British Telecom blocking access to EN World

[Big Mac]

I found out yesterday that British Telecom was blocking access to The Piazza.

I've just checked and block.org.uk show that BT are also blocking EN World.

I don't know if BT are singling out The Piazza and EN World or if they have some sort of campaign to block other RPG websites. I'm still investigating this.

But I thought you lot would want to know, as you might be able to start the ball rolling on getting the block removed.

 

[Morrus]

I sent 'em an email asking them to unblock both sites. This was the auto-reply:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for your enquiry.

The categorisation of websites for BT Parental Controls is conducted by our expert 3rd party supplier and BT is not involved in this process. We understand that from time to time, sites can be miscategorised so will forward your request onto our 3rd party supplier for further investigation. We will inform you of the decision made however, BT or its third party supplier will not enter into correspondence regarding this investigation.

If you are a BT Customer submitting a request via this channel, please note you should add any sites that you believe have been blocked (or allowed) incorrectly to your personal blocked or allowed lists. You can find out how to do this here.

For all other enquiries – this inbox is monitored only for the purposes of website owner re-categorisation requests.

Regards
BT


British Telecommunications plc
Registered office: 81 Newgate Street London EC1A 7AJ
Registered in England no. 1800000

 

[nerfherder]

BT is my ISP. I don't have any problems getting to ENW (or The Piazza), but then I don't have any parental controls enabled.

From the email Russ posted, it sounds like you can override the default settings with your own personal blocked or allowed lists, so you should be OK once you've done this.

Full disclosure: I work for BT, but not on the broadband side. If changing your personal allowed lists doesn't work, please PM me and I'll do my best to help.

 

[Big Mac]

BT is my ISP. I don't have any problems getting to ENW (or The Piazza), but then I don't have any parental controls enabled.

Thanks Nerfherder. I got a similar response over at the BT forum.

From the email Russ posted, it sounds like you can override the default settings with your own personal blocked or allowed lists, so you should be OK once you've done this.

Sure. But my issue is that BT seem to be marking down "social networking" websites as unsuitable for children. I just re-read the BT forum, when I grabbed the link and one of the replies I got at the BT forum says that they are providing specific filters to block forums.

I've started to check other websites. Giant in the Playground has not been blocked yet, but
blocked.org.uk shows that Dragonlance Forums have been blocked by BT.

If BT want to filter out adult forums, so that children can not see them, I would have less of an issue with that, but blocking RPG forums is the sort of nonsense that Jack Chick would be pushing for. It is unacceptable for BT to be suggesting that EN World and other RPG forums are not suitable for children.

Full disclosure: I work for BT, but not on the broadband side. If changing your personal allowed lists doesn't work, please PM me and I'll do my best to help.

I don't use BT as an ISP (and will probably boycott them until they stop doing this) but thanks for the offer.

 

[nerfherder]

Thanks Nerfherder. I got a similar response over at the BT forum.



Sure. But my issue is that BT seem to be marking down "social networking" websites as unsuitable for children. I just re-read the BT forum, when I grabbed the link and one of the replies I got at the BT forum says that they are providing specific filters to block forums.

I've started to check other websites. Giant in the Playground has not been blocked yet, but
blocked.org.uk shows that Dragonlance Forums have been blocked by BT.

If BT want to filter out adult forums, so that children can not see them, I would have less of an issue with that, but blocking RPG forums is the sort of nonsense that Jack Chick would be pushing for. It is unacceptable for BT to be suggesting that EN World and other RPG forums are not suitable for children.

Unfortunately, as you say, ENW and the other forums are categorised as "social networking", which is a category blocked by the default level of Parental Control. Parents that wanted to allow their children to access social networking sites have a number of options, including using the "light" setting instead of "moderate" or "strict", unblocking the "social networking" category, or unblocking specific forum sites (which would keep the likes of Facebook still blocked).

Note, they can also enable or disable particular levels of Parental Control by time - e.g. disabling "social networking" at homework time.

I don't use BT as an ISP (and will probably boycott them until they stop doing this) but thanks for the offer.

No problem.

On a practical note, instructions for changing BT Parental Control filters can be found here: http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/...parental-controls---how-to-guide#filterlevels

 

[Big Mac]

Unfortunately, as you say, ENW and the other forums are categorised as "social networking", which is a category blocked by the default level of Parental Control. Parents that wanted to allow their children to access social networking sites have a number of options, including using the "light" setting instead of "moderate" or "strict", unblocking the "social networking" category, or unblocking specific forum sites (which would keep the likes of Facebook still blocked).

I think my issue is with BT putting out this blanket ban. I'm not sure that a parent will realise that a medium filter will stop their children talking about D&D. And once the filter is on, those websites are blocked.

Note, they can also enable or disable particular levels of Parental Control by time - e.g. disabling "social networking" at homework time.

That sounds more logical, but if parents want to block children from logging into EN World, they should be specifically blocking EN World. To lump EN World in with every single adult and non-adult forum in the world is over-the-top. EN World is not unsuitable for children.

If BT want to start censoring forums, they should check out the subject matter and just block forums with adult content.

On a practical note, instructions for changing BT Parental Control filters can be found here: http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/...parental-controls---how-to-guide#filterlevels

That could help people. But how is EN World going to be able to get that message across to would be forum members, if they can not even see the website?

Plus, if talking on RPG forums is "evil", why is BT blocking all of EN World, rather than just blocking "www.enworld.org/forum"?

It does not make sense. I think it is mad for the government to be telling BT to do this stuff.

 

[nerfherder]

If BT want to start censoring forums, they should check out the subject matter and just block forums with adult content.

I think the key point is that EN World (and other forums) is not blocked because it contains adult content, it's blocked because it is social networking.

So, EN World and gaming forums are being lumped in with Facebook, Twitter, etc. As soon as a child persuades a parent to let them access Facebook, they'll be able to see all the gaming sites again.

That could help people. But how is EN World going to be able to get that message across to would be forum members, if they can not even see the website?

Yeah, I thought that when I was typing it out

I guess Russ could say something in the regular email that ENW sends out to members, in case any of them have discovered that they can no longer access ENW, but don't know why.

Out of interest, if Parental Controls were enabled, would a link to ENW show up in a google search, and then a "blocked" message appear if the person clicked on the link?

 

[Big Mac]

I think the key point is that EN World (and other forums) is not blocked because it contains adult content, it's blocked because it is social networking.

So, EN World and gaming forums are being lumped in with Facebook, Twitter, etc. As soon as a child persuades a parent to let them access Facebook, they'll be able to see all the gaming sites again.

It wasn't so long ago that people were criticising the "Great Firewall of China" and now it seems we are getting BT to build one here.

If they want to have this "social networking" category that parents can opt into, that is less bad*, but from what I understand social networking is automatically blocked if the filtering system is et to medium. So if a parent is concerned about their child seeing erotic pictures, they are going to increase the filter and block EN World. That is just wrong.

* = It is still bad to blanket block social networking, as children need to learn how to communicate with other people, but if they are concerned with that something like a forum blocklist, where parents can turn each forum on or off individually would be more appropriate.

I just can't see this sledgehammer approach working because, if a child does pursuade a parent to allow them to use Facebook, BT is going to allow that child to access dodgy websites (like the ones encouraging anorexia or self-harm).

This all or nothing thing is not really protecting children at all. The government should take individual action against unethical forums and leave forums like EN World alone.

Yeah, I thought that when I was typing it out

It is not your barmy idea.

I bet it is not even BT's idea. Someone at OFCOM or some other QUANGO probably came up with this plan.

I guess Russ could say something in the regular email that ENW sends out to members, in case any of them have discovered that they can no longer access ENW, but don't know why.?

And how long is it going to be before the government bans emails from EN World? If the EN World forum is a "risk to children" surely the emails would be just as "dangerous".

Out of interest, if Parental Controls were enabled, would a link to ENW show up in a google search, and then a "blocked" message appear if the person clicked on the link?

I'm guessing that Google will work normally...

...unless Google.co.uk have been ordered to detect BT's Parental Control filters, so that they automatically block out any "naughty" pages in the search results.