Hacker News Reader

Comment by bmj1 | Hacker News Reader

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." (1)

As a UK citizen, I've been very disappointed by this debacle. I suspect that Cameron's heart was actually in the right place (protecting the children, etc) but he does not understand the significant number of unintended consequences that we are likely to see (and are already seeing).

I would suggest doing the following to make this workable long term:

- Centralise the list of sites categorised as obscene/pornographic/etc (why should it be different for different ISPs?)

- Make the list of these sites publicly accessible and searchable

- Ensure the list is maintained by a non-political and balanced panel (is this possible?)

- Implement a process for removal requests where a site is mis-classified and ensure that this appeal process is separate from the initial panel

- Implement KPIs on the effectiveness of the filter that take into account false positives + false negatives

- Remove any automatic categorisation based on keywords, this is too crude

- Make publicly accessible the guidelines for classification

Unfortunately, I don't expect the above to actually happen :(

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor

View on HN

I downvoted your comment because I could not disagree more with what you are saying. If I understand you correctly, you're arguing that this is a good idea, only with sub-par implementation.

But it's the idea that is bad; more than bad, it's despicable, it's an abomination.

The government should not be in charge of what my children can or cannot read in my own home; I'm in charge of that, thank you very much.

Besides, what raising kids teaches you is that in many ways, kids are little adults; they grow better and are more happy when one treats them with respect.

> The government should not be in charge of what my children can or cannot read in my own home; I'm in charge of that, thank you very much.

That's exactly what this filter is though. It's not implemented by the government, it's an opt-out filter implemented by your ISP. If you want to use their defaults then it's there and free, if you want to allow access to everything then control it yourself then fine.

I don't think this should exist, but you're hurting the fight against it by not even bothering to check the most basic of facts.

In that case it should've been an opt-in filter with possibility of white-listing any blacklisted host (using a password assigned to contract's owner).

This cilter is aimed at people who are so bad at Internet that they cannot search for, buy, and install any of the existing parental filter software.

They don't know what a website is. While you answer is sensible (not sure who downvoted you) it's no good for the people asking for these filters.

Obviously, what has been provided is also hopeless so there os that.

> it's no good for the people asking for these filters.

Are anyone asking for these filters? If there was a lot of demand for them, you'd think the ISPs would have long ago offered equivalent filters as a service.

A lot of ISPs were offering similar filters as a service.

Many people are stupid. Look how many people buy the Daily Mail.

Exactly. ISPs can already offer this with a simple question/checkbox on the act of signing up for service, no technical knowledge needed.

If you're going to legislate for the stupid, you better completely forbid driving, drinking, nightclubs, free marriage, having children, knifes and gas sales etc etc. You see where that leads.

They haven't introduced any legislation.

> Exactly. ISPs can already offer this with a simple question/checkbox on the act of signing up for service, no technical knowledge needed.

... that's what they're doing. There's a screenshot of BTs here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25400009

If that is the case, then many people are now having their rights violated because they aren't able to figure out how to turn off the filter.

> This filter is aimed at people who are so bad at Internet that they cannot search for, buy, and install any of the existing parental filter software.

If they are so bad at using the Internet, his lack of knowledge and skill poses way more (severe) problems to the upbringing and education of their children than not being able to filter Internet porn. The latter is just a tiny aspect of the multitude of problems a child faces when their parents don't know how to use the Internet or a computer (finding a job, looking up a common medical problem, etc).

Spend the money for this filtering on providing (or improving) education and computer usage courses for these parents, and you'll solve this problem, as well as a myriad of other problems. Much bigger, and more pressing problems.

This is actually empowering people, in a dignified manner, that is appropriate for a free society.

It also has long-term benefits, instead of detriments. Crippling of the Internet and blocking the public's free access to knowledge is detrimental to prospering of society on all levels. Giving people the knowledge and the means to learn and educate themselves is extremely beneficial to the well-being of everyone.

If you'd really care about the children and their future, you'd approach the situation this way. The other way is just an inefficient band-aid to force a short-sighted morality on people, that will only lead to problems in the end.

I think you're skirting over the more complicated issues here, contained in the fact that UK citizens have to officially opt out on what society deems prudent.

IMHO he was spot on.

So, if they set default to opt in to the filter, can we end the conversation?

Yes (at least as far as I'm concerned).

But that's what ISPs were doing. And Cameron said it wasn't good enough, which is how we've ended up here.

> I think you're skirting over the more complicated issues here

There's no point talking to someone about the more complicated issues at play if they're shouting nonsense. Just as discussing the pros and cons of different programming languages is useless when you're talking to someone complaining that C is terrible and slow because it runs in the browser and they want access to pointers.

> IMHO he was spot on.

They were factually incorrect about the most basic aspects of the story. Their complaints are irrelevant because they're arguing against a fantasy. If they really believe what they say, they should be fine with the current state of affairs, a non-government controlled filter which the parents get to choose if they want or not.

It seems to me as if HN has been taken over by deceptive shills supporting the surveillance state.

"Creeping normality refers to the way a major change can be accepted as the normal situation if it happens slowly, in unnoticed increments, when it would be regarded as objectionable if it took place in a single step or short period. Examples would be a change in job responsibilities or a change in a medical condition.

Jared Diamond has invoked the concept (as well as that of landscape amnesia) in attempting to explain why in the course of long-term environmental degradation, Easter Island natives would, seemingly irrationally, chop down the last tree: Gradually trees became fewer, smaller, and less important. By the time the last fruit-bearing adult palm tree was cut, palms had long since ceased to be of economic significance. That left only smaller and smaller palm saplings to clear each year, along with other bushes and treelets. No one would have noticed the felling of the last small palm."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creeping_normalcy

I will readily admit I don't fully understand the whole thing, but can't find a reasonable and non-partisan explanation anywhere (I'm not British and not even from an English-speaking country).

What are those facts exactly? If it's just something implemented by ISPs, how is Cameron's government implied?

What I understand is that the British government made it compulsory for all ISPs in the UK to implement that filter, and make it "opt-out", and left it to ISPs to decide the lists of things to "filter".

If that's the case then yes, it is a abomination.

If ISPs are somehow free to make it opt-in or opt-out it's less worse but still not good.

(And of course I have no problem with parents wanting to filter things on their home network if they so choose).

> What are those facts exactly? If it's just something implemented by ISPs, how is Cameron's government implied?

Cameron has pushed the ISPs to make some form of parental filtering either default on, or what's called "active choice" (which is where it doesn't default to anything, you have to explicitly choose filtering or no filtering). This basically amounts to you getting two options when ordering for the first time, filter (and then options on what to filter) or no filter. There's an example of the signup screen for BT here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25400009

This is not a legal requirement, nor is it compulsory. There are no new laws, that's very important to remember. Not all ISPs are implementing it, though the major ones are. A&A's stance is that your active choice is "if you want filtering by your ISP, don't buy our stuff".

There is no particular filtering tech they're required to use, each ISP may use their own settings/lists of sites/etc.

Filters are not effectively applied by the majority of parents who feel unmatched to the task of implementing safe/clean internet for their children.

These parents want more help doing so, they don't want to have to learn more/new technology. That is the perceived issue this was designed to resolve.

You may think it's an abomination, many think that children being able to access any manner of pornography by default is more abominable. And if, as I interpret what you say, you believe that children are better off having access to everything online in order to feel trusted and respected? Well I disagree pretty damned strongly. That's ok, but there isn't really a middle ground.

> These parents want more help doing so

If that was the case, why have these ISPs not previously seen a business case in offering a "family friendly" account providing this as a service?

Instead the major ISPs were strong-armed and threatened with legislation if they didn't put something together.

ISPs have been historically strong-armed into providing as close to Net Neutrality as possible. This obviously flies in the face of that, and there would be a disincentive to implementing such a service if not for the weight of the government behind them.

Some of them were offering net filtering as a service, whether by offering a years free software or some net panel interface.

> And if, as I interpret what you say, you believe that children are better off having access to everything online in order to feel trusted and respected? Well I disagree pretty damned strongly.

You're entitled to your opinion regarding your own kids. You're not entitled to an opinion regarding my kids or how I raise them.

Well, you may have an opinion about my family, but don't expect me to respect it or even take the time to discuss it.

"These parents want more help doing so"

There are parents who feel so strongly about filtering their children's access to the internet they were willing to put pressure on politicians to strongarm ISPs into implementing opt-in filters, but aren't willing to click the big "parental controls" button that was already on their ISP's website? That sounds incredibly unlikely.

Hi bambax,

Not at all - I'm just trying to keep my comments balanced. By drawing attention to the insurmountable obstacles involved in achieving Cameron's stated goal, I would hope people can draw their own conclusions.

I personally think censorship is both unworkable + immoral, but I think the HN crowd can draw their own conclusions.

No problem -- I just re-read your first comment and I don't think that's what it said, but apparently we're in agreement ;-)

>The government should not be in charge of what my children can or cannot read in my own home; I'm in charge of that, thank you very much.

You are naive if you really think this has ever been the case.

First, stop your misdirection. this is not about reading, it is about viewing. If the only pornographic material that ever existed online was written material, this sort of thing would never have happened.

Second, try to give your young kids porno mags in your house and if work ever leaks out - lets see what happens.

The in my own home argument never applies when abuse or mistreatment is occurring. Showing your kids content that is inappropriate for their age (as deemed by a consensus of society) has always and will always land you in trouble. The internet never changed this nor should it have.

> Unfortunately, I don't expect the above to actually happen :(

The problem is that the incremental cost to filtering additional material is now virtually zero. I'm not sure how this would play out in Britain, but I know many countries where a conservative government would have a field day expanding this list. It is easy for a politician to make the case that something should be blocked (think of the children!), but I am guessing no politician would stake his personal capital on unblocking something even remotely controversial. Unfortunately, now Britain has set a precedent, and I could easily see other governments in Europe pointing to Britain in justifying similar firewalls.

Therefore, I have concluded that we have a binary choice, firewall or no firewall. To me, this is a simple decision, I would not entrust any committee at all with the management of what should be considered obscene.

That's an excellent point.

There needs to be a mechanism added that would make removing an item from the filter as easy as adding an item to the filter. Some way of doing this without putting reputation at risk. Any ideas?

I'd suggest that removing a site should be automatic but adding one requires a review by an actual person.

You're trying to solve, with extra policy, technology and ingenious ideas, something that wouldn't be a problem in the first place without the stupid law.

That's how some supporters of free speech and people against censorship are now on the defensive -- trying to imagine how to make a censorship system "better" instead of questioning it's legitimacy in the first place.

That's a huge, wide open, Overton's window here.

> trying to imagine how to make a censorship system "better" instead of questioning it's legitimacy in the first place

Next, apply this same reasoning to governments themselves.

For example, there's practically nothing we can do to make governments better. No, voting doesn't count. Obama vs Romney is a prime example - which of them was not going to be serving Wall Street's interests?

Writing to your representatives isn't working all that well either. SOPA? CISPA? NDAA? -Where are they now, and in what form?

> For example, there's practically nothing we can do to make governments better.

Sure there is.

> No, voting doesn't count.

Sure, voting on its own is of limited utility. Marketing better ideas of what government should be doing is the big thing that can be done to make it better. If there's not better ideas, or they aren't widespread enough to have a electorally-significant constituency that prioritizes them, voting isn't going to be able to effect much positive change.

> Marketing better ideas of what government should be doing is the big thing that can be done to make it better.

Also known as "writing to your representatives" or "political activism" etc. But it doesn't work, and it doesn't matter. Does a slave master care about what his slave wants? They simply don't give a fuck.

Do you think the people in power do not know that Americans don't want to be detained indefinitely without due process or declared "enemy combatants" and shipped off to Guantanamo to be tortured on a whim?

If they do know, why is the NDAA in effect and why has it been renewed?

Do you think the people in power do not know that Americans don't want to pay for untold billions of dollars' worth of Wall Street's gambling losses?

If they do know, why are big banks given all those bail-outs?

And so on. The list of offences is practically endless.

> If there's not better ideas, or they aren't widespread enough to have a electorally-significant constituency that prioritizes them, voting isn't going to be able to effect much positive change.

I can't help but wonder whether you're working for the government. But I'll wrap this up here.

>Do you think the people in power do not know that Americans don't want to pay for untold billions of dollars' worth of Wall Street's gambling losses? If they do know, why are big banks given all those bail-outs?

Those are the wrong questions (or the right questions but with a wrong premise).

That's about the current people in power and their interests and ties.

Not every system of voting/government (including some that are not in effect anywhere currently) has the same potential for abuse, or puts the same scum in power.

Do you think it really matters that a hypothetical future group of rulers might conceivably make decisions that actually benefit the people, when the current ones clearly don't?

Here we are, in 2014, and under these specific circumstances. Reality matters, hypotheticals don't.

>Next, apply this same reasoning to governments themselves. For example, there's practically nothing we can do to make governments better.

Sure there is.

For one, fuck this gerrymandering BS, and use a totally representative of the general population voting system. Encourage the removal of a two-party system.

Second, make voting available to all, remove any obstactles like registration that are made to not let black/poor/etc people vote.

Third, disallow ANY donation over say $100 dollars by any individual entity. So a popular politician can get millions of dollars (by thousands of people), but a not popular cannot get the same amount of money by just one rich backer. And no personal financing of campaings over some small amount (say, $10,000), so that a rich candidate should have no headstart compared to a poor one.

Fourth, make cabinet members electable by the people. With the option to have them thrown out and replaced mid-term.

Fifth, have public referendums for all major new laws, like those SOPA, CISPA etc.

Those are just off of the top of my head. We can come up with much better. Heck, didn't even mention taking advantage of all the internet can offer with regards to e-voting, referendums, transparency, etc.

"Rep vs Dem" and "writing to your senator" is not even politics or democracy. It's a very narrowly defined experience of those, that they have convinced Americans that it's their only option.

You're describing various potential changes to how we're ruled that might make things better. But you see, the problem is that we're ruled at all, not that we're ruled in an unsatisfactory way. This is comparable to thinking that a specific instance of slavery could be "fixed" by getting the slave-master to promise he'll whip his slaves less.

Politicians, and the people in power behind the scenes in particular, aren't responsible to us for anything they decide to do. That's part of why we're all unhappy about the way we're "governed" (=ruled over). Sure, pot was legalized in one state, but meanwhile, the police state kept creeping up just like until now.

Do you think they don't know that people don't want to live in a police state? -Of course they do. But still, they just keep on enacting a police state. Why is that? Either they're somehow not aware of what they're doing, or they simply don't care about what people want (or don't). Now, which do you think is more likely?

This isn't the kind of problem that policy is good at solving. This is a cultural issue: so long as people in general are conservative about what they want their kids to see, removing things from the block list will carry a political penalty for the remover.

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

Bullshit. That phrase is down there with "what have you got to hide?". Its a disgusting attempt to hide reality, with diversionary language.

And how the hell is "stupidity" a defense? This man is the PM of a G whatever number it is now country. He had the best education could offer and has slimed his way to the top with all his family connections. Stupid? I dont think so.

Camoron does not give a toss about children. He's happy to see them suffer with all manner of cuts. So, these kids can't eat properly, cant get much of an education, have no future worth a jot, but thats all fine 'cos they will now find it a bit harder to find porn? Oh please.

As for your solution, what a nightmare. All that will do is begin a highly creeping policy with will end up censoring in a way not seen in any way before. Who the hell is anyone to tell me what information I am allowed beyond an official secret?

As a father of 6, I despise this "for the children" excuse for conservative, right wing control freaks who seek to control my thoughts. What happened to the old UK conservative notion of personal freedom and responsibility?

>"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." (1)

Sorry, but that does not apply here. This is not the action of some stupid person -- this is legislation, compiled and overseen by several experts, advisors, offices and politicians. Furthermore, it follows a clear pattern of government interference and suppression of free speech.

>I suspect that Cameron's heart was actually in the right place

I very much doubt it. Would you say the same thing about Blair's lies and action?

It's not legislation. The government just leaned on the larger ISPs. The smaller ISPs are ignoring the whole thing.

There was a private members bill called the online safety bill / act.

These rarely become law and that one didn't have government support. Hague at the time said the gov opposed claire perry's "on by default" request.

Perhaps people are confused by that bill?

It's not legislation yet, but it's official government policy, and with threats to make it into law if the government is not satisfied:

"Cameron gave the companies an October deadline to comply with the demands to filter the terms. He said that if the government is not satisfied with the progress it is prepared to take legislative action."

This actually is a very scary way for the government to make things happen.

The democratic process is for new laws to be debated in the houses. Cameron circumvented this process quite deliberately.

Except now we have a bunch of concrete evidence of just how stupid and flawed these filters are if the gov tries to force them into legislation. (For example, to force filters onto all ISPs.)

And a chorus of silence from the general population. The bad guys won here, no matter how upsetting it may be to the general HN crowd (at least, if I've read the mood correctly).

Censorship in the UK has a touch of 'gentleman's agreement' about it rather than 'by decree'.

If the British government want to ban something outright then they can issue a 'D-Notice' to the press. Notionally the 'D-Notice' system is 'advisory', i.e. a paper could publish if they wanted to.

The British government can also rely on self-censorship, disinformation, misinformation, spin, the art of burying bad news under a mountain of trivia and setting the news agenda.

So, on the surface there is the 'never assign to malice what can be attributed to incompetence' way of seeing it, you have to remember that these are politicians we are dealing with. They know what they are doing.

Don't forget Grey's law: Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

No matter what the intentions are, if the end result is still widespread censorship it hardly matters.

I prefer putting that the other way: Any sufficiently advanced malice is indistinguishable from incompetence.

Practically government operations in a nutshell.

Sometimes malice tries to hide behind stupidity's back.

What you are suggesting (or quite in the spirit of that) is currently being implemented in Russia [1] as a so called Unified Register of Forbidden Websites. It is perceived by a lot of people in Russia as a dumbest initiative by government in the whole IT-regulation field and continues to produce suspicious, erroneous, as well as erratic and simply idiotic bans.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Internet_blacklist

> I suspect that Cameron's heart was actually in the right place (appealing to an untapped voter demographic, e.g. Mumsnet)

Fixed that for you.

The Mumsnet founders had to backtrack, and come out against the filter after an uproar from their users, who were widely again the filter.

So unless you mean the Mumsnet founders is Cameron's desired demographic, then no, you didn't fix it.

Interesting, but I'd still maintain that his original intention was in fact to appeal to these sorts of voters (even if it was misguided).

A lot of this is being done by the Open Rights Group tech volunteers. If anyone wants to help, there will be a meeting in the next few weeks to discuss strategy, & the mailing list is here https://lists.openrightsgroup.org/listinfo/tech-volunteers

Thanks Jack, I've signed up and look forward to continuing the discussion over there.

"As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation."

I believe i know who you think you're quoting there, but it seems he never actually wrote that.

Daniel Lapin, although sometimes falsely attributed to Hitler.

Hanlon's razor has become an excuse for malice and should not apply:

Stupidity (within government) is malice.

Completely disagree that this is just an "unintended consequence". This is exactly what David Cameron wants. To muddle the waters, and say they are blocking "obscene" stuff, when in fact they are blocking free speech sites and the like.

Porn filters are always abused (intentionally). Always. I can't stress this enough. You should've learned from the Australians who tried implementing this sort of filter before, too, and it ended up a miserable failure. Not only can you not implement such a system without a ton of "unintended consequences", but it's also very trivially abused, too, by those in power, and they could abuse it for many years before the public even realizes it.

  Ensure the list is maintained by a non-political and 
  balanced panel (is this possible?)

When the Arts Council of Great Britain was formed (by Keynes in the 1940s) it was intentionally set up to have an arms-length relationship with the government, with the aim of independence to avoid the political use and censorship of art seen in Nazi Germany.

By all accounts it works better than other countries where the politicians change every few years and the funding objectives change with them.

Of course, the arts council has a natural constituency and source of board members as they can appoint anyone high profile from the arts community. I don't know what the equivalent would be for internet users.

> I don't know what the equivalent would be for internet users.

Dave Green, probably.

IMHO the provisions in your list plus a few more would make the whole thing unobjectionable. My additions:

- It's opt-in. The ISPs are required to notify subscribers that it's available, with clear explanations.

- Allow parents to opt in or out of each of various categories

Such a scheme would accomplish the purported/advertised purposes, without harm to civil liberties and without interference in home life.

Unfortunately, these "how to fix it" ideas are misplaced. The fact that non-pornographic sites, obviously selected by political criteria, are deliberately packaged together with pornography, is not merely a bad implementation. In fact it is clear evidence that the real motive is not to protect children at all, but instead to protect state power, and disempower the public and keep them ignorant.

Given this evident intent and purpose, attempts at partial reform are pointless, and the right thing is say no to the would-be gradualist-censors and call out their plan for the creeping fascism that it is.

I suspect it is more a case of Cameron being lead by people who's hearts are not in the right place, but present it in a way that appears to be, so they can then reap the rewards of those 'unintended consequences' later.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com