[liberationtech] Tor Project website blocked by many UK ISPs as "adult content"

[Joss Wright]

On Thu, Nov 06, 2014 at 11:42:44AM -0500, Griffin Boyce wrote:
> This is only for customers who've opted-in to adult content filters. Some
> ISPs have the content filter on by default:
> 
> "EE, O2, TalkTalk and Vodafone all came with their default "adult content"
> filters enabled by default. The following ISPs provided no filtering by
> default: 3, Andrews & Arnold, BT Broadband, Plusnet, Sky Broadband and
> Virgin Media."
> 
> They also mention that blocking for some sites seems to vary by region, so
> I'm curious what a more in-depth review would find.
> 
> ~Griffin

It's worth noting that most of the most stringent filters are on the
mobile networks, as reflected in the above list. This is an interesting
cultural phenomenon, in which default filtering is a seemingly accepted
norm for mobile connections here in the UK, whereas home ISPs are less
likely to filter by default.

This also all fits into a wider debate about default filtering in the
UK. David Cameron and the Conservative element of the coalition
government have been strongly in favour of it, but the Liberal Democrat
element of the coalition blocked it from being legislated directly.
Despite that, all ISPs, but particularly the largest ones, are
'expected' to implement filtering (and many do so).

Of course this plays into the interesting questions around private
companies filtering on behalf of the state, but without the democratic
accountability that state-mandated filtering would hopefully bring with
it, or at least which could be demanded by citizens. This also recalls,
in some ways, the block list produced by the Internet Watch Foundation,a
non-government charitable organisation, which most ISPs are similarly
strongly encouraged to implement.

Joss

-- 
Joss Wright | @JossWright
http://www.pseudonymity.net