42 
BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin are working on plans to block adult material, with the option to bar rude content set to appear as part of your broadband package options when you sign up.
The ISPs are implementing guidelines outlined in this summer’s Bailey Report, which, among many other things, suggests parents are offered “a choice at the point of purchase over whether they want adult content on their home internet, laptops or smart phones”.
So instead of an easily bypassed software filter or site blocking solution that sits on your desktop, the new system will filter content deemed rude at ISP level. The tits won’t even make it to your router.
Obviously this is going to be an absolute nightmare to enforce. Where do you draw the line? Where would an automated filter be told to draw the line? Is the Daily Mail’s latest outrage update about what Rihanna wore on the Jonathan Ross Show last night, including 43 photographs of her underpants, porn?
Presumably if you sign up for this partially blocked version of the internet, you’ll be expected to waive the rights to complain about its automated filters stopping you browsing the underpants section of the Burton web site, or looking at holiday snaps on Facebook?
It’ll no doubt be nice for some people to have the moral choice and the feeling of comfort gained from signing up for what they believe to be a cleansed, safer version of internet, but relying on filters alone is never going to work.
Unless it’s cheaper. A porn-free internet would have to be cheaper. Who’d pay full price for that? [BBC]
Image credit: Shutterstock.
The internet without porn is like a fat kid without a cake.
What it’ll do him some good?
maybe, just maybe.
Or he will go into shock a die!
Yep, I can see a lot of people signing up for this, thinking it will block porn, then discovering it considers things they want to see “porn”. Bet you that there will be a fee for changing back to unfiltered after they realise this.
Is it really possible to filter out every little bit of porn? How the hell will it work?
also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co_DNpTMKXk
This is ridiculous.
If you’re worried about what your children are looking at on the internet, you should consider trying to be a better parent.
I don’t want to assume that you’re not a parent, but that’s quite insensitive.
I’m not siding with the mums responsible for fabricating this whole idea but you have to remember that no amount of parenting will stop a child from being curious. A good parent will do their best to educate their children about sex so that they are no longer curious, or at least so they go about it safely.
At the end of the day, there are parental controls on every computer that will help, but you’re never going to stop a child from searching for things that they want to find out about.
I honestly don’t see the big deal. Sure parents want to see their children as innocent little cupcakes. But I went on porn when I was a kid, it didn’t damage me at all.
There are people and places (e.g. schools) who want to avoid unsuitable websites. OpenDNS does the job and it is free.
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
Don’t be too hard on parents. It’s a tough job keeping up with the technology as is let alone working out how to keep them off the porn.
Whilst I know how to protect them online many parents do not have the skills to do this themselves.
For the first time in a very long time, I’m happy to be an AOL customer :’)
….i cant deal with the filtering on the uni internet please don’t impose it at home too, but no, its good the isp’s are offering this, but whats the huge difference between this and software filtering, parents could choose to use that too?
Not that mush of an issue. This isn’t America, we have a sh1tload of ISPs.