The last thing this situation needs is a bit of petition-based slacktivism to calm people's nerves.<p>Petitions do absolutely nothing. Off the top of my head, I can't recall a single petition in recent history that has done anything other than given its signers a false sense of contribution towards a cause. I'd go as far as to say that pushing petitions probably damages a cause more than aids it.<p>If you want to change something, you get some people together and start a rally, or get people inundate your representative's inbox with mail from angry voters who don't want to see a measure pass.
Having signed a number of these in the past I can predict what the official response will be. They will say that they are not forcing anyone and that the system is entirely voluntary. They'll say it's on by default merely to help protect children from accessing inappropriate content, and they'll say that the block lists are under constant review by a panel of independent experts.
"Bad parenting is the real problem ... not rely on filters of dubious effectiveness."<p>I'm not sure how this is an argument against the filter? We agree that "parents need to supervise and educate their children about internet use", in the same way that parents need to supervise and educate their children about crossing the road. That doesn't mean we do away with traffic lights. The filter will surely help facilitate parents in their efforts to protect their children. If they don't want it, they can have it removed.<p>"It also sets a poor precedent that objectionable content can be blocked ... promote education over flimsy, disruptive, and money-wasting "solutions"."<p>This is really the same argument, reiterated. Why not promote both good parenting and "solutions"? Many people don't have the technical expertise to set up filters of this kind on their own (I would suggest that in many households, computers are used almost exclusively by the children). They might have the desire to be responsible parents in this area, but not know how to go about doing it.<p>The only other point raised here is the "poor precedent" of blocking content. Is the argument here that it will lead to blocking of more content in the future? If so this a slippery slope fallacy. There is no evidence that this is the case. And if you really need to carry on watching porn, give your ISP a call. No one is stopping you.
> The government is currently trying to push a bill forcing ISPs to provide opt-out pornography filtering, however this is an issue that fails to address any real problems.<p>My writing is lousy. It would have been nice if someone had grammar checked this before it was set up.<p>> even though the filters are easily (even trivially) circumvented.<p>Petitions of this type force a debate in parliament. The above line will be answered by Cameron (or similar) saying "We are confident that the filters can not be got around"; he has already said that.<p>As well as signing this petition <i>please</i> write a short letter to your MP and ask them to oppose this stupid filter, with short clear examples of why it's stupid. If you only chose one thing to do write to your MP instead of signing this petition.
someone should setup a list of isps that oppose the filter and then get people to Email the isps that do NOT oppose the filter and tell them that u will cancel your service with them if they do not change their stance