Internet porn may be blocked at source

[David51]

Communications minister Ed Vaizey is working on plans designed to prevent children gaining access to internet pornography.

He hopes to introduce a system that would enable parents to ask internet service providers (ISPs) to block adult sites at source, rather than relying on parental controls that they need to set themselves.

Adults using the internet connection would then have to specifically 'opt in' if they want to view pornography.

Full story:

www.metro.co.uk/news/850896-new-porn-controls-for-children-on-internet-planned-by-government

Mumsnet PLEASE think about doing a campaign about this. Or at least keep us posted on if & when the government decides to ask for our views.

In the meantime maybe we should all contact our current ISPs to ask what they plan to do and letting them know what we want as their customers.

That's kind of my point though Bibbity, it's not just the dedicated porn sites which have porn on them.

Conversely, Mumsnet has been blocked on my PC several times because the heuristic controls suspected it was offering gambling.

Badgers said: "Putting in place a system that, as said, won't work will just trick those that are trying to keep their guard into thinking "well I don't need to do anything now" when they still need to be on their toes."

That is a strange argument. If you can educate people "out of their ignorance" then you can also educate them to realise that no system offers 100% protection. It is supposedly what happens now with personal firewall filters - do people still think now that they have protected their children because they have a filter in place? IME,usually yes. But filters are only as good as the information they have on the websites that are out there and the updates they get.

Which is why the argument about sex education websites not getting through is futile. A filter is literally a list of websites that are unsuitable according to a set of criteria. So if someone tried to access the BBC website which had some sex education information on, and couldn't, this person could contact the ISP and tell them. A human would look at the site and say "actually that site is fine, it is not adult porn humiliating women, I will take this site off the hit list". This problem would never happen again, to any other user, ever again. It's not that much of an issue for everyone.

Filter lists are flexible, and non static. Just because the filter might make a mistake on a website doesn't mean it will make a mistake every time - it will only make the mistake until the system has been notified and changed. And this goes both ways for letting through porn and also not giving access to non x rated sites.

There already is a system in place for age categories used for TV and film - and I don't hear many people on here saying that this is censorship and we should be able to have 18 films on the tv at 5pm. The classification of porn argument is simply an irrelevant red herring. If anyone seriously believes that content shouldn't be 'censored' for children, they are literally insane.

And this argument that supporting a proposal such as this then follows into a place where people don't support/allow sex education is ludicrous and unsubstantiated, and simply wrong.

I think the comparisons between what we saw as children and what our own children are exposed to are daft

my generation might have seen some tattered old dad's mag with a naked girl posing

My daughter/son will probably see video on the Internet/mobile of double anal or god knows what

I am sure that there has always been a Market for such things, but their availability has skyrocketed

hurray for freedom I guess, but I hate the idea that my children will see these things and assimilate them into their view of what sex is, and adjust their expectations accordingly

I want them to grow up confident in expressing their sexuality in a way that is consistent with respect for themselves, and for other human beings, where they are not doing things because 'well that's what you are meant to do/what you ought to like/etc'

I don't feel that early exposure to porn is going to facilitate this attitude

I feel more confident in my ability to protect them from being exposed to stuff like SAW or similar than I do from porn

I have no idea what the answer is, but I sure as he'll resent how bloody inevitable it feels

Kaloki - I am telling you that you can see quite enough porn, for free, from dedicated porn sites.

I am blissfully ignorant about porn elsewhere on the internet.

I know that determined youngsters will find a way to access it, but I don't see any necessity or argument for handing them a gazillion images on a plate.

ANother point is that there is actually no reliable evidence whatsoever that seeing porn is actually doing young people harm. There isn't much of an argument that viewing porn does anyone harm: there are certainly no properly-conducted, non-discredited studies on the subject.
(The issue of harm done by way of exploitation and coercion of some performers is a different issue, and not one that will be fixed by banning people from looking at pictures).

"A filter is literally a list of websites that are unsuitable according to a set of criteria."

In which case what would happen to websites with content added to them by the community? Eg. wikipedia, youtube, flickr, message forums, chat rooms

Because either you let those through, and porn is available to young children. Or you don't and they have to be opted in to.

Or to get around this are you going to block individual pages? Or images? Based on what?

• People reporting them? Oh yeah.. can't see any problems with that.

• Keywords? See previous arguments

If you are saying that the filters on k9webprotection work, then it follows that it is technically possible for the ISPs to filter out porn.

"I know that determined youngsters will find a way to access it, but I don't see any necessity or argument for handing them a gazillion images on a plate."

And that is why I will control what they see and teach them what to do if something inappropriate gets through. I don't need a solution that is like cracking a nut with a steam roller.

Kaloki - how do you think these parental filters work?

There are two things to discuss here:

• could we do this? and if we can, then
• should we do this?

So can we do this?
Any filter must always trade off sensitivity and specificity -- this concept is true for randomised controlled trials of drugs, for breast cancer screening, for noise filters on hifis and much more besides.

If the porn website filter is very sensitive, it will block most porn websites but also block many other sites (sex ed, mumsnet, nhs.net etc); if the porn website filter is too specific, it will correctly allow viewing of those non-porn sites, but will also fail to block many porn sites.

With judicious tweaking, I'm sure that a website filter can be got to be quite accurate -- blocking whitehouse.com but not whitehouse.gov etc. However, it will:
a) require extensive handtuning by people and continuous monitoring -- it can never be fully automated, and there is just an insane amount of content out there to monitor
b) still get it wrong lots of the time, leading to outrage at every Type 1 and 2 error
c) be completely ineffective against torrents etc until software is capable of reliably identifying sexual displays and acts, so that the filtering doesn't happen at site level but at content level
d) always be ineffective at distinguishing between porn and other sexual images. To paraphrase Dittany, porn is sexual material intended to arouse -- and it is simply impossible for a filter to reliably ascertain intent. For example, a filter will not be able to distinguish between the use of the word "cunt" in a porn story and a feminist anti-porn site discussing how disgusting that story is for using the word "cunt" in a way that's derogatory to women.

Therefore, I don't think we can do this, and ought to tackle the problems in other ways, especially education.

As declarations of interest have been asked for, I have used porn in the past and enjoyed it, but am now deeply troubled by the violence inherent in its manufacture. However, I'm also deeply troubled by the violence involved in getting the minerals required to make my mobile phone run, ie I don't think of porn as being a "separate" problem from other problems we face.

"If you are saying that the filters on k9webprotection work, then it follows that it is technically possible for the ISPs to filter out porn.

And if they work then the solution is already there and we needn't waste anymore time or money looking for a more heavy handed version.

Tinsel - the whole point is that you can't control exactly what they get through - especially via mobile devices. ISPs on the other hand could control this

Surely the argument is about all the times they are looking at the internet on a pc/laptop/phone that is not within your control dragon.

I'm not a porn user. Off the top of my head I can think of two reasons why I would be contacting my ISP to switch this filtering off - sexual health sites and arts sites. When that happens, I don't want my name on a handy list of people who have chosen to access porn.

Greyskull, no there is no way to write an algorithm that will reliably distinguish between porn and innocent content. It's something even live people have trouble with, and we have some grasp of things like context, which computers can't really do.

'something must be done - here is something, therefore we must do it' is flawed logic.

These proposals will not stop porn getting through, will block a lot of innocent content, will give people a false sense of security, will be very expensive and will slow down the whole internet. These proposals are worse than nothing, especially as parental controls already exist.

They are much more personalised. To apply them to an ISP you'd have to have the ISP set on the strictest criteria, which would mean that a lot of things would be blocked that didn't need blocking. And whereas on a parental filter you could decide how much or how little you wanted filtered, that's not exactly going to translate well to an ISP.

Customer - I'd like you to unblock certain individual websites for me, but not all of them.
ISP - sure, we totally don't mind all the additional admin work and wont be passing the cost on to any of our customers at all

Ps. Just so you know, I had to call up my mobile phone company to ask for access to "adult content" as they'd blocked loads of things that definitely could not be construed as porn. One was a website for the use of those with eating disorders, self harm problems, mental health issues and those who had suffered sexual abuse. This is how reliable those filters are.

bibbity, if you're worried about PCs/laptops/etc that aren't in your personal possession then these measures will do nothing to address those concerns. After all, even if you turn on the filtering for your own Internet connection, there's no guarantee that every other person's own Internet connections will be similarly filtered. So your child goes round to someone else's house and you'll still have no control over what they're accessing.

Yes, Bibbety, just like my finding porn magazines in the park and reading them was out of my parents control. Even with an ISP block they will manage to see it if they try hard enough. There will always be ways round it for both supplier and viewer.

How about alcohol. That is not suitable for children so how about we block that completely?

The people who advocate censorship against pornography are always vague about how it's going to be defined, and how innocent material is going to be excluded. They also don't seem to be keen to tell people just to set up their own filtering systems. It's always Big Brother (or should it be Big Sister?) who has to step in to save everyone. As if Big Brother is doing such a great job in any other area!

My interest is in keeping power in the hands of the individual, not government.

slhilly, your point about torrents etc is well made. There are systems that can monitor those. They tend to come under the banner of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI). Most of the big advocates of DPI are the big music and movie publisers. They have already attempted, more than once, to get the UK Govt to force ISPs to install content filtering systems. Their motive is nothing to do with porn and everything to do with clamping down on filesharing.

This is not the first time that the government has tried to force all ISPs to install content filtering under one guise or another. Porn and "Save the CHILLLLLDDDRRRRUUUUNNN!!!!!??!" is just the latest excuse.

See, I'm utterly confused now Snorbs.

Leaving aside whether this is morally justifiable or technically possible, if pornography on the internet was opt-in ONLY, then I am fairly confident that this would overall reduce the amount of exposure my dc get to pornography. Because people would have to make the pro-active choice to opt-in (and pay with a credit card presumably) rather than fingers crossed hope little Sam's parents have remembered to install parental controls on their home pc.

Of course no system could be watertight or failproof. But am still unconvinced by the anti-censorship arguments. We have loads of censorship as far as our children are concerned. Good thing too.

'they manage not to show pornography in schools.'

'They' also manage to poorly educate our children about sex and relationships. But that's another story.

Just had a thought while thinking about how The Sun came out in favour of this proposal.

The big guns who make a large profit from adult content / soft porn will probably welcome this proposal. Newscorp / Richard Desmond / Playboy lobbyists will be able to lobby the government to persuade them that what they offer is erotica / adult content as opposed to porn and make an exception while at the same time putting small time content providers and adult industry businesses out of business because they don't have the same sway with government.

Pornography, like most recorded content is under real threat from piracy and amateur participants who upload content for free. This law may help the big softcore corporations guard their profit margins.

Just a thought. I haven't totally thought it through so feel free to rip apart.

I am also getting tired of the emotional and judgmental tone of the arguments. Masturbation is not evil. Wanting to look at naked adults is not evil. Having an interest in sex is not evil. You don't halt the 'pornification' of society by saying that all sexually explicit material is inherently misogynist and should be banned.

Oooh Snorbs I posted without reading your last one so we might be a bit on the same page.