Wayback Machine & Internet Archive inappropriately blocked as 'adult content'

junqimil

(Yes, I’ve predominantly cut and pasted the following letter, but it doesn’t need rewriting)
Dear giffgaff,
I have noticed that www.archive.org is blocked by default on your network because it is considered adult content. I believe this is a miscategorization and would love to start an official review process with your team to make sure that this research and reference resource is not unavailable to our youth. Below are some examples of the non adult status of www.archive.org.
On Cyren (https://www.cyren.com/security-center/url-category-check) it is categorized as Computers & Technology.
On IBM X-Force (https://exchange.xforce.ibmcloud.com/url/archive.org) it is categorized as Education, Cinema / Television, Music / Radio Broadcast, Literature / Books, and Search Engines / Web Catalogs / Portals.
On Symantec Blueforce (https://sitereview.bluecoat.com/#/lookup-result/archive.org) it is categorized as Reference.
On Fortiguard (https://fortiguard.com/webfilter?q=archive.org&version=8) it is categorized as Reference.
On Brightcloud (https://www.brightcloud.com/tools/url-ip-lookup.php) it is categorized as Reference and Research.
It was blocked by all 4 main Mobile ISPs, but Three have since revoked their ban, giffgaff can apply pressure to O2 if we simply use their Allow List and Block List, and to BBFC whose list is likely the source of these problems in the first place.
Looking forward to your response,
J

muddycalhoun

junqimil it won’t just be the youth that cannot access it.
Anyone without passport or driving licence won’t be able to get access either

davidvarley

junqimil
Need to contact giffgaff agents with issue they can take 24 hours for a reply though.

junqimil

Oh, and broadband ISPs don’t ban it, for good reasons. See https://www.blocked.org.uk/site/http://archive.org for details

guy_ow

Appreciate you reminding me of this @junqimil

We had a thread last year here https://community.giffgaff.com/d/22792828-please-unban-archive-org-and-equivalents/ that was asking for the same thing.

Looks like one of my colleagues did flag this up back then, so I’ll ping them a message to see where the investigation lead 🙂

Cheers
Guy

jfc1951

davidvarley Need to contact giffgaff agents with issue they can take 24 hours for a reply though.

Hi, Guy’s already on it, Post #4 🙂

guy_ow

Small update for you all.

The wayback machine, which is an amazing resource to have, does archive everything on the internet which of course includes content of an adult nature, this is the primary reason why it remains blocked unless the adult content restriction is lifted. If it were to be free to access otherwise, members of younger ages could easily access content that would otherwise be restricted to them.

I would be keen to get more understanding behind why three uk have taken it out of their restricted list, as this could help us look into it further though, so if anyone has or does find out why they removed it please do let me know.

scrupps

Out of interest I just checked this site and there is plenty of adult material on there. So I’m guessing it’s probably best to remain blocked by giffgaff unless the adult restrictions are lifted.