5 ms·

Looking into this a bit more, this seems like a classic case of “much ado about nothing.” The situation as I understand it: 1. A UK telecom company, EE, has a

Looking into this a bit more, this seems like a classic case of “much ado about nothing.” The situation as I understand it: 1. A UK telecom company, EE, has an optional (!!) parental control feature, which blocks websites based on a user-selected threshold [0] 2. Archive.org was added to this block-list. This makes sense at first glance: as an exercise to the reader, go to archive.org and type in the URL of your favorite porn website. 3. This is all user-controllable and is disabled by default. Yeah, assuming I have my facts right, this seems like a big, fat, nothing burger. Please correct me if I’ve misanalysed. [0] : https://ee.co.uk/help/help-new/safety-and-security/content-lock/switching-content-lock-on-or-off https://ee.co.uk/help/help-new/safety-and-security/content-l...

kiwijamo 4y ago
It's enabled by default on my EE SIM.
callamdelaney 4y ago
Kids just shouldn't have phones with data plans.
- stavros 4y ago
  Why not?
  - JasonFruit 4y ago
    For the same reason they shouldn't have firearms. People shouldn't let their kids be unsupervised with even a very useful item where the risk is high and they haven't yet developed the self-control to use it wisely. Eventually you have to let go, but that transition time is critical.
    - callamdelaney 4y ago
      Jason is correct. Techonology outpaces parents ability to police it in the majority of cases.
- mattl 4y ago
  What phones don’t have data plans? Also that’s going to mean they can’t use useful stuff like iMessage.
  - callamdelaney 4y ago
    Text messages exist
    - mattl 4y ago
      Yeah and now your kid is the weird one with the green messages who isn’t invited to the group chats.
      - callamdelaney 4y ago
        Teach your kids it's okay to be to take another path; it's literally the only way to achieve more.
        mattl 4y ago
        It’s not okay though. It just makes people unhappy for no good reason.
        callamdelaney 4y ago
        It makes your kids unhappy to not have unsupervised access to the internet? Guess we should just let them do what they like? They'll be super happy then.
        mattl 4y ago
        If kids are left out of things like group chats with their friends they’ll feel like outsiders
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  This is true to some extent, but not in a simple and categorical way. We should really think more about how we want our kids to grow and discover the (online) world, and sheltering them from everything controversial or have their parents dictate every content they can and cannot access until they’re 18, doesn’t look like an actual viable option to me.
ixfo 4y ago
It's enabled by default, actually, but otherwise about right. https://www.blocked.org.uk/ https://www.blocked.org.uk/ is a useful resource on this front.
- madeofpalk 4y ago
  Unsure about "enabled by default". I don't think I've ever been offered (explicitly) a parental for my home ISP (not EE) that I opted out of. Archive.org isnt blocked on my home internet. Archive.org is also available on my EE phone (when using mobile connection) - it's possibly I explicitly opted out of parental control filter, but I don't think I have. I'm less sure about that.
  - OJFord 4y ago
    GiffGaff's is enabled by default. I hate the way they (all) phrase it too, like you can disable it if you want to access 'bad stuff' - no, I just want not to be told what I can and can't access, 'no filter', one less place for anti-privacy logging potential etc.
  - Deathmax 4y ago
    EE's Content Lock is enabled by default, and is called out in the article itself. To opt out of Content Lock, you must undergo age verification, either via ID checks in person at the store, or via a credit card. Please note: All new and existing accounts with Content Lock enabled have the "Moderate" setting applied by default. [1] [1]: https://myaccount.ee.co.uk/app/anonymous-content-lock https://myaccount.ee.co.uk/app/anonymous-content-lock
mastazi 4y ago
the fact that it is opt-out rather than opt-in makes it much more than a "nothing burger" IMHO.
naikrovek 4y ago
thank you. overreactions over things like this REALLY increase people's "I care about this" fatigue more than people realize. those who do the overreacting never seem to look into things and immediately jump to incorrect conclusions, and observers eventually get an understanding that these issues are crackpot issues and not real, or not real enough to care about. it erodes the awareness of the issue that the overreacting person hopes (consciously or not) to increase. it really is a shame that most "civic-level" advocates are so poor at their advocacy; paid lobbyists are quite effective, indeed.
- scruffyherder 4y ago
  Thank you for thinking opt out censorship in the so called 'free world' is a good thing. It's a shame so many western people rally around their censorship, their restrictions, and act all surprised that their sites get blocked in the east.
leakbang 4y ago
> This makes sense at first glance: as an exercise to the reader, go to archive.org and type in the URL of your favorite porn website. If this is their reasoning, then it's silly to me. With this logic every search engine should be blocked! Even with all their domain blacklisting simply searching for adult content on google images will yield millions of results. Probably more than archive.org :) I think this is an honest mistake. I reckon they either had a crawler that flagged archive.org or maybe someone added it by mistake and never realized it :)
- zeusk 4y ago
  The difference is that search engines will generally redirect to the external website while archive.org lets you browse the page on their domain. As an added exercise, maybe try translate.google.com to see if it's blocked as well.
  - jolmg 4y ago
    I'm sure they mean the thumbnail images you can browse in Google's domain.
    - lazerl0rd 4y ago
      There's SafeSearch for that, which can be enforced at the DNS level.
keithnz 4y ago
weird they are blaming the UK for this also, it's one company with a particular product offering.
- skissane 4y ago
  It actually does make sense to blame the UK for this. UK law (Digital Economy Act 2017) says that ISPs are legally required to offer content filtering to their customers, turned on by default, although customers are allowed to request to opt out of it. So, this ISP is legally required to impose content filters unless a customer specifically asks them not to do so. Now, you can say the real issue here is not the filtering itself, but the decision to include this particular website in the list of sites to be blocked. But the reality is, filtering decisions are inherently subjective, mistakes are inevitable, so I really think if someone ought to be blamed, it is not the company legally forced to do the filtering, but rather the law which forces them to do it. Also, the company wants to spend as little money on the filtering as possible, since it is a pure cost centre – and if customers don't like it, they can opt out, and then either have unfiltered Internet, or filter it themselves – meaning there is no incentive for the company to do a good job of choosing which sites to include I'm a parent (of a 9 year old and a 4 year old), and I think it is totally good parenting to seek to limit your children's access to online material they are too young to process. But I think the right answer is a free market of parent control solutions (both commercial and open source), with parents being able to choose the solution which works best for their family – not government-imposed network-level filtering, even if it is an opt-out. Parental control is best done at the endpoints, not in the network.
protomikron 4y ago
> [...] as an exercise to the reader, go to archive.org and type in the URL of your favorite porn website. And then, what? You get the content and you consider that problematic?
scruffyherder 4y ago
It's enabled by default. You have your facts wrong.

kiwijamo 4y ago

It's enabled by default on my EE SIM.

callamdelaney 4y ago

Kids just shouldn't have phones with data plans.

stavros 4y ago
Why not?
- JasonFruit 4y ago
  For the same reason they shouldn't have firearms. People shouldn't let their kids be unsupervised with even a very useful item where the risk is high and they haven't yet developed the self-control to use it wisely. Eventually you have to let go, but that transition time is critical.
  - callamdelaney 4y ago
    Jason is correct. Techonology outpaces parents ability to police it in the majority of cases.
mattl 4y ago
What phones don’t have data plans? Also that’s going to mean they can’t use useful stuff like iMessage.
- callamdelaney 4y ago
  Text messages exist
  - mattl 4y ago
    Yeah and now your kid is the weird one with the green messages who isn’t invited to the group chats.
    - callamdelaney 4y ago
      Teach your kids it's okay to be to take another path; it's literally the only way to achieve more.
      - mattl 4y ago
        It’s not okay though. It just makes people unhappy for no good reason.
        callamdelaney 4y ago
        It makes your kids unhappy to not have unsupervised access to the internet? Guess we should just let them do what they like? They'll be super happy then.
        mattl 4y ago
        If kids are left out of things like group chats with their friends they’ll feel like outsiders
makeitdouble 4y ago
This is true to some extent, but not in a simple and categorical way. We should really think more about how we want our kids to grow and discover the (online) world, and sheltering them from everything controversial or have their parents dictate every content they can and cannot access until they’re 18, doesn’t look like an actual viable option to me.

ixfo 4y ago

It's enabled by default, actually, but otherwise about right. https://www.blocked.org.uk/ https://www.blocked.org.uk/ is a useful resource on this front.

madeofpalk 4y ago
Unsure about "enabled by default". I don't think I've ever been offered (explicitly) a parental for my home ISP (not EE) that I opted out of. Archive.org isnt blocked on my home internet. Archive.org is also available on my EE phone (when using mobile connection) - it's possibly I explicitly opted out of parental control filter, but I don't think I have. I'm less sure about that.
- OJFord 4y ago
  GiffGaff's is enabled by default. I hate the way they (all) phrase it too, like you can disable it if you want to access 'bad stuff' - no, I just want not to be told what I can and can't access, 'no filter', one less place for anti-privacy logging potential etc.
- Deathmax 4y ago
  EE's Content Lock is enabled by default, and is called out in the article itself. To opt out of Content Lock, you must undergo age verification, either via ID checks in person at the store, or via a credit card. Please note: All new and existing accounts with Content Lock enabled have the "Moderate" setting applied by default. [1] [1]: https://myaccount.ee.co.uk/app/anonymous-content-lock https://myaccount.ee.co.uk/app/anonymous-content-lock

mastazi 4y ago

the fact that it is opt-out rather than opt-in makes it much more than a "nothing burger" IMHO.

naikrovek 4y ago

thank you. overreactions over things like this REALLY increase people's "I care about this" fatigue more than people realize. those who do the overreacting never seem to look into things and immediately jump to incorrect conclusions, and observers eventually get an understanding that these issues are crackpot issues and not real, or not real enough to care about. it erodes the awareness of the issue that the overreacting person hopes (consciously or not) to increase. it really is a shame that most "civic-level" advocates are so poor at their advocacy; paid lobbyists are quite effective, indeed.

scruffyherder 4y ago
Thank you for thinking opt out censorship in the so called 'free world' is a good thing. It's a shame so many western people rally around their censorship, their restrictions, and act all surprised that their sites get blocked in the east.

leakbang 4y ago

> This makes sense at first glance: as an exercise to the reader, go to archive.org and type in the URL of your favorite porn website. If this is their reasoning, then it's silly to me. With this logic every search engine should be blocked! Even with all their domain blacklisting simply searching for adult content on google images will yield millions of results. Probably more than archive.org :) I think this is an honest mistake. I reckon they either had a crawler that flagged archive.org or maybe someone added it by mistake and never realized it :)

zeusk 4y ago
The difference is that search engines will generally redirect to the external website while archive.org lets you browse the page on their domain. As an added exercise, maybe try translate.google.com to see if it's blocked as well.
- jolmg 4y ago
  I'm sure they mean the thumbnail images you can browse in Google's domain.
  - lazerl0rd 4y ago
    There's SafeSearch for that, which can be enforced at the DNS level.

keithnz 4y ago

weird they are blaming the UK for this also, it's one company with a particular product offering.

skissane 4y ago
It actually does make sense to blame the UK for this. UK law (Digital Economy Act 2017) says that ISPs are legally required to offer content filtering to their customers, turned on by default, although customers are allowed to request to opt out of it. So, this ISP is legally required to impose content filters unless a customer specifically asks them not to do so. Now, you can say the real issue here is not the filtering itself, but the decision to include this particular website in the list of sites to be blocked. But the reality is, filtering decisions are inherently subjective, mistakes are inevitable, so I really think if someone ought to be blamed, it is not the company legally forced to do the filtering, but rather the law which forces them to do it. Also, the company wants to spend as little money on the filtering as possible, since it is a pure cost centre – and if customers don't like it, they can opt out, and then either have unfiltered Internet, or filter it themselves – meaning there is no incentive for the company to do a good job of choosing which sites to include I'm a parent (of a 9 year old and a 4 year old), and I think it is totally good parenting to seek to limit your children's access to online material they are too young to process. But I think the right answer is a free market of parent control solutions (both commercial and open source), with parents being able to choose the solution which works best for their family – not government-imposed network-level filtering, even if it is an opt-out. Parental control is best done at the endpoints, not in the network.

protomikron 4y ago

> [...] as an exercise to the reader, go to archive.org and type in the URL of your favorite porn website. And then, what? You get the content and you consider that problematic?

scruffyherder 4y ago

It's enabled by default. You have your facts wrong.