Major UK ISPs including BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media are supporting a £25 million online safety campaign geared towards raising awareness among parents on how to tackle issues such as cyber-bullying and limit their kids’ access to online adult content.
The campaign will be supported through high-profile advertising and marketing initiatives starting next year informing Britons about the whole-home and device-level parental controls that can be used to protect their children online.
The advertising campaign is estimated to cost a whopping £25 million in the first year itself. The entire activity will be spread out over the course of three years and broadband companies will be forming a joint venture that will lead the campaign.
ISPs have already started working towards protecting Britons online with Sky and TalkTalk taking the lead by launching family-friendly filters. Sky launched its Broadband Shield for new and existing customers who can select one of the three different ratings within the system to protect their family online. The filters block pornographic websites and other such content based on the selected option and customers can switch it off.
TalkTalk on the other hand has its Home Safe product that packs numerous filters which not only block pornography, but also filter content which parents deem unsuitable for their children including sites related to violence and self harm among others. It is left to the customers to decide which filters to activate.
BT and Virgin are also working towards a similar system and it is believed that their system will be rolled out within the next two months. UK government wants all ISPs to start filtering pornography and other adult subjects “by default”.
