted out of filtering. All fixed line ISPs allow toggling the filter bias their online control panel, or by clicking a button when signing up online. Mobile ISPs vary - O2 mobile require you give your card details.

What you have there is a list of people that want to look at adult material… Nobody should want to be on this list because it's completely open for abuse. As these filters and 'opt-out' lists become more fine-grained it becomes more of a problem…

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