UK Internet Providers to Introduce Porn Block
New policies brought in to protect children.
Four of the UK's major ISPs (Internet Service Providers) are working on a plan that would see customers opt-in if they want to be able to view pornographic content online. The Guardian reports that the new policy is expected to be unveiled today by Prime Minister David Cameron as part of a No. 10 meeting with the Mothers' Union and is aimed at protecting children from the vast amount of pornography and adult material online.
While there has been some confusion over how the system will work, ISPs that spoke to the Guardian newspaper said that only customers signing a completely new contract will be asked to choose between a connection with these new parental controls, or one without. Current customers, as well as those who change tiers but stay within the same service will not be asked to choose. TalkTalk described it as more of an active-choice rather than opt-in. How each ISP will implement the new measures differs, too. While BT and Sky offer McAfee software that's downloaded to your machine, Wired UK reports that TalkTalk and Virgin's blocks are both network-based.
Though it may seem like an extreme solution, it's also important to note that the blocking and/or filtering features to be provided by BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin are nothing new. These products were added to each of the ISPs portfolios a while ago. However, now, your ISP will be asking you whether you want it when you sign up.
"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 companies said in a statement. "The four ISPs are working with parents' groups and children's charities on this important initiative and will continue to do so."
There will also be a website called 'ParentPort' where parents can go to complain about inappropriate content such as TV shows, advertisements or services.
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Oh geez pic goes very well with this
Epic picture.
Time to go to the neighbors wifi again. I bet one neighbor won't have it blocked. You realy need that when your 16, jk.
O boy...
Not a bad idea for parents who want to prevent little children from seeing inappropriate material. Better still would be parents who actually monitor their little children's activities.
I'm not so worried about how many porn sites will somehow slip through the cracks and not get blocked, but rather how many non-porn sites will be erroneously blocked.
I'd love a feature like this, if I could be sure I'd never be blocked from a site that I had a legit need to get to. The filter at my office does such a poor job at this that if the ISP version is similar, I'd have to opt-out of the filter just to retain access to sites I need for my work, but just happened to get blocked by the ISP's porn filter because someone posted an inappropriate comment on a blog or something.
I bet free porn is still available through torrents. So this stops nothing.
Not a bad idea for parents who want to prevent little children from seeing inappropriate material. Better still would be parents who actually monitor their little children's activities.
Yep, watch your kids. The newest routers allow very nice parental controls, its pretty cool, and it doesn't take a 900lb brain to configure the software.
This is going to create some interesting conversations between couples. In the end though, we all know this is going to solve nothing. Where there's a will, there's a way. Kids will get their hands on stuff they're not supposed to no matter what. What needs to happen is talks about sexuality between parents and children and we all know that just doesn't happen.
This will do nothing as most kids have smartphones to watch porn on these days. Nice try though...
you know pic kiddo is stupid next time bring a tablet or a laptop
All hail Airstrip One! Congratulations on skipping the logical, free-market alternative (offering pr0n-block as an optional service) and going straight to 1984-style solution.
Newagents be prepared for some top shelf shoplifting, because the kids aren't ever going to find dads stash like we did in the old days.
NOOOOO!!!!
I bet free porn is still available through torrents. So this stops nothing.
Why wait for a torrent when you can use a proxy?
I don't recall children liking pornography. What's the point of this?
What will you do with that porn? Will you fight? Aye, fight and you may die, run and you'll live. At least a while. And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take our pornh!
Soiled Bottom. What?
Seems that once again, Prime Minister David Cameron jumps on the moral bandwagon. Pity it doesn't extend to cheaper fuel and other essential, less tax and liveable wages but still, give or take a few decades and a miracle or two.. Forget all that; let's just 'defend the people' with one hand in advance of smacking them in the face just before Christmas with another.
With him out the way, I do feel minors have too easy an access to adult content on the Internet. I also feel the best filter is the human firewall: Mom, Dad or other responsible guardian. I do not mind opting into this system at all, but whether it will work or not really does remain to be seen. Show me any automated system that has worked thus far. My view is that even with the best filtering software, the moment they go online kids are vulnerable.
Let's take games. How many kids do you know play online games? I meet many of them, playing adult-orientated content. Any game that has a chat-box can circumvent filtering software, and some of the content I've seen..it just makes me wonder what the child's parents would think if they actually saw it. Then there is the issue of kids given admin rights, and having to deal with issues they have neither the maturity nor experience to deal with in the first place. How do they get these rights? Well, on some servers they throw money at the site owner..
So I think any such system would be fraught with technical issues and vulnerabilities, the likes of which many children would be able to exploit to their advantage.
It also makes me smile when I read about the aforementioned PM taking a 'stand' on this issue, because he makes it sound as if the Internet is the only potential danger to their well-being. All I can say is, switch on the TV, including the BBC channels. It's not just the Internet that's being used a means of conditioning them, and not just after the watershed..
Seems that once again, Prime Minister David Cameron jumps on the moral bandwagon. Pity it doesn't extend to cheaper fuel and other essential, less tax and liveable wages but still, give or take a few decades and a miracle or two.. Forget all that; let's just 'defend the people' with one hand in advance of smacking them in the face just before Christmas with another.
With him out the way, I do feel minors have too easy an access to adult content on the Internet. I also feel the best filter is the human firewall: Mom, Dad or other responsible guardian. I do not mind opting into this system at all, but whether it will work or not really does remain to be seen. Show me any automated system that has worked thus far. My view is that even with the best filtering software, the moment they go online kids are vulnerable.
Let's take games. How many kids do you know play online games? I meet many of them, playing adult-orientated content. Any game that has a chat-box can circumvent filtering software, and some of the content I've seen..it just makes me wonder what the child's parents would think if they actually saw it. Then there is the issue of kids given admin rights, and having to deal with issues they have neither the maturity nor experience to deal with in the first place. How do they get these rights? Well, on some servers they throw money at the site owner..
So I think any such system would be fraught with technical issues and vulnerabilities, the likes of which many children would be able to exploit to their advantage.
It also makes me smile when I read about the aforementioned PM taking a 'stand' on this issue, because he makes it sound as if the Internet is the only potential danger to their well-being. All I can say is, switch on the TV, including the BBC channels. It's not just the Internet that's being used a means of conditioning them, and not just after the watershed..
Sorry about the double post folks. For some reason the comments don't appear to be updating (using Opera 11).
braveheart quote as a joke....joke was bad....and your funnybone is broken
People demonizing the naked, natural body....It's really not a big deal - let's be honest with ourselves, the reason there are 6 billion+ people in this world, is because A LOT of people fucked. Yup, so deal with it and stop acting like it's terrible, wrong and bad. Kids are little people with a lot of hormones. How long do you seriously think you can keep that suppression up?
Well, I don't think the issue is the naked body so much as what adults choose to do with it. I learned from an early age what went where, but that is a far cry from some of the stuff on the Internet; that stuff is for adults not kids for good reason.
"Protecting the children" is the reason people always cite when advocating for censorship, but the "children" are the ones that sell themselves out with flashy clothes, sexing and whatnot.
The only thing that comes to mind:
http://www.southparkstudios.com/cl [...] -ever-made
So when you sign up with a new ISP, you'll basically have to declare whether you're a porn watcher or not. Nice, I'm betting all the names of the opt-outers will be in a database somewhere to be used when needed.
Ahem, where do I sign for the porn?
I don't recall children liking pornography. What's the point of this?
Are you kidding? When I was in 2nd grade we had kids passing porn mags around the bus.
I read this as therer being a giant block of porn somewhere, even though I read about the story yesterday.
Soiledbottom - that mademe laugh, thought it was 300 though.
I don't understand how you can have sex from the age of 16, can't look at it until you are 18 but get taught about it at school when you are 10. I really don't think banning porn online is going to fix things.
Well this is going to get awkward when i have to ask my housemate to ring our ISP to allow me to watch porn...