The British Government is determined to be seen to be doing something (anything, really) about pornography online. The current incarnation of “something must be done; there, we did something!” is based on blaming “Internet companies” for not doing enough to prevent children from seeing porn, and demanding an expansion of the existing program of blocking a secret and unaccountable blacklists.
They’re monumentally unsympathetic to the argument that these lists don’t work (“something must be done; we are doing something“), and even less interested in the fact that these lists end up catching stuff that isn’t porn. The Conservative MP Claire Perry said that overblocking is “a load of cock.”
What sort of cock is in that load, though? Jim from the Open Rights Group writes, “After UK MP Claire Perry helpfully described problems with blocking as a load of cock the Open Rights Group have listed some recent blocking reports, including, startlingly, YouTube on Orange. These sites are blocked by ‘default’ and users may need take a passport to their mobile shop and ask to have the ‘porn’ switched on in order to read the Jargon File or watch YouTube.”
Jargon File blocked by O2, YouTube by Orange
(Thanks, Jim!)
(Image: Cocks, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from 18261299@N00’s photostream)