Warning: This Blog is X-rated!
Most of you will have noticed that many important websites (including wikipedia) were offline yesterday in protest against SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act), two devices specifically designed to prevent the sharing of material via the internet. I’m among the many that think these acts are at best misguided and at worst downright sinister; see, e.g. here. They are probably also just the start of long battle to defend freedom of speech on the internet more generally. Those pushing ahead this repressive agenda are those with most to gain by controlling public access to information and most likely to want to write new laws to in order to avoid being held to account for violation of old ones. In other words, politicians.
Anyway, I recently discovered that I’ve become a victim of internet censorship myself. Apparently if you try to read this blog through some mobile internet connections a thing called Orange Safeguard pops up and tells you that this blog is only suitable to those aged 18 and over. If you can’t prove your age, access to the site is blocked.
Amused and, I have to say, slightly perturbed by this development, I went to the Orange site and found a list of reasons why a site might be X-rated. Here it is:
Anonymizers: These sites allow you to browse the Internet and access content anonymously.
Anorexia – Bulimia: Promoting and instigating eating disorders.
Gambling: Access to online gambling such as casinos and any other online services that let you place bets.
Chat: Where you chat in real time to people you don’t know.
Bombs: Explaining how to prepare, make, build and use explosives and explosive devices.
Dating: Websites for match-making where the user can meet other people – make friends, find a partner, etc.
Forums: Where you’re invited to take part in discussions on predetermined topics with people you don’t know.
Pornography: Websites with a pornographic or sexual content.
Racism: Sites promoting racist behaviour based on culture, race, religion, ideology, etc.
Sects: Websites on universally acknowledged sects. Within this category URLs are included on organizations that promote directly or indirectly: (i) group, animal or individual injuries, (ii) esoteric practices, (iii) content that sets a bad example for young children: that teaches or encourages children to perform harmful acts or imitate dangerous behaviour, (iv) content that creates feelings of fear, intimidation, horror, or psychological terror, (v) Incitement or depiction of harm against any individual or group based on gender, sexual orientation, ethnic, religious or national identity.
Violence: Containing openly violent content and/or that promote violence or defend it.
I’m not sure which of these I’ve fallen foul of. Is cosmology a sect? Or do the physics problems I’ve posted induce psychological terror? Who decided that this blog is for adults-only, and why? I’ve never been informed, although I have written to Orange in order to request this information…
..and that leads to the important question behind this amusing state of affairs. Who decides? Once we allow censorship to become commonplace, someone has to decide who can see what. That gives them, whoever they may be, far too much power.
If someone finds something I put on here offensive, they should have to tell me and explain why, not just arbitrarily terminate access. It’s the start of a journey that will take us into a very dark place indeed.
And another question. By blocking my blog, Orange Mobile is implying that it contains material belonging to the categories listed above. I don’t think it does. So can I sue Orange Mobile for libel?
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In the Dark 
January 19, 2012 at 9:09 am
the reply box on your blog must mean you fall under:
Forums: Where you’re invited to take part in discussions on predetermined topics with people you don’t know.
January 19, 2012 at 9:10 am
In that case they would block all WordPress blogs…including Andy Lawrence’s.
January 19, 2012 at 9:47 pm
which was indeed blocked by Orange Safeguard when they activated it for my phone without me asking for it. I got very annoyed about that.
Of course by calling them and asking them to switch it off I have now ticked the box labelled ‘pervert customer’
January 19, 2012 at 10:24 pm
Well, if the cap fits…
Perhaps Andy’s blog is banned because it refers to andyXl?
January 19, 2012 at 9:19 am
sprinkle your blog liberally with references to [ prof ] brian cox. That will give it all the “okay-ness” you’ll need.
January 19, 2012 at 9:24 am
Don’t feel special. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks with a new Orange phone & have finally managed to get the bloody “safeguard” turned off. As far as I can see it blocks access to at least half of the non-porn Internet, with very little rhyme or reason, making an iPhone virtually pointless.
Madness. Very irritating madness….
January 19, 2012 at 9:42 am
[…] “… Anyway, I recently discovered that I’ve become a victim of internet censorship myself. Apparently if you try to read this blog through some mobile internet connections a thing called Orange Safeguard pops up …” (more) […]
January 19, 2012 at 9:50 am
Contemplating the vastness of the Universe and one’s insignificance within it certainly induces psychological terror. This is a well-known effect, upon which the Total Perspective Vortex was based.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_in_The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Total_Perspective_Vortex
January 19, 2012 at 9:50 am
Forum? Maybe because just it includes the availability of commenting?
January 19, 2012 at 11:10 am
Peter, I agree with your comments about the law and freedom. I think that musicians and filmmakers do deserve not to have their products distributed for free, but there would be a lot less piracy if it were reasonably priced and it should not be too hard to produce better legislation than these totalitarian bills.
However, just as I support your freedom to write what you like, *private* companies who provide online services should have the freedom to block whatever they choose.
January 19, 2012 at 12:09 pm
That’s a fair perspective. I guess people who are really fed up with Orange Mobile can just switch to another provider.
January 19, 2012 at 5:50 pm
“The whole point of laws is that they are necessary because people have different opinions.”
Not quite, just about everybody condemns murder and incest but we still need laws against them because people still do them. And there is a further debate over penalties.
“Civilization can function only if people agree to abide by laws which they disagree with.”
And if everybody agreed that there should be no laws…?
January 20, 2012 at 10:19 am
I believe that Catholic priest was lying.
January 19, 2012 at 9:54 pm
“*private* companies who provide online services should have the freedom to block whatever they choose.”
Yes and no. Orange safeguard was introduced AFTER I bought their service. They implemented it without my asking for it (it was not the service I bought).
January 19, 2012 at 10:26 pm
The distinction between public and private organizations is also not so straightforward. Big corporations give hefty donations to political parties and often in return we get laws enacted to favour their interests over those of the public.
January 19, 2012 at 11:59 am
Could this somehow be Mark Brake-related ? I recall one of your posts being censored by wordpress some time ago.
January 19, 2012 at 5:47 pm
To be a bit provocative: There is no such thing as human rights. There are only civil rights. Here is why. Everybody who accepts the concept of human rights agrees that liberty is one such. We all agree that somebody who commits a serious enough crime should lose their liberty, at least for a while. But they don’t stop being human, do they?
I agree with most human-righters on what one person should and should not be allowed to do to another, but I disagree that this is ‘because’ of the human rights of the latter. Every argument I have ever seen which seeks to fill out that ‘because’ is circular. I also find it ironic that the usual argument for rights is because they are granted by somebody, eg the State grants civil rights; but the only possible granter of universal human rights could be God and the concept of human rights arose in a secularising movement, the Enlightenment. (Incidentally the Bible does not state any rights granted to the entire human race except that the seasons will continue, after the Flood.)
June 21, 2012 at 5:18 am
We all agree that somebody who commits a serious enough crime should lose their liberty, at least for a while.
Wait, we do? I’ve heard it argued that Jewish law as laid out in the Torah doesn’t have a concept of punitive incarceration, although the situation, as always, is complicated (see the paragraph that begins, “A verse in the Torah itself…”).
January 19, 2012 at 8:02 pm
As the title of this post confirms that this is X-rated, you can now expect to become blocked by more discerning sites..
January 20, 2012 at 8:43 am
I discovered that Orange Safeguard blocks everything to do with pregnancy and breast feeding, even to the point of blocking pram reviews on the Which? magazine website. Somehow I can’t see how this is helpful to 16-year-olds…
June 20, 2012 at 6:12 am
[…] on from the X-rating awarded to this blog by Orange Mobile, my learned colleague Dr Dread informs me that it is also banned from Cross Country […]
August 22, 2012 at 10:43 am
[…] of a vampire, i.e. The Count von Count from Sesame Street. I should reassure you all that, although this blog is X-rated, being censored, this particular post is entirely suitable for viewing at work… Follow […]