Cameron defends U-turn on web filth ban, leaves filtering to parents Prime Minister David Cameron today reminded British families that they will be nudged by ISPs to consider blocking online pornography, self-harm websites and similar material at home. Crucially, he stopped short of installing the on-by-default "crude system" of network-level web filters promised earlier this year. The top …
I saw this in my local bacon and egg place whilst picking up my lunch (four slices of bacon, soft white roll, egg, no sauce), and wondered what on earth was going on since I'd seen nothing on either this site or the bbc (the only other site I visit at work).... I figured if the Fail's headline was true there would be something somewhere leading to massive shouting matches and the like....
So I guess this means that sooner or later if the ISP choses to do something then I might have to worry (two little 'uns in the house), but until then I can carry on doing what I like (within reason) on the internetwebtubes without worrying about Nanny Govt slapping me on the knuckles and telling me that it's for my own good....
I think I'll carry on being confused by it all, and head back to the shop for another bacon & egg roll....
P.S...... Glad to see the Daily Mail ensuring the cover images are suitable with a bikini clad and drinking young woman (not sure who - I think she's famous for something) on the cover.... maybe they're hoping that's the sort of thing that their blocking "win" will cover...
Private Eye regularly note that the DM's public persona isn't reflected behind the scenes. The bikini-clad pictures are one example but the code-phrase 'all grown up' is apparently regularly used on picture captions of 16 year olds in a way that makes it synonymous with 'has reached a legal age'.
This can then be used to justify a revealing picture that might well have been illegal just a few days earlier.
Don't believe me? Try a search on their site.
"It's old enough to marry her and have kids - but not take pics of her in a bikini"
There is a legal exemption in England that you can photograph your spouse in seductive poses even if they are under 18. Not sure if there is an exemption for visiting wives under 16. Usually a legal marriage in another country is respected in England - hence the popularity of Gretna Green many years ago for English 16 to 21s.
Yes its a legal exemption that shouldn't be needed...
the law should recognise 16 year olds as adults not kids...
hell I think that 14 is where we should consider someone old enough to make their own decisions, my grandfather emigrated alone to Canada when he was 14, and worked on a farm!
I know that there would be some people exploited if the law was changed, but these underage laws don't help people above 18 who get exploited, so maybe we should focus on real crimes rather than things that harm no one...
"Private Eye regularly note that the DM's public persona isn't reflected behind the scenes. The bikini-clad pictures are one example but the code-phrase 'all grown up' is apparently regularly used on picture captions of 16 year olds in a way that makes it synonymous with 'has reached a legal age'."
A right wing British newspaper using coded language to communicate its real meaning.
Who'd have thought it?
So the DM staffed by right wingers who are also DOMs.
The one irony of the Fail's campaign to remove porn by default is that any self-respecting porn filter would deny access to mail.co.uk as one of the biggest purveyors of borderline-dodgy pix on the net.
Much as I hate the idea of these kinds of controls (for various different reasons), the thought that they might cause traffic hitting Dacre's Den of Iniquity to vanish overnight almost makes them worthwhile. Almost.
Upvote for the needless delicious breakfast description and the obscure knightmare ref in your name :)
Not to mention that I agree - the DM confused me earlier as well.
I'm thinking that they just want to do the old trick of pretending that's what they wanted all along when they clearly didn't.
At least there's a certain level of sense in the decision. I was actually worried that the government would start placing opt-out-by-effort internet laws into place...and once that was done it would've opened the legal door to free-reign controls over who-what-where-when-why-and-how.
I pay for internet access, not for internet blocking.
I should point out that most of the comment leaving DM readers were AGAINST an opt-[in/out] block. So it's not really for "Middle England", it's for the DM and no one else.
Also one thing I posted on there too: I expect this will be done for new and current customers. They'll be asked if they have kids. What about couples who've not had kids YET. Will ISPs be informed of all births?
"In other words, parents living with their children must remember to click on "no thanks" to filtering, otherwise their internet access will be restricted accordingly to block supposedly harmful material."
So. Am I going to get a mail from my ISP asking whether I have children living with me? Or are they going to look to see whether anybody is visiting moshimonsters? And how are they going to contact me? (I rarely use the mailbox provided by my ISP because the mail name is crap).
I really think that all MPs should be made to attend compulsory "How the Web works" training, sit an exam to show they've understood, and if they fail it, be barred from taking part in debate or votes on laws affecting Internet access. Internet access is becoming so essential to daily life that the people agreeing legislation have to understand enough to stop suggesting stupid, unworkable laws.
"I really think that all MPs should be made to attend compulsory "How the Web works" training, sit an exam to show they've understood, and if they fail it, be barred from taking part in debate or votes on laws affecting Internet access. Internet access is becoming so essential to daily life that the people agreeing legislation have to understand enough to stop suggesting stupid, unworkable laws."
Best statement I have read online for ages. Some real out of the box thinking there. That should be the first "internet" law passed by our MP's, then they can start to look at further laws (if deemed necessary)
The problem is, this should be applied to many other things. The NHS and the military are two things that could really benefit from MPs who actually knew the first thing about the matter. Maybe we need a "are you intelligent and erudite enough to be an MP" test.
"The problem is when they get it, they promptly ignore it - look at drugs for a start, and energy policy for a finish."
David Nutt and Jacqui Smith were on the radio the other week, talking about the reclassification of cannabis to class B. This happened without input from the ACMD but effectively on a unilateral decision from Gordon Brown, acted on by Smith without any reference to any scientific knowledge or expertise at all. Apparently she now admits that may be a flawed approach.
Afterwards Nutt had this to say - “She, like most politicians, has the delusion whatever they think is right; they lack all humility”
This is the sort of person that gets into power, regardless of the party. They think the wrong way around, they make decisions and cherry-pick soundbites to support these decisions instead of looking at the evidence FIRST and letting that inform policy.
A pox on all their houses.
"The problem is when they get it, they promptly ignore it"
What MPs tend to do is to get together a group of people to draft the initial bill. These are often self-serving single issue lobbyists who purport to be experts in the field.
The Sexual Offences Act 2003 was interesting in its initial clauses. A key input for fear of "indecent exposure" was an academic survey that said a majority of women were afraid to go out at night. Apparently the survey had been conducted in Yorkshire at the time that the Yorkshire Ripper was at large. This latter qualification was not made apparent.
The Police input caused the words "with intent" to be removed - apparently because "that is often hard to prove".
Some of the excesses were later ameliorated after a concerted public campaign by national groups who had been excluded from the initial drafting. However it still seems to have been a victory for the single-issue campaigners - who are possibly the same vested interests trying to get the internet restricted.
The long-standing degree of differentiation between pictures of under 16s and those of under 18s was removed. A bit of a backhanded blow to the Sun - as it had to up its Page 3 models to a day over 18.
One interesting effect of the single-issue groups' fixation with "indecent exposure" was to make it a Sexual Offenders Register offence - whereas a couple having sex in public is apparently only a Public Order (non sexual) offence.
The trouble with many MPs is they're career politicians - after leaving education, they immediately moved into politics or the political machine. I think it was Billy Connelly who said "the desire to be a politician, should ban you for life for ever being one".
Perhaps we should introduce a kind of national service where the most expert, highly thought of candidates from a wide field of industries, upon reaching 60 years old should get nominated to become an MP. A 5 year position that say doubles the value of their pension pot.
The only problem I see is that we'd end up with Dr Sheldon Cooper running the country.
Supposedly that's how the other chamber already works. Some politicians do creep in due to inevitable cronyism but now hereditary peers are falling by the wayside, the great and the good that make it to the realm generally have to have some number of years of practical experience behind them.
It could be even better if a portion of the house were reserved for mandatory attendance by adults picked at random from the general population, a bit like jury duty. I understand that's pretty much how the commons was in its earlier days.
On the other hand the great and the good getting into the "Lords" need some sort of backing to get there, backing they might feel obligated to return.
Some (note some) of the heriditary peers had the good fortune (literally) to be descended from those rewarded for their political machinations in centuries past. With no need to work for a living and no particular dependency on the party, they could afford to be free with their enlightened attitudes and criticize the government of the day without fear of reprisal.
And some of the heriditaries just used to turn up once or twice a year to meet their mates without a thought for obligation to the country as a whole.
Random selection of the populace for service sounds rather like an Ancient Greek democracy thing. Though there were fewer of thme to select from and all thos elegible tended to have a vested interest in their city-state
> some of the heriditaries just used to turn up once or twice a year to meet their mates
I'd very much prefer that sort of indifference to having an appointed political crony in the position.
The House of Lords was always about reviewing and refining bills from the Commons. These days, it's about lending a figleaf of authenticity to your old colleagues...
Vic.
"I really think that all MPs should be made to attend compulsory "How the Web works" training, sit an exam to show they've understood, and if they fail it, be barred from taking part in debate or votes on laws affecting Internet access."
I agree, but think that the idea should be expanded to all areas of life, not just the Internet.
I just gave this a go:
1. Went to the daily fail website
2. Typed 'all grown up' in to their search box
One of the pages returned was this:
"Elle Fanning looks all grown up at 13 as she shares a red carpet hug with Tom Cruise at Super 8 premiere"
All Grown Up. At 13!!
If my opinion of the daily fail could sink any lower, it would.
It gets worse than that...
That is just page 1 of 764 pages of results (20 results per page) for "all grown up"!
So when he says they will show you how to differentiate between individual offspring and the times and sites they casn access, how are ISPs going to do that then with a multitude of web enabled kit like PC, Tablet, phone?
I've looked in my router settings and there is nothing in there that will allow me to limit such things with that level of finesse
"So when he says they will show you how to differentiate between individual offspring and the times and sites they casn access, how are ISPs going to do that then with a multitude of web enabled kit like PC, Tablet, phone?
I've looked in my router settings and there is nothing in there that will allow me to limit such things with that level of finesse"
Easy. He was lying. You could tell because he had 'MP' after his name.
"So when he says they will show you how to differentiate between individual offspring and the times and sites they casn access, how are ISPs going to do that then with a multitude of web enabled kit like PC, Tablet, phone?
I've looked in my router settings and there is nothing in there that will allow me to limit such things with that level of finesse"
My router (bt homehub v2) can limit access to individual devices to certain times of the day, but thats really not much good for anything other than kicking little timmy off call of duty come bedtime. I have seen business routers that do individual device based app and url filtering (including access times), but most households dont tend to have £150+ routers thrown in with their i.s.p.`s package.
I suppose a parent could register a device by mac code or whatever and the i.s.p could keep a database of who uses what device connected to each router and provide filtering based on that. Dont let any device connect until its registered and your all set.
This all sounds too complicated to set up and maintain for the average facebook/farmville/mumsnet using parent though, and they wont use it, they will just complain, so isp`s will probably go with a master toggle at the isp end that fires up a bloody great block list for all devices connected to the router with it enabled (like aol were doing a decade ago). Oh, and it will be trivial to bypass by any kid with an iq over 90.
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a picture where you've bought a new PC (coz sales of them are rocketing) and when you turn it on for the first time, it's have a massive prompt saying "Are there children in the house ?" with a "YES" and "NO" button underneath it.
The silence from Microsoft and Apple (as Mac suppliers) speaks volumes. Where is this mysterious config screen going to go ? Where will the onus lie for providing it ? The retailer ? The OS supplier ? The hardware supplier ? The ISP ? How can an ISP put software on a clients machine ? Especially if that PC is running something which isn't Windows ?
Tablets ?
Smartphones ?
Smart TVs ?
Oh well, at least the government gives us a good laugh when it tries to grapple with technical issues. They treat engineers with contempt and ignore them, and quite rightly get ridiculed when they try to live without them.
On a serious note, this could be an early indication of Camerons impending demise. Politicians usually have bullet-catchers who stop this sort of foot in mouth gaffe. Their mysterious absence, leaving their masters in the line of fire is a sure sign they've read the runes. Remember Jacqui "we'll force paedophiles to register their email" Smith ?
I also was trying to work out where exactly people would be "clicking through", and can think of only two possibilities:
1. Software from your ISP which you need to install (eg. AOL floppies)
2. A forced redirect the first time you try to access any web page
Given MPs' general experience with technology, I suspect Herr Cameron was thinking something like the former, whereas the latter is the only actually realistic option.
I remember a little VB script thing that ran in excel, and changed the position of the 'Yes' button when a mouseover event occured on the button, so you could never exit from a spreadsheet displaying a dirty pic. How long 'till the ISP's start doing that to opt out of filtering (obviously not the dirty pic displaying)?
"Are there children in the house ?" with a "YES" and "NO" button underneath it.
"NO" - I've just left them at play-school, which is how I have time to switch this thing on and get to grips with it.
I'm intrigued that TalkTalk run a system, as I'm with them and don't know anything about it. (Mind you, if I did all I'd want to know is how to make sure my connexion doesn't use it.)
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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.
'interested'? They're the ones leading the charge and have been for quite some time. Both Three and Vodafone have used Bluecoat. O2 has it's own filtering as does Orange/T-Mobile.
Of course they claim that they're forced to do this, but this ignores the fact that this 'need' is defined by industry standards that the industry defined itself. There is no legal requirement for this - at present anyway. Protecting children would be better served by limiting the supply of devices that can - and are - being used in dangerous ways by children.
Instead the phone companies prefer to make money out of the children at the expense of their safety and increase this risk of 'sexualisation' that the likes of Ms Perry are so worried about. I know that this is what companies do - maximise their chances of making profit - but I really do wish that they would stop pretending that this filtering makes any real difference in the long run.
I seem to remember 02 pissing loads of people off by blocking google translate, as you could use it to bypass their smut filter. I think I actually had to go into an 02 store and ask them to remove the filter from my account as it blocked all sorts of sites other than porn. The woman behind the counter looked at me like i was a right perv as she did it, but i guess thats the idea, embarrass people into leaving it on.
Opera mini bypassed it anyway as it uses a secure connection to their own servers, but wouldnt serve video.
Same here with three, the hardest part was getting the Indian girl on the other end of the line to understand what I was asking for... turn off the filters..
The WORST part was that until I had turned off the filters, anything it thought was porn, it redirected me to its own adult services! That was very annoying!
I use Linux at home. The children have their own accounts on the laptop. They have exclusion lists attached to their accounts which basically exclude the world apart from cbeebies and moshi monsters. The problem is that the Beeb don't host a lot of their content. A lot of it is hosted on akamai, which also hosts all manner of nasties. So in theory, my kiddies could access nasty stuff that I can't prevent because teletubbies is coming from the same host. Humph.
The only difference is that Labour's projects slowly failed and were quietly swept under the rug, while Dave likes to "own" decisions by cynically claiming that was what he wanted all along, once it becomes clear that to do otherwise would affect his popularity (and hence ability to sneak in measures that benefit his cronies).
In politics, for some reason, people seem to like a strong, unwavering leader who commits to an idea and pushes it through regardless of silly things like facts or evidence. And then when whatever it is turns out to be an abject failure, they like to lambast the leader and force them to resign, or maybe something worse.
Those of us that like the idea of government that actually look at reality and changes policy in accordance with observed fact, we appear to be in the minority.
tl;dr - people seem to prefer an idiot with convictions over someone actually useful
> people seem to prefer an idiot with convictions over someone actually useful
I suspect it's more likely that we've already given up on the idea of finding someone useful, so we're left with the option of an idiot with convictions or an idiot without. I'm not sure which would be worse...
Vic.
I was out shooting some game and after returning to the Manor noted that Jenkins had laid out a copy of the Daily Mail with my elevenses, as was proper.
Imagine my shock and alarm when opening the pages to find a picture of a rampantly naked and non-Caucasian filly actively flaunting herself - clearly a migrant! But underneath was a statement from our glorious leader regarding the management of information by the Government!
This country went through several wars to ensure that I could have unrestricted access and movement as a private citizen and as a tax payer of this country it is firmly within my rights to ensure that I have access to the world internet web on a nightly basis.
How else am I to acquire the tremendous amounts of pictures and videos necessary to deduce the wrongness of scantily clad gels without first looking at them in private and at length?
Next they will be telling me that I shouldn’t be beating the children - or mine, pah !
Now where’s Mrs Miggins, I decidedly remember telling her to cover the table legs - harumph harumph
etc etc
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.
Annoying as this coalition usually is, at least they try and form evidence based policies and reverse previous decisions on the basis of new evidence. Something Authoritarian New Labour hated doing. It's a pity the same approach can't be used for drugs policy. What is needed is a public information campaign to get parents to sign up for Open Dns, Net Nanny and the like. You could even look at a 'levy' on broadband with the provider 'giving' out a licence for filtering software. A bit tight on childless households though.
"at least they try and form evidence based policies and reverse previous decisions on the basis of new evidence."
I refer you to Mr Camerons recent pre-decision regarding cannabis. No matter what the evidence, he's made his mind up (I believe, using Gordon Browns turn of phrase, he's "minded").
"I refer you to Mr Camerons recent pre-decision regarding cannabis. No matter what the evidence"
You of course mean the hard factual evidence that users of cannibis are 5 times more likely to suffer from Schizophrenia , and have a very noticable and provable drop in IQ.
One studdy found that some people have a retarded IQ for up to 3 months after smoking a single joint!
"I refer you to Mr Camerons recent pre-decision regarding cannabis. No matter what the evidence, he's made his mind up"
Also their entire economic policy, which seems to be based on "Everything will be great if we let the rich people over-farm the poor people for their money"
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>
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.
I think that cuts to the core of this.
Ms Perry seems to have rather a curious idea of what the phrase "family values" means.
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.
David Cameron has (in a tactical move) shafted Claire Perry. He has give her the job of managing a task that is technically impossible and the ISPs/OS manufacturers will not support. He looks like he is supporting family values, but she will fail and fall while Mr Cameron can (hand on heart) state that he supported the proposals but as Ms Perry has not been able to deliver, he is very sorry and discussions will continue, while the DM and others turn like starving wolves on the unfortunate Claire and rip her and her career to shreds.
DC comes up smelling of roses, again.
"David Cameron has (in a tactical move) shafted Claire Perry. He has give her the job of managing a task that is technically impossible and the ISPs/OS manufacturers will not support. He looks like he is supporting family values, but she will fail and fall while Mr Cameron can (hand on heart) state that he supported the proposals but as Ms Perry has not been able to deliver, he is very sorry and discussions will continue, while the DM and others turn like starving wolves on the unfortunate Claire and rip her and her career to shreds."
That sounds like political cunning of a very high order.
I'm starting to like Dave.
Small factoid. The original "Parliamentary debate" Perry organised was attended by 7 MP's, all with same high level of technical competence that Ms Perry has displayed.
"let alone wrap fish and chips in."
In the 1950/60s my mother had that attitude to the NOTW. What was surprising was that "The People" was our Sunday paper - with all its prurient expose articles. It certainly affected me - I blush when I recount an incident in my innocent twenties and conclude it with the phrase "then I made my excuses and left".
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...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?>
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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
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?
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