Four major UK internet service providers will be limiting customers’ access to the internet under a new scheme proposed by the Mothers’ Union and supported by the government.
Under the new scheme, customers of BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media will have to “opt-in” to retain the full internet access that they enjoy at present.
Customers who do not opt in to adult content will be unable to access pornographic websites.
But this characterisation of the system is wrong. This isn’t about pornography or “adult content”, whatever that may be.
The ISPs are setting up a filtering system that will give customers a choice between access to the whole internet and access to an arbitrary subset of the internet. Now choice sounds like a fine thing. People usually like choices. But what’s the choice on offer here?
It’s not a choice between “internet with porn” and “internet without porn”.
It’s a choice between the whole internet and only the sites that the ISP decides aren’t “adult content” at any point in time. Which sites exactly? They won’t say. Site blocking lists and content filtering algorithms are always kept secret and they can and will change at any time without notice.
So if you choose to opt out of the whole internet you literally won’t know what you’re missing. That might be a choice but it’s not an informed one.
Read the full article by Adrian Short
