Prolog OPINION

Feckless ISPs are getting what they deserve with Camerons filters, says BARRY COLLINS

o, the Great Wall of Westminster isgoing up: Britains ISPs have beeneffectively blackmailed into switching on default content lters. Cameron, 1, Common Sense, 0. Despite the prime ministers reckless promisethat it will now take only one click toprotect your whole home and to keep your children safe, anyone whos ever used one ofthese lters which presumably doesnt include the prime minister will know that statement is dangerously ignorant. None of these lters work perfectly, and some are downright ineffective (as our Labs test next month will reveal). The TalkTalk lter we tested last year,which is now being endorsed bythe Conservative Party, blocked access to MrCamerons YouTube channel, but it didnt prevent us from searching for porn on Google, for example. (To be fair, I wouldnt want my kids watching Webcameron, either.) Privately, the ISPs are furious. Weve had off-the-record briengs from two of the major ISPs pointing out holes in the plan, and theres been a series of leaks from industry meetings with ministers, not to mention the release of aninammatory letter from the Department ofEducation to ISPs in which they were being leaned on to bend to the PMs wishes. None ofthese were leaked from the government side,I can assure you. The ISPs wanted us, the technical press, to do their dirty work for them, since they didnt want to publicly oppose the default lters. ISPs are as aware as we are that the lters dont work. They know that six months down the line, someone from the Daily Mail will spend ten minutes discovering they can still access a smorgasboard of smut via BT, Virgin Media, Sky or TalkTalk, and that theyll be back on the front page again, accused of corrupting Britains innocent youth. But they deserve the media storm thats coming to them, since theyve stood by silently as Cameron and Perry have trampled all over them. Why didnt the ISPs stand up to the government? Perhaps you should ask Ian Livingston sorry, Lord Livingston of Parkhead the outgoing head of BT whos jumped ship to become a minister for trade and investment in David Camerons government. Or maybe you should have a word with Dido Harding, thechief executive of TalkTalk, whose husband is John Penrose, another minister in Camerons government. Then theres Sky, owned by Rupert Murdoch, and Virgin Media, run by

former News International chief executive TomMockridge. Ill just leave that there... Yet, even if the government didnt exert anyinuence over its associates at the head of Britains biggest ISPs and I dont havea shred of evidence to suggest it did thebroadband providers had another reason tokeep their heads down. It would have taken a good deal of courage for one of the ISPs chiefexecutives to face the wrath of the newspapers that have been tirelessly campaigning for porn to be blocked. Said chief executive would, as The Thick of Its Malcolm Tucker once memorably said, become a human dartboard [while] Eric f****** Bristows on the oche throwing a million darts made of human s*** right at you. (That quotes been passed through the Cameron lter.) And so, because the ISPs had neither the courage nor the will to oppose Camerons pornfatwa, theyre about tobecome Britains unofcial internet censors, ltering alltypes of content not only pornography unless you specically ask them not to. This move doesnt have popular support. The governments response to the consultation

Because the ISPs didnt oppose Camerons porn fatwa, theyre about to become Britains unofficial internet sensors
on parental controls on the internet, published last December, said only 35% of the parents who responded favoured default ltering of theinternet by their ISP. Nor does itencourage parents to take a more active interest in online safety. Nowthey can simply clickAccept andhave their ISP babysit their children for them. It mustbe safe the prime minister saiditwas. I condently predict that within a few months of these lters being switched on, the ISPs customer care lines will be clogged with irate customers, either because 14-year-old Nathan and his mates have just found a way around the lters to watch Debbie Does Droylsdon, or because eight-year-old Anthea cant do her homework because the internet lter has stopped her looking up something entirely innocent on Wikipedia. I hope the poorsouls manning the lines put the calls through to the chief executives ofce. Or theprime ministers.

BARRY COLLINS is the editor of PC Pro. He hopes he can still look up Malcolm Tucker quotes once the lters kick in. Blog: www.pcpro.co.uk/links/barryc Email: editor@pcpro.co.uk

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PC PRO OCTOBER 2013

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