'Thank the statists': UK porn filters blocking education sites, domestic abuse hotlines

Of pornography, US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once claimed, "I know it when I see it." The same, it seems, cannot be said for the automated pornography filters that the British government has required the country's major internet providers to install on everyone's broadband service.

'Thank the statists': UK porn filters blocking education sites, domestic abuse hotlines Art-David-Cameron-620x349

'Thank the statists': UK porn filters blocking education sites, domestic abuse hotlines Art-David-Cameron-620x349

An investigation by the BBC finds that the filters – part of conservative Prime Minister David Cameron's "war on porn" – are failing to block some major porn sites. Worse, they are blocking important educational sites, including an award-winning, youth-focused sex-education site called BishUK.com. Also blocked as "pornographic" by British ISP TalkTalk's porn filter are sites such as the homepage for the Edinburgh Women's Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre. Meanwhile, TalkTalk failed to block 7 per cent of the 68 major porn sites tested by reporters for BBC's Newsnight.

Another ISP, Sky, succeeded in blocking 99 per cent of the actual porn sites tested, but also blocked porn-addiction sites – which seems a little counterproductive, no? A third provider, BT, blocked online domestic-abuse resource centres.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/uk-porn-filters-blocking-education-sites-domestic-abuse-hotlines-20131220-2zopp.html#ixzz2o5obFcPz

'Thank the statists': UK porn filters blocking education sites, domestic abuse hotlines

'Thank the statists': UK porn filters blocking education sites, domestic abuse hotlines

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