[LINK] more filter fiasco -- UK this time
Frank O'Connor
francisoconnor3 at bigpond.com
Fri Dec 20 13:29:05 AEDT 2013
Yes,
To paraphrase Auld Robbie:
"The best laid plans of mice and moralists ..." :)
No filetering regime I've ever seen put into practice seems to work, as anticipated that is.
Just my 2 cents worth ...
---
On 20 Dec 2013, at 10:57 am, Jan Whitaker <jwhit at janwhitaker.com> wrote:
> [I guess the pushers for this approach in
> Australia moved back to the 'home country' with the same predictable failure.]
>
> UK porn filters blocking education sites, domestic abuse hotlines
>
> Will Oremus
> Published: December 20, 2013 - 9:32AM
>
> Of pornography, US Supreme Court Justice Potter
> Stewart once claimed, "I know it when I see it."
> The same, it seems, cannot be said for the
> automated pornography filters that the British
> government has required the country's major
> internet providers to install on everyone's broadband service.
>
> An investigation by the BBC finds that the
> filters – part of conservative Prime Minister
> David Cameron's "war on porn" – are failing to
> block some major porn sites. Worse, they are
> blocking important educational sites, including
> an award-winning, youth-focused sex-education
> site called BishUK.com. Also blocked as
> "pornographic" by British ISP TalkTalk's porn
> filter are sites such as the homepage for the
> Edinburgh Women's Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre.
> Meanwhile, TalkTalk failed to block 7 per cent of
> the 68 major porn sites tested by reporters for BBC's Newsnight.
>
> Another ISP, Sky, succeeded in blocking 99 per
> cent of the actual porn sites tested, but also
> blocked porn-addiction sites – which seems a
> little counterproductive, no? A third provider,
> BT, blocked online domestic-abuse resource centres.
>
> Parents' groups are also complaining that the
> porn filters are problematic even when they work.
> That's because they imply to parents that
> children can be kept safe on the web simply by
> activating certain filters, rather than by
> actually talking to them about the risks
> associated with various online behaviours.
>
> This is, of course, what happens when you take
> your domestic-policy agenda from the Daily Mail,
> whose anti-child-porn campaign was widely
> credited with spurring Cameron to action. No
> doubt this is all working quite well for the
> Mail, however, which in addition being a
> righteous crusader against pornography is one of
> the web's leading purveyors of wardrobe malfunctions and sideboob.
>
> Slate
>
> This story was found at:
> http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/uk-porn-filters-blocking-education-sites-domestic-abuse-hotlines-20131220-2zopp.html
>
>
>
> Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
> jwhit at janwhitaker.com
>
> Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you,
> you're gonna die, so how do you fill in the space
> between here and there? It's yours. Seize your space.
> ~Margaret Atwood, writer
>
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