The up in arms being led by the computer-illiterare

[DracoM]

<< It's impossible to access the National Gallery website in many schools because it contains images of nudity
Is that true - or a joke? It's difficult to tell these days. >>


True. Local Primary School wanted to find out about Michelangelo and was stopped by their filters from accessing 'David'.

[amateur51]

I aghree that Cameron is pandering to the red tops here.A more effective approach is to fund the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) which actively works both nationally and internationally to bring online child sex offenders, including those involved in the production, distribution and viewing of child abuse material, to the UK courts. It was absorbed into the National Crime Agency by virtue of the Crime and Courts Act.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Exploitation_and_Online_Protection_Centre

Jim Gamble who was CEO of CEOP until 2010 discusses some of the issues involved here ...

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/jim-gamble-we-are-losing-the-race-to-protect-our-young-6785683.html

The government has been heavily criticised for cutting CEOP.

At 08:18 here, Jim Gamble and Rory Cellan-Jones discuss the government's proposal.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03754hr/live

[Sir Velo]

<< It's impossible to access the National Gallery website in many schools because it contains images of nudity
Is that true - or a joke? It's difficult to tell these days. >>


True. Local Primary School wanted to find out about Michelangelo and was stopped by their filters from accessing 'David'.

The filtering software used at work prevents me from corresponding with a client by the name of Mrs Ann Coons. I have had to demand several times that IT exclude her from the filtering list. :erm:

[Bryn]

On the old BBC Classical Forum, one could not refer to the Yiddish language. The first three letters got highlighted in red and any message containing the word "Yiddish" or "Yiddishe", as in "My Yiddishe Mama" was rejected. Thus 'political correctness' was transmuted into effective anti-Semitism.

[Resurrection Man]

Emailing my counterpart in a French company (Sagem) he got hauled over the coals because I'd sent him an email that had the following sentence "I think, at long last, that we are starting to see a chink in the firewall" and their overly-PC email filtering had objected. Needless to say, I promptly emailed him back to comment that there was a nasty nip in the air but everything was spic and span.

[ahinton]

AS for actual words that might be blocked.....I'd offer Guardian, Blair, Milliband, Monbiot ;-)

You'd have to spell the third of those "Miliband" if you wished to block access to material about a certain Ed and a certain David of that ilk - and, by filtering out the others, you'd presumably block access to "guardian" its in other senses beside that of a newspaper name, not to mention anyone surnamed Monbiot and besides George anyone with the forename or surname Blair (of the latter of which at least there must surely be quite a few).

But you're right about the ease of bypassing, of course and this fact alone serves to illustrate that the knee-jerk reaction to the issue has arisen from the government inadvertently shooting itself in the foot.

[Russ]

DC's antics of yesterday are today's fish and chip wrappers, and apart from ramping up the chasing of child-abusers, which no one has any argument against, the detail of the rest of what he is proposing has been roundly trashed. The notion DC holds that paedos are using Google et al to search for child-abuse material is fatuous. The search engines have been stamping out urls for that sort of stuff, thanks to the work of the IWF, for many years. The paedos and crims inhabit the dark net, where no filters exist nor will they ever exist there.

For the 'normal' ('non-dark') internet, the proposed "list of search terms" that DC wants search engines to return zero results will be near-impossible to compile, and when (inevitably) it is leaked, it will be easily circumvented, and the people who will delight most of all in circumventing it will be rebellious teenagers. In attempting to address the search engine term problem on last night's Newsnight, braindead Minister Damien Green trotted out exactly the same script and example as DC did earlier in the day, but fell into the same trap as DC did in suggesting that there would be "ways to devise filters to ask subsequent questions". Really? What idiotics are advising the Minister on that matter? Oh yes, I forgot, it's those awfully nice people from GCHQ and the NSA, you know, those very nice people who are committing a billion cyber abuse crimes per second in pursuit of industrial-scale state survelliance, err, I mean the ever valiant fight against those nasty terrorists.

With respect to the 'default-on' (as DC wants it) porn filter, it is far from certain that ISPs will accept that principle, and, rather like Leveson's ill-fated 'there must be legislation', my bet is that ISPs and browsers will want to continue their existing practice in asking users to make a choice to turn the filter on. What DC is forgetting that there are a variety of content filters already available to users. The issue DC is avoiding is that few users, and in particular parents, actually bother to use those existing filters. He is trying to absolve parents from the duties of parenting.

Btw, the child protection and nanny state industries rely on disproportionate and idiotic scare stories ("Serial killer listened to The Rape of Lucretia on Radio 3!") for the continuation of their incomes.

As for the media, expect no diminution in the level of hypocrisy:

https://twitter.com/frasernelson/status/359288421044334592/photo/1

Russ

[ahinton]

Correct in all particulars, Russ - but isn't it embarrassing? Child abuse of all kinds - sexual, psycologiocal and physical - is obviously a very grave matter indeed, as is child porn, so the spectacle of this presumably well-meaning but utterly fatuous set of proposals that will so obviously achieve nothing to help that situation serves only to illustrate an ever-increasing impression of wearisome incompetence; in fact, it almost sounds (to anyone wise enough to see through them) as though they're admitting that they haven't a clue what to do about this so feel obliged to try to cover up their shortcomings by making some kind of Daily Fail-friendly noise.

[MrGongGong]

A suitable song ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiFD6EFVsTg

[DracoM]

As many have asked, which computer / internet illiterate is advising Cameron?

Or is it Lynton Crosby ever more desperate to divert attention from the dark and slippery mess conglomerate he heads? That such a man with such a portfolio of 'interests' is allowed into the inner workings of the govt party and can 'talk about' three such causes as alcohol, tobacco and health issues to the effect he seems to have just beggars belief. About as wise as hobnobbing with Rebecca Brooks and Andy Coulson - woops, sorry, just slipped out.

But honestly, think about it - what a track record the Tories are racking up!! They seem to be intent on stumbling into scoring own goals almost every other day.

And like the child abuse issue, every single on of the topics - tobacco, health, alcohol - materially affects the outlook for our children.

[Dave2002]

But honestly, think about it - what a track record the Tories are racking up!! They seem to be intent on stumbling into scoring own goals almost every other day.

The more the better, as far as I'm concerned.

[Flosshilde]

With respect to the 'default-on' (as DC wants it) porn filter, it is far from certain that ISPs will accept that principle, and, rather like Leveson's ill-fated 'there must be legislation', my bet is that ISPs and browsers will want to continue their existing practice in asking users to make a choice to turn the filter on.

According to Tom Meltzer in yesterday's Guardian G2 (yes, I know he looks 15 but that's probably an advantage in this area) most of the major ISPs ... have negotiated with the government and agreed on a system called "Active Choice +" in which customers opt in for filters, rather than out for falling bras. The system gives new users a choice at installing filters, and existing customers the option of switching to safer browser modes. The default setting remains filter-free.

The leaked letter, sent to leading ISPs from the Department for Education, makes it clear that Cameron's war or porn is propaganda masquerading as policy. It suggests: "Without changing what you will be offering (ie active-choice +), the prime minister would like to be able to refer to your solutions [as] 'default-on'". It is a sleight-of-hand worthy of the Ministry of Truth, a move from the "Let's not and say we did!" school of regulation.

[Beef Oven]

A suitable song ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiFD6EFVsTg

LMFAOl!!!!!

Saw the stage show a few years back - hilarious!!