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Comment by hahainternet | Hacker News Reader

There's no "UK Porn Filter". Please stop believing this.

We all know that there are various filters, different for each ISP, which exist because the government pressured them in to it. Generically and collectively we are all oh so terribly lazy and refer to them as a UK porn filter.

Please stop believing that we are stupid enough to take that short hand as literal.

I've read many posts from people who think that the government controls the filter and controls what is on the filter and that the filter is mandatory.

It's important to correct that misinterpretation.

>We all know that there are various filters, different for each ISP... Please stop believing that we are stupid enough to take that short hand as literal.

I didn't know this. Perhaps I'm stupid.

Are you suggesting that the UK government does not have a certain list of banned sites that it sends to ISPs that prevent them from being viewed? That sounds like a UK porn filter to me. It also sounds like a filter that the government can use for other purposes, in much the same way it can pick up people for "terrorism" whose sole crime is engaging in political activity the government does not like.

There is a "UK Porn Filter". You can, however, opt out, and existing customers may currently not yet be affected. There is a fear that people will blindly choose the default "opt in" because of taboo and other social pressures. Also, in some cases it's very difficult to opt out (for example, I cannot opt out of my mobile content filter because I don't own a credit card).

The filter on your mobile phone has existed for years (when I was a teenager in 2006 my Orange mobile phone had such a filter), it's a practice over a decade old. It has nothing to do with the supposed "UK Porn Filter" (which doesn't exist).

The 'UK Porn Filter' refers to the default content filtering by ISPs pushed by David Cameron and implemented by UK ISPs. Whether there's one huge filter affecting everyone in the UK (there isn't) or every ISP in the UK implements a filter of some kind based on arbitrary but consistent criteria, the term isn't wholly unreasonable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Unit...

Which mobile phone provider ?

I just went into the three shop and said "take the porn block off please"

My nearest provider (Vodafone) store is over an hours drive away. I've never particularly considered going there; but even if that is a possibility I'd still class it as "difficult to opt out".

I personally would also feel quite embarrassed going into a shop and having to effectively tell staff I want to look at porn. I don't think I would do it.

If you don't think You're freedom is worth two hour's effort then I rather despair. And you don't have to say "porn please" just "turn off the filter please", I just don't succumb to Cameron and his Daily Mail ilk suggesting it is something to be embarrassed about.

My only point was that these filters can be difficult to turn off. Please feel free to despair at the large number of average Joes who also won't put in the effort. That's quite the problem.

(fwiw, I rarely use my phone for web browsing anyway, and have a nice uncensored VPN connection for my home system)

The hoops some people have to jump through to turn off the filters on mobile Internet is disturbing. They shouldn't demand a passport and nothing else will do, or other odd systems of ID.

I'm ambivalent about the filters. I think they're stupid and pointless but so long as they're easy to turn off they're okay. They stop idiots calling for worse systems.

You're playing semantic games. There's a series of different filters at each UK ISP put in place by government request. Whether there's one brick wall around the entire country or a bunch of separate walls of different materials it's still a wall.

Slight wave of hand There is no porn Filter.

These aren't the droids you're looking for.

You can go about your business.

Move along.

last line of the article "Only new customers affected"

so, at the moment there is no filter for old customers, but that will change.

All the ISPs say only new customers are affected.

I have had Virgin for over 6 months now and it suddenly enabled itself. Same goes for my parents who have been with Sky for a number of years now and their filter enabled itself and my mother couldn't even load her work email.

Elaborate, maybe?

The government "asked" (read: pressured) some of the biggest ISPs to provide parental filtering controls to all customers, set at a broadband account level. For new customers these filters are enabled by default, but any customer can turn them off through their broadband account control panel (see here: http://i.imgur.com/dWxORfJ.png). There are quite a few smaller ISPs who have refused to implement these filters. There is no filtering at a country level and anyone can opt out with one click.

The difference between now and 1 year ago is that instead of being opt-in the parental filters ISPs provide are now opt-out (for new customers).

"one click" "new customers" these claims have been called into doubt in this thread already.

I can only speak for myself but my experience has been exactly as I claimed. I have two broadband connections in my home, one from BT and one from Virgin Media. The BT connection has no filtering enabled (the screenshot in my post is from my BT account) and it only took one click to confirm I didn't want filtering, my Virgin Media connection is not filtered and I haven't had to touch any settings for that.

Perhaps an individual ISP has improperly implemented their system?

If there was no filtering on BT, why did you have to click to confirm anything? What would happen if you did not confirm?

I wanted to see how the system worked so that I would be able to comment on it from a position of experience and be able to provide screenshots for when it was being discussed.

> Perhaps an individual ISP has improperly implemented their system?

This is most likely the case. My larger point being, let's not even defend or apologize for this system.

If you're posting to Hacker News, we can probably assume you're above the average level of computer usage. Maybe for you it seems like "one click," but for grandma and her new laptop, would it be?

I wonder if you could sue them for false advertising for claiming to be able to differentiate between sex education and pornography.

Well if there is a UK filter for porn I can assure you I appear to be on the right side of it. ;)

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