Summary: The internet should not be filtered. I assume the UK Government doesn't know the value of information. Perhaps they should have asked someone?
The UK Government recently persuaded all UK internet providers to install filters on the internet feeds, which are on by default. I've turned the filter off for my house, and for my mobile internet, but it's a terrible default, and a bad precedent.
Internet filtering basically consists of three steps:
- For each page you visit...
- ...the page is assigned to a category...
- ...and certain categories are blocked.
Each of these steps has problems:
For each page you visit...
Typically pages are filtered based on their web address. That involves each page you visit being "checked" by the web provider. Since web providers have out-sourced the filtering that means information about each page you visit is transmitted to someone else to check out.
...the page is assigned to a category...
Each page typically gets a category like "Games" or "Porn". These categories are typically guessed at by a computer then refined by a human. The humans that refine these categories are not experts, they are typically lowly-paid labour outside the UK. As a result, the categories are riddled with errors, some due to carelessness, some due to cultural differences, some are just hard to categorise. Does a game coding forum with porn banners go into Games or Porn? (Vodafone's answer was to block the website.)
...certain categories are blocked.
The categories that are blocked are chosen by someone else, not by me the end user.
Think of the children
The typical answer is that you need filtering or children will be able to see porn on the internet. Given the risks and costs of filtering, that's not very well thought out. Should children be protected from harm? Yes. Whose job is that? By and large, the parents. As a parent of a two year old, there are certainly many things I don't want him looking at on his own just yet. A reasonable solution is for me to install filtering or monitoring software on his iPad. An alternative solution is to physically supervise his use of the internet. But at the moment I'm more worried about things like exploding fireworks than porn.
What is acceptable
Google kind of does this for all downloads, which is OK. It's a service I can opt out off, and its only in Chrome.
The law could chose to exclude a website from the internet, with a public record.