[p333347]

Not sure of the (technical) feasibility of this, but I have some social observations.

It seems the motivating factor, ostensibly, is to protect children. However, the primary concern of those who don't like this seems to be with leaks and possible ensuing shaming. So, if the stigma attached to watching (non illegal) porn is done away with, the fear of leak becomes irrelevant. If protecting children is paramount then society must do away with silly witch hunts and being so anal (no pun intended).

While we are at it, why restrict to porn and why not extend to all things abusive to kids, including violence, racism, stupid stunts and pranks etc referenced by many other posters? Seems porn gets targeted almost always! imagine if porn were a person in the west, they would have sued the heck out of everyone.

[d4nt]

My primary concern isn't leaks or shaming. What I really have a problem with is the role of government here. Elections are not perfect, that's why we have separation of powers. But it's hard to see how any government imposed solution can be implemented without upsetting the balance and opening the door to government censorship/manipulation further down the road.

The responsibility to block this content should be with the parents and the free market. As a parent I can already purchase content filtering services. The UK government is meddling in an area it doesn't need to, with potentially disastrous consequences, presumably for PR purposes.

[MrSourz]

The telecoms already have that type of data that could be leaked to an extent. In 2013 British Telecom enabled porn filtering [1] that was on by default, so when setting up your account you'd have to opt out.

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet-security/1052...

[pmlnr]

This was present on mobile networks for a long while. The honest and real reason I had it disabled was when it listed the ThinkPad knowledge collector http://thinkwiki.org/ as adult site... ( I'm not joking. ) - this is probably also a prime example lists like this are complete and utter jokes.

[hfsktr]

But do they have a record of the reason you disabled it or did they just change a flag and lump you in with everyone else?

A bit more paranoid. If they do this tracking for porn, maybe in the future they add other types of content they want to track. I know it sounds silly but it's not like the data is going to go away and likely will only ever increase the amount of tracking. Sadly I know many people who see no issue with this.

[pmlnr]

It's not silly and it's not paranoid, the Great Firewall of the UK is a troublesome thing already. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_blocking_in_the_United_Kin...

At that time, I was probably listed as requested access to mature content; reasons were not required but a few years ago they were already asking for identification, eg. passports.

What's frightening is how silent everyone is about this.

[the_mitsuhiko]

Opting out was such a humiliating experience. I had to spend 30 minutes on phone with a woman to explain why I needed it disabled and why I don't have a british driving license.

[DanBC]

Luckily the filters always included way too much stuff, so calling to have the filters off wasn't ever a conversation about "I want to watch porn", but "I want access to this website about testicular cancer".

[PietdeVries]

Well, let's extend even further - why restrict to things abusive to kids, why not extend to all things abusive to anyone?!? Like news shows that obviously have "wrong" news or different opinions, history-channels that focus on the less glamorous sides of say the British in WWII, etc...

This is a slippery slope that one should not enter. If your kid encounters porn then banning porn will not fix the kid. Educating will fix your kid...