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.

So you found a porn magazine in a park? Didn't we all. That is quite simply not the same as the millions and millions of pornographic images available any time any place on the internet.

It angers me, too, whoever said it earlier.

But bibbity although opting in to porn would be a better system, it is pretty much impossible to put a system into place that will allow that. Unless they also block a lot of innocent content as well.

I did say leaving aside whether it is feasible, Kaloki.

My point is simple "opting in to porn would be a better system" full stop.

"ime", I should add.

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.

By the way all of this is a bit futile anyway. Ed Vaizey has no plans to legislate, he is just facilitating 'a chat' between ISPs and anti-porn groups

MN has so many threads about anal sex etc that it would certainly count as an adult site if this idea goes through. Therefore every one of you would have to phone your ISP and ask for porn to be allowed. Not just embarrassing, but then you will be unprotected again so you are back where you started.

Not that it will since here is no way (other than the white-listing method I posted about before) of doing this.

Those who think it can be done do not understand how the internet works and that includes the politicians.

You may have heard that the blocking by the IWF works, but it really doesn't. It's easy enough to check that a page is blocked at their instruction and then it would be simple enough to bypass it. If you were set up for it then you could insure it never affected you in the first place by using a VPN or any of a number of other ways. I can think of three and I'm not even a network expert.

What it does do is interfere with the normal working of the site in question so innocent users suffer.

Any filtering system would at least slow down every site access and will prevent some perfectly innocent sites from working at all.

Remember that (as others have pointed out) wikipedia was blocked by the IWF and all the perfectly legal picture, file storing and backup sites are interfered with almost continuously.

"The way porn is available on the internet now isn't so much like a child coming across a porn magazine in a park, but rather if they went to the library and found shelf upon shelf of hardcore porn available for them to have a look at."

Not if you have parental controls in place it isn't.

Please tell me where you stamd on erotic literature. Do you want that blocked too?

It's not that easy to find porn - I merely have Firefox set to its default settings and only once has it even flagged that relevant sites to my search were being excluded - and that was when I needed pictures of genital warts! Admittedly I don't search for images much.

I'd like to know who's pushing for this - the Tories are all 'power to parents; less big Government' in other areas, like running schools, so why the urge to even consider this as part of their remit?

That's interesting notcitrus. What are the default settings on Firefox? Have they done your censoring for you?

A keyword filter wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Lots of people would class them as the same too. If you're going to write an algorithm to block porn you have to be able to articulate the difference very very clearly.

Unless, of course, you're happy for erotic literature to be blocked too. I think it's a very relevant question.

Because Dittany, it's a perfect example of the grey area you don't think exists.

Out of pure interest, I just googled "Erotic literature". The 2nd link down (www.literotica). Is that erotica or is that porn?

I suspect the site itself, google and all the people who have helped pushed it up the search engine listings class it as "erotica" yet to me it's far from clear. Assuming you rate it as porn, do you now block the entire site or just the naughty pictures & links within it?

How are the filters going to know the difference, dittany?

I get really fed up with your shitty, superior and patronising tone, Dittany. It is unbelievably rude.

Yes, I am perfectly capable of identifying erotic literature. However, given that the definition of pornography is "books, magazines, films etc dealing with or depicting sexual acts" it is also clearly porn. Do you see it as being something else?

Would you allow it through the Nanny State filters or not? If not, how would you identify it as being porn rather than, say, any MN thread that "anyFucker" has posted on, given the pornographic swearword in her username? Or any of a myriad of Mumsnet threads where sexual swearwords are rife.

I don't want children to see erotic literature - why would I - it is sexually explicit content?

Exactly the same as tv, films and Nuts magazine.

If, for example, I wanted to type something like "you're talking out of your fucking arse" I wouldn't want to have to phone my ISP in order to do so or read the replies.

And no, I'm not a porn user. Not if we're not counting erotic literature.

Neither do I LadyBlahBlha. however, I don't want to have to phone my ISP to allow me to read a large proportion of the threads on Mumsnet.

Thus, I have parental controls only children's user profile and not on mine. I am in complete personal control, not some nameless ISP.

But you are not in control

And I think you really misunderstand how filtering technology works.

But LadyBla - how is anyone going to define erotic text? By the use of certain words? In which case not only Mumsnet threads but online dictionaries will be excluded. By theme (assuming that could be established by software)? You'd end up blocking Mumsnet from any under-18 mothers.

Dittany appears to think only pictures are a problem (correct me if that is wrong). But which pictures? Cartoons of people having sex? Bye-bye manga and some excellent safer sex campaigns. Or only ones depicting real people? You'd end up banning people's own sites.

Most of my friends are IT geeks. They all work on the principle that if you have the internet, you can access anything. Their kids get to only access the net from home from the computer in the lounge/kitchen, with no access on their own ones until they're in their teens.

Lots of porn is distasteful - hopefully fairly-traded porn by feminist directors will gain a larger share of the market soon thanks to lower costs of net distribution, but it does have an educative function, especially when better sexual education is limited. The costs to the NHS of sexual ignorance and stigma are huge, and censorship of what young people can access is only going to make that worse.

No, I do not misunderstand it at all, thank you. I know how it works and, as the controls are on mycomputer, I get to adjust them and let suspect sites through if I choose. Thus. I am in control.

Yes, it lets through things it shouldn't. I block them

Yes, it blocks things it shouldn't. I put them on the safe list or do a one time "allow"

I know from another site that some people couldn't see a risqué emoticon because of their (presumably work) filters. this is the kind of grey area that would cause hassle.