(last updated 3/10/19)
The instant access to pornography by children, through fixed and mobile Internet-capable devices, is an epidemic in the U.S., and we believe this crisis will not change without the help of the Internet service providers. Millions of children are accessing pornography in the United States. A study done in U.S. schools found that 21.3% of young men said they view pornographic material every day or almost every day.(1) Pornography is contributing to the hypersexualization of teens, and even prepubescent children, is serving as childrens’ and youths’ sex education, is shaping their sexual templates, and is biologically addictive. (2)
We have discovered through research, and engaging tech experts from all of the world, that ISP’s can play an immediate and major role in reducing, and even stopping, the transmission of pornography on the Internet before it reaches a customers device. We found that such implementation is reasonable, financially and technologically unburdensome to ISP’s and customers alike, and will guarantee to reduce the number of children accessing pornography along with the many health factors associated.
“What is an Internet service provider (ISP)?”
Lifewire explains it like this,
“Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is the company you pay a fee to for access to the internet. No matter the kind of internet access (cable, DSL, dial-up), an ISP provides you or your business a piece of a larger pipe to the internet. All internet connected devices run each request through their ISP in order to access servers to download web pages and files, and those servers themselves can only provide you those files through their own ISP.”
“Examples of some ISPs include AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, Cox, NetZero, among many, many others. They may be wired directly to a home or business or beamed wirelessly via satellite or other technology. We all have some sort of device in our home or business that connects us to the internet. It’s through that device that your phone, laptop, desktop computer, and other internet capable devices reach the rest of the world – and it’s all done through various ISPs.”(3)
“What role could ISP’s play in reducing or stopping the flow of Internet pornography to children?”
Since the Internet has to travel through an Internet service provider, this was our first question. SafeDNS, a team of IT and web security experts that offer web filtering service used by more than 4,000 organizations and tens of thousands of private users across US, UK, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and the Far East, used the analogy to help us understand, “Just as the flow of water can be manually shut off at many points from the water plant facility to a home faucet, so can the flow of pornography be shut off at many points from the Internet service provider to a customers device.”
In elaborating, SafeDNS shared that their service equips ISP’s, big or small, through cloud-based technology to filter a “near-perfect 98.3% of requests to adult content’ on the Internet before it reaches a customers device. On their website, they shared with us various case studies from around the world where they had uniquely helped Internet providers, both fixed connection and mobile alike, to provide Internet filtering solutions tailored to the ISP’s needs. They explained that, through DNS filtering, the installing of hardware and software is not needed but rather the technology is “cloud-based” making the entire process financially and technologically reasonable and unburdensome. Michael Davies, CEO of RDI, also explained that the process of redirecting the DNS server (which makes the filtering possible) is easy and “takes only minutes.”
“How does DNS filtering work and how effective is it?”
Ken Carnesi, CEO of DNSFilter, a company based in Washington D.C. that offers web threat protection and content filtering products, serves over 6,000 organizations worldwide in a $4B market, and in 2018 was named Top Emerging Security Vendor, explained to us the process of DNS filtering, and how it can be easily applied to protect millions of customers. DNS filtering (or Domain Name System filtering) is a technique of blocking access to certain websites, web pages, or IP addresses. DNS is what allows domain names to be used, such as www.decencyusa.org, rather than typing in a very difficult to remember IP address. With DNS filtering in place, rather than the DNS server returning the IP address, the user will be directed to a local IP address that will display a block page explaining that the site cannot be accessed. This control could be applied at the router level, via your ISP, or a third party – a web filtering service provider. (4)
After talking with Mr. Carnesi, we learned that through DNSFilter (and other third-party web filtering service providers) an ISP can redirect their DNS server to a dedicated server that is designed to filter pornography for every customer in their network. Carnesi explained, through their technology, an ISP, big or small, with 250 or 25 million subscribers, can provide a service to customers that filters pornography, with the same process applying to both fixed and mobile Internet services. He also noted that ISP’s can even re-brand their service offering the entire service supplied by DNSFilter as a brand of their own.
“Are there any common problems that customers experience through this technology?”
Ken shared that the only issue ever arising from end-users is how a webpage is “categorized”. For instance, a customer may disagree with a webpage being labeled as gambling, pornographic, or violent (depending on the filtered category), and request to gain access to a certain site that is blocked. He shared that this issue is easily fixed through customer service whitelisting, or a customer requesting to remove the filter altogether. He added that there are companies available, like Spectrum, who provide both the filtering technology and customer service care for their clients. Sky Broadband, a U.K. based ISP serving millions of customers, shared with Ernie Allen- Former President and Co-Founder of National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, that before blocking pornography by default for customers, that they “implemented a strong communications plan in advance”, but only received “25 complaints out of 6 million users.” (5)
Ralph Yarro, an early developer and contributor to web filtering technologies such as Blue Coat and K9 Web Protection shared with us that the past problems of over-blocking and under-blocking (not blocking enough) through filtering are obsolete with modern technology. He pointed us to K9 Web Filtering, an advanced Web filtering technology used by enterprise and government institutions worldwide, that, with a user-friendly interface, allows you to control Internet use in your home and enter specific URL’s to block or unblock. (6)
“How did ISP’s respond to former Prime Minister David Cameron advocacy for children’s online safety in the U.K?”
In 2013, Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom began advocating heavily on the crisis of children accessing pornography, saying that Internet pornography is “corroding childhood” and called on Internet service providers to respond.(7) We spoke with Michael Davies, co-founder of RDI, a company based in the U.K. that has serviced 100’s of WiFi and Internet service providers in the U.K. and all over the world with their Friendly Wifi seal. Friendly WiFi is a government-initiated safe certification standard for public WiFi, providing a symbol that tells the public where the service meets minimum filtering standards that include filtering webpages known by the Internet Watch Foundation to host indecent images of children, adverts or links to such content, and pornography.
Davies shared with us that as a result from Prime Minister David Cameron’s pervasive stance against pornography, the six major ISP’s in the U.K. worked with the government to create a “minimum standard” of filtering to incorporate into their service. He shared that, “each major provider committed to offering a standard of WiFi service for U.K. businesses which offered filtering for pornography and automatically blocked pages known by the Internet Watch Foundation to host indecent images of children.” Regarding ‘public WiFi’, Davies shared with us the “Commitment of WiFi Providers as of 16 July 2013” that the six main WiFi providers (Arqiva, BT, Nomad, Sky, Virgin Media, and O2) made stating,
“We commit that our standard public WiFi offering will also include filters to block pornography. This will help prevent children and young people from accessing inappropriate pornographic material themselves, and should also limit accidental exposure to inappropriate material that nearby adults might be looking at in public.
- Public WiFi networks are:
- usually in public places and are in general open and freely accessible (although this may vary given mobile operator),
- reached either directly or through businesses and other organisations.
- The standard public WiFi offering already automatically filters the IWF list (child abuse images).
- It will also use generally recognized list providers to filter pornography; some operators may also filter other content in addition.
- Wifi operators will not charge business site owners for this filtering.”
Sky Broadband, serving millions of people in the U.K., blocked pornography by default. The BBC quoted Sky saying, “We think that default filtering is the best way for the industry to meet the government’s commitment to reduce children’s exposure to inappropriate content.” Sky shared with Allen, that they received “no backlash” from customers and “70% of Sky’s users left the default filters in place.” Sky also provides this service to its customers at no extra cost. Sky’s Brand Director for Communications Products, Lyssa McGowan, said, “What we’re doing now is simply making sure that the automatic position of Shy Broadband Shield is the safest one for all – that’s ‘on’, unless customers choose otherwise…users cannot access a filtered site unless they choose to log in and alter their settings.”
“How do DNS filtering companies get the technology to filter pornography for customers?”
Mr. Davies explained that there are companies that provide categorical lists of websites like gambling, pornography, child sex abuse images, and more for other companies to purchase. So DNS filtering companies purchase lists created by these companies in order to have the ability to filter certain categories. “The entire technology,” he said, “to block categories, like pornography, is comprised of lists provided by third party companies that daily update as new material emerges on the Internet.” He also noted that ISP’s often use proprietary solutions as well.
In the last two years, ten states in the U.S. have declared pornography as a public health hazard or crisis, and many are slated to follow in years to come. Reliance on parental use of blocking/filtering software alone has failed to protect children, is an insufficient defense because, for various reasons, many parents don’t use it, and children can access the Internet through computers their parents have no control over.(6) ISP’s can reasonably and affordably provide customers with an Internet experience free from pornography. It should be as easy as a customer choosing a service with or without it. By ISP’s shutting off pornography at the network-level, rather than leaving it at the sole responsibility of the parent or end-user to figure out, which has failed, will provide a seamless solution, create a further reach of access to pornography for children, and altogether combat the health crisis caused by its easy accessibility today.
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