UK porn filters still shunned by public, despite wider roll-out

[thoth_mental]

Many people in the UK do not want their Internet feeds censored.
Bill Kerr
Around a quarter of UK broadband subscribers (24 percent) have opted to allow their ISPs to block pornographic content, according to an online survey by the broadband comparison site Broadband Genie. Just over half (54 percent) said that they did not use the porn filters, while another 22 percent said they didn't know. Although there was no attempt to conduct the survey rigorously, and it was relatively small—2,491 respondents took part—it offers useful indications about the public's uptake of filters not available elsewhere.

According to the Broadband Genie numbers, the main reason people chose to opt out of the filtering system was that they did not want their access "hindered in any way" (40 percent), while 15 percent of those who rejected the blocks were worried about censorship. Another 11 percent said they did not need the filtering, because they had their own software to do the job.

Among those who had agreed to ISPs filtering out pornographic material, 66 percent said they wanted to protect their family, while most of the rest—30 percent—said that they did not wish to see adult content. Just over half of those who used the ISP porn filters had encountered an "unexpected" site block of material they apparently thought would be allowed through—overblocking, in other words. Interestingly, over half of all those who took part in the survey—including those who opted out—thought ISPs should block pornographic material by default, and only a quarter of respondents were worried that by turning down the filters they would be placed on some kind of list recording that fact.

The figures are the first to explore the second phase of the UK government's attempt to encourage ISPs to provide porn filters to all existing UK broadband subscribers. In July 2013, the top ISPs agreed to offer porn blocking as standard to all new sign-ups, presumably in the hope that doing so would head off the threat of a legislative solution being imposed on them. An Ofcom survey published last year showed that only a small proportion of new subscribers actually opted into the ISPs' porn filter: 4 percent of Virgin Media customers; 5 percent for BT; 8 percent for Sky; and 36 percent for TalkTalk, which began providing filtered feeds some time before, in 2011.

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Assuming the Broadband Genie figures are representative of the average UK Internet user, it seems that rolling out the scheme to existing customers has increased the uptake of porn blocking, but not hugely. The majority of subscribers remain uninterested in having their feeds censored. If the figures are confirmed by more rigorous research, this may well strengthen the UK government's desire to bring in new legislation for the area, despite what ISPs were hoping. Obviously, before that happens, we'd hope that Cameron's government eventually gets around to doing a wide-scale consultation on what the UK public actually wants in this area.

In their manifesto before the General Election this year, the Conservatives promised: "we will stop children's exposure to harmful sexualised content online, by requiring age verification for access to all sites containing pornographic material and age-rating for all music videos." There's already a Private Members' Bill that does just that, and it's not hard to see the UK government either backing it, or incorporating its ideas in a new online censorship bill at some point.

[carmen_angelus_romila]

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