[h2s]

Stop calling it a "porn filter". It's censorship of the internet.

If it was actually a "porn filter", its purpose would be to filter pornographic material. In reality, there is a list of categories to be censored, and porn is only one of them. Focusing on the words "porn filtering" was a deliberate strategic move by the government, because it makes it more difficult to oppose convincingly.

Those of us who oppose censorship are playing into their hands by referring to this issue using the favourable terms coined by the government. We should all stop referring to it as "porn filtering" and start referring to it as "internet censorship".

[wtracz]

This has already happened.

The Internet Watch Foundation already tell ISPs to block child pornography, and the court system can tell ISPs to block file-sharing/streaming sites.

It is a myth that the internet is uncensored in the UK at the moment.

[Silhouette]

Both distributing child pornography and distributing content in violation of copyright are explicitly against the law. Distributing "normal" porn is not. I think there is a qualitative difference between attempting to prevent illegal activity and attempting to prevent legal activity that some vague authority out of the public eye just doesn't like, and I'm not sure it's helpful to equate the two cases in a debate like this.

[MildlySerious]

The thing is, you can't just censor it away until it's gone. It doesn't fight the root of the cause and in the long run will only hurt the society as a whole.

We all know that it doesn't matter how illegal something is; if it can be found, the person looking for it will find it. That's especially true for the internet. Obstacles always bear the chance of making it worse for the wrong people.

[Silhouette]

The thing is, you can't just censor it away until it's gone.

To play devil's advocate for a moment: how do we know that?

I'm guessing you and I are both liberally inclined in our politics from the very fact that we're having this conversation. Probably we are both naturally sceptical of any form of censorship.

However, objectively, it is clear that some children really are being exploited in horrible ways to produce the kind of material that we sometimes hear about in the news. If a responsibly operated system for limiting its distribution could have a significant actual benefit in terms of reducing the incentive to create that material in the first place, I don't think a principled "absolutely no censorship allowed" argument is sufficiently powerful to dismiss the alternative out-of-hand.

To make these kinds of policies, I think you have to look at the big picture, and the merits of both positions, and ideally hard evidence about the likely outcomes of each outcome. Even then, you are almost always choosing the least of evils in such a situation, because there will be real and legitimate concerns about any policy you might finally adopt.

It doesn't fight the root of the cause and in the long run will only hurt the society as a whole.

I am absolutely in favour of going after the root cause of abuses, or any other criminal activity. But when you're talking about legislation and law enforcement, I think you have to take a pragmatic view and accept that you aren't going to be able to protect every vulnerable person overnight by magically eliminating all sources of evil in the world, no matter how noble your intentions.

If a responsibly operated system for limiting the distribution of things like child pornography can reduce the amount of exploitation going on in the meantime, at a direct cost in terms of limiting the freedom of expression of those who would distribute such material and an indirect cost of requiring a technical mechanism for censorship and the risk of that mechanism being abused for other purposes, I think it is still reasonable to consider it.

Then again, I also have strong views on the need for accountability in public office. In particular, I believe that betrayal of the public should be considered a high crime. If you're going to give that much trust to anyone then the penalties for abusing that trust must be severe, and anyone who tried to censor other material using this sort of system should expect to be caught and should be facing significant jail time and a ban on holding public office. If any government isn't willing to accept that responsibility and transparency and oversight, then my view on whether they should be trusted with the kinds of system we're discussing swings sharply against them.

We all know that it doesn't matter how illegal something is; if it can be found, the person looking for it will find it.

No, we don't know that. This is my point.

Obstacles always bear the chance of making it worse for the wrong people.

Yes they do, and that is why those obstacles must have credible oversight to ensure they operate responsibly and severe penalties for anyone who abuses them. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't consider taking the chance anyway, depending on what is at stake.

[DanBC]

> and attempting to prevent legal activity that some vague authority out of the public eye just doesn't like, and I'm not sure it's helpful to equate the two cases in a debate like this.

...and that's why the IWF / court ordered filters are not optional, while the 'porn filter' is.

[h2s]

That's correct, but we should still not allow them to misdirect our attention while they tighten the screws.

[dingaling]

The Internet Watch Foundation can't tell anyone to do anything. It's just a private company based in Cambridge:

Company No. 03426366 Status: Active Date of Incorporation: 29/08/1997

Some organisations ( fewer than 100 ) have entered into voluntary commercial contracts with the IWF that oblige them to self-implement the list provided by the IWF.

[makomk]

They're "voluntary" in the sense that the Government told them to voluntarily filter internet access according to the IWF list, or the Government would pass a law forcing them to do so and it'd be a lot worse for them than just playing along.

[lmm]

Voluntary? I thought it was required. Are there ISPs that don't?

[charlesdm]

Vodafone has had something similar for mobile for years, no? I bought a UK SIM a while back for when I'm in the UK, and discovered that they have some sort of filter enabled by default that blocks all 'adult' content.

The quality of that filter is so absurdly low, that it actually blocked a ton of irrelevant stuff (such as random PDF email attachments, word documents, a ton of FB and Twitter images, etc.). My smartphone was pretty much transformed into a brick, and became an annoyance to use. Also took them nearly 20 minutes to remove it, when I finally went to a shop to get it removed.

I hate filters, because they actually don't filter properly.

[dspillett]

> Vodafone has had something similar for mobile for years, no?

Virgin too, I had one of their PAYG SIMs for a while and you had to opt in to have the filter turned off (which was a faf IIRC).

The content that it blocked for me was the national lottery web site (presumably gambling was one of the filtering criteria), but the holding page presented when you visited a blocked site carried adverts which amusingly enough at the time were for what was essentially sex chat lines... I've still got a screen grab of it somewhere.

[w_t_payne]

You can bet that a lot of non-mainstream political thought gets blocked by the filter under the label "esoteric".