[British] IWF extends its tentacles to Slovakia

[Cub Reporter]

Slovakia: Mobile Internet Providers Put an End to Internet Neutrality

Global Voices Online, USA: 24 November 2009
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/11/24/slovakia-mobile-internet-providers-put-an-end-to-internet-neutrality/
[ http://tinyurl.com/yb6c7vo ]

This month, a second Slovak mobile internet provider has kept its
promise and started to filter internet access for its customers.

A month ago it was Orange, now followed by T-Mobile.

Already time ago there were cases when some (name them local or minor)
providers were blocking torrents, if not completely, then during
daylight or for the cheapest versions. Or they were limiting traffic
of users who wanted to download more than someone decides, even if
they paid flat program with fast access. (To keep balance: also big
players, T-Com, used limited upload speed, which has influenced
torrents download.) All of this could be easily labeled as a way to
lower network traffic, with the intention to minimize the price the
provider needs to invest to it.

Now comes something new with the great idea of blocking child
pornography.

To achieve this goal, both providers are using the British Internet
Watch Foundation (IWF) database to avoid connection to some web pages
- so people really interested in them must make a bit more effort to
avoid this blocking.

People who responded to an online poll at SME.sk (say liberal)
newspaper mostly voted �Yes' for �Do you want your internet provider
to block access to pages with child porn?�

If I remember well, people in China have similar opinion in case of
porn generally. But things are not so simple - and not just in China.
(GV posts on the �internet cleansing movement� in China are here and
here.)

The IWF database is not public. (That's why it is a non-governmental
organization, I think. At least in Slovakia, if it is part of the
government, they must reply to citizens' questions about what and why
they're blocking.) And they operate in the British, not Slovak, law
space.

It blocks also many general and legal pages for file downloads and
there is no guarantee they will not block anything else they decide
(the complete Wikipedia was already on their list).

Users have no official way to stop filtering. Last month, T-Mobile
made initial filtering of their own adult services, but it was
necessary to activate it by SMS. (Understand: of course T-Mobile's
business is not related to child porn and its blockage will cover
approximately about 0% of such internet services.) Now both providers
are talking about no exceptions for IWF.

A question also is why Orange, with such high moral, does blocking of
its mobile-network only, while optics-cable connected customers (where
traffic already does not matter so much, right?) do not have this
�advantage�.

So if you want uncensored mobile internet access in Slovakia you must
move to O2, the newest provider here. Yes, this one is the leader of
IWF filtering in the Czech Republic.

This is the actual state of things 20 years after the Czechoslovak
Gentle revolution ended the Soviet-based system here.

Here's a selection of anonymous netizens' reactions (SLO) posted at
SME.sk portal:

[Visit the website at http://tinyurl.com/yb6c7vo to read the
(interesting) comments. There's also a link to Cambridge researcher
Richard Clayton's slides on the Internet Watch Foundation, May 2009.]

[Nigel Oldfield]

"People who responded to an online poll at SME.sk (say liberal)
newspaper mostly voted ‘Yes' for “Do you want your internet provider

to block access to pages with child porn?” "

Talk about begging the question.

Same old tricks.

WM