As for existing customers, I'm not sure. The article says that "BBC's Newsnight has discovered all the major ISPs that have launched full default filters", which could mean that these filters have been turned on by default for existing customers, but the wording is fairly unclear.
Edit: It get's even more confusing. According to this[2] BBC article, the filter is automatically set to "on" for new users. This contradicts their claim that new users are offered a choice, though admittedly the choice is skewed in one direction. I think I'll wait for someone from the UK to chime in...
[1] http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/71795000/jpg/_71795679...
What's the big deal, then? If you want porn, you get porn! Life is as it's always been, and to all you people who say that there are those who can't figure it out, show me a man who wants to see boobs, and I'll show you a man who can solve any problem presented to him if said problem prevents him from seeing boobs.
The private companies avoid pesky government involvements, and the government can wash their hand of it if/when something goes wrong.
See also how UK ISPs delegate child porn filtering to a totally unaccountable organisation called the Internet Watch Foundation.
And if the person is a 14 year old boy who can't opt out because he's not the account holder, what'll he do? I'll tell you: He'll find the long tail porn sites that aren't blocked. You know, the non-mainstream ones, the ones which go out of their way to evade detection. The ones where anything goes.
And what if the list of politicians who've opted in to porn is leaked?
And now the filtering technology is in place, it seems foolish not to block extremist, terrorist websites too. And communist ones. And protestors. And non government-santioned news.
And to my knowledge this has never been lifted.
This is clear evidence that filtering is a terrible way to block "objectionable" content, that it won't make anyone safer; any confidence in it is baseless so the whole thing is just a waste of customers' money.
A number of sites with adult content are blocked, even if they also have a lot of non-adult content. See, for example, Reddit.
The filters are supposed to be granular. But I'm not sure they are. Can someone say they don't mind breasts but don't want legs-apart insertion close-ups?
The idea is weird - People are stupid and computers are hard and people want to filter porn / other stuff, and so ISPs should offer customers the opportunity to filter stuff. Well, I guess that idea is okay, but it shows stunning ignorance of computing and some really bad assumptions about technology.
"Dad, our filter stops me from visiting a site where I can find out about how to deal with your sexual abuse, can we turn it off?"
That's the big deal.
If the filter is flawless, and you have the authority to turn it off yourself, then it's no big deal. If you don't have the authority to turn it off yourself, on the other hand, it's just become a big problem, and doubly so when it turns out it blocks access to sites that are expressly meant to provide help or protection for those who will be unable to request the lifting of the block.
"Filter the internet, reduce child abuse"
and
"Don't filter the internet, help abused children"
is equally annoying in my world and stops every discussion. Internet filters are crap because the government isn't responsible for this part of its citizens' private lives. ISPs are supposed to be dumb service providers, not your proxy nanny.
If there's child abuse somewhere that's totally not related to the argument and leads us off track. Filtering the net (aka censorship) can be discussed without abusing (<- intended) kids as excuses pro or contra.
The reason for making the argument with respect to the safety of children or spouses here is that the arguments for the filter is the protection of those very same groups. The proponents of this filter have opened the door to this line of argument wide open by making that argument while ignoring that the filter also is likely to harm the groups they claim they want to help. And while there has to my knowledge not been shown that viewing porn causes any serious harm, abuse in various forms is a very real problem. If the people arguing for this filter are serious about the intent of protecting children (which I must admit I don't think they are), then they need to be confronted with the reality that they may be doing harm to the very weakest part of the group they claim to want to protect.
If the filter only affected the person opting in/out of it, I wouldn't see it as a big deal - in that case it would not remove freedoms from anyone.
But the most compelling immediate problem with this filter for me is exactly that it effectively takes the choice of having unfiltered internet away from a large group of people that are often vulnerable. That it has been shown to be overly broad in a away that takes away access to particularly sensitive sites makes it substantially worse.
I think that argument is never a good choice. Parts of your comment seem to read like a 'They started it', parts read like 'They used the argument, I just want to dispell it' and I'm still sad. Maybe it IS required to tackle that BS 'Protect our kids' argument in tabloids and mainstream media, but in general? I'd love a healthy (hey, my pov and all) "Don't feed the troll" attitude, ignoring every emotional argument involving children, puppies or kitties by default.
I hope nothing of the above ends up offending you, it certainly wasn't meant as such. I .. merely question the direction taken.
Existing users get the menu option choice.