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"What else will be banned?" This is what worries me the most. If there is going to be a government approved 'blacklist' it suddenly becomes very easy to block c

"What else will be banned?" This is what worries me the most. If there is going to be a government approved 'blacklist' it suddenly becomes very easy to block content that the politicians decide is unsuitable. It's a very slippery slope, and Cameron is standing at the top and lacing up his ice-skates.

mcintyre1994 13y ago
And given that the role of the filter is likely impossible for them to get fundamentally 'right', the cynic in me wonders how quickly acceptance of temporary blocks of non-pornographic content will happen, and how long before somebody might take advantage of that.
wfn 13y ago
Indeed - and this is not even a hypothecial (i.e. it is more than that): this is what happened in Denmark, m. ore or less, afaik. [references may appear later.] This mode of thought cannot be construed as a hyperbole.
- moocowduckquack 13y ago
  And Australia. http://www.news.com.au/news/internet-filter-threatens-warcraft-second-life/story-fna7dq6e-1225745297902 http://www.news.com.au/news/internet-filter-threatens-warcra...
- kalms 13y ago
  Well, porn is not banned here in Denmark. You can see a supposedly complete list here: http://www.teleindu.dk/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Oversigt-over-DNS-blokeringer-15-01-2013.pdf http://www.teleindu.dk/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Oversigt-o... [PDF, Danish]
  - Svip 13y ago
    As you can see, the child pornography list is missing from that list. It was however leaked in 2008 with a date of February 2008: https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Denmark:_3863_sites_on_censorship_list,_Feb_2008 https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Denmark:_3863_sites_on_censorship... And as you can tell, it contains many more sites than the official document, including a Dutch bus rental service.
    - kalms 13y ago
      "Supposedly" :)
draugadrotten 13y ago
> "What else will be banned?" This is what worries me the most. If there is going to be a government approved 'blacklist' it suddenly becomes very easy to block content that the politicians decide is unsuitable. This will happen. In 2008, The Finnish police have added Finnish hacker Matti Nikki's website criticizing Internet censorship to Finland’s new national child porn filter.The scan also found that the top three results of a Google search for "gay porn" are blacklisted. http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Finnish_internet_censorship_critic_blacklisted http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Finnish_internet_censorship_crit... In Sweden in 2007, the child porn filter also blocked the Korean Bonsai Association. Far worse than Bonsai trees, the porn filter was also used to block a political web site over a Mohammad cartoon that enraged muslims. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4700414.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4700414.stm What political web sites are blocked the child porn filter today? We have no way to tell. Slippery slope, indeed.
- tomjen3 13y ago
  Denmark has a similar filter (except less effective, it relies on corporation by the DNS providers so all you have to do is use googles DNS) the list itself is secret but it was leaked to wikileaks. On it was several CP sites that were hosted in europe and were shutdown within days, as well as a ton of gay porn and a Duch truck rental company. The official response? We will consider adding wikileaks to the list of banned sites, for some reason this was never accepted.
Teapot 13y ago
Most likely the filesharing is next to be censored. I can smell it a mile away. This has nothing whatsoever to do with bad porn at all. Porn is the excuse to get the censorship framework firmly in place.
retube 13y ago
well a huge number of things are already banned/illegal: CP being one of them. do you have a problem with that? Note sure why making hardcore porn opt-in is such a big deal.
- vidarh 13y ago
  Part of the problem is that pretty much everywhere such filters have been installed, sooner or later there's been revelations of perfectly legal content being blocked. More than once this has been political speech. They're building all the tools of a police state. With the best of intentions, mind you. But it's not them we're afraid of (we might dislike having to opt in/out of porn, but that's merely a nuisance) - with some luck they'll get voted out in a few years time. What at least some of us are afraid of is that some day down the line someone else gets into power who decides to take full advantage of all the nice tools their predecessors have given them. Put all the tools in place, and that someone might even be more inclined to seek power, knowing the power can extended all that much easier.
- TeMPOraL 13y ago
  Because the infrastructure required to get hardcore porn to be opt-in a) doesn't exist yet, and b) introducing it will be extremely dangerous as it will definitely be abused to filter other content the government doesn't want you to see. This whole issue is not about porn.
- LoganCale 13y ago
  You are conflating illegal child pornography with legal hardcore pornography in that sentence. Was that just poor phrasing? Why is making legal hardcore pornography opt-in a big deal? So many reasons. First, because there's nothing wrong with it and it's something a good many of ordinary people enjoy. Second, despite the previous, in many societies it's still not considered a socially acceptable think to admit to liking even though almost everyone does, so people are far less likely to speak up in a manner that identifies them in order to protest it. Third, some of the actually banned (and not just filtered) content is rape fantasy, which is a hugely popular fantasy among women, and many object to its being banned. Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, making it opt-in is a big deal because it takes a freedom and weakens it. If we have to ask the government for permission to do something, it's not a freedom, it's something being allowed by government for now, and they can change it whenever they want. This is the same reason people advocate open source tools and non-proprietary protocols—so we have our own freedom of choice and can avoid being locked into the whims of whoever holds the power. Porn is an easy place for them to start, because large subsets of society won't speak out in defense of porn, but I guarantee if this sort of filter remains in place long-term, it will be used to block more than porn. That may not even be their intent right now, but when you have a massive internet filtration system in place, it makes it extremely easy to justify adding in a few more filters blocking sites troublesome to the government in a few years.

mcintyre1994 13y ago

And given that the role of the filter is likely impossible for them to get fundamentally 'right', the cynic in me wonders how quickly acceptance of temporary blocks of non-pornographic content will happen, and how long before somebody might take advantage of that.

wfn 13y ago

Indeed - and this is not even a hypothecial (i.e. it is more than that): this is what happened in Denmark, m. ore or less, afaik. [references may appear later.] This mode of thought cannot be construed as a hyperbole.

moocowduckquack 13y ago
And Australia. http://www.news.com.au/news/internet-filter-threatens-warcraft-second-life/story-fna7dq6e-1225745297902 http://www.news.com.au/news/internet-filter-threatens-warcra...
kalms 13y ago
Well, porn is not banned here in Denmark. You can see a supposedly complete list here: http://www.teleindu.dk/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Oversigt-over-DNS-blokeringer-15-01-2013.pdf http://www.teleindu.dk/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Oversigt-o... [PDF, Danish]
- Svip 13y ago
  As you can see, the child pornography list is missing from that list. It was however leaked in 2008 with a date of February 2008: https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Denmark:_3863_sites_on_censorship_list,_Feb_2008 https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Denmark:_3863_sites_on_censorship... And as you can tell, it contains many more sites than the official document, including a Dutch bus rental service.
  - kalms 13y ago
    "Supposedly" :)

draugadrotten 13y ago

> "What else will be banned?" This is what worries me the most. If there is going to be a government approved 'blacklist' it suddenly becomes very easy to block content that the politicians decide is unsuitable. This will happen. In 2008, The Finnish police have added Finnish hacker Matti Nikki's website criticizing Internet censorship to Finland’s new national child porn filter.The scan also found that the top three results of a Google search for "gay porn" are blacklisted. http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Finnish_internet_censorship_critic_blacklisted http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Finnish_internet_censorship_crit... In Sweden in 2007, the child porn filter also blocked the Korean Bonsai Association. Far worse than Bonsai trees, the porn filter was also used to block a political web site over a Mohammad cartoon that enraged muslims. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4700414.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4700414.stm What political web sites are blocked the child porn filter today? We have no way to tell. Slippery slope, indeed.

tomjen3 13y ago
Denmark has a similar filter (except less effective, it relies on corporation by the DNS providers so all you have to do is use googles DNS) the list itself is secret but it was leaked to wikileaks. On it was several CP sites that were hosted in europe and were shutdown within days, as well as a ton of gay porn and a Duch truck rental company. The official response? We will consider adding wikileaks to the list of banned sites, for some reason this was never accepted.

Teapot 13y ago

Most likely the filesharing is next to be censored. I can smell it a mile away. This has nothing whatsoever to do with bad porn at all. Porn is the excuse to get the censorship framework firmly in place.

retube 13y ago

well a huge number of things are already banned/illegal: CP being one of them. do you have a problem with that? Note sure why making hardcore porn opt-in is such a big deal.

vidarh 13y ago
Part of the problem is that pretty much everywhere such filters have been installed, sooner or later there's been revelations of perfectly legal content being blocked. More than once this has been political speech. They're building all the tools of a police state. With the best of intentions, mind you. But it's not them we're afraid of (we might dislike having to opt in/out of porn, but that's merely a nuisance) - with some luck they'll get voted out in a few years time. What at least some of us are afraid of is that some day down the line someone else gets into power who decides to take full advantage of all the nice tools their predecessors have given them. Put all the tools in place, and that someone might even be more inclined to seek power, knowing the power can extended all that much easier.
TeMPOraL 13y ago
Because the infrastructure required to get hardcore porn to be opt-in a) doesn't exist yet, and b) introducing it will be extremely dangerous as it will definitely be abused to filter other content the government doesn't want you to see. This whole issue is not about porn.
LoganCale 13y ago
You are conflating illegal child pornography with legal hardcore pornography in that sentence. Was that just poor phrasing? Why is making legal hardcore pornography opt-in a big deal? So many reasons. First, because there's nothing wrong with it and it's something a good many of ordinary people enjoy. Second, despite the previous, in many societies it's still not considered a socially acceptable think to admit to liking even though almost everyone does, so people are far less likely to speak up in a manner that identifies them in order to protest it. Third, some of the actually banned (and not just filtered) content is rape fantasy, which is a hugely popular fantasy among women, and many object to its being banned. Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, making it opt-in is a big deal because it takes a freedom and weakens it. If we have to ask the government for permission to do something, it's not a freedom, it's something being allowed by government for now, and they can change it whenever they want. This is the same reason people advocate open source tools and non-proprietary protocols—so we have our own freedom of choice and can avoid being locked into the whims of whoever holds the power. Porn is an easy place for them to start, because large subsets of society won't speak out in defense of porn, but I guarantee if this sort of filter remains in place long-term, it will be used to block more than porn. That may not even be their intent right now, but when you have a massive internet filtration system in place, it makes it extremely easy to justify adding in a few more filters blocking sites troublesome to the government in a few years.