Biggest four UK ISPs switching to 'opt-in' system for pornography

atlas · Oct 11, 2011

UK becoming more of a nanny state:

From:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/oct/11/pornography-internet-service-providers

Subscribers to four of the UK's biggest internet service providers will have to "opt in" if they want to view sexually explicit websites, as part of government-sponsored curbs on online pornography.

Edwin · Oct 11, 2011

Wait until somebody carelessly leaves a CD of opt-in subscribers' names in a taxi

MCNM · Oct 11, 2011

Isn't there software available at the moment to censor certain type of sites?

monaghan · Oct 11, 2011

I guess proxy servers will become very popular for kids of these ISP's

Edwin · Oct 11, 2011

I take it they will have to block Google image search.

monaghan · Oct 11, 2011

I wonder if anyone actually understands how the filtering works and what's actually involved to filter "adult" content or whether it is another political move that will actually never achieve the stated target.

Is a naturist site porn? Is art with naked people porn? Is a "dirty book" from Amazon porn? Then you have the subject of games and violence, what about Tom & Jerry, that's full of violence. There's vastly more examples than this to consider.

Whilst I agree with protecting kids, I have concern that we have a bunch of idiots making policy

GreyWing · Oct 11, 2011

Kids will be the only ones with the brains to get round it. I pray to God that the ISP's add the political parties websites to the system, nobody could view them unless they opted in.

The stupidity of politicians never cease to amaze me, already these isp's have come out and said it won't affect those with connections already. They will only ask new customers if they want to opt in or opt out, so it will not even be an automatic opt in. They said it will be a neutral option and customers can tick a box in their control panel, will all be very easy to opt out. Only the larger isp's will do this I think if I read it right, so if customers flock to other isp's then the big 4 will ditch that policy.

Politicians should stay out of things they don't understand, not sure what they would actually do all day if they did though.