|
Sky Broadband announces that it has turned on default website censorship for all customers with a change to when the question is asked
|
|
|
| 8th July 2016
|
|
| See article from
corporate.sky.com |
Lyssa McGowan, Brand Director, Communications Products announced on the Sky Blog: From today, Sky Broadband Shield will be automatically switched on the moment a new customer activates their Sky Broadband. At the end of last year, we
said that we wanted to do even more to help families protect their children from inappropriate content. The first time someone tries to access a filtered website, the account holder will be invited to amend the settings or turn it off altogether. It
ensures a safer internet experience for millions of homes, while still giving account holders the flexibility to choose the settings most appropriate for their households. Our experience has shown that this Default On or as
we call it Auto On approach leads to much greater use of filtering. Last year, we adopted Auto On with some of our existing customers which we found delivered much higher engagement and usage of Sky Broadband Shield. Around two thirds of
customers we rolled it out to have continued to make use of the software. This is much higher than anyone else in the industry using other approaches. Customers are typically just asked whether they want to switch on filtering when they activate their
broadband. It means take up rates are between only 5 and 10% because customers ignore the choice put in front of them or automatically click no without considering the implications. This is why we decided to make Auto On standard practice for all our new Sky Broadband customers including our soon to be launched new NOW TV Combo service. Furthermore over the coming months we will be contacting millions more Sky Broadband customers who haven't yet made a decision about Sky Broadband Shield. If they don't respond, we will switch it on for them and invite them to amend or switch it off themselves.
|
|
Ofcom report on the uptake of ISP website blocking suggests that about 10% of broadband users opt for the blocking to be turned on.
|
|
|
| 18th December 2015
|
|
| See article from bbc.co.uk See
article from stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk See
review from stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk See
Ofcom report [pdf] from stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk
|
An Ofcom report on Internet Safety Measures provides an update on the steps taken by the UK's four largest fixed-line internet service providers (ISPs) - BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media - to offer an unavoidable choice, both to new and to
existing customers, whether or not to activate a family-friendly network-level filtering service. This followed an agreement between the Government and the ISPs, under which the ISPs committed to present the unavoidable choice to all new and existing
internet customers by the end of December 2014. The Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) asked Ofcom to report on internet filters and online safety, including the measures put in place by the ISPs. This fourth report
focuses on recent research, the progress made by the ISPs, and other developments during the past year. Perhaps the most interesting stats in the report are the takeup of the ISP's web blocking systems. A decision on whether on not to turn on the
blocking was made mandatory for all users in 2015.
| BT | Sky | TalkTalk | Virgin | % Existing customers opting for blocking | 5 | 62 |
5 | 11 | % New customers opting for blocking | 8 | 6 | 33 | 24 | % All customers opting for
blocking | 6 | 30-40 | 14 | 12 |
The 62% of existing customers for Sky who have apparently accepted website blocking seems a little strange given that all ISPs have prompted all users to make a choice. The subtle difference is that Sky went a little further and turned the
blocking on for all subscribers who did not respond, whereas the others set their systems to require a selection whenever there was an attempt to use the system, but did not turn it on fro none responders. The inference is that the discrepancy is
explained by a large amount of Sky subscribers that never use their broadband have been included in the 62% figure. Presumably the broadband is offered in packages with Sky TV when perhaps a significant number of customers don't use the service for
browsing the internet. Assuming that is the case then perhaps the 6% for new customers is a better estimate of Sky users who have turned on blocking. As a rough estimate, incorrectly assuming all ISPs are similar sized, the average uptake of
network level website blocking is 10%.
|
|
Sky Broadband says that the majority of families opt for some level of adult content blocking
|
|
|
|
14th July 2015
|
|
| See press release from
corporate.sky.com |
Sky Broadband has issued a strange press release boasting of the uptake in its internet website blocking service whilst not revealing the relevant stats that underlie the claim. The press release leads with the paragraph: Millions more families across the UK are enjoying the internet in safety following the successful roll out of Sky Broadband Shield. Sky's award-winning free internet filtering and safety tool is now active in over 70% of the homes in the roll-out to customers who had not previously made a choice, with the majority of families keeping the parental controls in addition to the malware and phishing protection Sky Broadband Shield provides.
One would suspect that 70% of subscribers are opting for some level of website blocking, but this does not necessarily mean that all of these are blocking adult content. Sky Broadband Shield includes the option to just block malware
and phishing sites, which is probably a popular option. On the subject of blocking the likes of porn, then Sky just says that the majority of families select this option. The Daily Mail notes that the ISP TalkTalk said that about 36% of
subscribers are families with children, so Sky's comment about the 'majority of families' probably means something over 18% of total subscribers selecting the adult content blocking levels. Of course the
Daily Mail is quick to rush to the conclusion that 70% of subscribers are
blocking porn ...maybe just as Sky intended. Sky also make the point that far more people have turned on some level of blocking because they were forced to make a decision, than before when they were merely told that options were available.
Sky writes: Following the introduction of Sky Broadband Shield in 2013, Sky initially asked its existing customers to choose whether or not to turn Sky Broadband Shield on, and new customers were required to choose
whether or not to turn it on at activation. Beginning in January 2015, Sky then rolled Broadband Shield out to all customers who hadn't already made a choice about whether to activate it or not. Sky took the decision to roll out
Sky Broadband Shield to customers after the Government challenged ISPs to look at how they protected children and families online. By making the default position of Sky Broadband Shield on and making it easy to adjust or decline at any time, Sky
gave customers a choice about whether they wanted the protection whilst making their online safety a priority. Sky's decision to give customers a choice about Broadband Shield whilst making the default position on meant
that many more customers took an active interest in what the product offers. When customers were previously emailed and asked to choose, less than 5% engaged. This evidence supports Sky's unique approach as the safest and easiest way to protect families
online.
|
|
Open Rights Group are the first to ask serious questions about how ISP website blocking will be implemented, and who will be responsible for getting it right, and who will publish the rules?
|
|
|
| 20th July 2013
|
|
| See article from
openrightsgroup.org See
letter to ISPs from openrightsgroup.org
|
Over the past few weeks the Government has held meetings with Internet companies about child protection online. These are designed to prompt more more action to protect children, on the assumption that these companies could and should be doing more.
Sadly the Government has seemed keen to appear as if they are taking tough action, and not so keen on thinking carefully about what their action should be. Policy makers who are pushing for more Internet
filtering for child protection do not take the related practical and technical questions seriously. They tend to throw about ideas for technical interventions such as internet filtering without considering how these would work, or what unintended
consequences they might have. They simply want more done. What that more is, or what it will achieve, seems to be an irrelevant detail. This is despite the Government having run a consultation last year, after which
they settled on a fairly reasonable policy of helping parents make the right choices about filtering. They seem determined to edge towards a stricter default on regime. We have seen no evidence that during the meetings with
internet companies the Government has taken account of any of the broader public policy questions related to the implementation of Internet filtering systems. Along with Index on Censorship, English PEN and Big Brother Watch, we wrote to the Culture
Secretary Maria Miller asking her to invite us to the discussions so these issues could be raised. The Department has subsequently set up a meeting between us and the Minister Ed Vaizey MP. The details are very important. Internet
filtering can easily block more content than it is designed to -- for example, if people do not understand what is being blocked and why, or if sites are incorrectly categorised. People may also easily get around blocking. It can give people a false
sense of security. Making Internet filtering fit multiple devices, ages or beliefs within a household or other setting is almost impossible. And there are other consequences, such as the speed of access or an impact on privacy where traffic or blocking
events are logged. That's why we are putting these questions to ISPs. We will be sending the questions and replies to the relevant policy makers, and will hope to explain to them why we think these are important questions.
Twenty questions for ISPs on Internet filtering systems A. On how the technology works Under the Internet filtering system set up following discussions with the Government
about online safety and child protection: 1. Is any traffic of users who are not opted in to filtering inspected and / or logged? If so, is it logged in a way that links the traffic to a subscriber? What logging will there be of
blocking events? How does this work? 2. Is filtering applied to all forms of connection offered by the ISP (dialup, ADSL, cable, fast fibre connections etc)? 3. Have you estimated the impact of the
through-put of filtering technology on the speed of users' internet access (both for those who are opted in and opted out)? 4. We are concerned about the impact on Internet applications in general as well as web traffic. Does
filtering take place only of HTTP traffic on port 80, or will other traffic be affected? What steps will be taken to avoid interfering with non-HTTP traffic on port 80, for example non-HTTP applications that use this port in order to bypass firewall
restrictions? 5. What impact does the filtering have on end-to-end security measures such as SSL or DNSSEC? 6. Can you guarantee that your networks will not be susceptible to mistaken blocking as a result
of using specific IP addresses for forwarding filtered traffic, for example as seemed to happen in a case involving Wikipedia ? 7. Have you made any estimates on the impact of filtering systems on infrastructure upgrades?
B. On setting up the filtering 8. Are users faced with pre-ticked boxes when choosing to activate filtering? What is the impact on customers who do not have access to or who do not use a web browsers on
a network such as a home broadband connection that is only used for Smart TV video on demand applications? (ie who will not be presented with a web-based set up screen?) 9. How granular are the available choices? Will a household
be able to cater for: a. Multiple ages or a variety of beliefs? b. Can specific sites be unblocked by a user? 10. Have you done user-testing for your opt-in systems? 11. What
information about the filtering is available at the point of sign up? Does it include: a. Detailed information about what types of content are blocked, with examples? b. The providers of their filtering tools, if a third party is
involved? c. Information about the possible problems with and limitations of blocking, with information about how to report problems? 12. What age-verification processes will be in place? How will this work?
13. Is a customer's decision not to activate filtering a one-off decision, or will it have to be periodically repeated? C. On managing problems and mistakes 14. When a site is
blocked, what information is supplied to the end-user about why and how it has been blocked? 15. Are there easy ways to report mistaken blocks, either over-blocking or under-blocking? Are these clear when users encounter a block?
16. Are there easy ways for people to check if URLs are blocked, and will this include a reporting tool for requesting corrections and reclassifications? 17. How will complaints, from both your subscribers
and from owners of sites that are blocked, be dealt with? a. Are there plans in place to train customer service staff for dealing with these reports? b. Are there targets for dealing with mistakes in a timely manner, or estimates
of how long responding to and correcting mistakes will take? c. Will you share error reports and corrections with other ISPs? 18. Have you specified acceptable error rates to suppliers of filtering services? If so, what are they?
19. Have you sought legal opinions relating to liability for incorrect blocks, including both false positives and false negatives? Do you have plans to offer compensation for businesses harmed by blocking errors, for example when
potential customers are unable to access the site? 20. Are there or will there be systematic reviews of the effectiveness and quality of filtering, including reporting on problems and complaints? Is there a process for review and
improvement? Is there or will there be an ombudsman or other oversight body to handle disputes and review performance?
|
|
Claire Perry and co are holding a series of one sided internet censorship brainstorm sessions
|
|
|
|
15th June 2013
|
|
| See article from
heraldscotland.com See article from
wired.co.uk
|
This week has seen a series of meetings seeking ideas and support for internet censorship in the name of child protection. There was a Sunday Times sponsored session, followed by Westminster Media Forum discussion, and the culmination will be a
government led meeting with ISPs and major internet companies on 17th June. Here are a few of the ideas being discussed. Scary messages on attempted access to banned websites BT has announced that any of its
customers attempting to access web pages on the Internet Watch Foundation's list of identified images of child sexual abuse will now see a message telling them the site is blocked and the reason why. Under the current system, the site is blocked
but internet users only see an Error 404 message. The move comes amid growing concern that internet companies need to do more to tackle online child abuse. BT's new message is believed to be the first of its kind in the UK. The message will
read: Access has been denied by your internet service provider because this page may contain indecent images of children as identified by the Internet Watch Foundation. If you think this page has been blocked in error
please contact iwfenquiries@bt.com.
Presumably the scare value is tied in with the government snooping and keeping records or websites visited. Network censorship on by default Parental filters for
pornographic content will come as a default setting for all homes in the UK by the end of 2013, says Claire Perry, David Cameron's personal Mary Whitehouse. Speaking at a Westminster eForum on 14 June she explained: Internet service
providers (ISP) will be expected to provide filtering technology to new and existing customers, with an emphasis on opting out, rather than opting in: [In the UK] we will have filters where if you do nothing, the parental filters will come pre-ticked
.
Internet watershed Perry explained: Features such as time-limited deactivation of filtering and email updates when filter settings are changed are expected to become widespread. We will have
automatic put on, so if you turn the filter off at 9pm, it turns on again at 7am Public WiFi only suitable for kids Perry confirmed that as expected, the government is pushing ahead with restricting all public
Wi-Fi spots so that they are free from all adult content.
|
|
|
|
|
| 14th June 2013
|
|
|
The worst thing about this debate is that it turns a real-world, complex problem into a simple moral choice. By Laurie Penny See
article from newstatesman.com |
|
Daily Mail claims that Cameron will demand that Google proactively seeks out child porn
|
|
|
|
9th June 2013
|
|
| See
article from
dailymail.co.uk
|
The Daily Mail is claiming that it has spoken with David Cameron and is speaking of measures to force Google to pro-actively seek out child porn (which pretty much has already been driven off public facing sections of the net). However as usual, the
piece does continually confuses by conflating child porn with 'other illegal porn'. The Daily Mail writes: David Cameron is to order Google to ban child pornography from the internet in a bid to prevent further
murders like those of Tia Sharp and April Jones. The Prime Minister last night said it was time for internet firms to stop making excuses for failing to crackdown on disgusting pornography. Google was urged to use
the same effort it put into filming virtually every house and street for Google Earth to help rid the internet of violent and obscene sexual images. The Prime Minister told The Mail on Sunday last night:
I am sickened by the proliferation of child pornography. It pollutes the internet, twists minds and is quite simply a danger to children. No more excuses: Internet firms will be told to crackdown on vile porn No more excuses: Internet firms will be told to crackdown on vile porn
Internet companies and search engines make their living by trawling and categorising the web. So I call on them to use their extraordinary technical abilities to do more to root out these disgusting images.
That is why the Government I lead is convening a round-table meeting of the major internet companies, and demanding that more is done. There are encouraging signs that the industry is willing to step up -- increasing funding and
technical support for organisations combating child sexual abuse imagery online. But I want more action. The time for excuses and blame is over -- we must all work together. The safety of our children is at stake -- and nothing
matters more than that. Google and other internet companies will be told to set up teams of investigators whose sole job will be to trawl the internet 24 hours a day, 365 days a year in search of child pornography and
other illegal obscene images -- and remove it.
|
|
Gender extremists call for more innocent men to be jailed for the possession of the depiction of rape
|
|
|
|
8th June 2013
|
|
| 7th June 2013. See article from
guardian.co.uk See
article from
telegraph.co.uk |
More than a hundred gender extremist groups and campaigners have written to the prime minister urging him to make it a criminal offence to possess pornography depicting rape. They claim that such material glorifies, trivialises and normalises
the abuse of women and girls, and note that both Mark Bridger and Stuart Hazell viewed violent and misogynistic pornography . Possession of such material is already an offence in Scotland and could be similarly outlawed in England and
Wales if the government extended clauses of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, they claim. Fiona Elvines, a Rape Crisis South London campaigner, claimed: Permitting the possession of depictions of
sexual violence as entertainment glorifies, trivialises and normalises such abuse at a time when government statistics estimate that 85,000 women and girls are raped each year
Professor Clare McGlynn, a campaigner working at Durham
University's law school, met Ministry of Justice officials in November to press for the law to be extended. However, her call was not heeded by the ministry, which told her the legal change was not appropriate or necessary . A government
spokesperson said: Rape is an abhorrent crime and that is why this government has driven forward significant progress in tackling violence against women and girls. We share the public's concern about the availability
of harmful content on the internet and have already taken steps to ensure there are better online filters to protect children . But we want to look at what more can be done and so the culture secretary has invited internet providers to a summit this
month. We will look closely at the issues raised in this letter.
Dave Pearson, from the justice ministry's criminal policy unit, said that there is: No evidence to show that the creation of staged
rape images involves any harm to the participants or causes harm to society at large.
Pearson said that the ministry had asked the Internet Watch Foundation to investigate websites that depict or purport to depict actual rapes . The ministry said it was satisfied that the Internet Watch Foundation had checked a selection of the hundreds of thousands of videos available online and believed
all the content they examined to be staged . Comment: Evidence-free academia 8th June 2013. Thanks to Alan
Is Professor Clare McGlynn the invention of a satirical genius? She appears to be a self-parody of a victim feminist . I don't have the Guardian in front of me as I write, but if I remember correctly she insouciantly, if periphrastically, admits
there's no evidence to link rape porn with actual rape. (In fact, the Japanese example - rape fantasy prominent in mainstream porn, compliant with mosaic requirement, and a very low rate of rape - suggests the opposite.) What sort of academic demands that people be flung in jail with no evidential basis to show their actions are harmful? (Note - PEOPLE, not just men. If Prof McGlynn gets her way, I await with lively interest the first prosecution of a woman, especially if the
rape porn is lesbian.) What sort of academic whinges when a refereed journal is established to take a less biased look at porn because the editorial board isn't made up of anti-porners? The message
of the Dangerous Pictures Act so far is to be careful what you wish for. During its passage, the silence from gay men was deafening. What had they to fear from legislation to protect women from straight male fantasies? They certainly didn't want to be
associated with animal porn (even if until recently the most serious crime with which they could be charged, buggery, also included bestiality). Then the boys in blue arrest a prominent gay figure, an aide to Boris Johnson, over a flick with a bit of
fisting.
|
|
And ask why the government is only considering one side of the debate
|
|
|
| 7th June 2013
|
|
| Thanks to Therumbler See article from
openrightsgroup.org
|
Dear Secretary of State, We are writing to you regarding news that you have summoned internet companies to a meeting about how they deal with illegal or extreme content online. As representatives of
civil society groups focused on freedoms in the digital age, we are very concerned about changes to the law or industry practices that involve restrictions on access to information online. The powers to make decisions about what people are allowed to see
and do on the Internet are significant and must be treated with extreme care. There are particular problems when governments expect or require companies to police online content. An understandable desire to ensure a safer environment online can easily lead to overreaching or unaccountable powers or practices. Through mistakes or abuse these can quickly lead to restrictions on far too much content and undue infringements of people's privacy. For example, mobile networks' Internet filtering in the UK routinely over blocks the websites of shops, political blogs or community sites. In Australia, it has emerged that 250,000 websites were accidentally blocked when a government agency tried to take down sites allegedly involved with fraud. The UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression Frank La Rue highlighted his grave concerns about these problems in his 2011 report.
Poorly implemented fixes will not only inhibit freedoms in the UK. They will also set a very damaging precedent internationally, providing more cover for States whose interests in restricting access to information online or the
surveillance of citizens is more sinister. This was emphasised by the Foreign Secretary William Hague at the London Cyberspace Conference in 2011. As representatives of leading UK civil society groups, we would therefore request
that we are present at the forthcoming summit to ensure these concerns are addressed. Yours sincerely, Jo Glanville, Director, English PEN Kirsty Hughes, Chief Executive, Index on Censorship Jim
Killock, Executive Director, Open Rights Group Nick Pickles, Executive Director, Big Brother Watch
|
|
Cameron set to ban anything remotely adult from public internet networks
|
|
|
| 24th April 2013
|
|
| See article from
telegraph.co.uk
|
The Prime Minister is to announce a Government-backed censorship rules which will mean that all adult themed content is blocked in public spaces such as cafes and railway stations where children are likely to be present. Cameron said:
We are promoting good, clean, WiFi in local cafes and elsewhere to make sure that people have confidence in public WiFi systems so that they are not going to see things they shouldn't.
Talks have been
taking place for months between ISPs and government officials over the new censorship rules. It is not clear whether the internet firms will automatically impose the restrictions on access -- or whether it will be the duty of shops and other public areas
used by children to bar adult content. Industry sources said that the decision on whether to automatically restrict access in hotels could prove a more contentious issue. Offsite Comment: Half Baked 25th April
2013. See article from lawandsexuality.wordpress.com
|
|
|
|
|
| 19th March 2013
|
|
|
One in three new TalkTalk customers with children opt for ISP level internet blocking See article from arstechnica.com
|
|
After the news that Iceland is considering blocking online pornography, nutters have called for the UK to follow its lead. But is this even possible?
|
|
|
| 24th February 2013
|
|
| 23rd February 2013. See article from telegraph.co.uk by Brooke Magnanti |
How will the courts decide what constitutes porn? The question of what exactly constitutes pornography, as always, is problematic no matter where such laws might be implemented. Sex is sex is sex, you say? People pay to
watch fully-clothed women do unspeakable things to bowls of jelly specifically for the purposes of sexual arousal. The I know it when I see it obscenity argument, aka the Hicklin Test, is indicative of the sort of thinking that usually surrounds
such issues. Would we have to appoint a Pornfinder General? What about your own naughty photos? Would they be banned too? People would rightly be concerned about the status of private entertainment.
Would partners taking naughty pictures of each other for their private consumption be prosecuted? Or is it only paying for it that's considered problematic? In that case what about the people in Iceland who pay to advertise on swinger's websites or go to
fetish club nights? Britain's culture of swinging, dogging, and fetish clubs is leaps and bounds beyond Iceland's, by the way. How can you tell the difference between images produced for free and images produced for pay, or who the intended audience is?
And who gets prosecuted? How do you delete people's hard drive? Finally there is the reality of porn consumption in countries like Iceland and Britain that have had longstanding access to internet
porn: people who view porn online don't just stream it, they save it. Would it be possible to eliminate the porn already in the country? Of course not. Would it be feasible to stop people from being able to share it through peer-to-peer applications,
email attachments, and the myriad other ways of transferring files? Unlikely. Is any government prepared to institute and pay for a system by which all of the country's electronic traffic passes through some checking bottleneck? People can and did exchange contraband information long before the advent of the internet. They always will. And if so, be prepared for early-90s computing skills re-emerging - you know, back in the pre-World Wide Web days when internet porn collectors used to share and decode files. Simply applying some iteration of a
pink block filter wouldn't stop this. Extract: Even Russia Today has published an article about the stupidity of porn blocking 24th February 2013. See article from rt.com
A former MI5 agent Annie Machon warns, this could be a slippery slope to even more censorship from the government. RT: If Iceland introduces this ban, what effect would that have on the rest of the world?
AM: I think it is unlikely that they will introduce it. But if they do, then I think it is very quickly going to be seen as failed. As I said people will find a way to tunnel around it, they will be up against the innovation of the
porn industry. So, it would probably be a failed experiment within a year or two. But I think if a western country seen to be doing this it will be a justification for other more totalitarian regimes to say Well, you know, Iceland's doing this. So we
can do it, too. And of course it might well encourage ill thought out policies in other western democracies. RT: Critics have been pointing out that censorship technology is linked to surveillance technology. If Iceland gives
the green light to this ban, can we be sure it will be just about child protection? AM: We absolutely can't. As soon as you start allowing certain technologies to be input onto the internet to stop and censor certain information
they will be misused by police, by intelligence agencies and as soon as we are aware that the internet is being censored and we might be being watched or monitored all times, then we start to self-censor as well. We will not download books or information
as freely as we might in case it might be deemed radical or subversive and we are going on some domestic extremists hit-list. And then, of course, we self-censor what we say on the internet as well. So, it will be very quick to slide in some sort of
Orwellian big brother dystopia. ...Read the full article |
|
Sky Broadband to introduce ISP level website blocking
|
|
|
|
7th February 2013
|
|
| See article from
theregister.co.uk
|
BSkyB has claimed that computer-based parental controls were not enough to protect kids who use web-based services on a variety of devices. So network-level filtering will be applied to the service at some point in 2013. The company quietly
announced its plan in a blog post by Sky brand director Lyssa McGowan: [W]e've been investigating ways to help provide a whole-home solution in which web content can be filtered out not by a particular device,
but at a household-level so that parents can define the type of access they want blocked and the filtering will apply across all connected devices in the home. And I'm delighted to be able to confirm that Sky has committed to
offering a whole-home solution to all of our more than 4 million broadband customers. We will also introduce reporting tools to parents so they will know each and every time any changes have been made to the settings they've applied, to ensure they are
happy with the settings at all times.
It's not yet clear whether website blocking will be turned on by default but it would be most likely be offered as an option to those that request it. In December, Prime Minister David
Cameron described on-by-default network-level web filters as a crude system for blocking inappropriate content. The blocking is so overbroad and low quality that adults soon ask for the blocking to be removed.
|
|
Cameron designs some new flexible website blocking software on the back of a fag packet
|
|
|
|
21st December 2012
|
|
| Thanks to Therumbler See article
from independent.co.uk
|
When the Department of Education last week released the results of its public consultation on whether or not pornography should be automatically banned by internet providers, the overriding message was clear. There was no great appetite among
parents for the introduction of default filtering of the internet, the Department declared. What parents wanted, instead, was the option to filter content and better knowledge of how to do that in order to protect their children from online porn.
After months of threatening internet providers with an automatic porn ban, the Government seemed to relent and recognise that policing the internet was primarily a job for parents, not the state. Yet in the course of just a few days Downing Street
appears to have swung back the other way after receiving a mauling in the Daily Mail. Cameron envisages is a system whereby anyone installing a new computer at home and connects to the web will be asked whether there are any children in the home.
If there are, parents will be automatically required to tailor their internet blocking. If a parent skips too quickly through the filter process the highest restrictions will automatically remain in place. It will be the job of internet providers, rather
than computer manufacturers, to come up with the blocking software. Downing Street officials insisted that the announcement was not a U-turn on porn filters and that Cameron's announcement was simply a way of illustrating what the Government has
planned to give parents more control. But the onus is nonetheless firmly placed on internet providers to come up with mandatory blocking with Whitehall sources indicating that a legislative backstop would be brought in they refused to co-operate.
That has caused concern among web providers, most of whom already offer content filters to their customers as a matter of course. One source involved in negotiations with the Government described Cameron's announcement as an example of goal
posts being moved . This is a back-of-the-fag-packet policy reversal announced after the Government's own public consultation decided just a week ago that further filtering wouldn't work, said Jim Killock, from Open Rights Group, which
campaigns against digital restrictions. Nick Pickles, from the Big Brother Watch, added: Mr Cameron seems to be suggesting a combination of network filtering and device filtering that isn't even available at the moment, let alone possible. The
danger here is it will alienate the ISPs who thought they'd been involved in the consultation process.
|
|
David Cameron explains that he is against default ISP blocking but will require ISPs to provide a blocking system that can be tailored to family needs
|
|
|
| 20th December 2012
|
|
| See
article from
dailymail.co.uk
|
The Daily Mail is claiming a victory in spurring David Cameron into supporting its cause in getting parents to opt for internet blocking albeit not the overly blunt default ISP blocking. (But the Daily Mail clearly aren't quite fully committed to the
anti-sexualisation cause. They have done a fine job traumatising all the 'sensitive' young girls who worry that they will never be as sexy as
Kate Moss in bikini showing a bit of nipple) . In an article for the Daily Mail, the Prime
Minister says it is utterly appalling that so many children have been exposed to the darkest corners of the internet, adding: A silent attack on innocence is under way in our country today and I am determined that we fight it with all
we've got. He announces that Conservative MP Claire Perry is to be appointed as his adviser on reversing the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood. She will be in charge of implementing the new web blocking system, which will also
require internet providers to check the age of the person setting controls. Cameron explained why he does not go along with the idea of default ISP blocking. Some might ask why, then, this Government has not
taken the route of default on filters for new computers, so that each one that is bought comes with blanket filters for all unsuitable content. There's a simple reason why we haven't done this: all the evidence suggests such a crude system
wouldn't work very well in practice. With the system, when people switch on their new computer, a question will pop up asking if there are children in the house. If there are, then parents will be automatically prompted to tailor their internet filters
With the system, when people switch on their new computer, a question will pop up asking if there are children in the house. If there are, then parents will be automatically prompted to tailor their internet filters (posed by
model) Take the experience of one parent I met. She has a tablet computer which her young daughter sometimes plays games on. It's got straightforward on/off filters, so she turned the filter on to protect her
daughter. However, the filters were so wide-ranging that she then found she couldn't access things like TV stations on demand; they were blocked too. The result? She just switched the filter off again, as
it was becoming annoying. The point is we need a more sophisticated system than this -- one that allows parents to tailor exactly what their children can see.
Ministers are understood to have imposed a
timetable on internet providers, who will be required to produce detailed plans by February on ensuring that all parents are giving the option of imposing filters. Cameron says that when people switch on a new computer, they will be asked if there
are children in the house -- and if they answer yes, they will be automatically prompted to tailor internet filters. They will include options to block particular kinds of content, individual sites or restrict access at specific times of the day. If
parents click through the options to set up a new system quickly, filters against pornography and self-harm sites will be automatically left on. Perry said effective checks on the age of a person setting up filters -- probably using credit card
details and the electoral roll -- would be vital to ensure children could not get round the new system.
|
|
Government announces that public consultation on parental internet controls came out strongly against the idea of default website blocking by ISPs
|
|
|
| 15th December 2012
|
|
| See article from
guardian.co.uk See The
Government's Response to Public Consultation on Parental Internet Controls [pdf] from media.education.gov.uk
|
Ministers have stepped back from forcing telecommunications companies to filter websites for online pornography after parents rejected the idea in a government-sponsored consultation. A report released by the department for education and the home
office instead said that internet service providers will be asked to advise and steer parents towards making an active choice by offering software that blocks out pornography and self-harming sites. The decision follows a 10-week public
consultation process. David Cameron had indicated as recently as last month that he wanted firms to follow the lead of TalkTalk, which was the first big name internet service provider to introduce network-level filtering of websites for its customers.
The report, released with little fanfare, said: It is... clear that in accepting that responsibility, parents want to be in control, and that it would be easier for them to use the online safety tools available
to them if they could learn more about those tools. They also want information about internet safety risks and what to do about them. There was no great appetite among parents for the introduction of default filtering of the
internet by their ISP: only 35% of the parents who responded favoured that approach.
In fact the figures for all those that responded to the consultation showed:
- 14% in favour of default ISP blocking
- 85% opposed to default ISP blocking
- 1% unsure.
The campaign for greater curbs against online porn had been led by the Tory MP Claire Perry, and was followed up by the Daily Mail. The industry pointed out that Perry's plans were unworkable. The Government will now go to work with the
UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) to help parents with the knowledge and tools required to provide flexible and workable parental control.
|
|
David Cameron set to bully parents into accepting low quality internet censorship
|
|
|
|
18th November 2012
|
|
| 17th November 2012. See
article from
dailymail.co.uk |
The Daily Mail has reported that David Cameron is to bully parents into signing up for impractical internet censorship. In future, anyone buying a new computer or signing up with a new ISP will be asked whether they have children when they log on
for the first time. Those answering yes will automatically be taken through the process of installing website blocking for content with an adult theme. They will then be subjected to a series of questions about how stringent they want
censorship to be. There will be an option to impose a watershed on adult interest material, and to prevent children viewing social networking sites such as Facebook during certain hours of the day. Ministers will also demand that ISPs
impose appropriate measures to ensure that those setting the parental controls are over 18. And they will be told to prompt existing customers to install porn blocking technology. The proposals, due to be announced by the Government
later this month, go much further than previously suggested. Offsite Comment: Victory in sight: government signals climb down from default filtering? 18th November 2012. See
article from openrightsgroup.org
According to reports this Saturday in the Daily Mail and Telegraph, David Cameron will be asking ISPs to ask customers if they have children, and if so, help them install filtering technology. While the
Daily Mail cite this as a victory for their campaign to switch porn off in every household, and allow people to opt in to porn , in fact it would be a humiliating climb down. ...Read the full
article
|
|
The Cloud Public WiFi service will be censored for children
|
|
|
|
11th September 2012
|
|
| Thanks to Nick See article from
cable.co.uk
|
Sky has announced that its public Wi-Fi service, The Cloud, will begin blocking adult related content as standard from October. The move means shops, venues and other commercial buildings covered by The Cloud's network that want a children's
internet service will have their wireless broadband filtered automatically. Lyssa McGowan, Sky's brand director for communications products said: We believe this will give parents the peace of mind that when
their children access content over Sky networks outside the home, where we can't offer individual parental controls, they will be similarly protected as when in the home.
The Cloud will be the first Wi-Fi operator in the UK to take
this step.
|
|
Survey finds support for default blocking of sites for adults
|
|
|
| 30th August 2012
|
|
| From mobile-ent.biz
|
A survey commissioned by Recombu Digital for The Telegraph shows that 37% of adults in the UK would support a mandatory block on adult websites. The poll of 2,000 adults in the UK found that about 25% of respondents join ISPs in opposing such a
plan. A further 18% declined to state their position. Only 7-13% of respondents admitted they would opt to be able to view adult material.
|
|
Mobile phone company's only just start to think about handling complaints about their low quality website blocking systems
|
|
|
| 2nd June 2012
|
|
| Presumably these services were designed for parents to implement on their kid's internet devices. In this scenario, 'better safe than sorry' makes sense and the kids aren't going to
worry about missing a few things. However this approach is inadequate for a 'one size fits all' model applied to the whole family. The censors the need to ditch their gung-ho over-blocking and take a little bit more time (and money) to properly classify
sites for age. See article from
openrightsgroup.org Report over-blocking to Blocked.org.uk
|
Since we published our report Mobile Internet censorship: what's happening and what to do about it , jointly with LSE Media Policy
project, a number of people have been in touch with us asking what to do if they discover their site is blocked incorrectly by mobile networks' child protection filters. But if you are responsible for a site and have found it is
blocked, you will also want to get in touch with the mobile networks concerned to check that it is blocked on their network and to get the site removed from the filters so everybody can access it again. One of the points in our
report was that it can be too difficult to do this - you can read about Coadec's problems trying to get their site removed from Orange's Safeguard on their blog. The mobile networks have told us they are working on improving the
way that these reports can be made, which is great. I wanted to do a quick update on progress so far. So I asked the networks what the best way to get in touch with them about this would be. If you are trying to contact the operators to get your site
unblocked, here's what the networks offer at the moment: Vodafone For the moment, Vodafone have asked that these requests go to this email address: ukmediarelations@vodafone.com
They are planning to have a more specific address available soon. [The mediaRelations email address just about sys it all] Orange and T-Mobile The email address to use is
safeguard@everythingeverywhere.com and can be used for reports relating to both Orange and T-Mobile. O2 O2 have a useful
URL checker , which also allows people to check sites' classification - which says whether and why a site is blocked - and to report if they consider the site to be
classified incorrectly. Three Three told us their official position at the moment is: if a Three customer believes a website is being incorrectly blocked then they should call our Customer
Services team. We are currently reviewing how best customers can contact us to report these concerns.
|
16th May 2012 | | | Open Rights Group and LSE publish report about the poor implementation of
internet blocking in the name of child protection
| 15th May 2012. See
article from openrightsgroup.org See
Mobile internet censorship: what's happening and what we can do about it [pdf] from
openrightsgroup.org |
A new report from Open Rights Group and LSE Media Policy Project reveals widespread over-blocking on mobile networks, helping to demonstrate why we shouldn't accept default-on adult Internet filtering
Today we're launching a new report called Mobile internet censorship: what's happening and what we can do about it , which is a joint publication with LSE Media Policy Project. The report
is about how mobile operators' child protection filters work. It shows how systems designed to help parents manage their childrens' access to the Internet can actually affect many more users than intended and block many more sites than they should. It
reveals widespread overblocking, problems with transparency and difficulties correcting mistakes. We argue that mobile operators need to offer an active choice , be far more transparent and open, and provide
easier ways to address errors. More broadly, the report helps emphasise that the neo Mary Whitehouse campaign for default blocks, led by Claire Perry MP is calling for the wrong solution in looking to default
on filtering. The lessons from mobile filtering suggest fixed-line Internet filtering should concentrate on users and devices rather than networks, be properly described as parental controls (because the content blocked is far broader than
adult sexual material) and above all involve an active choice , not be set by default. Without that guarded approach, seemingly simple, laudable goals such as protecting children through technical intervention
may have significant harmful and unintended consequences for everybody's access to information. Blocked.org.uk The report is based on reports of inappropriate blocks provided
to our website Blocked.org.uk through January to March. These were cases where sites or services were blocked that should not
have been. Working with a small group of volunteers, we received over 60 reports, including personal and political blogs, sites for restaraunts, and community sites. Here are some examples:
- Biased-BBC (www.biased-bbc.blogspot.co.uk) is a site that challenges the BBC's impartiality. We established it was blocked on O2 and T-Mobile on 5th March.
- St Margarets Community Website
(www.stmgrts.org.uk), is a community information site created by a group of local residents of St Margarets, Middlesex. Their mission is simple - help foster a stronger community identity. We established it was blocked on Orange and
T-Mobile on 8th March.
- The Vault Bar (www.thevaultbar.co.uk) in London. We established that the home page of this bar was blocked on Vodafone, Orange, and T-Mobile on 6th February.
-
Shelfappeal.com was reported blocked on 15th February 2012 on Orange. This is a blog that features items that can be placed on a shelf.
- 'Tor' (www.torproject.org). We established that the
primary website of this privacy tool (meaning the HTTP version of the Tor Project website, rather than connections to the Tor network) was blocked on at least Vodafone, O2 and Three in January.
- La Quadrature du Net
(www.laquadrature.net/en). The website of this French digital rights advocacy group was reported blocked on Orange's Safeguard system on 2nd February. La Quadrature du Net has become one of the focal points for European civil society's
political engagement with an important international treaty called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. The block was removed shortly after we publicised the blocking.
...Read the full article Update: MelonFarmers gets mentioned in the report 16th May 2012. From
Mobile internet censorship: what's happening and what we can do about it [pdf] from
openrightsgroup.org The ORG report contains mystery shopper examples to see how various phone companies handle complaints about false blocking:
Re 3 Mobile Phone Company
We reported to 3 that the site melonfarmers.wordpress.com - a conspiracy theory discussion site - was blocked. The customer services representative asked what message
we received when trying to access the site. We told them we were shown a blocking screen telling us over-18 blocking was enabled. We were advised that 'adult sites' were automatically blocked on all pay-as-you- go 3 mobile phones.
However, we were not asked what site we were attempting to access, despite our insistence that it contained no adult material. We were then asked if we were having issues accessing other sites like Google or the BBC, and replied no. Again, the
representative concluded that the content filter was working correctly and that the site we were trying to access must have some sort of adult material on it, hence its blocking. When we asked 3 how the company classifies blocked websites, the
representative told us that 3 does not make the rules, and that the government' does. We were also informed that no record is made of sites which are reported as incorrectly blocked and our phone would be unblocked once we provided age verification.
This experience seems somewhat at odds with the official propaganda about overblocking. In an article from
bbc.com , Hamish MacLeod, chairman of the Mobile Broadband Group, claimed: Even allowing for the ORG missing a few, 60 misclassified websites does not
amount to anything that could reasonably be described as 'censorship', particularly when mobile operators are happy to remove the filters when customers show they are over 18 and will re-classify websites when misclassifications are pointed out to them.
This is how the small handful of websites that get referred to mobile operators each year are already dealt with.
Perhaps a small handful of websites because operators are told to willfully ignore such requests
Offsite Comment: ISPs Censor the BNP, Lifestyle an dTechnology Sites 26th May 2012. See article from blog.indexoncensorship.org by Alice Purkiss
A number of British mobile networks are blocking the far-right British National Party's website, it has been revealed. Following a report by LSE Media Policy Project and Open Rights Group (ORG) on mobile internet censorship, a number of
web-users alerted ORG that the BNP's website is blocked on a variety of mobile networks if child protection filters are active, once again raising the question of the efficacy of online filtering systems. ...Read the full article
|
14th May 2012 | |
| Now TalkTalk proposes to force all customers to choose between a censored or uncensored internet feed
| See
article from dailymail.co.uk
|
TalkTalk, which provides web access to 4million subscribers, already offers new customers the option of activating blocking for websites with adult themes. Now it has said it will be the first company to ask both new and existing subscribers whether they
want to block adult content. TalkTalk's filter, HomeSafe, blocks sites categorised as unsuitable for under-18s, including those related to pornography, suicide, self harm, gambling, dating, drugs and weapons. But it also blocks websites for strong
language, references to sex and any sites that happen to contain a few words that trigger automated classification software. It has been available to customers since May last year, but only if they requested it. From March this year, new
subscribers have been asked to choose whether or not they want the filter. Now the company wants to force all of its customers to decide whether they want access to adult material, with a view to making them choose their settings once a year.
It is believed other internet providers will introduce a system in October which will be more tailored to devices and individuals.
|
8th May 2012 | | |
| Fear over online pornography is leading anti-porn campaigners into irrational, knee-jerk responses. Are
we hurtling toward a future where the only thing left to masturbate to is the Daily Mail? See article from guardian.co.uk
|
6th May 2012 | |
| Orange found to be blocking website for peace campaign
| Thanks to David
See article from openrightsgroup.org
|
The past few days have seen a lot of attention given to the neo Mary Whitehouse campaign for default censorship. It's important to remember that filtering systems are fallible - for example, they catch too much content, whether by accident or
abuse. Today we happened upon a fine example. Through our reporting website Blocked.org.uk , we established that the website of anti-violence advocates
Conciliation Resources is blocked by mobile networks Orange, O2 and Vodafone by their child protection filters. Here's what Conciliation Resources actually do: supports people at the heart of conflicts who are striving to find solutions. We work with them to deepen our collective understanding of the conflict, bring together divided communities and create opportunities for them to resolve their differences peacefully.
I had a look around the site, and I couldn't find any pornography. Or any reason why it would be a bad idea for a young person to have access to the site. Maybe its blocked simply because it frequently uses the word 'violence', eg in
the strapline: Preventing violence, building peace. This is clearly a mistake. But it demonstrates a key flaw with Internet filtering. It tends to block far too much content, both because the categories of blockable content are so vague and
broad (see Orange's categories below) and because the systems doing the filtering make mistakes. And because the decisions are made on the cheap as there are so many websites to get through. Orange Categories for blocking. From help.orange.co.uk
Anonymizers: These sites allow you to browse the Internet and access content anonymously. Anorexia - Bulimia: Promoting and instigating eating disorders.
Gambling: Access to online gambling such as casinos and any other online services that let you place bets. Chat: Where you chat in real time to people you
don’t know. Bombs: Explaining how to prepare, make, build and use explosives and explosive devices. Dating: Websites for match-making where the user can
meet other people - make friends, find a partner, etc. Forums: Where you’re invited to take part in discussions on predetermined topics with people you don’t know.
Pornography: Websites with a pornographic or sexual content. Racism: Sites promoting racist behaviour based on culture, race, religion, ideology, etc.
Sects: Websites on universally acknowledged sects. Within this category URLs are included on organizations that promote directly or indirectly: (i) group, animal or individual injuries, (ii) esoteric practices, (iii) content
that sets a bad example for young children: that teaches or encourages children to perform harmful acts or imitate dangerous behaviour, (iv) content that creates feelings of fear, intimidation, horror, or psychological terror, (v) Incitement or depiction
of harm against any individual or group based on gender, sexual orientation, ethnic, religious or national identity. Violence: Containing openly violent content and/or that promote violence or defend it.
Perhaps the blocking decisions could be made robust by allowing business and campaigns such as Conciliation Resources a straightforward process to sue for lost earnings and donations from incompetent censorship
|
5th May 2012 | |
| One in Three new TalkTalk customers opt for ISP website blocking of adult content
|
See article from
publicaffairs.linx.net
|
One in three new customers choose to activate TalkTalk's network based website blocking feature, according to a recent statement. TalkTalk introduced the network-based content blocking feature it calls HomeSafe in May 2011 with Active
Choice for new customers, meaning that new customers are forced to make a positive choice whether or not to activate the feature, there is no default option. TalkTalk is considering applying this Active choice rule to existing
customers too, but ordinary customer churn gradually increases the number who have faced it, which TalkTalk estimates will reach 1 million households by March 2013.
|
4th May 2012 | |
| Reports that Cameron is to meet with UK ISPs to discuss website censorship
|
Via article from
google.com
|
The Government is to consult on ISPs about new measures to censor family internet access. Under plans being draw up by Downing Street, it would be up to customers to opt-in to receiving adult content online when they take out a broadband
contract. David Cameron is due to meet large ISPs to discuss the measures but he is understood to be against even tougher controls on internet porn.. So how come no-once is actually talking about what should be
blocked?' See article from
pcpro.co.uk PC Pro have been having fun trying to get Claire Perry to
say what content she would actually like to see blocked. Earlier this week, PC Pro contacted the MP for Devizes on Twitter, asking her to define exactly what type of content she would like to see blocked.
Our tweet read: Challenge to Claire Perry MP (@Claire4Devizes): we'll send you 10 website links, you tell us whether ISPs should block them or not, and why. Last night, Perry replied: oh dear, I think
you are missing the point. Sigh. What would a current device level filter block? Thats [sic] the test. Get a grip chaps.
...Read the full
article A sane voice from Francis Maude, minister responsible for cyber
security See article from telegraph.co.uk
The Telegraph reports from a press release as to what Francis Maude will say today: And as we meet the challenges presented by cyber space, and shape its future, governments need to resist the temptation to over
regulate and control. The internet after all has flourished precisely because it has been shaped by its users, not by governments. The Government's objective is to help shape an open, vibrant
and stable cyberspace , the minister will say. He will conclude that a multi-stakeholder approach is needed towards governance of the net -- resisting state intervention that would stifle growth and the free exchange
of ideas at its heart .
...Read the full article And a little about the practicalities of internet blocking
See
article from bigbrotherwatch.org.uk
They are right. Network level blocking is not the silver bullet may have portrayed it to be. Easily avoided, it is a crude tool that carries serious risks, from blocking legitimate business content to introducing new
security risks into the internet.
...Read the full article
|
1st May 2012 | | | |
Why Claire Perry MP for Devizes has got it wrong on online child protection. By Kay Lacey See
article from marlboroughpeople.co.uk |
29th April 2012 | |
| Daily Mail and Labour teaming up to show their digital illiteracy on porn and child protection is simply dangerous
| Thanks to Nick See article from
sroc.eu by James Firth
|
I've written extensively on the subject of web blocking to protect children from harmful content like pornography so I'll try and keep this short.
- If you turned the internet off tomorrow you wouldn't stop kids getting hold of digital porn
- General content filtering is impractical and imperfect. It doesn't even stop all accidental or
incidental exposure and it certainly doesn't stop a motivated person or child getting to what they want with minimum technical knowledge.
- Content filters over-block and prevent access to clean, lawful content and
this impacts legitimate businesses
- Even if content filters got much better, there is no one-size fits all. If you have children aged 7, 11 and 15 there is clearly content OK for a 15-year-old you wouldn't want your
7-year-old watching. So what level of content filtering do you want enabled by default on all connections?
...Read the full article
|
27th April 2012 | |
| Labour add to the shrill nutter cacophony calling for one size fits all website blocking
|
See article from telegraph.co.uk
|
Senior Labour MPs have supported a default block on adult websites. Jenny Chapman, the shadow minister for justice, and Helen Goodman, the shadow minister for culture, media and sport, pledged their support. In an article for the Daily Mail
they condemned the access to pornography as a modern-day form of pollution . They wrote: Children are regularly seeing pornography and sometimes being groomed for sex. Righting these wrongs is not an attack on
civil liberties. Adults will still have the choice to access material they want to see. But in a civilised society we must also protect our children. What we want to see is the same balance of rights and responsibilities as we
have in the real world.
They also claimed that sales of televisions with internet access meant even more children will be one click from the strongest material . They attacked Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt's proposal,
which involves asking the four major ISPs to offer new customers the chance to opt out of access to pornography. They argue it would be 2017 before the proportion of households included reached 90%. They added that the plan does not go nearly far enough.
|
19th April 2012 | |
| Claire Perry's parliamentary inquiry reiterates her call for a default ISP block on adult content
| 18th April 2012. See
article from
dailymail.co.uk |
Claire Perry's parliamentary inquiry sponsored by Premier Christian Media has reiterated her call for a default ISP block on adult content. Anyone wanting to view hardcore images online [or any other adult content such as Melon Farmers] would have
to opt out of the default blocking, according to a panel of MPs and peers looking into child protection. Their report said that six out of ten children download adult material because their parents have not installed filters. The use of
blocking filters in homes has fallen from 49% to 39% in the last three years. They concluded that parents were often outsmarted by their web-savvy children and felt unconfident in updating and downloading content filters. Many parents were oblivious
to the type of material available on the internet and were often 'shocked' when they realised the content that children were accessing. Claire Perry, the Tory MP who chaired the non-governmental Parliamentary Inquiry on Online Child
Protection, said: This is hugely worrying. While parents should be responsible for their children's online safety, in practice, people find it difficult to put content filters on the plethora of internet-enabled
devices in their homes.
The inquiry called for ISPs to offer one-click filtering for all devices within a year. This would block out adult content for all domestic broadband users and stop them accessing pornography on mobiles
and iPads as well as PCs and laptops. The inquiry said that the Government should launch an official inquiry into internet filtering and ministers should seek backstop legal powers to intervene should the ISPs fail to implement an appropriate
solution . Carefully selected witnesses before the inquiry pointed to changes in the availability of hard-core images: As a result, more hard-core imagery is now available in the "free shop front" of commercial porn sites, the
report said. It also found that only 3% of porn sites asked for proof of age and 66% did not contain any warning that they were for adults only. Comment: Claire Perry's default blocking would censor adults and fail
children 19th April 2012. See article from
openrightsgroup.org
Commenting on Claire Perry's committee findings, Jim Killock, Executive Director of the Open Rights Group said: These recommendations, if enacted, would endanger children, create disruption for small business, and
would not work technically. Default filtering is a form of censorship. Adults should not have to opt out of censorship. Governments should not be given powers to default censor legal material that adults see online.
Our work on mobile networks is showing that default censorship is disrupting businesses, campaign groups and bloggers. Yet it is trivial for a child to avoid the network blocking that Claire Perry recommends - sites using https are
invisible to network blocks. Furthermore, default blocks may be appropriate for some older children, but too weak for others. Parents need help, but 'default blocking' is an appalling proposal.
Comment: And for a little light relief, why not try the Daily Mail. They do a Jackson Pollox, throwing all sorts of negative terms at an empty canvas, to see what mess it makes 19th April 2012. See
article from
dailymail.co.uk
Miranda Suit, founder of campaign group Safermedia, told the inquiry: This generation is going through an experiment. No one knows how they will survive this unprecedented assault on their sexual development. They are
guinea pigs for the next generation. These broadband providers are making massive money from the internet. They should not be making money from our teenagers future sexual health.'
...Read the full
article
|
6th April 2012 | | |
Elspeth Howe's internet censorship bill fails to win government support
| See
article from pcpro.co.uk See
details and progress of the bill from
publications.parliament.uk
|
Elspeth Howe's Bill introduced to the House of Lords a few days ago required ISPs to default to a censored internet feed until an adult subscriber requests otherwise and verifies that they are adult. The bill also requires internet devices to be
sold with pre-installed blocking software and to provide information about internet safety. However it is a private members bill and is rather muddying the water for alternative initiatives undertaken by industry in response to pressure from the
government and nutter campaigners. For the moment the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has said it would not support the bill, as industry was already taking steps to address the issue. A DCMS spokesman said:
We understand the sentiment behind this Private Members Bill, but it isn’t something that Government would support. Much can be achieved through self-regulation and it can be more effective than a regulatory approach in
delivering flexible solutions that work for both industry and consumers. Howe's Bill reads: Online Safety Bill (HL Bill 137) 1 Duty to provide a service that excludes
pornographic images (1) Internet service providers must provide to subscribers an internet access service which excludes pornographic images unless all the conditions of subsection (3) have been
fulfilled. (2) Where mobile telephone network operators provide a telephone service to subscribers which includes an internet access service, they must ensure this service excludes pornographic images unless all the
conditions of subsection (3) have been fulfilled. (3) The conditions are--- (a) the subscriber opts-in to subscribe to a service that includes pornographic images;
(b) the subscriber is aged 18 or over; and (c) the provider of the service has an age verification policy which has been used to confirm that the subscriber is aged 18 or over.
(4) In subsection (3)--- opts-in means a subscriber notifies the service provider of his or her consent to subscribe to a service that includes pornographic
images.
2 Duty to provide a means of filtering online content Manufacturers of electronic devices must provide customers with a means of
20filtering content from an internet access service at the time the device is purchased.
3 Duty to provide information about online safety Internet
service providers and mobile telephone network operators must provide prominent, easily accessible and clear information about online safety to customers at the time the internet service is purchased and shall make such 5information available for the
duration of the service.
Note, the definition of “pornographic” is taken from the Dangerous Pictures Act: An image is
“pornographic” if it is of such a nature that it must reasonably be assumed to have been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal.
|
31st March 2012 | |
| Elspeth Howe introduces Lords private Members bill to mandatorily block adult content unless adults specifically ask
otherwise
| See article from
christian.co.uk
|
The first legislative attempt to introduce an opt-in system for accessing adult internet content, has been introduced to the House of Lords. Of course private members bills have little chance of becoming law unless they capture a large consensus of
support including the government. The Online Safety Private Members Bill was introduced by Baroness Elspeth Howe, who wants to require ISPs and mobile phone companies to block adult content, unless an adult user specifically asks for it. And the bill has predictably won the backing of the Christian campaign group CARE, who claim it is important that the government look at providing a safe online environment for web savvy children.
The Private Members Bill is calling for ISPs and mobile phone operators to provide a service that allows adult customers to make decisions about what sort of content they want blocking on their home broadband or their children's mobile phones.
Howe's Bill is based on MP Claire Perry's campaign. The government said at the time that they are in favour of the proposals put forward, but would like the industry to self-regulate and bring about these changes without amending primary legislation.
Last year the industry made the pledge to bring forward self-regulatory measures, but did not go as far as endorsing the requirement to have an opt-in to access pornography through a filter at network level. Howe said:
Historically, most internet content has escaped regulation. A laudable industry-wide effort in the UK resulted in the Clean Feed system that blocks illegal child abuse imagery, but there has always been a reluctance to block, or limit
access to, other forms of adult material due to the international nature of internet content.
|
8th February 2012 | | | Ireland points out that ISP's aren't the best organisations to decide which websites to block,
and the inevitable safety first over blocking will result in damage to innocent parties
| See
article from newswire.xbiz.com
|
The Internet Service Providers Association of Ireland (ISPAI) is knocking Britain's new plan that requires surfers to select whether or not they want internet blocking, calling it nothing less than censorship. The ISPAI said the
responsibility should lie with parents policing what their children view on the web and not the business of the U.K. government. ISPAI's Paul Duran told the Irish Independent: If Internet service providers are
dictating what can be accessed, then that could be seen as nothing less than censorship. Essentially we would be deciding what would be the inappropriate material. That should be left to the parents or guardians.
The ISPAI represents
20 ISPs in Ireland including Eircom, O2, Vodafone and UPC. Critics of the British move said there are a number of practical issues that are being overlooked and need to be addressed. The restrictions could lump in websites that do not contain
sexually explicit material. Digital law expert JP McIntyre said: Many of these blocking issues are easy to circumvent, but what they do tend to do is damage people who have been wrongly blocked. You'll find that
shops selling things like lingerie get blocked by these filters, Very often there are no appeal mechanisms or they are very hard to use and in the meantime people find that their businesses are suffering because people can't
access their sites and they don't know why.
Children's Minister Frances Fitzgerald refused to comment on whether there were any plans to persuade Irish ISPs to adopt the British model.
|
7th February 2012 | |
| TalkTalk to mandate that new subscribers select whether or not they want ISP level website blocking
| See article from
guardian.co.uk
|
From the end of next month new subscribers to TalkTalk broadband will be unable to activate their internet connection until they specify any categories of website access that they would like to block. The TalkTalk ISP has defined nine categories
of websites, including porn, dating, gambling, gaming, suicide, social networking and weapons + violence, that can be blocked. Subscribers will be alerted automatically either by email or text if the controls are subsequently changed. TalkTalk
already provides subscribers with the opportunity to block access to websites through its HomeSafe service, but currently they not prompted to choose website blocking and the default is for no sites to be blocked. So far 240,000 subscribers have elected
for website blocks to be imposed. The children's minister, Tim Loughton, praised TalkTalk and said he hoped other internet service providers would offer similar services shortly: Through the UK Council for Child
Internet Safety we are working with industry and charities to provide tools and information to inform parents and help keep children safe online.
Meanwhile a little propaganda for cyberbullying parents See
article from scotsman.com
Parents who are not technology savvy are putting their children are at risk from exposure to unsuitable content on the internet, claim two studies. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection (Ceop) Centre and IT firm Westcoastcloud, have warned
that not all parents have put internet blocking controls on their computers. Further, even the majority of those who have put controls in place have not considered doing the same on other household devices that access the internet. A Mori
poll, commissioned by Ceop, showed that about 8% in the UK, aged between five and 15, are regular users of the internet. But the study from Westcoastcloud, a division of Glasgow-based cloud computing specialist Iomart, revealed that only half of
parents have installed software to protect their offspring while only one in four has installed similar protection on the mobile phones, games consoles and television services. Technology has transformed people's lives both collectively
and individually, said Peter Davies, chief executive of the Ceop Centre and the senior police officer leading on child protection on the internet for the Association of Chief Police Officers: But too often we see examples of where the child is at
risk because they make simple online mistakes -- because they are lured in or push the boundaries too far and risk their safety.
|
14th January 2012 | |
| Open Rights Group set up facility to monitor over blocking by mobile phone companies
|
Presumably these companies are open to be sued for lost revenue when sites are affected by unjustified blocking From
openrightsgroup.org Report blocked websites at blocked.org.uk
|
Open Rights Group (ORG) are researching into the accuracy of the website blocking employed by mobile phone companies. The group wrote in its newsletter: Last month, we asked ORG supporters to help us find sites
that were being blocked by the default Adult filter on their mobile phones. Lots of you replied and asked to get involved. And thanks to that extraordinary team - we've launched a tool to report what sites are being blocked and by whom.
We are getting regular reports and testing blocks on every mobile network. We're seeing just how bad mobile blocking is, and how bad the networks are at dealing with complaints. Forums and joke sites get banned. So do churches. Some
MPs want to extend default adult censorship to Internet at home as well: but we are already seeing how bad it is on mobile networks. ORG has already been invited to talk to O2 about their systems, as a result of this campaign.
Report blocked websites at blocked.org.uk
Meanwhile thank to a reader who wrote to MelonFarmers: Just to let you know; the mobile network Three are blocking access to your site through their 3G networks - The site works fine on Wi-Fi, but on 3G you
get asked to contact Three to get a pin to unblock the site, as they have it listed as an Adult content site. They charge 99p to allow access to adult sites (And it's not straightforward, takes a while to find
the right place to do it.). They have also blocked Movie-Censorship.com, same reason as above.
|
7th January 2012 | |
| HomeSafe internet blocking is insufficient for TalkTalk to claim UK's safest broadband
|
See article from
asa.org.uk
|
a. A TV ad for broadband, viewed on 12 September, featured a toy family in a dolls house, guarded by a row of toy soldiers. The voice-over said, Talk Talk homes have the UK's safest broadband thanks to HomeSafe, free for all customers. No wonder
thousands of homes join Talk Talk every day. Talk Talk, a brighter home for everyone. b. A poster for broadband, viewed on 19 September, stated The UK's safest broadband is now £ 3.25 a
month and Includes HomeSafe, the UK's first and only network level security . c. A national press ad for broadband, viewed on 28th August, stated The UK's safest broadband £ 3.25 a
month. Our great value phone and broadband gives you all this: Half price for 9 months then £ 6.50 a month for the remaining 3 months. Our ground-breaking new security service, HomeSafe is free to all customers ...
. Issue British Telecommunications (BT) and two members of the public challenged whether the claim UK's safest broadband made in ads (a), (b) and (c) was misleading. ASA Decision: Complaints Upheld
The ASA acknowledged that TalkTalk were the only home broadband provider to offer security features that were applied at the network level, rather than to individual devices. We noted that HomeSafe offered three features: content
restriction, which allowed parents to restrict access to inappropriate websites; virus alerts, which alerted users if they viewed a suspect website; and a feature which allowed parents to restrict access to social networking and gaming sites during
certain times of the day. We noted that most other broadband providers supplied security packages to their customers, and that these required software to be downloaded on each individual computer it was to be applied to, and that they were only able to
be used on personal computers running Windows operating systems. We noted that TalkTalk believed that the claim Talk Talk homes have the UK's safest broadband was accurate as it was based on their being the only broadband
provider to offer network level security. However, we considered that the claim implied that customers would enjoy the safest online experience when using TalkTalk broadband. We also considered that the images shown in the ad reinforced this impression,
as a father was pictured relaxing in an armchair whilst two children used the internet, giving the impression that using TalkTalk meant the actual online experience was the safest. We considered that customers could interpret safest as referring to a
number of features, such as virus protection or protection from hacking, and that Home Safe only offered a basic range of security features. We did not consider that consumers would interpret safest as referring to blocking of inappropriate
content, and restricting access to certain sites at certain times. As Talk Talk were not able to substantiate that customers would enjoy the safest online experience with them, we concluded ad (a) was misleading. We noted that ad
(b) stated Includes HomeSafe, the UK's first and only network level security . However, we did not consider that consumers would interpret this as being the full basis for the claim UK's safest broadband , as the word includes implied that it was only part of a fuller package. We also considered consumers were unlikely to understand what
network level security meant, as it was not a commonly used term in home broadband, and that it could be easily misinterpreted to refer to other features such as the security of the wireless connection. We considered that the claim implied that
customers would enjoy the safest online experience when using TalkTalk broadband, and that the qualification used did not sufficiently counteract this impression. As Talk Talk were not able to substantiate that customers would enjoy the safest online
experience with them, we concluded ad (b) was misleading. We noted that ad (c) stated Our ground-breaking new security service, HomeSafe is free to all customers . However, we considered that the ad did not make it clear
that this was the basis for the claim UK's safest broadband , and that the ad did not provide any details of the features provided by HomeSafe. We considered that the claim implied that customers would enjoy the safest online experience when using
TalkTalk broadband, and that the qualification used did not sufficiently counteract this impression. As Talk Talk were not able to substantiate that customers would enjoy the safest online experience with them, we concluded ad (c) was misleading.
Ad (a) breached BCAP Codes rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.9 (Substantiation) and 3.38 (Other comparisons). Ads (b) and (c) breached CAP Codes rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation) and
3.38 (Other comparisons). Action The ads must not appear again in their current form. We told TalkTalk to ensure that the basis for comparative claims was made clear in future.
|
6th January 2012 | |
| Government backs off from the idea of ISPs blocking porn unless requested otherwise
|
See article from
pcpro.co.uk
|
The Government has toned down its support for internet blocking and moved to distance itself from a leading anti-porn campaigner. Last year, the Government threw its weight behind the idea of ISPs blocking all porn by default unless adults
specifically requested a full service. However the ISPs didn't find this idea practical. They rolled out the compromise idea of providing blocking software to individual subscribers so that they could be tailored as required. ISP's would also
ensure that these facilities would be made crystal clear to new subscribers. Now it appears the Government is distancing itself from the original idea of blocking porn by default at the ISP level. Foreign Secretary William Hague explained in
response to an open letter from rights groups: We believe that parents should be provided with wide tools to enable them to voluntarily block harmful and inappropriate content. It is important
to distinguish between Government encouraging people to make more use of existing protections as a matter of choice, and the Government deciding what people can and cannot do online. Our plans do not prevent access to legal
material, but seek to make it much clearer that protections exist, and to encourage their use.
The Home Secretary also distanced the Government from MP Claire Perry, who has been campaigning for a block on all porn, a stance that has
raised concerns among internet freedom groups. Hague said: The position of Claire Perry regarding the default filtering of adult content is not the position of this Government.
|
31st December 2011 | |
| HomeSafe website blocking service attracts few takers
|
See article from
guardian.co.uk
|
The number of people signing up to a ground-breaking new service to block children from accessing self-harm and pornography websites has slumped amid criticisms that it fails to achieve its aims, could breach privacy and employs technology
connected to the Chinese military. TalkTalk ISP launched its free HomeSafe service to its 4 million internet subscribers in May, but the product has only attracted around 200,000 users despite signing up more than 100,000 in its
first two months. The slowing take-up follows HomeSafe featuring prominently in TalkTalk's recent advertising campaign which attempted to attract customers by plugging the UK's safest broadband . Some technology blogs and websites
have raised concerns that HomeSafe might be easily bypassed by dubious websites, while also querying whether the product could introduce worries about privacy. On his blog, Dr Richard Clayton, a computer scientist at the University of Cambridge,
wrote: I doubt that malware distributors will see this [HomeSafe] as much of a challenge. The system is described as 'opt in', [but] that only applies to whether or not websites you visit might be blocked. What is not
opt in is whether or not TalkTalk learns the details of the URLs [websites] that all of their customers visit, whether they have opted in or not.
|
31st October 2011 | | | Church of England threatens to pull their investment from ISPs unless they 'take action
against porn'
| See
article from
dailymail.co.uk
|
The Church of England is threatening to use its financial power to inflict internet censorship on Britain. It is considering withdrawing the millions it has invested in ISPs unless they take action. The Church of England, which wields significant
financial clout on the markets, is reviewing investments worth tens of millions. It refuses to invest in firms which fuel the very problems Christians are trying to tackle and has already leaned heavily on supermarkets to be more responsible in the way
they sell alcohol. A Church spokesman said members of its ethical investment advisory group are considering new guidelines on pornography which take into account how easy it is to access with modern media. The Church of England's stance on
porn was welcomed by the Reverend Nutter Richard Moy, who works with young people in Lichfield, Staffordshire. He spouted without a grain of justification: It is not surprising that people go from soft porn to
progressively more hard-core porn to the point where they are so depraved that they do things that they would never imagine doing. I think that if people start using mild porn to gratify a need rather than looking at why they need
that gratification then they will eventually move on to more disturbing things.
[On the other hand, if people don't gratify their needs, eg priests trying to be celibate, then they may eventually move on to
even more disturbing things].
|
29th October 2011 | | | ISPs clarify that their approach to website blocking is to ensure that parents are well
informed about free blocking software that may be used on home computers
| See
article from independent.co.uk
|
The UK's four major Internet Service Providers have published a Code of Practice, putting the decision on what to block in parents' hands. Virgin Media, BT, TalkTalk and Sky, said they believed parents are best-placed to decide whether to turn controls
on, and to decide what types of content and applications to block, rather than having those decisions made for them by internet firms. The Code commits them to educating parents about content controls but does not require them to provide ISP level
blocking. Instead the code commits its signatory ISPs to teaching parents about the availability of parental controls, providing tools free of charge to filter access to the internet at the point of purchase and reminding customers of the blocking tools
at their disposal at least once a year. Culture Minister Ed Vaizey said he was pleased to see the industry taking action to help parents protect their children online . He said: The new code of conduct is
a real, practical step to ensure households make a choice about parental controls when opening a new internet account.
The Children's Minister Tim Loughton added: Parents are quite rightly concerned
about their children accessing harmful or inappropriate content online. But many parents don't always know how to activate parental controls at home. That's why it's important they are asked to make a choice at the point of purchase over whether they
want parental controls switched on or off.
|
18th October 2011 | |
| Commentators point out the impracticalities of ISP level 'one size fits all' website blocking
|
| Adult content filters can't replace good parenting See
article from guardian.co.uk by Corry Doctrow
The government's proposed web controls are too simplistic when it comes to understanding and filtering adult material Last week's announcement of a national scheme to block adult content at the point of subscription (as the
BBC's website had it) was a moment of mass credulity on the part of the nation's media, and an example of how complex technical questions and hot-button save-the-children political pandering are a marriage made in hell when it comes to critical analysis
in the press. Under No 10's proposal, the UK's major ISPs, BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin, will invite new subscribers to opt in or out of an adult content filter. But for all the splashy reporting on this that dominated the
news cycle, no one seemed to be asking exactly what adult content is, and how the filters' operators will be able to find and block it. Adult content covers a lot of ground. While the media of the day kept mentioning
pornography in this context, existing adult filters often block gambling sites and dating sites (both subjects that are generally considered adult but aren't anything like pornography), while others block information about reproductive
health and counselling services aimed at GBLT teens (gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender). Then there's the problem of sites that have a wide variety of content, such as the venerable LiveJournal, which contains millions of
personal and shared diaries. Some of these have material that children, especially small children, shouldn't see, but others don't. Is LiveJournal an adult site? It is, at least according to some filters. ...Read the full
article Britain's broadband censors: a bunch of students See
article from pcpro.co.uk by Nicole Kobie
McAfee creates blacklists of online content, categorising sites in order to let ISPs block them. BT and Sky use McAfee's lists for their parental controls, which a new Government-sponsored code of conduct requires them to offer to all customers.
The overall process is mostly automated, with McAfee's system looking for keywords on a site to classify it. Toralv Dirro, a security strategist at McAfee's Avert labs told PC Pro. If there's any doubt, we do have a team of people that take a look
at a website and correct a classification if it's necessary. The team responsible for covering McAfee's customers worldwide is made up of between five to ten people. I think it's a fairly popular job for students, Dirro said. However,
he admits the very sites the small team is asked to judge are those that are the most subjective. Drawing the line between erotic and hardcore pornography is probably the most difficult, he said. Another thing is websites that go into extreme
left or right side [politically], but still do news or something like that. Dirro admitted there can be difficulties when a mainstream site features material that could be deemed pornographic to some people. Maybe they had pornographic or
erotic stuff on their site, which for example could happen with a newspaper site, if they have the 'Page 3' picture of a woman on the front page. Normally, the entire site would be banned, not only the offending page. However larger sites such as The
Sun have markers to prevent them from being slotted into a category and subsequently blocked. There's no way you can obtain the complete list from us, Dirro said, adding McAfee would never publish the full list for intellectual
property reasons. If you published that list, anyone could just take it and use it and create their own products. If a site has been wrongly categorised, which Dirro admitted does happen, the site owner can open a ticket with support to get
it changed. If McAfee refuses to change it, there's not really much that a site can do, Dirro admitted. ...Read the full
article EFF Criticises UK Government over Gambling Filter Plans From bingosupermarket.com by Mark Bennett
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is criticising the UK government for its plans on internet filtering. In conjunction with the Christian organization Mothers' Union, UK Prime Minister David Cameron has enacted a plan with four of Britain's major
ISPs, BT, TalkTalk, Virgin, and Sky, to block access to pornography, gambling, self-harm, and other blacklisted websites. The EFF claims that the plan lacks transparency. The blocked categories are vague in nature, and the list's
origins unknown. Not only do the categories contain legal content in some cases, but there is significant room for overblocking. The EFF also suggests opt-in services create privacy concerns. Users who choose to opt out of the bad
content filter are then on one list. The plan does not in include privacy protections for the people who choose to opt out. The list could potentially be made public, shaming users who would prefer their Internet with its pornography, gambling, and
self-harm websites intact.
|
12th October 2011 | |
| ISPs don't seem to talking from the same hymn sheet as David Cameron re website blocking
|
See article from zdnet.co.uk See
article from guardian.co.uk
|
As widely reported yesterday the four biggest ISPs said they have come up with a code of practice re website blocking and parental controls. However this does not quite mean that ISPs are automatically blocking pornographic sites, and customers
who wish to see such content do not have to ask their provider for permission to do so. In fact what the ISPs said is something a little different. For example BT said in a statement: The ISPs have committed to
improve the way they communicate to customers, enabling parents to make simple and well-informed choices about installing and activating parental controls and other measures to protect children online. The four ISPs are working with parents' groups and
children's charities on this important initiative and will continue to do so.
The ISPs are offering a wider range of services, not just the automatic blocking facility that has caught the attention. All four ISPs already offer
controls, and some of their users already have the feature turned on. The only change is that new customers can no longer sidestep the activation decision. A spokesperson for TalkTalk said: This is called 'active choice' rather than an opt-in or
opt-out. In the cases of BT, Sky and Virgin Media, the parental control software is PC-based rather than network-based, and comes on the CD new customers need to set up their connection. BT said it plans to remind existing customers
that they can activate the parental controls if they wish. This will be PC software provided by the security company McAfee. TalkTalk goes a step further, in that it uses a network-level blocking system called HomeSafe, which has already raised
the ire of anti-censorship campaigners. HomeSafe has blocked one million websites since its introduction in May, TalkTalk said in a statement, adding it hopes to see other ISPs follow its lead with network-level measures. However, a
spokesman for BT said the company is not convinced these screen material as effectively as PC-based controls, at this time . They could prove irritating and end up being unused, because they are inflexible and do not offer the versatility of
PC-based controls, the spokesman told ZDNet UK.
|
15th September 2011 | |
| Jeremy Hunt to include in law, the requirement for ISPs to offer choices for internet blocking
|
See Jeremy Hunt Speech from
guardian.co.uk
|
Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has written about the contents of the next Comms Act. He outlined several of the measures in a speech to the Royal Television Society. On topic of internet blocking of 'offensive' content he said:
When it comes to accessing material that can offend taste and decency standards in their own home, we should put consumers firmly in the driving seat. We won't water down existing protections on traditional
media, the watershed is here to stay, and I welcome the progress made by both the UK Council for Child Internet Safety and also by ISPs who have just completed work on a draft code of practice on parental controls. But I
think we need to go further. I will therefore consider including in the new Comms Act an obligation on ISPs to ensure all their customers make an active choice about parental controls, either at the point of purchase, or the point
of account activation.
|
27th June 2011 | |
| Rights holders present secret paper to the government proposing website blocking
|
21st June 2011. Based on article from
openrightsgroup.org |
The Open Rights Group has learnt that detailed website blocking proposals have been presented by rights holder groups to Ed Vaizey. The paper was submitted by the Football Association Premier League; the Publishers Association; BPI (British
Recorded Music Industry); the Motion Picture Association; and the Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television. The paper itself has not been published or circulated, despite requests to rights holder groups. The meeting on 15 June, where the
paper was presented, was closed to ORG or any other rights group. Consumer Focus did attend, as the official consumer watchdog. However, it is unclear if Consumer Focus or anyone else is able to show us the proposal. In essence, we have a
secret website blocking proposal tabled by rights holders, that may become a self-regulatory , privatised, censorship platform for the UK. It is unacceptable for trade groups and government to conduct policy in this way. Censorship
proposals must be made and discussed in public. Many of us will oppose any censorship that impacts directly and widely on free expression. UPDATE: Consumer Focus have published a response to the secret paper. This says the core of the proposal is
that: The trade associations are proposing that the Applications Court of the High Court issues permanent injunctions on the basis that a Council and expert body have come to the view that the
evidence submitted by copyright owners is valid and the blocking access to the website is appropriate.
Update: Secretive Paper Leaked 27th June 2011. From out-law.com See
paper [pdf] from publicintelligence.net
The paper has now been leaked. Under the plans copyright owners would identify websites they believe are infringing their copyright and an expert body would then decide whether to recommend that a court issues an injunction
banning the site from hosting infringing material, according to the documents. Internet service providers (ISPs) that sign-up to the code will then block access to the sites, the documents said. Under the new code rights holders should
inform websites that they are taking infringement action against them where possible and website owners should be able to appeal against ISPs blocking access to their sites, the document said. Details of the proposals were first revealed by
blogger James Firth who posted about the secret meeting on his website. Firth said a Government contact had told him Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, had commented on the proposals, saying if it's a voluntary
scheme, go and do it . This implies that Government does not need to be involved, Firth said in his blog.
|
10th May 2011 | |
| British ISP starts a website blocking service for children
|
See article from
torrentfreak.com
|
One of the UK's largest ISPs has launched network-level website blocking aimed at protecting subscribers' children and their computers. While reports of HomeSafe's ability to block access to viruses, pornography and violent content has been widespread,
it also blocks file-sharing sites and even information about file sharing at torrentfreak.com . The package offers various services
- Virus Alerts which blocks sites (or sections of sites) known to be infected with malware.
- Homework Time , a feature which allows parents to grant kids access to the Internet for educational purposes, but stops them in their
tracks should they attempt to become distracted by social networking sites such as Facebook.
- KidsSafe, offers parents a set of controls to stop their kids (or indeed anyone else using a TalkTalk Internet connection) from accessing violent,
pornographic or gambling content.
TalkTalk is stressing that HomeSafe is completely optional and is disabled by default. The list of blocked sites will not be made available.
|
12th February 2011 | |
| Mumsnet change their mind and come out against the idea
|
11th February 2011. See article from
publicaffairs.linx.net
|
The politically influential online community Mumsnet has withdrawn support for a campaign to make ISPs block access to all adult content unless the customer specifically asks the ISP to let them see it. The campaign, started by Claire Perry MP
with the backing of morality in media activitists SaferMedia, has received a sympathetic hearing from Ed Vaizey, the Minister for the Internet. Mumsnet site admins assumed their community would happily support a campaign that claimed to protect
children and make the ISPs take responsibility for Internet content, and established a campaign page on the website. But the campaign was met with robust criticism from within the Mumsnet community that the proposal was technically unworkable, an
illiberal censorship that would quickly lead to blocking Wikileaks, and that it was dangerous to shift blame to ISPs for bad parenting. Perhaps the most telling argument was that the Mumsnet site itself could be blocked over its depictions of
breast feeding. The Mumsnet campaign page in favour of Internet blocking has now been deleted, leaving only a 300-entry discussion thread and write-ups by Mumsnet bloggers to document the policy blunder. Update:
Safermedia describe the Mumsnet decision as an 'hysterical reaction' 12th February 2011. See article from telegraph.co.uk
Claire Perry, who writing in yesterday's Telegraph, defended the policy of filtering the web to protect children, was surprised to learn of Mumsnet's u-turn on the matter and said that she would be taking it up with the founders of the site. Pippa
Smith, co-chairwoman of Safer Media, the Christian group behind the campaign for anti-pornography filters to be switched on by default, said: I am surprised that parents would be critical of the campaign because the idea is to help parents. If
internet users have to opt in to view pornography parents don't have to worry about protecting their children from it...I think there has to be censorship to protect children. If you're over 18 you won't be censored [under the proposals] .
[But parents will be faced with blocked websites if they have opted for filtering for their children. At the moment it would be quite tricky to set up a separately configured connection for each family member.] When asked about Mumsnet's about-turn on the matter, she replied:
You do hear of the odd story of hysterical reactions on this kind of online forum. I'm not concerned about our campaign on the basis of what is said on one website.
|
21st December 2010 | |
| Commentators unimpressed by Ed Vaizey's nutter pandering website blocking
|
|
| Baby Brother's watching YOU |
Ed Vaizey doesn't seem to have found many takers for his ideas about website blocking at ISP level. Very few commentators can see any way whatsoever that a single shared blocking scheme can fit the requirements of the whole family. Perhaps he
would be better off suggesting some more advanced networking architectures where multiple users can have individually tailored internet connections depending on their login. But as for the shared scheme, it deserves nothing but derision. Phantom on the
Melon Farmers Forum asks: If something like this is set up, who will be doing the filtering? Will the people doing the filtering really be sensible, reasonable people? Or will they be experts headhunted from the BBFC and various moral pressure groups?
Does anyone here think that such a new internet regime would conduct itself fairly and reasonably? Would their be a level playing ground, whereby melonfarmers could have a raunchy pic in an advert on its pages and it
would get the same treatment as, say, Amazon? Are people absolutely certain that, the presence of advertisements to adult product sites would not be a wonderful excuse to close down access to sites such as melonfarmers?
People doing the filtering are invariably going to be a collection of the usual suspects. Any idea of an appeal system will be pretty much a joke, as the whole undertaking will be so bogged down
with the sheer scale of the task of finding all adult sites, that it will dedicate virtually no time to appeals. Aside from that, appeals would be handled from the position of defending the credibility of the
organisation. i.e. We must have been right, as we're the experts. Therefore the appeal must be unjustified. The last thing Britain needs right now is another panel of self important experts on matters
decent. Given that this government is supposed to be interested in cutting the number of quangos their desire to create yet another one, strains credulity. More busy bodies with clip boards. More self appointed moral
guardians. More high handed injustice in the name of protecting us all.
And a good point from the Guardian
Those are all great reasons not to waste untold millions of pounds either creating a government great firewall , or requiring ISPs to do the same. But here's the most important reason of all: it won't work.
Any think-of-the-children internet filter has a fundamental problem: if it's effective enough to actually block adult content, it will also be irritating enough that almost everyone will turn it off.
An effective filter would have to censor Flickr, which has a large amount of adult imagery. It has to censor every blogging platform: Tumblr, for example, has a whole swathe of porn blogs, and there are untold numbers of sex
bloggers writing reams of explicit text. And it has to censor YouTube, particularly if 4chan decide to flood it with porn again. Facebook could probably be let through, thanks to its strong filtering policies – although right now, most mobile
providers block it for under-18s anyway. If an adult content filter allows those sites through, it fails. And if it blocks those sites, then hardly anyone will use it – and it fails.
And of course practical and monetary concerns from the ISP industry
See article from bbc.co.uk In response to the government
proposal, Nicholas Lansman, secretary general of the Ispa industry body, said: Ispa firmly believes that controls on children's access to the internet should be managed by parents and carers with the tools ISPs provide,
rather than being imposed top-down. ISPs currently block child abuse content which is illegal and widely regarded as abhorrent. Blocking lawful pornography content is less clear cut, will lead to the blocking of access
to legitimate content and is only effective in preventing inadvertent access. Trefor Davies, chief technology officer at ISP Timico said: Unfortunately, It's technically not possible to completely block this stuff He
said the sheer volume of pornographic material online and the number of ways that people access it, via the web, file-sharing networks, news groups, discussion boards and the like, made the job impossible. While some proponents of a national
pornographic filtering scheme cite the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) as an example of how such a scheme might work, Davies said it was not a good guide. Such a system would not work if it was used to deal with millions of porn sites, chat rooms and
bulletin boards. If we take this step it will not take very long to end up with an internet that's a walled garden of sites the governments is happy for you to see.
Shaun on the Melon Farmers Forum notes that even
Daily Mail readers don't want it: And what happens (politically) when censored connections still show porn? You can bet your last dollar that the censorship will be tested to
destruction by the zealots. When it fails (which I am sure it will) who will take the blame for the failure? Remember, it will be tested to destruction because the material under test isn't illegal to seek out. No one
DARE test the effectiveness of the online system of censorship of child porn because to do so, can easily make you a criminal. It isn't the case with adult porn is it?
Most people don't want your censorship Mr Minister. Read the responses in the
Daily Mail here: Internet-pornography-Parents-allowed-block-sexual-imagery
|
20th December 2010 | |
| Government pushes for internet porn blocking by ISPs
|
Based on article from news.com.au
|
The UK Government is push for ISPs to block internet pornography unless parents request it. The biggest broadband providers, including BT, Virgin Media and TalkTalk, are being called to a meeting next month by Ed Vaizey, the communications
minister, and will be asked to change how pornography gets into homes. Instead of using parental controls to stop access to pornography - so-called opting out - the tap will be turned off at source. Adults will then have to opt in.
It follows the success of an operation by most British internet service providers (ISPs) to prevent people inadvertently viewing child porn websites. Ministers want companies to use similar technology to shut out adult pornography from children.
TalkTalk is already introducing a new free service early next year called bright feed, which allows people to control the internet so that all devices are automatically covered without the need to set up individual controls. Homeowners can either specify which adult sites they want to receive or put a cinema-style classification on their feed to restrict what is received according to age ranges, such as U, 12 or 18.
Vaizey said: This is a very serious matter. I think it is very important that it's the ISPs that come up with solutions to protect children. I'm hoping they will get their acts together so we don't have to legislate, but we are keeping an eye
on the situation and we will have a new communications bill in the next couple of years. Claire Perry, the Tory MP for Devizes and a keen lobbyist for more restrictions, said: Unless we show leadership, the internet industry is not going to
self-regulate. The minister has said he will get the ISPs together and say, 'Either you clean out your stables or we are going to do it for you'. There is this very uneasy sense for parents of children that we do not have to tolerate this Wild West
approach. We are not coming at this from an anti-porn perspective. We just want to make sure our children aren't stumbling across things we don't want them to see. Previously the Internet Services Providers' Association (ISPA) has told MPs
that such a blanket ban would be expensive and technically difficult to operate. But Miranda Suit, co-founder of the political 'charity' Safermedia, which held a conference on internet porn at the Commons last month, said: Technically we know
it can be done because the ISPs are already removing child porn after the government put pressure on them. In the past, internet porn was regarded as a moral issue or a matter of taste. Now it has become a mental health issue because we now know the
damage it is causing. We are seeing perverse sexual behavior among children. Legislation is both justifiable and feasible.
|
24th November 2010 | |
| Parliamentary prudes make themselves known in first Internet Pornography debate
|
See also parliamentary transcript from
theyworkforyou.com
|
H ouse of Commons Adjournment Debate 23rd November 2010 Culture minister Ed Vaizey, said the Government was in favour of a lightly-regulated internet. Those who posted illegal
material would be prosecuted but ministers wanted to work with ISPs on any changes. He said: The internet is by and large a force for good, it is central to our lives and to our economy and Government has to be wary before it regulates and
passes legislation. But leading the debate, Claire Perry had a long speech including a nod to yesterdays Safermedia conference and a classic I'm no prude...BUT... Claire Perry (Devizes, Conservative)
I am grateful for the opportunity to debate this matter tonight. I thank Members on both sides of the House who have either made time to attend the debate or expressed support for my proposal since it was announced yesterday.
I am asking for a change in regulation that would require all UK-based internet service providers to restrict universal access to pornographic material by implementing a simple opt-in system based on age verification. ...
Statistics are simply red-lining a problem that every parent recognises-namely, that our children are viewing material that we would never want them to see, especially at such a young age. So what can we do about it?
The current way of controlling access to pornographic material on the internet is via safety settings and filtering software, installed and maintained by users-parents, teachers and carers across the country. Unfortunately, however, through technological
ignorance, time pressure or inertia or for myriad other reasons, this filtering solution is not working. Even among parents who are regular internet users, only 15% say that they know how to install a filter. It is unfortunately also the case that our
children know better than we do how to circumvent the filters, while the constant changes in internet technology and content mean that they can quickly become outdated. I would like to raise two key issues about the
current, unsatisfactory situation. The first, as Fiona Mactaggart has just pointed out, is that access to pornography has a profound and negative effect on our children. Against the backdrop of a drip-feed of sexualisation that promotes pole dancing as
healthy exercise for young girls and high-heeled shoes as appropriate footwear for six-month-old babies, the availability of soft-core and hard-core pornography in our homes is damaging our children. Yesterday I
attended a Safer Media conference sponsored by my hon. Friend Mr Burrowes, and heard compelling evidence of this damage, including the explosion in the number of children in this country being referred to addiction clinics with a pornography problem
, and that fact that many studies demonstrate that watching internet pornography contributes to people seeing women as sex objects, increases sexual risk-taking such as having unprotected or anal sex, and relaxes the boundaries of sexual violence in
a completely unacceptable way. ... The second problem in the current system of internet provision is the presumption that it is entirely the consumer's responsibility to safeguard
their family from harmful imagery. I am a fervent supporter of personal responsibility and have an innate dislike of Big Brother regulation, but there is a form of content delivery in this country that, in contrast to the internet, is either regulated by
the Government or has a successful self-regulation model that does not appear draconian or heavy-handed. Our television viewing is restricted by sensible Ofcom guidelines, including section 1, which says that material equivalent to the British Board of
Film Classification's R18 rating must not be broadcast at any time, and that adult sex material cannot be broadcast at any time other than between 22.00 and 05.30 hours on premium subscription services or on pay-per-view or night services, which have to
have mandatory restricted access, including PIN verification systems. We all accept such regulation of our television viewing quite happily. What we see on our cinema screens is subject to regulation by the British
Board of Film Classification, and we have accepted that for years. Our high street hoardings and general advertising are regulated by the Advertising Standards Authority, which displayed its teeth recently by removing posters from the Westfield shopping
centre. Government guidelines inform newsagents' displays of lad magazines and porn magazines. Even the mobile phone industry, which has arguably seen even more change than the internet in the past 10 years and whose products are increasingly used to
access the internet, has introduced a reasonably successful self-regulation model that requires an adult verification check before users can access inappropriate material on the internet. Why should internet service
providers be any different from other content providers? Why is the onus on parents, teachers and carers to act as web guides and policemen? Where is the industry responsibility? Three objections are usually raised
when such changes as I am proposing tonight are discussed. The first is that any restriction on access to pornography on the internet is an infringement of free speech. I hope I am no Mary Whitehouse figure, although she was right about many things
,...BUT... the nature of the internet has led to a proliferation of imagery and a discussion of sexual practices which is quite mind-boggling in its awfulness. I will not read out some of the information that was provided at the Safer Media
conference yesterday, but I, at the age of 46, was introduced to sexual practices-one or two clicks away-that I have never heard of and simply cannot conceive of having my daughters view. It was simply sickening. ...
Britain has taken steps towards internet safety before. The industry acted independently and responsibly on child abuse imagery by setting up the Internet Watch Foundation, which finds sites displaying abuse that the
industry then works to block. We have led the world in introducing that technology, and the people and organisations involved are to be strongly commended. It has been a huge success: the amount of child sex abuse content reported or found to be hosted
in the UK has dropped from 18% to less than 1%; and 95% of our broadband services use that blocking technology. It can be done. Mr Straw is also to be commended for introducing the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act
2008, which brought in a ban on the possession of extreme pornographic material. That is highly commendable, but of course the content is there on the internet and available for viewing by us and our children with one or two clicks of a mouse.
All that progress has been made, but regulating internet access to inappropriate content continues to stump successive Governments and, in my view, the industry. I believe the time has come to stop ducking an issue of enormous
concern to parents, teachers and carers throughout the country. We are often ridiculed for raising it, barraged with information on why the internet should be treated differently, bamboozled with the problem of international co-operation and told that it
is our responsibility and no one else's to keep our children safe, I beg to differ. It is time for Britain to take a lead on the matter and for the Government, with their commitment to family friendly policies, to act.
Without action, and with technological convergence, we will increasingly be able to access internet pornography and all internet content via television, raising the prospect of this damaging and degrading material, which is shocking enough when viewed as
thumbnails or on an A4-sized computer screen, being piped into our homes and displayed in high-definition glory on 4-foot-wide television screens. The arguments for passive acceptance and self-regulation are past their
sell-by date, and it is time to regulate the provision of internet services in this country. We already successfully regulate British television channels, cinema screens, high street hoardings and newspaper shelves to stop our children seeing
inappropriate images, and mobile phone companies have come together to restrict access to adult material, so why should the internet be any different? British internet service providers should share the responsibility
for keeping our children safe, and there should be an opt-in system that uses age verification for access to such material. I urge the Minister to engage with the internet service providers to set a timeline for those changes and, if they will not act,
to move to regulate an industry that is doing so much damage to our children.
|
| |