4 ms·

Must be. On major mobile networks in the UK, SIM cards/data plans by default have an adult content internet filter enabled. Blocks stuff like pornography (obvi

Must be. On major mobile networks in the UK, SIM cards/data plans by default have an adult content internet filter enabled. Blocks stuff like pornography (obviously) and even some other various adult age-focused content like gaming websites. (I've seen the EA Battlefield/Call Of Duty websites blocked before) Usually if you try to access, say, pornhub.com, it'll redirect (ala. WiFi captive portal style) to an internal network page and you have to enter a credit card to disable it on your account. A debit/bank card won't work. I'm over 18 now but at the time I came across this (also over 18) I didn't have a credit card but I ended up bypassing this with a Curve (Fintech 1->many card thing) card which seems to identify as a credit card on the network's system. Alternatively, if you don't mind never seeing the assistant again (jk.), you can go into one of the network's shops and ask the assistant to turn it off by providing some ID like a passport/driving licence.

sebmellen 5y ago
This only reinforces my image of the UK as a long since resigned totalitarian police state — that, along with the huge 1984-esque CCTV posters with giant eyes hanging watchfully over a dreary autumn midday in London.
- istorical 5y ago
  It's hilarious. If this technology existed 50 years ago you can be sure they'd be filtering out any homosexual content. "We must protect the children from filth" after all. Good old nanny state.
  - sebmellen 5y ago
    The posters I referenced were from 2002 [0]... I can only imagine how much worse it's gotten since then. > Attention Londoners: Big Bobby is watching. That's the message of posters plastered along London's bus routes earlier this week to assuage riders' crime fears. > But the posters are having the opposite effect on privacy advocates, who say the artwork is creepily reminiscent of the all-seeing authority described in George Orwell's 1984. > The posters show a red double-decker bus crossing a bridge as four floating eyes stare down from the sky. The eyes' pupils are the symbol of Transport For London, the city's mass-transit provider. > "Secure beneath the watchful eyes," the poster says. "CCTV and Metropolitan Police on buses are just two ways we're making your journey more secure." [0]: https://www.wired.com/2002/11/londons-privacy-falling-down/ https://www.wired.com/2002/11/londons-privacy-falling-down/
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    YouTube does just this[1][2]. [1] https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/lgbtq-youtube-lawsuit-censorship-877919/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/lgbtq-... [2] https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/4/17424472/youtube-lgbt-demonetization-ads-algorithm https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/4/17424472/youtube-lgbt-demo...
- int_19h 5y ago
  The whole "asbo" thing that they had for a long time was also in a similar vein. And the ability of even fairly low ranking police commissioners to declare some area as having "high chance of violence" temporarily, which allows them to stop and search people without warrants or anything like that - basically like stop & frisk in NYC, but without the pushback. On the upside, following UK police twitter accounts can be sorta hilarious in a sad way, because they regularly post stuff like this: https://twitter.com/MPSRegentsPark/status/974645778558980096/photo/1 https://twitter.com/MPSRegentsPark/status/974645778558980096... All that said, it's not really totalitarian. A police state for sure, and an authoritarian uber nanny state, but totalitarianism is a whole different ballgame.
  - sebmellen 5y ago
    I see much of the hardline Islamic substrate in the UK as deeply totalitarian. See this BBC Panorama documentary on Sharia courts functioning as a separate legal system for an example of what I’m talking about: https://youtu.be/4gZCFdHkd4A https://youtu.be/4gZCFdHkd4A. If the all-powerful, authoritarian UK police and the (currently underground) Sharia courts ever collide or end up working together, that’s going to be one hell of a totalitarian trip. Not good at all. Though France has similar religious demographics, I think France might at least stand a better chance of holding back the influence of Islam, given the country’s strong and storied secular tradition.
    - int_19h 5y ago
      In all Western countries that I know of - including UK - those courts are effectively arbitration courts, so they're very limited wrt the kinds of rulings they can make, and even then both parties have to agree to abide. So they're not really a separate legal system.
      - sebmellen 5y ago
        Unfortunately, many of them hand down rulings which conflict with UK and other local laws. At the very least they are conflicting systems — to what degree is a point of contention among legal scholars in the UK, as outlined in the linked BBC documentary.

sebmellen 5y ago

This only reinforces my image of the UK as a long since resigned totalitarian police state — that, along with the huge 1984-esque CCTV posters with giant eyes hanging watchfully over a dreary autumn midday in London.

istorical 5y ago
It's hilarious. If this technology existed 50 years ago you can be sure they'd be filtering out any homosexual content. "We must protect the children from filth" after all. Good old nanny state.
- sebmellen 5y ago
  The posters I referenced were from 2002 [0]... I can only imagine how much worse it's gotten since then. > Attention Londoners: Big Bobby is watching. That's the message of posters plastered along London's bus routes earlier this week to assuage riders' crime fears. > But the posters are having the opposite effect on privacy advocates, who say the artwork is creepily reminiscent of the all-seeing authority described in George Orwell's 1984. > The posters show a red double-decker bus crossing a bridge as four floating eyes stare down from the sky. The eyes' pupils are the symbol of Transport For London, the city's mass-transit provider. > "Secure beneath the watchful eyes," the poster says. "CCTV and Metropolitan Police on buses are just two ways we're making your journey more secure." [0]: https://www.wired.com/2002/11/londons-privacy-falling-down/ https://www.wired.com/2002/11/londons-privacy-falling-down/
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  YouTube does just this[1][2]. [1] https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/lgbtq-youtube-lawsuit-censorship-877919/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/lgbtq-... [2] https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/4/17424472/youtube-lgbt-demonetization-ads-algorithm https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/4/17424472/youtube-lgbt-demo...
int_19h 5y ago
The whole "asbo" thing that they had for a long time was also in a similar vein. And the ability of even fairly low ranking police commissioners to declare some area as having "high chance of violence" temporarily, which allows them to stop and search people without warrants or anything like that - basically like stop & frisk in NYC, but without the pushback. On the upside, following UK police twitter accounts can be sorta hilarious in a sad way, because they regularly post stuff like this: https://twitter.com/MPSRegentsPark/status/974645778558980096/photo/1 https://twitter.com/MPSRegentsPark/status/974645778558980096... All that said, it's not really totalitarian. A police state for sure, and an authoritarian uber nanny state, but totalitarianism is a whole different ballgame.
- sebmellen 5y ago
  I see much of the hardline Islamic substrate in the UK as deeply totalitarian. See this BBC Panorama documentary on Sharia courts functioning as a separate legal system for an example of what I’m talking about: https://youtu.be/4gZCFdHkd4A https://youtu.be/4gZCFdHkd4A. If the all-powerful, authoritarian UK police and the (currently underground) Sharia courts ever collide or end up working together, that’s going to be one hell of a totalitarian trip. Not good at all. Though France has similar religious demographics, I think France might at least stand a better chance of holding back the influence of Islam, given the country’s strong and storied secular tradition.
  - int_19h 5y ago
    In all Western countries that I know of - including UK - those courts are effectively arbitration courts, so they're very limited wrt the kinds of rulings they can make, and even then both parties have to agree to abide. So they're not really a separate legal system.
    - sebmellen 5y ago
      Unfortunately, many of them hand down rulings which conflict with UK and other local laws. At the very least they are conflicting systems — to what degree is a point of contention among legal scholars in the UK, as outlined in the linked BBC documentary.