9 ms·
Sleepwalking into censorship
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- beedogs 13y agoOf course it will, because filtering porn was never really the intention in the first place.
- leke 13y ago> "web forums" and "esoteric material" Well there you go. Very unspecified. You can kiss "the free internet" goodbye. This site might even be under threat. It does have the word hacker in its title. Then there are hacking forums related to breaking into systems. Even though we use them for learning about securing systems, I see the government disagreeing.
- kybernetyk 13y agoAren't reddit and HN web forums?
- jrockway 13y agoAbsolutely. The list of categories sounds like the list of categories popular filtering software provides. I was behind a transparent proxy that applied these rules at a former employer, and yes, HN and Reddit were both blocked. Of course, they only blocked news.ycombinator.com and not news.ycombinator.net, which just goes to show you how useless these filters are for protecting children and how useful they are for "accidentally" blocking political oponents for a couple days.
- InclinedPlane 13y agoAren't flickr, tumblr, twitter, youtube, and facebook also web forums?
- aegiso 13y agoTotally, but nobody believes these will be blocked by default. That's how censorship works. It's arbitrary and at the whims of those in power.
- ballard 13y agoQui tacet consentire videtur. Silence gives consent. This demands vigilant civil disobedience in the strongest terms possible. Make camp in Victoria and let Cameron know that this is not okay.
- rmc 13y agoI will point out that Wikipedia was filtered by the UK ISP anti-child-porn filter.
- ToothlessJake 13y agoFive Eyes is run by a self interested profit motivated pool of persons who trade insider info such as exploits to use against others.[1] Their treasonous reach is spreading and thankfully people are becoming aware. People who dare collate information on the persons behind companies like Endgame and Booz Allen have federal resources put upon them. The site[1] linked, started in part by Barrett Brown is part of this battle.[2] SOS. [1] http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Endgame_Systems http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Endgame_Systems [2] http://www.thenation.com/article/174851/strange-case-barrett-brown http://www.thenation.com/article/174851/strange-case-barrett...
- chmike 13y agoSome people are afraid that the revolution that took place in north Africa could happen in their country too. It's time to get ready for resistance and underground uncensored information transmission. The 1% starts to fear they may lose control of their domination. Anyway Cameron has it all wrong, terrorists don't look at porn.
- devonbarrett 13y agohaven't you seen all the terrorists on the forum howtomakeabomb.com; clearly we need to censor web forums to stop this!
- chmike 13y agoCensoring will stop what ? This is just an attempt to restore obscurantism. If education doesn't work then consider the possibility that that something might be wrong with your assumptions.
- jrockway 13y agoSo is the EU OK with the UK blocking all web forums by default? Any statements, court challenges, etc. yet?
- desas 13y agoThere's no legislation to challenge. This is all being done "voluntarily" by the most used ISPs.
- mtgx 13y agoJust like the six strikes system in US.
- johnchristopher 13y agoIt depends. UK has a very special relationship with EU authorities.
- kmfrk 13y agoLet's see if the UK are even members of the EU in two years. :/ One hopes the trade deal with the US can reel them back in. I don't think the EU necessarily have the best record on Internet freedom, even though I see many great things about the union.
- rmc 13y agoLet's see if the UK are even members of the EU in two years. :/ I can just see the no-to-eu/anti-unionist referendum leaflets now: "The EU is forcing your kids to look at porn! We want to block it, but Brussles says no!"
- Vindexus 13y agoWas this post not linked to Wired just a few minutes ago?
- keeran 13y agoI assume a mod realised the Wired article was just a lazy rehash of this source.
- josscrowcroft 13y agoHorrific. About 80% of what I read would be classed as "esoteric" and the rest probably blocked for some other reason I didn't foresee being included in that list.
- coopdog 13y ago"There comes a point that it is simply better to place your sales through Amazon and ebay, and circulate your news and promotions exclusively through Facebook and Twitter, as you know none of these will ever be filtered." Even this is a dangerous opinion. The worst kind of censorship is self-censorship, where just the threat of being filtered causes organisations to self-filter far more than the government has ever asked for, because the boundaries of what is acceptable have never been defined. You can say "they'd never block facebook", but just the threat of a government mandated social network is enough to get facebook to do what they want.
- cnidoblast 13y agoI'm lucky I live in China. Here I can open any website i want, including adult content, just need 1 second to turn on the SSH, It has been working amazingly for 7 years, since i came to China. It's funny when i go to Hong Kong, and i see the signs warning you about the high fines you will pay if you throw a bit of bread to a bird, or if you smoke while walking on the street. Then when i tell HK people that I live in China and I love it and they say "but is not free there!" I just smile and say "yeah". In Europe you can't even buy a bottle of beer and walk away from the shop at night, If you take off your shirt in a hot day and walk outside people look at you like you are a criminal, while in China it is just normal. There are different kinds of freedom, off course, but the daily-life freedom we enjoy in China is better imho than the European daily-life's "strictly controlled freedom"
- biafra 13y ago"In Europe you can't even buy a bottle of beer and walk away from the shop at night" You are wrong on this. In which european country is that a problem? Certainly not in Germany. Please be more specific.
- verroq 13y agoSome countries have "alcohol free zones". The imagery he is trying to invoke is - shirtless with a opened bottle of beer.
- DrJokepu 13y agoMost of the United Kingdom.
- VMG 13y agoWell, I'm in Germany and can't buy beer after 10pm. http://www.welt.de/vermischtes/article6609694/In-Baden-Wuerttemberg-gilt-nachts-Alkoholverbot.html http://www.welt.de/vermischtes/article6609694/In-Baden-Wuert...
- biafra 13y ago1. This new law only applies to Baden-Wuertemberg (not Europe or Germany) 2. You can still buy beer at that time in restaurants
- edent 13y agoDon't just moan about it online - put your money where your mouth is. If you're in the UK, join the OpenRightsGroup https://www.openrightsgroup.org/join/ https://www.openrightsgroup.org/join/
- mathgladiator 13y ago> Don't just moan about it online I think the problem is that not enough people moan/know about it. With this, putting my money where my mouth is may be a very terrible investment. When I read things like this, I think "geez, I'm glad I'm not having children" and "geez, I hope I'll be dead before this actually affects me" (keep in mind, these lines of reasoning are exactly why this will be a problem; so far, nothing has been done to make everyone really angry).
- harrytuttle 13y agoPeople do know about it, but they have the concentration span of a gnat here in the UK. Seriously, whoever is winning one of Cowell's shite-shoveling programs or which piece of dirt is most popular on the reality show of the moment is an instant distraction from having to think about anything or act upon it. The worst bit is these things promote surveillance and make it morally ok. The rest seem to contract our their thinking to the daily mail. No comments needed there.
- kintamanimatt 13y agoSo long as there's bread and circus and most Brits are comfortable, they'll happily embrace censorship, surveillance, or whatever else. The only trouble is, The Great Firewall of Ol' Blighty might just trample all over the circus component. At the very least, this is likely to cause younger and traditionally apathetic voters to become more engaged.
- harrytuttle 13y agoI doubt it. The media have already started the conditioning. You know the conditioning that suggests if you're against it, you must want child porn.
- binarymax 13y ago[X] Extremist and terrorist related content That to me looks like a big red flag to classify you as a terrorist if you uncheck the box, if they decide later they don't like you for some other reason.
- northwest 13y agoSo true. It actually really does look like an Onion joke.
- turbojerry 13y agoEvery security / defence researcher and consultant in the country will now be labeled a terrorist, making their work harder and the country less secure.
- kmfrk 13y agoMaybe they're just trying to get rid of UKIP. :P
- 4bpp 13y ago£10 says that opposition to the filtering will count as an extremist view.
- rmc 13y agoDon't worry! The UK Government never misuses terrorism laws or brings in heavy handed anti-terrorism laws! Just ask all the people in Northern Ireland!
- spindritf 13y agoSo if you press "no" on the first screen during setup, you will be not affected by filtering? Somehow, I cannot see the great danger to freedom in that. Actually, as far as free speech in Britain goes[1][2][3][4][5], that almost sounds like a courtesy. [1] http://www.worldmag.com/2013/07/american_street_preacher_arrested_in_london_for_hate_speech http://www.worldmag.com/2013/07/american_street_preacher_arr... [2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2330180/Woolwich-attacks-Man-charged-making-racist-anti-religious-Facebook-comments-British-soldier-s-death.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2330180/Woolwich-att... [3] http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/27/free-speech-or-hate-speech-britain-bans-u-s-anti-muslim-bloggers/?_r=0 http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/27/free-speech-o... [4] http://www.christian.org.uk/rel_liberties/cases/harry_hammond.htm http://www.christian.org.uk/rel_liberties/cases/harry_hammon... [5] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-23128956 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-23128956
- jvdh 13y agoYou will be on a list of people who have actively opted out of pornography censorship. Imagine what would happen to your reputation if that list got leaked. You would be forced into a situation where you would have to explain why you want to receive pornography. While you and I can probably see the fine points of this debate, the general public generally would not.
- rwmj 13y agoI've opted out of my mobile phone provider's filter. I'm not especially worried about my reputation.
- jvdh 13y agoThere is a big difference between opting out of commercial calls and opting out of a porn-filter. Everybody hates commercial calls, and feels happy to admit it. Everybody will enjoy watching some form of porn from time to time, but nobody in civil society will admit to it.
- marincounty 13y agoI used to think I wouldn't want my kids seeing things on the Internet. I'm beginning to think, let them see it all, in all it's ugly glory. They just might rethink living a moral life?
- seanlinmt 13y agoFor those wanting to read more about dark patterns in design.. http://darkpatterns.org/ http://darkpatterns.org/
- nly 13y agoAbove and beyond the obvious moral debate over whether or not a filtering option should be offered, whether it can be effective, or whether it should be opt-in or opt-out, a number of practical things worry me about having any such architecture in place: 1. Once you classify web activity it becomes more economical, and arguably even justified in order to carry the cost of maintaining the filter, to make the move to offering a tiered internet service (i.e. having to pay more for access to porn) 2. Not everyone in a household may have the same preferences, so you'll inevitably want to to start tracking web activity on a per-person basis 3. Your preferences will be kept by your ISP, probably their partners, and definitely made available to authorities on-demand. "The defendant opted-in to viewing violent pornography Your Honour". 4. To simplify the design the system will most likely require that all 'hits' in any given category be routed to a web proxy system, even while you're opted-out. You can bet that this will be logged meticulously by someone. Hell, some ISPs may even be brazen enough to offer the 'feature' of alerting parents to their kids activities. So it's potentially, "The defendant opted-in to viewing violent pornography Your Honour, and did so on a regular basis." 5. Massive potential impact to the robustness and performance of the web. More middle-boxes. Less flexibility to replace protocols, even HTTP 2.0, in the future.
- MarcScott 13y agoMy main concern is with regards to who has control of the blacklist. I can imagine site like http://torrentfreak.com http://torrentfreak.com being blocked from the onset, even though it is nothing more than a news aggregation site. How big a jump is it to then block sites like http://www.pirateparty.org.uk http://www.pirateparty.org.uk or maybe even http://www.openrightsgroup.org http://www.openrightsgroup.org itself.
- tmerr 13y agoI wonder how much of this is guesswork on the part of Open Rights Group. I'm concerned about censorship but I also want to keep my facts straight.
- ajuc 13y agoDo what people did when ACTA was about to be signed - protest on the streets. A few tousand people on the streets of most big cities in a country speak to politicians louder than online petition signed by 1 000 000 people. Polish politicians have learnt their lesson last year and now they know to not even try: http://rys.io/en/109 http://rys.io/en/109
- rmc 13y agoThat doesn't always work. About 750k → 1 million people protested in the UK against declaring war on Iraq. Didn't stop the Government. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_15,_2003_anti-war_protest#United_Kingdom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_15,_2003_anti-war_prot...
- nodata 13y agoWhy is there always this focus on protesting on streets? It's a serious question. People clearly don't like doing that. Is it old fashioned? Why does my protest only count when I am on a street, and how can I make non-street based protests count more? Clicking Like buttons is lazy and meaningless. What's the middle ground?
- ajuc 13y agoI think that by going to a street protest you show you care enough to spend significant amount of time, so you probably also care enough to go vote against that politician in next elections. Clicking online poll is just too convenient to mean anything.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]