(Originally posted to The Information Policy Blog.)

The provincial government’s internal Internet filter is affecting ordinary Internet users in Tahsis, a small community on Vancouver Island.

An attempt to visit a pornography site, for example, would return a red screen with a British Columbia logo and a “** WARNING **” message: “This connection has been refused. The Internet site you are attempting to access has been designated by a web classification service as containing material that contravenes the BC Government’s Internet usage policy.”

The warning linked to a page that said, “Users must not access Internet sites that might bring the public service into disrepute or harm government’s reputation, such as those that carry offensive material.”

The local ISP is blaming the problem on “crossed wires” somewhere. Apparently, the ISP’s Internet connection is routed through the government’s network (presumably because Tahsis got Internet access through a provincial government rural broadband initiative). The filter is being incorrectly applied somewhere along the way.

According to the article, the same problem once affected the nearby town of Woss. It took six months to get the filter removed.