TalkTalk "HomeSafe" censorship "Weapons and Violence"

[Dombo63]

While attempting to click on a link for Valmont Firearms yesterday, I found it blocked by talktalk, my ISP as constituting "Weapons and Violence", ostensibly to protect children. As my youngest child has been badgering me for ages to fit a scope to my No 4 he is obviously beyond all redemption. However more worrying is the fact that legitimate businesses may be losing trade as a result of this nonsense.

[The Cupcake Kid]

I'm afraid this is only going to get worse. One solution is to boycott ISPs who decide this is progress and sign up to one who believes we are adults and can think and act for ourselves.

I realise this isn't an easy or necessarily cheap solution for a lot of people, but it is one way.

My ISP allows me to do what I like and gives me fast Broadband and great service, but it costs me £30 per month.

If you're on a 'free' deal, they can pretty much do what they like because you're not going to have any leverage with them.

I'm assuming TalkTalk has some sort of 'opt-out' you can choose to allow these sites through?

[Dombo63]

Yes they do have an opt-out. Still annoying though and unfair to businesses.

[saddler]

Ask them why they are blocking sites to do with Olympic sport

[Mattnall]

If they do not un-block these sites I would change providers asap.

Vote with your feet, in this case it's not as hard as you may think and involves very little work on your part.

I changed once before for this reason when the ISP said they couldn't change it easily (cannot remember which provider it was as I've used many, but I have been with TalkTalk ) and when Sky stopped certain "weapons" site I rang them and it was sorted there and then whilst I was on the phone. Now I'm with BT (a purely financial reason to change this time) and they've never tried to stop any sites that I've tried to look at.

[Polchraine]

BT believe in full Internet fredom and impartiallity. They will not bar access to any sites unless they are instructed by the courts to do so. Recently some of the file sharing sites were outlawed and BT has been forced (at their cost) to implement barring - even though BT is not commiting any offence - they carry traffic and do not care what it is.


As for TT - get away from them ASAP and make sure any of youir friends do to.

[The Cupcake Kid]

BT believe in full Internet fredom and impartiallity. They will not bar access to any sites unless they are instructed by the courts to do so. Recently some of the file sharing sites were outlawed and BT has been forced (at their cost) to implement barring - even though BT is not commiting any offence - they carry traffic and do not care what it is.


As for TT - get away from them ASAP and make sure any of youir friends do to.

Because the courts target the large ISPs, it's better to go with one of the smaller providers exactly for this reason.

Also, the big ISPs may not stop you from visiting some sites, but they will implement throttling restrictions to make things very slow once you're on them...

[FredB]

I'm sitting here, using talk-talk, wondering what this is all about? Been a TT user for years and never encountered this problem. I assume that the previous contributors to this thread work for TT competitors
Fred

[Polchraine]

I'm sitting here, using talk-talk, wondering what this is all about? Been a TT user for years and never encountered this problem. I assume that the previous contributors to this thread work for TT competitors
Fred

No I certainly do not. I provide consultancy on remote communications and connectivity and have a good understanding of the problems and issues.

Because the courts target the large ISPs, it's better to go with one of the smaller providers exactly for this reason.

Also, the big ISPs may not stop you from visiting some sites, but they will implement throttling restrictions to make things very slow once you're on them...

Actually no, because the smaller ones buy bandwidth from companies such as BT who will already be blocking the illegal sites. And why would you want to access the sites that the court has barred? Maybe to steal someone else's Intellectual Property? Or to undertake some other illegal activity?

[The Cupcake Kid]

They don't buy 'bandwidth' from the likes of BT at all. They have to use BT's infrastructure, but that is not the same.

And the fundamental problem is that certain ISPs block traffic of a particular profile because they assume it's illegal downloading, but that's because they can't differentiate between illegal and legal content.

So we're back to the original complaint. Blocking a website because it contains certain keywords is just very crude censorship and there's no place for it.