[Hands0n]

A murky future awaits, maybe?

The following sound clip makes for disturbing listening.



Mobile phone operators are increasingly tapping into the lucrative adult entertainment industry.

But the accessibility and availability of pornography on handsets is causing concern. Pallab Ghosh reports


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/default.stm#



While it is inescapable that "porn sells" we really have to ask if that is the way we want to go mainstream. But as it is being made ever-increasingly available with puny "protections" against child access the trend has a disturbing direction. Particularly as the reported next step is to target the under-14s market.

For my part, I would like to see draconian legislation and protections controlling access to all types of porn (soft or hard). Not because of any sense of prudishness, but simply because I very strongly believe that this type of content should never be made available to children of any age.

Edit: The media are catching on. Today's Daily Mail features a half page report on the availability on Porn over the 3G networks and handsets. Much of it fairly accurately reported and not over-sensationalised. What caught my eye was that all of the network providers stated that they [by default] block access to Adult Content with one exception, that being O2. O2 state that they do not see themselves as being content censors and that they will block such content at the customer's request. So, should access to Adult Content be Opt In or Opt Out? Adult Verification is currently carried out by the use of a Credit Card number. Is this sufficient or not?

[miffed]

I Find Three are the worst for it

Because I use my Three phone for ringing mobiles from home and very little esle , the only text messages I have in the inbox are ones from Three - and a glance thorugh the inbox shows about a 75% of messages are "of an adult nature" - this is fine (I suppose) but I certainly would avoid letting my kids have a Three handset for this reason

[whatleydude]

I had all this with Vodafone Content Control.

I called them and asked why they'd blocked my wap, (when they introduced it they blocking some really random sites, ie: yahoo!), and they said ok..

Can you confirm your address, password and date of birth for security?

I did that. Then they said, we need to take a £1 credit card payment for your proof of age. I'm like.. "Dude, I just confirmed by DoB with you for security!"

Que: Long discussion as to them rinsing me for a pound when they clearly knew I was over 18 and what was so 'adult' about yahoo?!

In the end I paid my pound and got £2 refunded to my bill. They conceeded that yahoo isn't an adult site and it'd be removed from their list. Apparently this would've been done eventually but due to 'teething' problems a few 'ok' sites were getting blocked.

Moving on.. Miffed:
Can you do anything about Three's 'adult' texts? Thats not on dude.

Also - I think O2 will eventually bow to pressure and review their adult content control. Their stance at the moment currently leaves them open for public criticism. Whereas Vodafone etc have a certain line of defence.

And finally - I work for the Daily Mail and it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that they've latched onto the whole mobile porn thing..
Not one bit!
Admittedly I haven't seen the article yet but I'm sure there's got to be a certain amount of scare-mongering in there.. its pretty much mandatory!
;)

EDIT: Just read the article. Its alright I suppose. *grumble grumble*

[gorilla]

I think the problem is not necessarily that you can access porn from your 3g handset, but rather the networks are peddaling it. I am not in favour of the networks offering content. A basic portal should suffice, but they should concentrate on the communication side of the business rather than on content.

[whatleydude]

...they should concentrate on the communication side of the business rather than on content.

Thing is - they do 'concentrate' on communication.

The adult content side of things probably takes up no more than 5-10% of their workforce..
BUT adult content is big business.
The networks would be silly not to exploit in their favour and make as much money as possible out of it.
Yes I agree that they should keep an eye on the who is able to view what.
That goes without saying. But thats no reason for them to not offer the service to the many thousands of people out there who will pay money for it.
Bear in mind we're not just talking porn here.
Things like gambling via wap come under age-restrictions too.

[3GScottishUser]

It's been the driving force for most new technology.

Video Recorders, DVD's, Internet etc etc.

Porn sells and 3 probably thought it would work for them on a tiny screen, stuttering and failing!!

Well it might have been a runner if they had implimented the technology properly to make it work, but realistically the display limitations make it a bit of a non-starter. BTW: 3 charge you for downloads whether you get them or not!

[Hands0n]

@whatleydude - re content and Daily Mail.

I normally take with a pinch of the proverbial salt anything that any daily paper writes about. Often their correspondents know little to absolutely nothing about what they are writing of. However, this time I felt that the DM had hit the nail fairly on the head.

On Topic: I feel that the mobile ops have a way to go yet with their means and methods for providing an effective mechanism to prevent children from seeing even the adverts for such content on their mobile handsets. I'm sure that parents generally will be horrified to even see the 3 portal's "Today on 3" adverts and teasers for their porn content.

[3GScottishUser]

I have to agree. I don't regard myself as prudish but a home page is not an appropriate place to advertise 'adult' content. It would be more appropriate for those who want to receive information on this kind of content to have to opt into it by selecting a preference within the portal and having to provide age verification.

[whatleydude]

Slightly off topic...

Back to the Daily Mail - to back up my claims of a previous post - have actually run with a story today which says being left handed increases the risk of cancer.

I'll hush now and get back to topic..


Using to mobile porn to make fast cash eh?!
Tut tut tut

[3g-g]

Perhaps someone else can confirm this for me just incase it's just chance that this has been happening...

I'm all for protection of minors from content that they shouldn't have access to before the relevant legal ages, however, all the operators if I'm not mistaken, know that there's a pile of cash to be made from whatever adult content they provide via their portals.

It seems Orange have made a slight effort to try and make the advertising of said content relevant to the people who may pull up *pardon the pun* the Orange World page looking for a cheap thrill, well, if you regard £2.50 cheap for a lady in her bra. They only seem to put any sort of link to this content on late at night on their front page, from what I can gather, after midnight, which IMO is fair enough. There's the watershed of 9pm for the TV, and if Orange have taken a stance like this it's fairly commendable. We all want to be able to access any information we want, from where ever we want at any time we want, and I'm afraid to say it that includes "adult entertainment".

If there was no porn on the internet all there'd be was one page saying "bring back the porn". Friends I think that was from??

[Hands0n]

A worthy effort by Orange but ............ I am not in favour of watersheds either, which have proved largely ineffective by modern standards of child behavior. The kids tend to have access to mediums of communication unthought of when the notion of a watershed was first come about (Internet, mobile phone, terrestrial and sattelite TV etc). Without removing them entirely it is virtually impossible to police their access without some electronic failsafe means.

I am therefore not content that the mobile ops (to remain on topic) are doing anywhere near enough to safeguard access against this type of content. There should be a verifiable Opt In, and I do not believe the credit card is sufficient. There should be absolutely no advertising of the content on non-Opt In portal pages. In other words, similar to "top shelf" magazines, the content should be covered up from view.

I'm absolutely no prude about porn content, merely a concerned parent with the view that there is no excuse nor acceptable reason to groom children into an early sexuality. And that is my fear, that we are through ever-eroding standards of accessibility doing precisely that. That mobile phone access to such content [for children] is just another stage of such erosion. Such [effectively] social engineering has and will continue to have dire longer term consequences.

I am entirely for freedom of access, but not at any price where children are concerned.

[Ben]

My view is that operator portals shouldn't be pushing adult content at all. Sure, have it somewhere if necessary, but don't advertise it - especially not on the front page.

The operator portal in general should be about far more than selling premium rate content. It should be a help and support resource, a means of checking account information, a means of managing the account and, most importantly, a way for users to interact with the network and the brand. There's plenty of WAP smut out there for those who want it, infact there's plenty of premium rate rubbish out there full stop for those who want it, so operators need to use their portals to differentiate themselves.

I also agree with Hands0n wrt watersheds. Children tend to interact with their phone unsupervised, including very young children, which doesn't happen so much when it comes to the Internet (no responsible parent should really be sitting very young children infront of the Internet if no filters are set up, it's not a television). The operators haven't exactly made it difficult for children to buy mobiles, so I think it's fair to say they have a responsibility to a) not show them porn and b) not consume all of their pocket money (£5 for a game.. poor kids).