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3UK user here. Came up against this block for what I assumed was a relatively normal site. I phoned the company and had to jump through hoops to prove my age af

by Peroni 14y ago

3UK user here. Came up against this block for what I assumed was a relatively normal site. I phoned the company and had to jump through hoops to prove my age after being asked So, just to confirm Mr Buckley, you wish to access adult content on your phone?. Eagerly anticipating the end of my contract next month.

rahoulb 14y ago
Good luck with that. The only time I've screamed with rage down the phone at some poor customer service rep (who was just following the script given to her) was trying to end a 3 contract. They are bastards.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- ZoFreX 14y ago
  Watch your bank account after you cancel, too. They have a nasty habit of "forgetting" to stop charging you (happened to a friend of mine who didn't realise until he got back from his deployment in Afganistan)
UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
And then join up with who? All of the 3G operators have similar opt-out filters. Orange makes you give them your credit card number. GiffGaff made me give them my drivers licence number. I like that with GiffGaff I didn't need to talk to a person, just do it online, but in general you'll have to deal with this no matter who you sign up with. I think even Imgur (Reddit's image host) was blocked at one stage.
- Peroni 14y ago
  My work mobile is on the EE network and doesn't appear to have any issue with adult content. The industry I work in requires me to access explicit content occasionally and I've yet to come up against any roadblocks with EE.
  - UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
    It looks like EE does have it. Maybe they just don't apply it to company purchased phones? http://help.ee.co.uk/system/selfservice.controller?CONFIGURATION=1016&PARTITION_ID=1&secureFlag=false&segment=consumer&TIMEZONE_OFFSET=&CMD=VIEW_ARTICLE&ARTICLE_ID=19997 http://help.ee.co.uk/system/selfservice.controller?CONFIGURA...
    - Peroni 14y ago
      Interesting. Either it doesn't apply to company phones or their filter is shockingly bad.
      - cs02rm0 14y ago
        Likewise, I've got an EE mobile on my company and I haven't tripped it yet. Not even for political satire.
    - vidarh 14y ago
      Or perhaps it's just on their 4G? EE is branding confusion hell. They're a result of the merger between Orange and T-Mobile, but depending on situation you'll either have them treat you as an "EE customer" or as a T-Mobile/Orange customer. The only ones who are "only" EE customers in their eyes appear to be 4G users. My contract was entered into with T-Mobile, and is a personal account, and I have never seen a block, including testing just now with obvious candidates.
      - naz 14y ago
        The block only applies to PAYG packages (at least on Three). When I switched to a monthly contract the censorship went away.
  - ZeroGravitas 14y ago
    I'm on T-mobile (though my phone shows EE as the network) with a 3G monthly contract and I've seen the block message. I can't remember what it was, but it wasn't porn, just some random link I followed that I didn't care enough to work around the block to see.
- arethuza 14y ago
  Out of interest, how are you finding GiffGaff - £12 for a plan with unlimited internet and texts and no contract looks too good to be true! [Edit: thanks to everyone who has replied, I think I will give them a go!]
  - jrabone 14y ago
    It is. They will collect your personal information, and make it available to their parent (Telefonica, via O2) and one of the other subsidiaries set up specifically to do this, and then re-sell it to the highest bidder. See http://www.fastcompany.com/3002010/telefonica-sell-customer-data-retailers http://www.fastcompany.com/3002010/telefonica-sell-customer-... for example. If you then subsequently leave them for another network, you will get more SMS spam than you can possibly imagine. http://zingongle.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/o2-selling-my-details-to-marketing-companies-result-spam/ http://zingongle.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/o2-selling-my-deta... for more details.
    - thedrbrian 14y ago
      Interesting. Thankfully I signed up with one of my disposable gmail accounts. Another problem with giffgaff/O2 is that they compress and artefact every video or large picture one tries to send over their network. They claim its to save you money/bandwidth/data , which is funny as I'm on an unlimited account.
      - jrabone 14y ago
        Note I said SMS spam (whereas the linked article talks about email as well). I assert that if you port your number out of a mobile provider owned by Telefonica SA, you'll find every PPI ambulance chaser in the country suddenly has that number regardless of your TPS preferences.
      - DanBC2 14y ago
        All the mobile providers crunch images. T Mobile attempt it for all images. It's frustrating when HN page load is delayed because their stupid proxies are struggling to serve the tiny voting button gifs. I mentioned before the weirdly broken system they use for this too - 1.2.3.9; 1.2.3.11; etc are all annoying IPs to use. I too am on an "unlimited" account. Unlimited being the normal definition of "has limits" - they'll insert interstitial warnings about fair use limits and they'll stop flash working.
Nursie 14y ago
Meh, orange do the same. I was at a music festival last summer and wanted to lookup the program on the festival website to see what was on in the afternoon. Blocked as adult content. They block all sorts of weird stuff. I have no qualms about requesting 'adult content' when 'adult content' includes political satire and festival websites. It renders the whole idea of people being shamed into not requesting 'porn' access moot, because everyone knows it's really not just porn, it's all sorts of content someone has arbitrarily added to a list. These are good examples to bring up when someone makes the (dumb) suggestion that we should all have mandatory or opt-out blocking on our home connections. The end of my little story is that to find out what bands were on that afternoon, I had to install Tor (orbot).

by Peroni 14y ago

rahoulb 14y ago

Good luck with that. The only time I've screamed with rage down the phone at some poor customer service rep (who was just following the script given to her) was trying to end a 3 contract. They are bastards.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
ZoFreX 14y ago
Watch your bank account after you cancel, too. They have a nasty habit of "forgetting" to stop charging you (happened to a friend of mine who didn't realise until he got back from his deployment in Afganistan)

UnoriginalGuy 14y ago

And then join up with who? All of the 3G operators have similar opt-out filters. Orange makes you give them your credit card number. GiffGaff made me give them my drivers licence number. I like that with GiffGaff I didn't need to talk to a person, just do it online, but in general you'll have to deal with this no matter who you sign up with. I think even Imgur (Reddit's image host) was blocked at one stage.

Peroni 14y ago
My work mobile is on the EE network and doesn't appear to have any issue with adult content. The industry I work in requires me to access explicit content occasionally and I've yet to come up against any roadblocks with EE.
- UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
  It looks like EE does have it. Maybe they just don't apply it to company purchased phones? http://help.ee.co.uk/system/selfservice.controller?CONFIGURATION=1016&PARTITION_ID=1&secureFlag=false&segment=consumer&TIMEZONE_OFFSET=&CMD=VIEW_ARTICLE&ARTICLE_ID=19997 http://help.ee.co.uk/system/selfservice.controller?CONFIGURA...
  - Peroni 14y ago
    Interesting. Either it doesn't apply to company phones or their filter is shockingly bad.
    - cs02rm0 14y ago
      Likewise, I've got an EE mobile on my company and I haven't tripped it yet. Not even for political satire.
  - vidarh 14y ago
    Or perhaps it's just on their 4G? EE is branding confusion hell. They're a result of the merger between Orange and T-Mobile, but depending on situation you'll either have them treat you as an "EE customer" or as a T-Mobile/Orange customer. The only ones who are "only" EE customers in their eyes appear to be 4G users. My contract was entered into with T-Mobile, and is a personal account, and I have never seen a block, including testing just now with obvious candidates.
    - naz 14y ago
      The block only applies to PAYG packages (at least on Three). When I switched to a monthly contract the censorship went away.
- ZeroGravitas 14y ago
  I'm on T-mobile (though my phone shows EE as the network) with a 3G monthly contract and I've seen the block message. I can't remember what it was, but it wasn't porn, just some random link I followed that I didn't care enough to work around the block to see.
arethuza 14y ago
Out of interest, how are you finding GiffGaff - £12 for a plan with unlimited internet and texts and no contract looks too good to be true! [Edit: thanks to everyone who has replied, I think I will give them a go!]
- jrabone 14y ago
  It is. They will collect your personal information, and make it available to their parent (Telefonica, via O2) and one of the other subsidiaries set up specifically to do this, and then re-sell it to the highest bidder. See http://www.fastcompany.com/3002010/telefonica-sell-customer-data-retailers http://www.fastcompany.com/3002010/telefonica-sell-customer-... for example. If you then subsequently leave them for another network, you will get more SMS spam than you can possibly imagine. http://zingongle.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/o2-selling-my-details-to-marketing-companies-result-spam/ http://zingongle.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/o2-selling-my-deta... for more details.
  - thedrbrian 14y ago
    Interesting. Thankfully I signed up with one of my disposable gmail accounts. Another problem with giffgaff/O2 is that they compress and artefact every video or large picture one tries to send over their network. They claim its to save you money/bandwidth/data , which is funny as I'm on an unlimited account.
    - jrabone 14y ago
      Note I said SMS spam (whereas the linked article talks about email as well). I assert that if you port your number out of a mobile provider owned by Telefonica SA, you'll find every PPI ambulance chaser in the country suddenly has that number regardless of your TPS preferences.
    - DanBC2 14y ago
      All the mobile providers crunch images. T Mobile attempt it for all images. It's frustrating when HN page load is delayed because their stupid proxies are struggling to serve the tiny voting button gifs. I mentioned before the weirdly broken system they use for this too - 1.2.3.9; 1.2.3.11; etc are all annoying IPs to use. I too am on an "unlimited" account. Unlimited being the normal definition of "has limits" - they'll insert interstitial warnings about fair use limits and they'll stop flash working.

Nursie 14y ago

Meh, orange do the same. I was at a music festival last summer and wanted to lookup the program on the festival website to see what was on in the afternoon. Blocked as adult content. They block all sorts of weird stuff. I have no qualms about requesting 'adult content' when 'adult content' includes political satire and festival websites. It renders the whole idea of people being shamed into not requesting 'porn' access moot, because everyone knows it's really not just porn, it's all sorts of content someone has arbitrarily added to a list. These are good examples to bring up when someone makes the (dumb) suggestion that we should all have mandatory or opt-out blocking on our home connections. The end of my little story is that to find out what bands were on that afternoon, I had to install Tor (orbot).