Radialpoint parental filter/Virgin Media blocks Open Rights Group, EFF

Glyn sez, "The Open Rights Group's websites front page and the portions of the EFFs website (Deeplinks blog, Our work and Press room) are being blocked by Radialpoint Parental control software. We would be interested in knowing what other software out there also blocks the EFF and ORG." This is the software used by Virgin Media, the cablemodem ISP in the UK, for parents who want to screen their kiddies from all that is moist and pink. Link (Thanks, Glyn!)

[#1 posted by Anonymous , July 23, 2008 10:49 PM]

Er, are you sure that isn't just because "the Parental Control server is down"? Hanlon's razor - "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity".

[#2 posted by Auz , July 23, 2008 11:51 PM]

That looks more like the entire org.uk is blocked, and because their server is down.

[#3 posted by Anonymous , July 24, 2008 1:29 AM]

There's a wonderful opportunity to flood BBC with angry BoingBoingers comments:

Have your say: How can online music piracy be tackled?
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=5148&edition=2&ttl=20080724092652

Too bad I couldn't post the link to this very article! =(

Cheers,
Francesco Orsenigo

[#4 posted by Simon Greenwood , July 24, 2008 1:53 AM]

I tend to ascribe cock-up rather than conspiracy to these situations because the software has a lot of things blocked out of the box which the ops wouldn't think to look at: also remember that this is an opt-in service for Virgin users rather than the default, and that a phone call or email to Virgin's support will get it lifted. I used to work for a company who also had the EFF blocked at work and which the filter page described as 'politics'. To be fair though it also blocked the Democrat and Republican home pages in the same way.

[#5 posted by Bryan Price , July 24, 2008 2:00 AM]

Server down, and we think it's a conspiracy?

[#6 posted by mannakiosk , July 24, 2008 3:00 PM]

Not saying this is true or anything, but if it is, what does "opt-in" have to do with it?

[#7 posted by mannakiosk , July 24, 2008 3:16 PM]

I don't know if I was making sense just now. What I meant was: If I opt-in for blocking of porn and other unsuitable content, it shouldn't, in my mind, mean opt-in for blocking of the freedom-mongering of the EFF, for example.

[#8 posted by n8man , July 25, 2008 6:45 AM]

"Dan's Gaurdian" software at my school blocks the EFF site. I can't even find a place to download tor!

[#9 posted by Burz , July 25, 2008 8:07 AM]

"I can't even find a place to download tor!"

I think you just may have put your finger on the 'problem' that prompted blocking.

There is a Wifi services company called ICOA that used to (and still may) block several Democrat-associated sites like democraticunderground.com while none of the major Republican forum sites I could think of were ever blocked. These access points were at certain hotels and restaurants.

The only way I could tell the sites were blocked for certain was to use a proxy like Tor.

So proxies that defeat censorship go on the corporate censorship lists too; not just government ones. And don't think the corporate kind is necessarily opt-in because ISPs are now taking actions to filter out sites they deem to be a threat to the public.

[#10 posted by Burz , July 25, 2008 8:18 AM]

A funny thing -

I just remembered why I clicked on this story. Cory posted another story a couple months ago, about Virgin Media's CEO being against Net Neutrality.

Well, my Virgin Mobile (sister brand to V.Media) minutes just ran out the other day and I completed the switch to another cellular carrier yesterday ...after sending a message to VM about why I was switching.