3UK treats political satire as porn and blocks it • Hacker News Board

Re: 3UK treats political satire as porn and blocks it

#51

Post by jiggy2011 » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 1:35 PM UTC

chii wrote: post #8

jstanley wrote: post #3

They have no place censoring the web at all, let alone censoring things that aren't even pornographic.

indeed no isp or gov't should be allowed to censor any information, unless that information's critical to national defence or something (and even then, i would be really dubious of the claim). Whether it is porn or not doesn't even come into the argument, because the issue is not with the contents, its with censorship itself as a concept.

If an ISP web filter is the only thing stopping people from accessing classified military documents then I would be very concerned for your national security.

Re: 3UK treats political satire as porn and blocks it

#52

Post by ZeroGravitas » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 1:37 PM UTC

Peroni wrote: post #16

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then join up with who? All of the 3G operators have similar opt-out filters. Orange makes you give them your credit card number. GiffGaff made me give them my drivers licence number. I like that with GiffGaff I didn't need to talk to a person, just do it online, but in general you'll have to deal with this no matter who you sign up with. I think even Imgur (Reddit's image host) was blocked at one stage.

My work mobile is on the EE network and doesn't appear to have any issue with adult content. The industry I work in requires me to access explicit content occasionally and I've yet to come up against any roadblocks with EE.

I'm on T-mobile (though my phone shows EE as the network) with a 3G monthly contract and I've seen the block message. I can't remember what it was, but it wasn't porn, just some random link I followed that I didn't care enough to work around the block to see.

Re: 3UK treats political satire as porn and blocks it

#53

Post by Herald_MJ » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 1:43 PM UTC

Orange UK have a similar overenthusiastic filter - I've noticed it blocking online dating websites, a beer festival website and even reddit, in it's entirety.

It's also opt-out, and although this can be done through their mobile app, it has the annoying habit of occasionally re-enabling itself. Very annoying.

Re: 3UK treats political satire as porn and blocks it

#54

Post by amirmc » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 1:43 PM UTC

bruceboughton wrote: post #46

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general I find the service excellent. I pay £10/month (1 GB, 250 minutes, "unlimited" texts, tethering allowed) and for what I use it for have never paid 1p in actual overage credit or had any issues. I cannot see myself switching off of GiffGaff unless they changed the terms of the packages. Also the coverage in this area is better than Orange. But your mileage will vary. If I had to come up with a moan about Gif…

None of their current plans appear to offer tethering. Are you on a grandfather-ed plan?

"Tethering is permitted on £10 goodybag and will work on all smartphones with an inbuilt tethering feature, except for the iPhone." [1].

Not sure what the deal is with iPhone (I'm on their £12 option). All the other plans expressly say "Tethering is not permitted ..."

[1] http://giffgaff.com/goodybags/10pound-goodybag

Re: 3UK treats political satire as porn and blocks it

#55

Post by Nursie » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 1:44 PM UTC

Peroni wrote: post #7

3UK user here. Came up against this block for what I assumed was a relatively normal site. I phoned the company and had to jump through hoops to prove my age after being asked So, just to confirm Mr Buckley, you wish to access adult content on your phone? . Eagerly anticipating the end of my contract next month.

Meh, orange do the same.

I was at a music festival last summer and wanted to lookup the program on the festival website to see what was on in the afternoon. Blocked as adult content. They block all sorts of weird stuff.

I have no qualms about requesting 'adult content' when 'adult content' includes political satire and festival websites. It renders the whole idea of people being shamed into not requesting 'porn' access moot, because everyone knows it's really not just porn, it's all sorts of content someone has arbitrarily added to a list.

These are good examples to bring up when someone makes the (dumb) suggestion that we should all have mandatory or opt-out blocking on our home connections.

The end of my little story is that to find out what bands were on that afternoon, I had to install Tor (orbot).

Re: 3UK treats political satire as porn and blocks it

#56

Post by Herald_MJ » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 1:46 PM UTC

An interesting side-effect of "cloud browsers" (browsers that proxy your traffic through their servers and compress the data on the mobile data end) like Opera Mini and Amazon Silk is they completely bypass these filters.

Re: 3UK treats political satire as porn and blocks it

#57

Post by Nursie » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 1:48 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #42

jrabone wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is. They will collect your personal information, and make it available to their parent (Telefonica, via O2) and one of the other subsidiaries set up specifically to do this, and then re-sell it to the highest bidder. See http://www.fastcompany.com/3002010/telefonica-sell-customer-... for example. If you then subsequently leave them for another network, you will get more SMS spam than you can possibly imagine. http…

Well they are amazing though, so I see no reason at all to leave them. Simply nobody else in the UK offers a deal as good as theirs.

They're a no-tether operator aren't they?

I don't often tether but I do like the ability to do it.

Re: 3UK treats political satire as porn and blocks it

#58

Post by dan1234 » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 1:48 PM UTC

Is this block only for PAYG users? There doesn't seem to be any block on my 3UK Pay Monthly deal.

Re: 3UK treats political satire as porn and blocks it

#59

Post by DanBC2 » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 1:59 PM UTC

>First, because many people will be unaware that this kind of "mature content" censorship is taking place at all, and therefore won't ask for it to be stopped.

You get a huge interstitial page telling you that the site is being blocked and telling you what you need to do to have it turned off.

I agree that the block should be off by default. Sellers could ask the customer if they wanted the block turned on when the phone is bought. I agree that the blocks are too broad.

T-Mobile didn't ask for any ID. I guess I'm pretty obviously over 18. They did ask for my name and address.

Re: 3UK treats political satire as porn and blocks it

#60

Post by DanBC2 » Thu, Jan 17, 2013, 2:10 PM UTC

madaxe wrote: post #45

belorn wrote: post #40

ISP today gets to define what approved content is, and there is no end to the methods use to define it. ISP's will continue to expand the sometimes rather arbitrary rules until either government steps in to regulate the industry, or a anti-censorship open by design system will replace the current industry. First the network allowed everything. Then ISPs started with forbidding child porn as the one and only one excep…

Of course, when they first started censoring CP, plenty went, "Well, yes, it's abhorrent, but what about the slippery slope?", and got shouted down by our government, the press, and peers, who all said words to the effect of "Don't be ridiculous, you're hysterical, what are you, a pedophile?". Even now, as we gracelessly tumble down the well-greased-incline, they will merrily argue that there is no slippery slope. As…

You know these filters are optional, right? Comparing these to the filters for images of child sexual abuse is bizarre - they're operated in very different ways.