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Students Responsible for Deciding Which Adult Websites UK ISPs Block

Posted: 18th Oct, 2011 By: MarkJ
internet padlockmcafee security logoInternet security giant McAfee has confirmed that a small team of students is responsible for deciding which websites are blocked (censored) by its parental controls. A number of broadband ISPs in the UK use McAfee's tools (e.g. BT , Orange , Sky Broadband etc.) and several of these were recently forced into offering customers a choice about whether or not to enable adult content blocks.

Last week four of the country's largest broadband ISPs ( BT , TalkTalk , Virgin Media and Sky Broadband ) agreed with the UK government to give new customers (i.e. parents) "a choice at the point of purchase" about whether or not to block adult websites (here).

Since then some consumers have asked for more information about how such sites are categorised for blocking, while others want to know what happens when censorship is wrongfully imposed. Many of those might be displeased to learn that the decision over which sites to block has, according to PC Pro magazine, been "left to a small team with little training" (5 to 10 people, often students). At least it hasn't been left to politicians.

Toralv Dirro, McAfee Security Strategist, explains:

"I think it’s a fairly popular job for students. The training is basically going through a number of websites and the various ratings so they get a basic idea. I’m not quite sure how exactly they work, but it would normally be one person who does a rating and one person who double checks it.

You could probably start rating websites after one day of seeing various categories. It’s really not that difficult."

McAfee explains that its initial site categorisation system is mostly automated (i.e. looks for common adult keywords, which we'll leave up to your imagination). The team of people only gets involved if there's "any doubt" over the sites classification. BT informed us last week that McAfee's solution offers 35 categories of content that customers can block (here), including gambling, hate sites, suicide sites, violence.

Dirro notes that some sites are particularly difficult to categorise, such as extreme political news sites that run the risk of being tagged as a hate site. This is apparently why a team of people exists to make the final call. It would also be normal for an entire site to be blocked, even if the bad content only appeared on a single page, although "larger sites" (e.g. BBC) are marked to prevent that.

Dirro also confirms that sometimes the wrong sites do still get blocked, although webmasters can then open a ticket with the firms support department and request a change. Easier said than done, especially if you don't know who or what has blocked your site in the first place.
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