UK Government confirms plans for mandatory ISP blocks for "Adult" websites

[Keg Ops]

It bothers me that the UK government uses the excuse of "protecting our children" as a way to censor the internet. If that was truly is the case, what's next? Chat-rooms or forums being censored due to worries about predators being in them? Do those qualify as "adult" sites as well due to the potential of "adult" content being posted or discussed? Censorship isn't the answer to shitty parenting. 

[Murdoch]

Given that we have what should be a right-wing government, one of the core pillars of their ideology is "less government", why do we constantly proceed towards some sort of authoritarian nanny state that wants to micromanage our every move.

[Stefan1024]

Now download as much and as fast as you can. It has to last for the rest of your life /s

 

Seriousely, this blocking mechanisms get way too powerful and can easely be abused. Also they will once more try to weaken encription to "filer all content".

 

And you know, terrorists are the biggest consumer of porn /s

[samcool55]

People of the UK, the borders are open!

Come and get your porn from a country nearby that's in the EU

[Kobathor]

16 hours ago, Wolther said:

I hope the UK doesn't go down that path. Really wish the public could be informed about it and fight against it if that were to ever happen. 

That would involve giving citizens some small amount of power, and that's not what nanny states are into. The UK will never give citizens more power than they have now, because if they did, then they would have less control to micromanage their citizens.

[Mr.Meerkat]

17 hours ago, Wolther said:

Why is the UK on an anti-porn spree this year?

Would be easier to accept that sex is a thing and not make it something forbidden to talk about

You see, there's this law called you can have sex and get married and move out when you're 16 but can't watch porn till you're 18...yes you can get have children, married and living with your partner when you're 16 but not watch porn when you're 18...super logical no?  

[themctipers]

19 hours ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

 

So, the Investigatory Powers Bill passed recently, which introduces a mandatory requirement for ISPs to keep a 12 month record of their user's usage data, as well as outlining when the UK government can access that data (realistically, it's whenever they please). Now, the UK Government has announced plans to force ISPs into blocking "adult" websites. This will be added into the existing Digital Economy Bill 2016-17, changing what has so far been a voluntary system for ISPs. 

 

This may not seem like a new issue to many, as most of the big ISPs in the UK have already adopted the Government's optional pornographic filters that can be opted out of by the consumer. However, the legislation being added to the bill is not simply making all ISPs comply with the current filters. Instead, it is the idea to implement blocks on UK and overseas "adult" websites that do not implement "tough age verification measures". This raises some big concerns as to what kind of age verification methods are going to be considered acceptable and how they will be implemented. Many, including myself, expect these age verification methods to involve inputting personal information that can be used to check someone's age against a database. I can quite clearly see this leading to people having to register themselves to their computer on a UK Government database in order to access content. This is very, very scary in terms of privacy and security. Just looking at the fallout from the Ashley Madison hack is scary enough. 

 

Another major concern is to what "adult" content actually is. In the portrayal of the legislation, the government focuses on the term "pornographic" but within the legislation itself, it is only referred to as "adult content" or similar. The legislation appears to be deliberately vague to give the Government more power, from my perspective. Obviously, educational sites are going to end up blocked as they will get flagged as "adult". They bring this up in the article, how many sites have been blocked in the past by similar systems. 

 

 

As with the Investigatory Powers Bill, it is scary how much power this legislation will give the UK Government. The new legislation gives the government power to force payment services such as VISA and Mastercard to withdraw support for non-compliant sites. This may seriously damage some smaller sites that have UK customers, but perhaps do not have the know-how or funds to implement sufficient age verification systems. So, this isn't a bill that purely affects the UK's sites.  

 

Interestingly, this new bill acts as a bypass of the EU's Net Neutrality rules, which basically ban ISPs from implementing excessive restrictions on legal sites or services. Blocking sites at the ISP level is against these rules, but as the sites would technically be considered illegal (from my understanding), there's no issue in blocking them. Seeing as the UK is set to leave the EU, we're also going to lose the protection of other similar laws and rules set by the EU, including some of our fundamental human rights laws. Personally, the amount of control the UK Government will get once we leave the EU is what scares me most. It would have been bad with David Cameron, but I feel it is even worse with Theresa May, as our Government is the most right wing it has been for a while. These recent legislation passes are just the beginning if you ask me. I can see us moving towards countries like China in terms of censorship and internet access. 

 

 

Including issues of smaller sites implementing systems that meet the guidelines (whatever they may end up being), there is also an issue for smaller ISPs that will have to develop and deploy the blocking systems (and the storage of their users' data, thanks to the IPB). These ISP level blocking systems aren't exactly going to be cheap to implement and keep updated. 

 

These blocks are not set to be opt-out options like the current systems. These are mandatory, for everyone. So, are you an adult without children? The government's going to be blocking your access to pornographic content (actually, "adult" content) unless you're willing to provide details confirming your age, whether you like it or not. 

 

Of course, to those of us that are tech-savvy, these filters and blocks will be easy to circumvent with a simple VPN or proxy server, so they're ultimately going to be a waste. A lot of those which the filters are designed to "protect" are incidentally going to be some of the most knowledgeable on how to bypass blocks.  Schools have been implementing content blocking for years, so it's unlikely it will be hard for a teenager to get round these sorts of blocks, especially when VPNs are becoming much more common. I do fear that the UK government may be moving towards a ban on VPNs once they realise how easy they are to use to get around such blocks. Even without a VPN, there are still many ways to access adult content without circumventing a block. Curious kids will still be typing "boobies" into image search engines with safe search turned off. Maybe the Government intends to implement these blocks on Google as well. 

 

Jim Killock, the Executive Director of the Open Rights Group has criticised the legislation and the Government's lack of thought and planning. He said:

 

 

Honestly, the education of parents on the availability of parental filters would be a much more worthwhile system than these blocks and rules are. In the guise of protecting the children, the UK Government is just censoring things they don't want people to see. (remember Cameron's ridiculous pornography laws including spanking and face sitting?). There's likely much more to come in the following years post-Brexit. 

 

Sources: ISPReview  eTeknix  OpenRightsGroup  EU Net-neutrality Guidelines

@TheRandomness

rip

[imPixelTV]

no porn? FUCK this country, I'm moving

[Magnetorheological]

19 hours ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

“The Government is committed to keeping children safe from harmful pornographic content online and that is exactly what we are doing.

Isn't this supposed to be the parents' job? smh

 

 

[imPixelTV]

3 minutes ago, Magnetorheological said:

Isn't this supposed to be the parents' job? smh

 

 

the UK makes no sense. the ex-PM fucked a dead pig lmfao we really aren't very good in politics

[Beskamir]

I'm a bit annoyed by how everyone here seems to be only focusing on the content that they are blocking and not the implications that the ability to block content of any kind can have. Systems like this have way too much potential for abuse for them to be allowed to exist in the first place.

[treeroy]

they are employing the BBFC to regulate porn? What a fucking joke lmao. good for the BBFC i guess, I like them. haha

[MrDynamicMan]

On 22/11/2016 at 3:29 AM, Atmos said:

Ah the UK... So many steps forward, and yet so many steps backward at the same time.

Just like the US

 

Apple doesn't fall far from the tree apparently.

Just give it a while and they'll start refining the dictionary into new speak. Ingsoc has got you covered. 

[Jack Longman]

Anyone selling cheap hard drives for... mass downloads?

Can you deliver to the UK

Thanks.

[samcool55]

3 hours ago, Jack Longman said:

Anyone selling cheap hard drives for... mass downloads?

Can you deliver to the UK

Thanks.

Sure, i can pre-install some "software" if you want to

[Jack Longman]

6 minutes ago, samcool55 said:

Sure, i can pre-install some "software" if you want to

-Insert software to hardware joke here-

[Matt_98]

17 hours ago, samcool55 said:

People of the UK, the borders are open!

Come and get your porn from a country nearby that's in the EU

 

Cheers where is the closest country with gigabit fibre?

[imPixelTV]

1 hour ago, Matt_98 said:

Cheers where is the closest country with gigabit fibre?

the UK doesn't have any widespread gigabit fibre services

[samcool55]

2 hours ago, Matt_98 said:

Cheers where is the closest country with gigabit fibre?

A country with complete gigabit access does afaik not exist.

 

But if you REALLY care about internet speeds the best place is De Wolden in the Netherlands.

They have 10gbps fibre connections

 

But X00 mbps connections are widely available in the netherlands and belgium soo...

Tbh it's more important to look at download limits than speed which is still a thing with a few providers

 

Also don't know much about other countries, i do know Germany is not happy at all with pirates

[Matt_98]

Just now, samcool55 said:

A country with complete gigabit access does afaik not exist.

 

But if you REALLY care about internet speeds the best place is De Wolden in the Netherlands.

They have 10gbps fibre connections

 

But X00 mbps connections are widely available in the netherlands and belgium soo...

Tbh it's more important to look at download limits than speed which is still a thing with a few providers

 

Also don't know much about other countries, i do know Germany is not happy at all with pirates

 

I dont care about limits. I'm gonna find an open network somewhere bring a petabyte in external hard drives and download all the porns 

[Matt_98]

24 minutes ago, imPixelTV said:

the UK doesn't have any widespread gigabit fibre services

I know I'm looking outside the spy cams of blighty 

[imPixelTV]

15 minutes ago, samcool55 said:

A country with complete gigabit access does afaik not exist.

 

But if you REALLY care about internet speeds the best place is De Wolden in the Netherlands.

They have 10gbps fibre connections

 

But X00 mbps connections are widely available in the netherlands and belgium soo...

Tbh it's more important to look at download limits than speed which is still a thing with a few providers

 

Also don't know much about other countries, i do know Germany is not happy at all with pirates

tfw you have a Uganda-quality ADSL 1.0 1mbps line

[Trik'Stari]

Now if only the people of the UK had some sort of means to force their government to back down, some form of equalizing technology that gives them ultimate power over their own government (including them military and police).....

 

They used to, but they gave all that up in the name of "safety".