[LINK] NS re the UK Internet Filter

[Roger Clarke]

[This item is shrill, and may need to be read with scepticism.  But, 
if it's even 20% correct, then it's not only the Pommie cricket team 
that's in a seriously bad way.]


Cameron's internet filter goes far beyond porn - and that was always the plan
Through secretive negotiations with ISPs, the coalition has divided 
the internet into 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable' categories and cut 
people off from huge swathes of it at the stroke of a key.
MARTIN ROBBINS
New Statesman
23 DECEMBER 2013 14:16
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/12/camerons-internet-filter-goes-far-beyond-porn-and-was-always-plan

There is no porn filter, and blocking Childline is not an accident
The idea of an internet porn filter has always been a political 
fiction, a conveniently inaccurate sound bite used to conjure images 
of hardcore fisting and anal rape in the feverishly overactive 
imaginations of middle Britain. What activists actually called for - 
and ISPs were forced to provide - is an 'objectionable content' 
filter, and there is a vast, damp and aching chasm between the two.

The language of the mythical 'porn filter' is so insidious, so 
pervasive, that even those of us opposed to it have been sucked into 
its slippery embrace. And so even when it turns out that O2 are 
blocking the Childline and Refuge websites, or that BT are blocking 
gay and lesbian content, we tend to regard them as collateral damage 
- accidental victims of a well-meaning (if misguided) attempt to 
protect out children from the evils of cock.

But this was never the case. As Wired reported back in July, 
Cameron's ambitions extended far beyond porn. Working through 
secretive negotiations with ISPs, the coalition has put in place a 
set of filters and restrictions as ambitious as anything this side of 
China, dividing the internet into 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable' 
categories, and cutting people off from huge swathes of it at the 
stroke of a key.

"As well as pornography, users may automatically be opted in to 
blocks on "violent material", "extremist related content", "anorexia 
and eating disorder websites" and "suicide related websites", 
"alcohol" and "smoking". But the list doesn't stop there. It even 
extends to blocking "web forums" and "esoteric material", whatever 
that is. "Web blocking circumvention tools" is also included, of 
course."

And the restrictions go further still. Over the weekend, people were 
appalled to discover that BT filters supported homophobia, with a 
category blocking, "sites where the main purpose is to provide 
information on subjects such as respect for a partner, abortion, gay 
and lesbian lifestyle, contraceptive, sexually transmitted diseases 
and pregnancy."

BT have since reworded this description to remove the 'gay and 
lesbian' reference, but given that their filtering is provided by an 
unnamed "third party supplier" it seems highly unlikely that the 
filter itself has changed overnight - merely the description. Such 
measures would never be taken against the 'heterosexual lifestyle' - 
this is discrimination, pure and simple, hard-coded into our national 
communications infrastructure.

Of course it's impossible to see what's been blocked other than 
through tedious trial and error. One website owner (@pseudomonas) 
asked BT on Twitter for information about whether their site was 
blocked, and their experience was something like talking to a brick 
wall who only speaks French. The bottom line here is that even 
parents have no idea what they're actually blocking, and we have no 
way of assessing the harm caused by BT's measures.

O2, the Slough-based BT spin-off, do allow people to check which 
websites are blocked, and although their filter has been around for a 
few years now, the results are terrifying. Their 'parental control' 
settings can be blocked from accessing Childline, Refuge, Stonewall 
or the Samaritans - which is even more frightening when you realise 
that they could just as easily be switched on by an abusive partner. 
The most vulnerable people in society are the most likely to be cut 
off from the help they need. As Adrian Short argues, some websites 
simply shouldn't be blocked.

It was never really clear what the so-called porn filter was supposed 
to achieve; what problem it was trying to prevent. Filtering seems to 
have become a crutch for inept parents looking for an easy way to 
avoid having real conversations with their kids about sex, porn and 
the world outside their comfortable little cul-de-sacs. If their 
first sight of a vagina traumatizes your teenage child, then you have 
brought them up wrong - but of course the problem here is often the 
parent more than the child; the embarrassed mother of father - 
projecting their own feelings of discomfort and embarrassment around 
the topic of sex onto their child. There remains, despite a wave of 
public hysteria, no good evidence that porn has any detrimental 
effect on children.

What clearly does have an impact on children though is denying them 
sex education, suppressing their sexual identity, and shutting off 
access to child protection or mental health charities. In all this 
talk of porn filters, the rights of the children campaigners 
supposedly want to protect have been ignored or trampled. Children 
should have a right to good quality sex education, access to support 
hotlines and websites, and information about their sexuality.

We may not be able to stop bad parents cutting their children off 
from the world, but that doesn't mean we should allow ISPs to build 
and sell the tools to do it with. What's bewildering is that BT's 
updated website now explicitly acknowledges that: "Parents should 
carefully consider the possible adverse effects from denying children 
of an appropriate age access to information on these issues." If your 
filter could cause adverse effects on children, then why are you 
still peddling it?

And that leads to perhaps the most important question of all here - 
why on Earth were these lists built in the first place? Who 
constructed a list of 'gay and lesbian' sites to ban? Who at BT 
commissioned it? On what grounds was this kind of institutional 
bigotry deemed acceptable? Is it still in effect, and if so, why? 
These were deliberate acts, which show that something very rotten has 
taken hold at the heart of the British Internet industry. We are 
entitled to far greater transparency and clearer answers than we've 
been getting so far.


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
			            
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
Tel: +61 2 6288 6916                        http://about.me/roger.clarke
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/

Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law            University of N.S.W.
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University