recent decision by MNHQ

[NetworkGuy]

Please, MNHQ, do have a read of this thread and consult your Tech people so they can give you the answers as to whether your support for this campaign and the Minister's plans are worth going on with.

I would hope you not only reverse your position but assuming you get sufficient technical reasoning in 'Plain English', that you go public and explain how unworkable the proposal is likely to be. I feel sure journalists at Computer Weekly and Computing will be able to provide confirmation that filtering is a hiding to nothing and can be very costly because of the millions of GB of data flowing through the bigger ISP networks.

For anyone baffled, and wondering if I'm a nut case, this concerns a proposal to get ISPs to "filter out" all porn, unless a customer "opts in". For numerous technical reasons the idea is never likely to achieve filtering without blocking access to legitimate sites or not blocking access to better than say 95% reliable, thus making it a costly exercise in futility, while parental vigilance and filtering software at the home would still be essential for peace of mind.

(Incidentally the wording of the campaign page implies the parents need to ask, at the same time as someone wanting not to have censored content needs to ask - it is one or other, but not both that would need to contact ISP. )

MMeLindt - I used to

"quote an awful lot"

and then after that I did lots of..............................

then I turned to my

"Is it jsut me or do radical freedom fighters worry anyone else just as much as conservative big brothers"

Exactly: back to the free-riding phenomenon! It is scary indeed.

@mrsgordonfreeman

How do you think the filter would work, Justine? How will it know the difference between innocent boobies and hardcore porn boobies?0

You know what?

This makes my blood run cold.

Mumsnet should not decide whether or not I can look at willies.

Freedom is hard won and easily eroded.

If a 7 year old can operate a computer, you can too. There is no excuse for absolving yourself of the responsibility to protect them.

Whatever next?

Please drop this hysterical and misguided campaign.

I am ashamed to be a mumsnetter at the moment.

Evening MrsGordon - pleased don't be ashamed! Truth is we as a society make decisions all the time about what is and what isn't appropriate. Right now there's an organisation called the Internet Watch Foundation which sifts through everything on the net (not a jolly job) and slaps a label on a lot of very horrible illegal stuff which the ISPs then filter out.

I think there have been some really valid points about workability raised here but the "this is the thin end of the wedge on censorship" one doesn't make sense to me. We already censor loads of things in the name of child protection on the internet and elsewhere. Of course there are valid concerns about where you draw the line but you can't deny that we do draw the line already all over the place - we censor illegal images, we rate dvds, we have a tv watershed.

The issue of the blocking of harmless material in error because the mechanisms involved are insufficiently sophisticated have been raised here and we have said Ok fair point, we're not experts - some who are more expert than we are have told us it's possible and some others more expert than us, who have posted here, have said it's not. On that basis we are modifying our ask to reflect the issue but not pinning our colours to any method of achieving it. And in retrospect we should have certainly asked for input about this earlier, for which we apologise.

We certainly don't want to, nor would, back anything when a significant group of Mumsnetters object to us backing it.

And as a rule, we do try not to be hysterical.

Justine, I find the tone of your post patronising. I am quite familiar with the IWF and their work with "very horrible illegal stuff."

You confuse what is illegal with what is acceptable for a child to see.

I used the word "hysterical" because of the general Daily Mail tone of the campaign. If you are concerned about your children accessing porn on the Internet, it is your responsibility to control it. Perhaps that should be the direction any campaign should take.

I am not making a thin end of the wedge argument. I'm making a fat end of the wedge argument. The IWF, if you like, were the thin end.

I am arguing against legislative paternalism and censorship.

You are arguing that parents cannot be trusted to monitor what their children see. Perhaps they cannot. But then who can be so trusted? You are arguing that legislation should control this. You are taking the decision out of the hands of adults (that's adults) and placing them into the hands of questionable bureaucrats.

As for the other remarks about my DH, I'm afraid that you are hopping on his bandwagon. By "vested interest" perhaps you mean "knows exactly what he is talking about." He works at the sharp end of this.

I get the impression that a few posters on here have very little idea about what censorship and vested interests truly means.

Finally, I feel that focusing on the technical impracticalities is clouding some people's judgments about how serious this really is.

"We already censor loads of things in the name of child protection on the internet "

Apart from the child sexual abuse (aka Child Pornography) what else is censored on the internet??

well talk about the pot calling the kettle black - accusing a poster of sounding patronising and then finished with

"I get the impression that a few posters on here have very little idea about what censorship and vested interests truly means."

If that isn't patronising...........well I'll eat my hat

@BaroqueAroundTheClock

"We already censor loads of things in the name of child protection on the internet "

Apart from the child sexual abuse (aka Child Pornography) what else is censored on the internet??

Any other illegal sexual practices which i don't like to think of.

@mrsgordonfreeman

Justine, I find the tone of your post patronising. I am quite familiar with the IWF and their work with "very horrible illegal stuff."

You confuse what is illegal with what is acceptable for a child to see.

I used the word "hysterical" because of the general Daily Mail tone of the campaign. If you are concerned about your children accessing porn on the Internet, it is your responsibility to control it. Perhaps that should be the direction any campaign should take.

I am not making a thin end of the wedge argument. I'm making a fat end of the wedge argument. The IWF, if you like, were the thin end.

I am arguing against legislative paternalism and censorship.

You are arguing that parents cannot be trusted to monitor what their children see. Perhaps they cannot. But then who can be so trusted? You are arguing that legislation should control this. You are taking the decision out of the hands of adults (that's adults) and placing them into the hands of questionable bureaucrats.

As for the other remarks about my DH, I'm afraid that you are hopping on his bandwagon. By "vested interest" perhaps you mean "knows exactly what he is talking about." He works at the sharp end of this.

I get the impression that a few posters on here have very little idea about what censorship and vested interests truly means.

Finally, I feel that focusing on the technical impracticalities is clouding some people's judgments about how serious this really is.

Interesting - do you object to the TV watershed then MrsGF because it's paternalistic and takes the decision out of parents' hands?

The TV watershed is irrelevant and bordering on obsolete these days, Justine. And yes, it is highly paternalistic and I do object because I don't live in the 1950s.

Would I use the PIN on my sky box to stop my daughter watching dodgy films? Yep.

And, Baroque, I'm afraid I reached that conclusion by reading the thread.

Justine, if you want to put the weight of Mumsnet behind a campaign, it should be one to encourage parents to get technically literate enough to control or monitor what their children see on the internet.

If a 7 year old can operate a computer, that 7 year old's mother or father should be able to manage to install a web filter and a whitelist (for very young or vulnerable children).

It is really, really not difficult. I feel like tearing my hair out that you think full censorship is the way to deal with this!

Thanks for the apology/rethink Justine.

mrsgordonfreeman
I am actually quite happy with how MN are handling this. They have taken on board the comments on this thread, they have taken our misgivings to the panel set up to debate this issue. They have taken down the initial campaign page and are re-thinking it.

They are caught between those pushing for this and those against it, and will have to find their way through all the technical advice and details.

I think the TV watershed is an ideal way to demonstrate the flaws in this plan.

If the proposal is only to block porn, then that's analogous to saying that Shaving Ryan's Privates wouldn't be on TV before 9pm but your child might turn over from CBBC to find Pulp Fiction on at 4pm.

Or, if the proposal is to block all non-child friendly sites, then it would be like having a non-stop watershed until you get fed up of not being able to watch How To Look Good Naked or Charlie Brooker, so you turn the filter off and then it's Debbie Does Dallas and Aliens Versus Predator on TV all day every day.

Actually, that gives me a (possibly silly) thought. How about if they did an option where you have the full child-friendly filter during the day (so no porn, no gore, no swearing) but then the filter automatically turned off after 9pm? And you could still have the opt-out facility for those who don't want any filtering at any time.

Actually I agree with MmeLindt. I'm glad MN are having a rethink about this.

The point Justine made about "some who are more expert than we are have told us it's possible and some others more expert than us, who have posted here, have said it's not."

I think its important to note that the people who say that "its possible" are proposing a solution which is so easy to circumvent that its practically useless. But they have a vested interest and have calculated that they can make money this way and using technical ignorance and powerful "child protection" mantra to make it happen. Just in the same way that a salesman would sell you a used car highlighting all the good bits without mentioning that actually the engine will break in about 2 days.

Those who say it cannot. Well we have nothing to gain from it really. Worst case is we either have to call up our ISP and unblock our porn or just use a simply bypass.

JustineMumsnet
"Right now there's an organisation called the Internet Watch Foundation which sifts through everything on the net (not a jolly job) and slaps a label on a lot of very horrible illegal stuff which the ISPs then filter out."

And that a crucial misunderstanding of how the IWF operate that perhaps illustrates why you seem to believe in filtering.

The IWF rely mainly on people reporting bad sites and then they block them. They don't "sift" the whole internet and they're working with a very clearly defined definition of what they're trying to block.

But even then they make big mistakes. A while ago they managed to block the entire Wikipedia web site because of the image of one album cover.

And a number of ISPs refuse to operate the IWF black list simply because of their concerns over how accountable they are and the errors that they make.

And all of those issues are for one small group dealing with a comparatively rare and well defined category based upon public reports.

Imagine the issues with a huge group, dealing with a staggeringly common yet legally ill defined category based upon their own automated discoveries.

Well actually you don't have to imagine it, go and research Australia's experiments.

Or look at China, who the people who seem to have inspired Clare Perry MP hold up as an example of how to censor the internet, who despite unquestionable commitment and huge resources still can't manage automatic filters and simply block entire web sites that "might" have disagreeable content on some pages.

"We certainly don't want to, nor would, back anything when a significant group of Mumsnetters object to us backing it."

Well with this campaign that's exactly what you've done. So please let your reconsiderations lead to you dropping the idea of ISP level filtering and instead push for education of parents.

absolutely BadgerPaws - I attempted to write a post similar to yours earlier this morning, but ran upstairs to be sick in the middle of it so gave up

Basically I was looking at their 2009 report \link{http://www.iwf.org.uk/accountability/annual-reports/2009-annual-report\here} which shows the sort of numbers of sites they dealt with it, and the issues they face in finding the stuff and/or having it removed.

Plus their mission

"To work in partnership with internet service providers, telecommunication companies, mobile operators, software providers, the police, Government and the public to minimise the availability of online criminal content, particularly child sexual abuse images."

Shows that

a) they're dealing with criminal content, as objectional as hardcore porn, or photos of mutiliated bodies may be - it's not actually illegl.

b) They rely on a huge number of people to be able to do their job - and as BadgerPaws has said - not without mistakes......and they are dealing with a much smaller number of sites

"a (possibly silly) thought. How about if they did an option where you have the full child-friendly filter during the day but then the filter automatically turned off after 9pm"

Not a silly idea at all. I might suggest 10pm not 9pm but then there's the situation of many teens using laptops / netbooks / iPod Touch / iPhone (OK, fewer for that) using the home Wi-Fi connection from their bedrooms.

One option (but probably unwelcome from the couch based MN surfers laptop-using parents would be to just disable the Wi-Fi facility overnight, when the 'porn block' is disabled at the ISP.

I've even set up a router to limit the facilities (so all activity can be blocked on a particular PC whatever IP address it is using) because the router allowed the creation of 'categories' of user, so could then stop HTTP (web page) traffic and other things (games, IRC, etc) or everything during particular parts of the day (and could be different each day if one had the patience to configure it, I just did Sun-Thu, Fri-Sat to have more relaxed hours when there may be a sleepover/no school next day.

Oh god NetworkGuy, something like that sounds very useful. I would love to customis my Belkin router to alow wiFi access only at certain times, or to categorise users. Would save the pitched battle around DS1's lapdop/PS3. He probably wouldn't even work out what had happened.

Now I'll have to remember which s*dd1ng client wanted to use f&^%$£"g wi-fi, to find out what darn router it was !!

Cables are faster and more reliable but for some reason people try darn wireless and then have problems and if you don't like cables around the home, these days there are methods to transmit the data via the house mains wiring.

Eleison - I think the 'giveaway' might be that the Wi-Fi light goes out on your router every night at the same time, and at his end, some gadget with wireless access says "Access point not found".

He'd be far more likely to hunt for some (unencrypted) neighbour's wireless network and then you'd have no knowledge of what was being used. Also, that could lead to an offence where the police could be involved...