Censorship

[sneakersjay]

This was pretty interesting as I haven't come across this yet in my adult life.

I'm on vacation and staying in campgrounds.  Last night the campground we were at had free wifi.  They said no downloading videos, large files, MP3's, etc.  Okay, they don't want to bog down the system.  I understand that.

But:  They also had parental controls/filters on their system.  Susan's and other FTM sites were denied access due to content with a big, red and black warning page.

I was shocked.  But then I shouldn't be.  I was in rural PA.  Why do they care what sites I visit as long as I don't download large files?  The Morality Police were on duty.

I still think it's odd. 

Jay

[Sephirah]

Maybe it was a filter that looks for keywords in sites, or on the meta tags of site pages, where it might have seen the 'sex' in transsexual. Most, if not all of them don't look for the context, only the words.

My guess would be that they wanted to cover their backs by making sure kids couldn't access pornography. Or that... other, paedophillic pursuits couldn't be indulged in and invite police investigation. So sites containing words (or parts of words) that they thought were explicit... were blocked.

[Valentina]

Maybe they think it's a pornographic site.   I normally can't access anything "Tg" from any PC on campus either.

[Hypatia]

I was getting work done on my car. The dealership provided internet in the waiting room, so I went online to check out afterellen.com, one of my favorite lesbian communities. They had it blocked! It was on the same network as the employees had at their desks, and everything queer was filtered because some censor thinks queer=sex. I wrote and complained. Afterellen.com is a site you could show to your grandmother, it's just about culture, women, and community. It's as sexy as Better Housekeeping magazine. I complained they're unfairly discriminating against gay people.

Yahoo groups labeled "transgender" are automatically locked away into the adult category, since they assume trans=fetish kink. (Unfortunately, for all too many citizens out there, that is the only thing they associate with the subject.)

[sd]

Most just use a pre-configured filter such as Net Nanny,  the average person using it usually has no idea what is being blocked.

[Hypatia]

So it's Net Nanny against whom I direct my ire and indignation. They SUCK.

[sneakersjay]

Yeah, I figured it was a meta-tag/keyword filter of some such that blocked anything remotely *adult*.

Today this campground allows access but at $15 (cough, choke!) per day!!!

Jay

[sd]

Some use meta tags, some identify words that are on the pages, and some just use a block list from the software's manufacturer. Anything to do with adult topics can and is often blocked.

A few few years ago several of these companies were criticized because they were even blocking WebMd, a medical site.

[Gracie Faise]

camping grounds are a common family vacation spot. Thus, the parental blockers are there for the parent's kids. It seems semi-justified in this context.