Here in the UK an Internet filter designed to block child porn been accessible from within the country and most ISP’s signed up to use this back in June 2004.
Great in theory, but the problem with a nationwide nanny filter like this is it blocks the wrong stuff and the people it’s meant to stop just get round it by using proxies. Over the weekend a story can out saying just that. The Wikipedia page for Scorpions album Virgin Killer was blocked by the great firewall because of the album artwork displayed.
When accessing the page in the UK you will get a 404 error.
Although using a proxy like Hotspot Shield the page comes right in.
Blocking this page won’t even stop those who don’t want to use a proxy as the album (which is still on sale in the UK) artwork is easily available with a simple Google search.
More notes on the issues are on the Wikipedia admin notice board.
I am clearly against such filtering, the web should be open and free, yes child porn is a problem but it should be dealt with by the law enforcement agencies and not just blocking out. It doesn’t solve the issues; it just drives them underground and makes to harder to track.
Now let’s stop pouring money into this filter which clearly doesn’t work and is very unlikely to ever work.
Update 15/12/08: The Internet Watch Dog, IWF, reversed it’s decision to block the Wikipedia page.
