Why you shouldn't support legislation blocking internet porn

[Andrewjh]

Ed Vaizey and Claire Perry and a number of other politicians are trying to force ISPs to block adult content under the pretence of "think of the children", however this will have the opposite effect and could lead to children being exposed to far greater problems.

• Children these days are very tech savvy, especially with regard to the internet. And they need to be - the UK is the largest internet economy in the world. To succeed in the UK in the future, you'll need to know your way around a computer and around the internet from an early age.

• What happens when ISPs block sites is something called the Streisand Effect. Basically by banning it, they generate a huge amount of publicity and support for the sites. The Pirate Bay site last week got blocked in the UK, and it received traffic increases of 12 million users downloading millions of pounds worth of software, music, films and games. Blocking something increases its internet traffic, its exposure, and suddenly 30 times more people know about it than did before.

• What also happens when you block these sites is a huge amount of internet users figure out free and easy ways around the blocks. ISP's don't have the resources to stop this, and in most cases, it is impossible for them to do so. anyway. The Pirate Bay blocks can be got around within 20 seconds, and that is just googling "how do I get around pirate bay blocks".

• Many of the methods employed by users to get around the Pirate Bay blocks so they can illegally download files will also be posted as guides to get around porn blocks. These are accessible through any search engine (google, bing, yahoo).

• The problem is that tech savvy children (it only takes one to find out how from the internet or an older brother, then tell his friends, who tell their friends etc) can easily find out how to get around it. I mean it is as easily as it is to look up something for their homework, if not easier.

• The other more dangerous issue is that whilst once they've gone through those guides, they can easily find links to far darker sites which host horrific viruses, hackers, as well as references to drugs, drink and other adult content. They can also find links to anonymous chatrooms where they could meet anyone without you knowing.

• This is the danger that opt in and blocking poses. They will give you a sense of security when there is none.

• This is also based on the assumption that the block actually blocks all porn. They rarely ever do, and sites posing as sex education sites which don't get blocked get through with adult content. So you'll be under the illusion that the internet is safely blocked when it isn't.

Think of it like this. Imagine the internet is a cliff, and we are having a picnic at the top of the cliff. It's a mostly beautiful view, but if you let your guard down, you could fall off. You wouldn't let your child play near the edge. Installing the opt in system is like putting a strong looking but flimsy fence in place. You could be fooled in to thinking it was safe but left to their own devices your child, could easily fall through. We can't put a brick wall there otherwise it spoils the natural beauty of the view (the educational benefits of the internet).

So what to do? Firstly don't support legislation calling for blocks. It doesn't work, its been shown not to work in the past as well as more recently. Children can easily find a way around it, and in doing so find a far darker side of the internet.

Secondly: If you are concerned, use censoring software on your computer, but don't be content with just that. Use Browser tracking software like this - www.any-activity-monitor.com/free-browser-history-recorder.html so you can accurate tell what your child has been viewing, even if they delete it off the browser. There are also many simple, free and easy tutorials written online on how to better protect your computer and your child.

Thirdly: Take some time to talk to your child about internet use. It can be an amazing tool but it can be dangerous. They need to know that right and wrong, safe and risky, they all still apply online (something easy to forget I assure you). They'll avoid things if they know its wrong. They will be curious about things if its only blocked.

Lastly, don't be fooled by people using the "think of the children" line. It's an alarmist appeal to emotion. There is very little danger so long as you use your common sense and only allow a child a sensible amount of time on the internet. As a politics student, I have to question whether this has been saved up till now to gain support for the government after an miserable turn in recent polls.

Thanks very much for reading, I hope you'll consider your position.

MarieFromStMoritz and Exotic Fruits - this article explains exactly why state (Dubai in fact) sponsored blocking of the internet is a misleading term at best - www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2010/09/06/dubais-dubious-internet-censorship/

If you think Dubai actually blocks anything, have a read and have a look at the comments since many are from Dubai. Describes the firewall as a "a pair of ratty, old curtains that have been hastily closed"

Read more: Dubai?s dubious internet ?censorship? | PC Pro blog www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2010/09/06/dubais-dubious-internet-censorship/#ixzz1uB0Hhuqn

Best, Andrew.

The main problem with blocking at source is that content blocking is a very blunt tool indeed.

For example, my DH is a scientist working on human reproduction. It is almost impossible for him to do a Google search for research papers relating to his work without turning up porn websites. If he turns "safe search" on, he can't find the research papers he needs. And he does quite a lot of his work from home.

So even if the government made it an "opt in" for porn, we would have to "opt in" despite having a small child.

It's a relatively limited example, I know, but it is an example of a perfectly legitimate (and indeed socially productive) activity that would be negatively affected by a blunt block at source.

Thanks for the link, Andrewjh. Sure, there are devious ways around it, but in 5 years here I have never accidentally stumbled upon anything dubious, whereas I did in the UK. I can feel quite confident that my 7 year old DS won't either, and that is what is important.

And as for censorship, I am all for it. I have enough faith in the [UK] government that they would never take this too far. And if they did, then I have enough faith in the [UK] populace to do something about it.

The harder it is to access internet porn, the more children will be put off looking for it, either because they know they're more likely to get caught, or they don't know how to, or because of fears that they are doing something bad/illegal. Not all teens are uber-rebels intent on breaking every single rule they can find. Of course, some are, but that's the only place your argument makes sense - no block is 100% and if someone is really determined, they will find their way around it. Still, it's kind of a stupid reason to oppose a block.

Can someone who supports the ISP side filtering tell me which solution they prefer from the 3 below?

a) Blocking all dedicated porn sites (but allowing user content driven sites to remain, so porn is still googleable)
b) Blocking anything which contains keywords related to porn (including MN, sex ed websites, educational resources etc)
c) Blocking all porn totally (by only allowing select websites through the filter and not allowing user driven content websites like facebook, MN, youtube etc)

Because if you go with (a) then you wont be stopping children from stumbling across porn. Bearing in mind it isn't the dedicated porn sites they are likely to stumble across, and even if they did the most explicit stuff will most likely be behind a paywall. It's the user generated content which is likely to be stumbled across by accident.

On top of that how would you compile the list? Would you rely on porn sites notifying the ISP's? Or would someone have to keep track of new porn sites popping up?

Bearing in mind a quick google reveals that in 2010 about 2.4 million domains were registered per month, how would you keep track of how many of those were porn sites? If you are relying on porn sites notifying the ISP's then that is flawed too. Partly because not all of them will want to notify the ISP's, but also because there is no way of enforcing that internationally. A website registered in the US is unlikely to notify a UK ISP.

I don't know Empusa, but I like the way things are out here in the UAE although I am not sure how they do it. Porn is banned, they are occasionally over-enthusiastic, for instance some lingerie sites are banned. But overall it works well.

Oh, and I have never had a problem accessing sex-education sites (research for IVF) or plastic surgery sites with images (research for my re-build after I have had the baby). So the argument that a ban will affect perfectly legitimate sites is nonsense.

Well that must be so nice for you Mariefromstmoritz getting your research down for your rebuild and not having to bother about supervising your son.

Well that must be so nice for you Mariefromstmoritz getting your research down for your rebuild and not having to bother about supervising your son.

I'm sorry, but WTF??!?

Sigh. Googling a few sites about IVF and plastic surgery is NOT the same as specialist academic research in the field of human reproduction. I'm not going to out myself by going into DH's research in great detail, but suffice it to say he CANNOT google without it throwing up porn sites.

DonInKillerHeels, I understand that. So I am assuming that he would be a person who would 'opt in'. He would have made the choice.

Don you do now realise that everyone is going to think your husband is doing a post-doc on big black cocks?

Hi there,

We have moved this thread to In The News now as the Mumsnet campaigns Talk topic is for MNHQ to post about Mumsnet campaigns.

I've read this thread, and the three linked ones.

It's abundantly clear that the proposed "opt in/out" system does not do what it says on the tin, and at best offers false reassurance. It simply does not protect children, and offers less than a typical net nanny software package.

Filtering/blocking/education/monitoring needs to be done by the user, not the service provider.

So I cannot support this proposal.

While the OP is poorly argued, opt-in is still a crap unworkable solution to a very real problem. I can't be bothered to repeat all I said on the previous threads that have been linked to on the first page. Empusa is explaining it all very clearly.

I would tentatively prefer solution a)

It would not be difficult to implement.
There are numerous web-filtering solutions out there, with dedicated staff working on categorizing websites, yes, looking at all the porn websites they find, and categorize them just so they can be blocked by the numerous web-filtering solutions out there. Such web filtering solutions could be implemented by ISPS.
They could even be made optional so that parents could just "tick a box" to implement for little extra cost.

Interestingly, parents are not willing to pay for this for home use, so their children can readily access porn. (or they are not aware of the existence or need for such services)
Most employers today have implemented web filtering solutions. It would seem that parents are not as vigilant regards to what their children watch as employers are, maybe because there are no legal nor financial implications to parents if their children access porn, as there would be if an employee was doing it in the office.

Not all parents have the means, or are tech savvy enough to know about neither the dangers nor the solutions out there.

It is even harder to monitor and control this when most kids today access the internet through their phones, rather their home connection, and this is not a problem that has yet been successfully resolved by the phone providers and their apps and networks.

So maybe the whole problem is redundant, with children accessing the net through more modern means than the family pc. Pressure should maybe be applied to the telcos rather than the isps, putting it one leverl further up?

An opt in porn filter will only protect people (or kids) from accidentally stumbling across porn. Other than that it's a political chocolate fireguard. It looks good in the press but will melt the first time it's challenged.

I don't know about how you surf the web but here on my computers I have yet to see porn jumping out at me unless I've actively gone to dodgy sites to look for it.

My fear is that your average parent who is not technically savvy will now give their child a laptop in their bedroom, safe in the knowledge that 'porn is blocked'.

Unfortunately their child is savvy enough to type in "How do i bypass porn block UK" into Google whilst encouraging their female classmates to post nude photos of themselves on Facebook.

Worst still, dad calls up their ISP and asks for the block to be lifted but doesn't tell mum. Mum thinks the kids are safe......dad thinks "It wont happen to us...."

Technology can only do so much. People will inevitably be lulled into a false sense of security.
I am an IT professional who specialises in networking/firewalls. I can lock up my computers tighter than a ducks arse but I choose the rather low tech solution of having the kids computer in the same room as me. It's so much easier and safer. Plus i can talk to them and teach them too.

For me this is a clear case of just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

My son has accidentally stumbled across po rn. Before we set up parental control.

He typed in Disney Fairies, he thought.

Turns out when googling "disney ferries" it redirected to a pretty h ardcore site.

It was very graphical, proper ick in ussy with juice flowing. He was shocked. I was shocked. And felt like a really bad parent at that time.

It should not be legal to have anything disney related point to such sites.

Yes, I'm sure accidents such as this will happen and a porn block will have limited success at limiting situations like you describe Quint.

But, given the same situation an ISP block may not work for a number of reasons:

1. You or your partner have lifted the block anyway to view adult material. It doesn't even have to be porn.

2. The site mis-using Disney's name are not on the block list or change their tactics to actively avoid the porn list. Look at computer viruses. They've evolved as people update their virus checkers. To me this is no different.

Also bear in mind that whilst you may provide some protection to those who like your son accidentally visited a porn site, there is a good chance the legislation creates a whole new number of kids whom are now allowed to be let loose on the Internet whilst their parents naively think they are protected.

My point is this. ISP level blocking is the wrong tool for the wrong job. There are better ways of doing it which involves encouraging better parental control through education. Unfortunately that isn't a quick win nor does it play well in the press. So that will never happen. It's far easier to impose something like this and get the headlines than it is to launch an education campaign on Internet safety and be accused of being a nanny state.

I am very against this new attack on our freedoms, it is first and foremost a completely unworkable pile of total shit that will end up accidentally blocking highly important data on health issues rather then stopping anyone who really wants to look at porn from doing so, but it is also completely unfit for purpose in a world where dumb parents, who know fuck all about computers. Give their children free unsupervised access to the internet, not just at home on the PCs the parents can barely use but also by buying their children completely unnecessary over priced smart phones.

These same clueless parents who steadfastly refuse to learn anything about computing and buy their children 18 rated games as well as the smart phones then normally have the audacity to throw insults at others for letting their kids eat junk food or not reading them books etc. The same applies to all. Be a damn parent take responsibility for your kids, it's not the governments job to bring them up, if you can't be arsed to understand the internet and computers or are too stupid to police them, then don't have it/don't let your kids use it.

Is that so fucking hard? seriously it's hardly rocket science.

"An opt in porn filter will only protect people (or kids) from accidentally stumbling across porn."

I doubt it'll even do that.

"There are numerous web-filtering solutions out there, with dedicated staff working on categorizing websites, yes, looking at all the porn websites they find, and categorize them just so they can be blocked by the numerous web-filtering solutions out there. Such web filtering solutions could be implemented by ISPS. "

Here's the issue, those people are employed by companies that deal solely in web filtering, these companies recoup the cost of all that manpower through the cost of their product. They will not share their data freely with ISP's - why would they? So ISP's will have to staff their own web filtering teams, and the cost will be passed on to the consumer. You may be happy with that, but I can't see why someone who isn't planning on using the web filtering technology would be happy to pay extra for it.

If individual ISP's want to offer the service then that's fine, we can choose not to use them. But if the govt force all ISP's to filter then (although you will be allowed to opt out of the filtering) you wont be able to opt out of paying for the filtering. Unless ISP's offer two pricing plans (higher price for filtered, lower price for unfiltered).

Problem with that is then the most vulnerable children (those who this legislation seek to protect) will still not be protected as their parents will be more likely to go for the cheaper offer. I find it hard to believe that parents who cannot be bothered to install their own filtering software or who cannot be bothered to supervise their own children will be bothered to pay the higher price.

It is quite simple, you would pay lower for the filtering and those who wanted unfiltered would be charged higher and subsidise it. They would be getting an extra service and would be paying for it. Even if I didn't have DCs I have no wish to be able to view porn so am quite happy to be filtered.

Surely that should be the other way round, exoticfruits? Current (unfiltered) service, ordinary price; additional filter, higher price?

Especially as in the light of niceguy2's and empusa's posts, it seems the current proposal is a technical nonsense which offers no real protection. Those who want The Emperor's New Clothes shouldn't expect others to pay.

NiceViper, viewing explicit images should not be a God-given right. And why should the needs of our children be cast aside to indulge you internet pervs for free?

Not at all. Those who want porn would subsidise the rest- why not. They would then be the one with the additional service. There must be many people like me who don't want to access it at all.