I knew it! Bloody filters

[bunn]

Further to this post in which I queried whether having a default filter for the entire country that banned access (supposedly) to porn, was really a good idea, the inevitable has now happened.

One of my lovely customers, the very sensible and respectable lady who created Ski Stuff* - a child safe website for parents who want to hire ski kit for

Comments

[ningloreth]

Sorry I can't answer your technical question, but I feel your frustration.

My Sky box has a parental lock -- if I record a film that has a 15 rating or over, I have to enter a PIN to play it back! And it doesn't matter that I'm the only person living in the house, they tell me it can't be turned off!

I don't have kids, but if I did, it would be my job to teach them to read, watch TV, and use the Internet critcally and responsibly, and I can't see that ever involving any sort of filter -- certainly not a filter that a company has imposed on them in order to cover its own arse. A filter defeats the whole 'teaching kids to behave responsibly' thing before you even start.

[Having said that, I'm currently running a fic exchange in which all stories rated R and above are f-locked and members are only approved if they have an age statement on their User Info page :-(

It's totally against my principles (because nobody ever filtered my reading/viewing), and a shed load of work (because no matter how obvious I try to make the age rule,

[bunn]

Very true : nobody ever filtered my reading / viewing as a child either - although of course the sheer range and variety of porn available is greater now. But you'd think that would just make it harder for filters to be effective.

[louisedennis]

I discovered this morning that giff gaff won't let me read DreamWidth (and by extension I assume, LJ) accounts which have the content warnings enabled - or at least they won't unless I give giff gaff my passport or driving licence details (which I'm vaguely unwilling to do on the grounds that I don't like giving random internet people personal information unless I can see a good reason for it). I haven't decided how big a deal I think this is, but its definitely a black mark against giff gaff.

[bunn]

Hmph, they don't provide any details either!

A further trawl turned up : http://www.blocked.org.uk/ where I was able to report the problem, and that led me to :

http://urlchecker.o2.co.uk/urlcheck.aspx which showed 'Parental Control: Blocked' as status for that site. And here: http://www.o2.co.uk/parents/theinternet I find that this is because it is not one of the 'sites that have been classifed as suitable and interesting for children under 12.'

But still no details as to how that classification is achieved...

[louisedennis]

Interesting, I assumed it was just that someone had a content warning on, not that the whole site was blocked. But of course, assuming I wasn't randomly logged off dreamwidth, the content block shouldn't have prevented me seeing the post . I should double-check it is all of dreamwidth that is effected because, if so, it is probably best to alert dreamwidth and let them handle the fact they are blocked rather than trying to do it myself.

I've poked around the giff-gaff site who say that enabling parental controls and blocking content is standard for all UK mobile hosts. Though I never had a problem with 3 (or rather never had a blocked content problem with 3 - I had other problems with 3) but presumably they were working from a different "bad people" list.

[lindahoyland]

When my ISP was virgin.net, I had great difficulty communicating with American friends who used comcast which blocked my emails as spam. I also jokingly mentioned viagra in an e mail and that got blocked too.

[bunn]

I have a customer who is having exactly the same problem because they sell Virgin airlines flights.

Bad name choice Branson!