Cameron defends U-turn on web filth ban, leaves filtering to parents

Mobile service providers seem to have become interested

About two weeks ago, I changed tariff with my smartphone SIM only provider (Tesco mobile, uses the O2 network and I pay by credit card).

The guy at the helpdesk quickly ran through some required legal statements and then asked me, "Will any child have use of the phone?" My answer was, "Not at all.", after which he carried on telling me the stuff he had to tell me.

I've never been asked that before, but about three years ago Vodaphone did require a nominal £1 payment via credit card before they would unblock 'adult site access ' from a 3G dongle I had.

"U turn" - or just listening to the people

Its interesting how Labour constantly ignored the people and pressed on with projects to suit them (wars, ID cards etc.), regardless of suitability or cost. But the Tories listen to feedback and its suddenly a "U turn" or "climbdown".

Stumbling on

Mr C is putting a brave face on it, and I'm sure he means well, but he must realise that even the limited approach that he's suggesting will not fly.

Getting all OEMs to install the filter prompt is only the beginning. From the decription, he will have to ensure that all browsers and all ISPs follow exactly the same rules in order for the filter selection to be effective.

That's a tall order.

And, of course, it will only work for new PCs and for families where the parents don't rely on their children to set their new PCs up.

I think maybe Claire should change her name to Patsy.

Ah yes filtering...

An ISP level block will never work:

* Too many false positives, far too many utterly safe sites blocked.

* Way too many false negatives (failure to block). I think the stat is that it would only block 20% of inappropriate content.

* What the hell is inappropriate content? I'd rather block graphic pictures of murder and shootings (which are OK in the US) and keep the more natural erotic imagery. Violence is generally considered very harmful (except by the US), erotica is generally considered not considered harmful (except by the US and control freak religious states). The important word here is "generally", what's OK for one child or one instance may not be the same for another.

* The age of a child dictates what is inappropriate. When a child is approaching puberty and beyond they really should be getting to see the world as it is - which is full of violence and sex. They wouldn't exist if it wasn't for sex and the modern "Western" world is far from angelic when it comes to violence now, let alone in the last 200 years or even within living memory of a lot of adults or the oil driven violence and conflicts. A child needs to learn about the world, not be so blinkered and protected from it that they start life as completely clueless, ignorant, useless adults.

* In a home there are people of different ages, an ISP block will hit them all. What's OK for the parents will not be OK for teenagers, what's OK for teenagers may not be OK for younger children.

* Parents should just learn to ****ing be parents. Parenting is not about dumping children in front of a television to be advertised at (often sexualised advertising, but largely crass basic mind control merchandising), neither is it about dumping them in front an Internet connection and hoping for the best. Parenting is about actively bringing up your children, having relationships with them (hahaha, teenagers) and being there for them, to lead by example and to bring them up to be well rounded, thinking individuals. Guess what? Teach children that parenting is something that you can do by being lazy and "trusting" it to the state, and see how quickly they'll have children of their own and how they deal with that.

* Children will find access to inappropriate (see above) content somehow - either through alternative venues, through lapses in filtering or through sites that find a way past the filters.

</rant>

And - what about those who won't?

Those who won't, that is, do anything to stop their children being able to access pornography.

Our legislators seem to be of the view that parents will apply a filter. Of course, some will. And - some won't.

Not all parents are responsible, some as we know are people who are the complete opposite.

The children of those whose parents won't filter their online access will have access to pornography, and so will their friends, some of whom will be children whose parents have opted for a filter.

If we take any notice of the real world, children will still be able to access pornography whatever their individual parents do in their own homes.

Whether that matters or not is another discussion, but this decision will not make any difference to the ability of children to access pornography.

So - a government that continues to live in cloud-cuckoo land.

The Daily Mail !

It's not even good enough to wipe the dogshit off my shoes, let alone wrap fish and chips in.

"Tory MP Claire Perry, who was "disappointed" that her push to block online porn and violence by default was defeated, has now been appointed by the PM as his adviser on preventing sexualisation and commercialisation of childhood."

Oh No! The kids are doomed!

Thanks Dave!

Now hows about we start work on ridding us all of the DM.

The press is the press, but when people are stupid enough to believe the crap they print, its time to sort it out.

Either that or a free sachet of salt for every reader!

If any child of mine ...

...turned out NOT to be able to bypass any filtering I or any ISP applied to see stuff they wanted, I would deduce that I wasn't doing my job as a parent very well. Kids are SUPPOSED to be better than oldies at this stuff, that's one good reason for making them. I'm going to need someone who knows how to record the footie when I've degenerated into a ranting, dribbling shadow of my current Adonistic self.

That's Adonis the god BTW, not Adonis the peer.

<Where's the "Won't someone think of the grownups" icon?>

dear The Reg, please stop using words like Filth and Smut when referring to sex

It's just an unpleasant relic of christianity that shouldn't be allowed to continue,

thanks

The article mentions talktalk as the only major ISP offering filtering. I recently signed up with Virginmedia and i am sure there was an option when configuring the account for the first time to turn on filtering. I choose not too as didn't want my Internet filtered, but it think its available if you want it.

I don't think its a software option as i am running Linux mint so it wouldn't be supported anywhere

Title

I wonder what disappointed Tory MP Claire Perry's nomenclature amongst those ISP people who deal with her will be?

I should imagine that our Lords and Masters (i.e. those she meets & holds discussions with) would favour something along the lines of 'fuckwit', but what would those amongst us who have to explain, in very small words, several times, that whatever they agreed won't bloody work?

So...nothing's going to happen?

DC is just pretending it will.

Is that right?

(factually, the moral value of inaction is clear)

Ideally...

All pr0n sites would be moved to ".xxx" domain which could then be easily filtered by parents or whoever. Not sure how possible that is though.