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In this case, every site they can identify. Broadly, UK law is restricted to UK companies for material which is illegal to post. So libelous sites hosted outs
by Bartweiss 10y ago
In this case, every site they can identify.
Broadly, UK law is restricted to UK companies for material which is illegal to post. So libelous sites hosted outside the country aren't censored, because the libel isn't 'located' in the UK (yes, this is a tortured analysis).
But the UK has more recently established a China-style firewall that restricts access to sites hosted anywhere, based on where you view from. Originally, it was implemented to block access to torrent sites. And of course, at the time everyone swore "it's just the torrent sites, there will never be a slippery slope!"
But now it would age-gate pornography viewed from any UK IP address. Well, the content they can find anyway - they'll have to either run a blacklist (catching only large, paid sites) or a blocking filter with a whitelist (blocking all kinds of legitimate content - usually this ends up blocking sexual health sites). And yes, Tumblr is hopeless, there's really no way to know what a given page will have on it.
So it's the authoritarian, cut-off-access bit, but it still won't work.
- EvilTerran 10y agoPoint of fact: the UK's internet filter was originally implemented about a decade ago, to block child pornography. And (to borrow your turn of phrase) at the time, everyone swore "it's just the child pornography, there will never be a slippery slope!" ... then, as of a couple of years ago, they started using it to block torrent sites. So it goes.
- toyg 10y agoIt's really sad to see a country famous for its liberal traditions, sleepwalk back into the sort of draconian censorship that we thought was a relic from darker times.
- Bartweiss 10y agoAh... it appears the first step happened before I was up on the issue. Shame, that's even more dishonest than I thought.
- emp_zealoth 10y agoThey also block Library Genesis, not exactly sure on what grounds...