Actually I have been using Vodafone Mobile Broadband here in London and it has the same kind of filter. Somehow it disappeared after three weeks. It didn't seem to be as bad as this one from O2 since I did some tests and I was able to see erotic images without a problem, only porn sites seemed to trigger the filter. That and also maybe 5% of all the different sites I have visited on the last month.
Moral panics have a long history here; a lot of it is due to the sensationalist media culture. Government clampdowns are usually the result of whipped-up public hysteria.
There is definitely a filter on Vodafone contracts (I use my netbook tethered to my phone), or at least there was in the past. It blocked reddit at one point. I access things via my VPN when I'm mobile anyway these days (to keep non-HTTPS connections from prying eyes when I'm on public wireless) so I'd not notice a filter these days.
This article was published on the 4th March and at this moment I can access all sites mentioned in the article and tube8.com without entering any details. I'd suggest the article is a little out of date.
I'm a contract customer so they may have updated their policy to exclude all contract customers (who are all over 18) or they may have dropped it. I don't know.
I used to get this years ago on an O2 pay as you go with old school crappy mobile internet. Can't remember exactly what sites triggered it, but it was something pretty innocuous, perhaps gambling/lottery related.
The switch from PAYG to contract made it disappear but it would be foolishly tin-foily of me to assume that this is exactly what O2 wanted to happen.
Because using the police power of the state against otherwise peaceful organizations is more convenient than taking your business elsewhere, and allows you to substitute your preferences for the revealed preferences of other consumers.
Which works great, if the organizations in question don't have a virtual monopoly on what should be considered a public utility. There is no "elsewhere".
Blocking porn for kids is great, that's why devices have parental controls. This is an involuntary, arbitrary blocking of content.
If you actually read the article, you'd know that they're not just blocking porn sites. They're blocking Google Translate, Jalopnik, a sexual health charity, and anything else THEY deem "indecent".
This happened to a colleague of mine, but I'm on the same network and it didn't happen to me.
You can turn it off by either going into an O2 store with some ID, or paying £1 on a credit card - you'll be given £2.50 in credit to your phone bill to compensate.
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I'm a contract customer so they may have updated their policy to exclude all contract customers (who are all over 18) or they may have dropped it. I don't know.
The switch from PAYG to contract made it disappear but it would be foolishly tin-foily of me to assume that this is exactly what O2 wanted to happen.
For 3 years I've topped up with a credit card, so O2 already know my details. I thought it was a scam the first few times I saw it.
If you actually read the article, you'd know that they're not just blocking porn sites. They're blocking Google Translate, Jalopnik, a sexual health charity, and anything else THEY deem "indecent".
You can turn it off by either going into an O2 store with some ID, or paying £1 on a credit card - you'll be given £2.50 in credit to your phone bill to compensate.