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[–]Alienhunter糞大名 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

My experience, most filters are haphazard bandaid solutions to silence the voices of moralist types who don't really understand how such things work but feel the need to demand that such safeguards are put in place.

Now I fully agree with the idea that it's not a good thing for people to access hardcore pornography in public on the train, and don't really care if you block it, but the filters are usually shit. They can't tell the difference between sexy teenage milfs and sexual violence hotline.

[–]wylanderuk 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Yeah but this was not blocked by a porn filter though, which I agree is not a really bad thing on free wifi on public transport. It was blocked under terrorism/hate categories.

Its a clear bias, just like years ago I tried to access a voice for men website via mobile data and it was blocked, but your usual feminist drivel was not.

Hell there is good chance this site is blocked for being gender critical, but I would lay money that gender affirming sites would probably squeak through with out issues.

[–]Alienhunter糞大名 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

There's two arguments here, one is the free speech argument, other is public order.

Now personally, I wish we lived in a world where people would just mind their own business (well I do, sucks for earthlings) but unfortunately if you're going on reading about, god I dunno, Nazi Jewish genocide for example on the train, you are likely to set off the busybody sitting next to you who can't help but poke their nose somewhere it doesn't belong, even if I'm reading about Nazi Jewish genocide because I'm against it and I just want to know what my opponents think, doesn't matter to the idiot busibody and they'll start shit on the train, which you don't want.

That said, if they're gonna provide wifi, blocking shit needs to be done carefully otherwise they'll just seem to be ideologues. Personally I'm of the opinion that it's usually leftists that go and complain to the authorities about such things which is why you see generally their opposing side of the political aisle banned (rightists also complain but tend to complain to the person directly rather than complaining to the authorities imho)

That said could also just be a low level employee doing this shit. Always online types tend to be woke and they tend to take the online oriented positions. I've had to deal with such in the past in various cross cultural contexts and it's very tiring explaining to them that there are people who don't hold their opinion and that they can't go about insisting everyone agree with them.

[–]wylanderuk 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The filters used by mobile providers here in the UK were a compromise between mobile providers and the government...The strange thing being the filters are run by norton or they were at one point...