Personal Stories

Rebecca and Craig Struthers, Struthers Watchmakers London

Rebecca and Craig Struthers run an award-winning craft watchmaking business, Struthers London. They were unaware that their website was being blocked by BT and Virgin until Rebecca was contacted by a customer on Twitter. Rebecca believes that having her website incorrectly blocked will almost certainly have affected their business.

Aug 2015

Maureen Shaw, Founder & Editor-in-Chief, sherights.com

“In theory, web filtering sounds like a brilliant way to protect children or vulnerable populations from predators and harmful content, such as hate speech and pro-anorexia sites (to name a few). However, it's not that black-and-white; filtering begs the question of what, exactly, is harmful, to whom, and who is given the power to grant or deny access to information.”

April 2014

Marielle Volz, wanted to read Jezebel.com

Marielle had just moved to the UK from the US with her husband and her young son. As they didn't have Broadband set up at home, she was using her phone to access the Internet but when she tried to read an article on the feminist blog Jezebel.com, it was blocked.

July 2014

Paul Staines, Editor, Guido Fawkes' blog

“We would really appreciate it if TalkTalk would remove us from their block list. The only people who block us are them, and the Chinese government.”

July 2014

Amy Leatherbarrow, Owner, Designer Dressing Room

Amy Leatherbarrow runs a ladies' dress agency in Bolton. When her website was redeveloped over a year ago, she became aware that it was being blocked by O2. Her web designer spoke to O2 but they simply told him to verify that he was over 18 – this meant that he could view it but it didn't solve the problem that the site would still be blocked for other O2 customers.

June 2015