[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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