Website identified incorrectly as adult material - EE

gilbouk

gilbouk

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Gil
Edit My Images
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It appears that EE have identified my website as containing 18+ material, and for people trying to access my site from a mobile which they haven't removed 18+ content block on gives them a 'Safari cannot open the page' screen.

When accessing the page from Facebook - I get a standard EE content lock message and in it - is says:

'Please note: We are gradually starting to block some secure sites (sites showing https in the address). This means that some web pages you were previously able to access will not show as 'Timed out' or having 'No response''

The problem may be isolated to EE & BT - it seems that Vodafone is fine, but not tried the others on phones where the 18+ content still applies.

Any idea how I can solve this issue, any advice gratefully received.

P.S. my website is in my signature below
 
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Yeah, it's blocked on Three. Three block a lot of things including martial arts shops.
 
Of course, I would have specified that it was turned off before I took the contract out (without me having to mess around filling in forms etc)

If they actually blocked adult content, I might react differently, but I see way too many false positives and negatives to make it a reliable shield for the allegedly vulnerable.
 
Works okay for me on my iphone and ipad on VM, which piggy-backs the EE network.

Nice web site with some beautiful images by the way (y)
 
Bristolian said:
Works okay for me on my iphone and ipad on VM, which piggy-backs the EE network.

Nice web site with some beautiful images by the way (y)
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thanks very much :-)
 
It seems like my domain forwarding could be the issue. Not sure why the default domain works fine but on the same phone my www.lovemorephotography.co.uk domain is blocked on age restricted EE phones. Not sure what percentage of potential customers might be giving up because they just get a dead response when trying to access my site. Hopefully I’ll get to the bottom of it
 
lovemorephotography.mypixieset.com gets through because the mypixieset.com domain is allowed by EE, the phrase lovemorephotography in the subdomain won't make any difference.
lovemorephotography.co.uk is the domain they've blocked.

My guess is you'll need to complain to EE to get it unblocked but I've no idea how.

As above this is why I hate these filters - I used to work for a VR simulation company that was blocked by the filters at lots of our public sector clients - it just came up with "Content blocked : GAMES" which was pretty irritating for us and them.
 
AMcUK said:
lovemorephotography.mypixieset.com gets through because the mypixieset.com domain is allowed by EE, the phrase lovemorephotography in the subdomain won't make any difference.
lovemorephotography.co.uk is the domain they've blocked.

My guess is you'll need to complain to EE to get it unblocked but I've no idea how.

As above this is why I hate these filters - I used to work for a VR simulation company that was blocked by the filters at lots of our public sector clients - it just came up with "Content blocked : GAMES" which was pretty irritating for us and them.
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Thanks for the pointers, really appreciate it
 
gilbouk said:
Thanks for pointing that out - any idea how I might fix them? I'm pretty clueless with how domains work other than that my custom domain is pointing towards pixieset in some sort of fashion
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Where is your domain registered? Try asking them first?
 
Pound Coin said:
Looks like the domain has DNS errors

https://mxtoolbox.com/domain/lovemorephotography.co.uk/
Click to expand...

Nothing on there affects the rendering of the website or its detection by content blocking software.

The only "error" on there that could cause problems is the lack of an MX record, and that's only a problem if there is a requirement to receive email to an address@lovemorephotgraphy.co.uk . Since one is not published on the website, I'm going to take a guess that the domain is not used for email. The absence of DMARC and SPF records are not errors, even if the domain were to be used for email. Some people consider having these things beneficial on domains that are used for email, but they are optional.

I don't hold with having a 10 day SOA, that smacks of cost-cutting by company running the name servers, but it's not an error either.
 
onomatopoeia said:
Nothing on there affects the rendering of the website or its detection by content blocking software.

The only "error" on there that could cause problems is the lack of an MX record, and that's only a problem if there is a requirement to receive email to an address@lovemorephotgraphy.co.uk . Since one is not published on the website, I'm going to take a guess that the domain is not used for email. The absence of DMARC and SPF records are not errors, even if the domain were to be used for email. Some people consider having these things beneficial on domains that are used for email, but they are optional.

I don't hold with having a 10 day SOA, that smacks of cost-cutting by company running the name servers, but it's not an error either.
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You are right, I didn’t bother using the domain for email due to added cost. Perhaps when I’m more established I will. I think my efforts will go with contacting EE to try to attain whether they can reverse their decision. If not I may consider a second domain name that hopefully won’t be categorised as having adult material
 
Watching to much porn maybe while on lockdown [emoji16][emoji16][emoji16][emoji16]
gilbouk said:
It appears that EE have identified my website as containing 18+ material, and for people trying to access my site from a mobile which they haven't removed 18+ content block on gives them a 'Safari cannot open the page' screen.

When accessing the page from Facebook - I get a standard EE content lock message and in it - is says:

'Please note: We are gradually starting to block some secure sites (sites showing https in the address). This means that some web pages you were previously able to access will not show as 'Timed out' or having 'No response''

The problem may be isolated to EE & BT - it seems that Vodafone is fine, but not tried the others on phones where the 18+ content still applies.

Any idea how I can solve this issue, any advice gratefully received.

P.S. my website is in my signature below
Click to expand...
 
AMcUK said:
lovemorephotography.mypixieset.com gets through because the mypixieset.com domain is allowed by EE, the phrase lovemorephotography in the subdomain won't make any difference.
lovemorephotography.co.uk is the domain they've blocked.

My guess is you'll need to complain to EE to get it unblocked but I've no idea how.

As above this is why I hate these filters - I used to work for a VR simulation company that was blocked by the filters at lots of our public sector clients - it just came up with "Content blocked : GAMES" which was pretty irritating for us and them.
Click to expand...

Well contacting EE by phone wasn't any use - poor girl started suggesting I had kiddy photos on my website and it was blocked for that reason - hu? She was clearly out of her depth with the issue and couldn't understand what I was talking about.

Anyhow I did find this on the EE forum

https://community.ee.co.uk/t5/4G-and-mobile-data/Have-EE-Banned-My-Website/m-p/769670#

"Vodafone don't use IPv6 so it will work on their network.
My home ISP does, and if I test at https://ipv6-test.com/ I see browser fallback but not on EE.
If your server guy can remove the IPv6 AAAA entry if it's not needed, that should fix it."

I wonder if this applies to my website and is in fact the reason why it's being classed as 18+? Could this article hold the answer I'm looking for?
 
Looks like you are blocked by EE, O2 and Three:

https://www.blocked.org.uk/
https://www.blocked.org.uk/site/http://lovemorephotography.co.uk

There's a reporting tool on that site, but no idea if it is likely to help.

'Mobile operators turn filters on by default. They can be relatively hard to disable. They use BBFC guidelines ... Sites blocked are subject to an appeals process at BBFC, after complaints to the mobile company.'

See also:

https://www.bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/mobile-content/appeals

This seems to be the official process - you could contact all 3 operators and if some or all do not respond, use the BBFC appeal form.
 
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Retune said:
Looks like you are blocked by EE, O2 and Three:

https://www.blocked.org.uk/
https://www.blocked.org.uk/site/http://lovemorephotography.co.uk

There's a reporting tool on that site, but no idea if it is likely to help.

'Mobile operators turn filters on by default. They can be relatively hard to disable. They use BBFC guidelines ... Sites blocked are subject to an appeals process at BBFC, after complaints to the mobile company.'

See also:

https://www.bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/mobile-content/appeals

This seems to be the official process - you could contact all 3 operators and if some or all do not respond, use the BBFC appeal form.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the pointer will check this out
 
Retune said:
Looks like you are blocked by EE, O2 and Three:

https://www.blocked.org.uk/
https://www.blocked.org.uk/site/http://lovemorephotography.co.uk

There's a reporting tool on that site, but no idea if it is likely to help.

'Mobile operators turn filters on by default. They can be relatively hard to disable. They use BBFC guidelines ... Sites blocked are subject to an appeals process at BBFC, after complaints to the mobile company.'

See also:

https://www.bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/mobile-content/appeals

This seems to be the official process - you could contact all 3 operators and if some or all do not respond, use the BBFC appeal form.
Click to expand...
A big thank you @Retune - this was the information I was after. Hopefully this will shed some light on any changes I need to make. Filled out the form at www.blocked.org.uk, and will wait to see what response I get, and whether I need to try BBFC for further clarification. Thanks again!!

I will keep any new info I get updated on here in case it helps others with similar issues with their own website.
 
Also, if you click on the 'contact details' link under Stage One on the BBFC site they have the email addresses for the departments at EE etc. who are supposed to deal with this stuff. I don't know if it's enough for just one of them to accept your complaint (perhaps they then get the BBFC to update a master list they all use?) or if you have to deal with them individually before contacting the BBFC (if necessary) in each case.
 
Retune said:
Also, if you click on the 'contact details' link under Stage One on the BBFC site they have the email addresses for the departments at EE etc. who are supposed to deal with this stuff. I don't know if it's enough for just one of them to accept your complaint (perhaps they then get the BBFC to update a master list they all use?) or if you have to deal with them individually before contacting the BBFC (if necessary) in each case.
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It looks like the form I filled out automatically sends a template to each of the providers who have blocked the website.

I have had a response from Three saying:

Hi Gilbert,

Thanks for getting in touch. We’re looking into your request just now, and we’ll get back to you as soon as we have any information.

Your friends at Three


Nadeem
Three Content Reviews
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The site seemed to be sorted for a day but it's back on the block list again

I had a response from O2 too, they said:

Gilbert


We've completed your request for us to review http://lovemorephotography.co.uk
The site has been re-categorised and the change should implement overnight.

Should you wish to know more about how mobile content is restricted then please visit http://www.bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/mobile-content.

Regards

O2Shield | Telefónica UK Limited (O2)
Click to expand...

So far no change to the block status

No response from EE yet.

Will give it a little more time before trying your suggestion with BBFC. In the meantime I'm going to get in touch with 123-reg who I pay for my domain to see if they might know of any technical reasons incase it is technically domain related rather than content related. My past experience hasn't been great with them - and I have been thinking about transferring my domain to go-daddy, as they seem to be more customer-centric
 
Godaddy own 123-reg.com.

Godaddy used to be good at sorting things but not sure now. I looked at selling some of my domains as I never used them. Spoke to Godaddy and they where very helpful and offered to give me prices for my domains. It's definitely worth talking to them.
 
Mark Dell said:
Works fine on my Google pixel 3 using Vodafone 4G
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I think Vodafone has been ok

ChrisH said:
Just tried it through Virgin broadband and EE 4g both access your site okay with Safari.
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I just checked EE and your right. Seems to be working now, against what the block site says.
 
Currently it's showing as unblocked by all networks on www.blocked.org.uk, with a last checked timestamp for EE, O2, Three and Vodafone of 25 April at 16:30. If you're seeing an earlier timestamp, you might be looking at a cached page. If you're seeing a later one, I might be!
 
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Retune said:
Currently it's showing as unblocked by all networks on www.blocked.org.uk, with a last checked timestamp for EE, O2, Three and Vodafone of 25 April at 16:30. If you're seeing an earlier timestamp, you might be looking at a cached page. If you're seeing a later one, I might be!
Click to expand...
Your right!! It looks like it’s fixed on all networks!! That’s great news. Thanks for your help!! And thanks to everybody for their input too
 
Retune said:
Currently it's showing as unblocked by all networks on www.blocked.org.uk, with a last checked timestamp for EE, O2, Three and Vodafone of 25 April at 16:30. If you're seeing an earlier timestamp, you might be looking at a cached page. If you're seeing a later one, I might be!
Click to expand...
Would you know 'Cloudflare' is?

Site blocking report
lovemorephotography.co.uk
Attention Required! | Cloudflare
http://lovemorephotography.co.uk

Not sure if there's still something wrong with certain access - the above is still shown on the site report on blocked.org.uk but unsure what it means
 
Cloudflare is an internet infrastructure company that does various things like providing protection from denial of service attacks, and DNS servers that filter out malicious or adult sites. Perhaps it's a reference to the latter? You could experiment by changing the DNS settings for your internet connection to Cloudflare's servers to see if your site is blocked (record the current settings first).

https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-1-1-1-1-for-families/

Malware and Adult Content
Primary DNS: 1.1.1.3
Secondary DNS: 1.0.0.3

This is how to change DNS settings:

https://www.howtogeek.com/167533/the-ultimate-guide-to-changing-your-dns-server/
 
Retune said:
Cloudflare is an internet infrastructure company that does various things like providing protection from denial of service attacks, and DNS servers that filter out malicious or adult sites. Perhaps it's a reference to the latter? You could experiment by changing the DNS settings for your internet connection to Cloudflare's servers to see if your site is blocked (record the current settings first).

https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-1-1-1-1-for-families/

Malware and Adult Content
Primary DNS: 1.1.1.3
Secondary DNS: 1.0.0.3

This is how to change DNS settings:

https://www.howtogeek.com/167533/the-ultimate-guide-to-changing-your-dns-server/
Click to expand...

Will give the above a go tomorrow :-). Thanks again for all your help, much appreciated
 
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