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Is the standard Porn blocklist being used (abused?) to block right-of-center news sites?

First, some throat clearing: I'm happy for anybody anywhere to tailor their news sources in any way they see fit. But I believe that blocking a news source should be an explicitly voluntary exercise.

There are two right-of-center news sources that have been recently blocked in the standard NextDNS "Porn" blocklist:

thepostmillennial.com – blocked since 2022-09-29

rss.infowars.com => rss.d.infowars.com – blocked since 2022-09-05

Again, I'd have no problem if these were included in a misinformation or disinformation blocklist, but including them in the Porn blocklist seems misleading to that blocklist's subscribers.

Three questions:

1. Has anybody else noticed other non-Porn sites being included in the Porn blocklist?

2. What is the most efficient way to find the actual blocklist (and ultimately that blocklist's support page or github) so I can file a query with them directly?

3. Would NextDNS be open to dropping this Porn blocklist in favor of another one if the list's maintainers refuse to review how these sites ended up being included?

Thanks in advance.

8 replies

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    • Calvin_Hobbes
    • 1 yr ago
    • Reported - view

    NextDNS relies on many third party lists.   Here’s the sources for the porn category 

    https://github.com/nextdns/metadata/blob/master/parentalcontrol/categories/porn.json

    It appears there’s 4 different lists included, plus some additions and subtractions from the NextDNS developers.    I don’t see the hosts you mention in the lists.   One of them appears to be 404 right now 

    Regardless, most false positives should be addressed with the list maintainers. 

      • NextDNS_Superfan
      • 1 yr ago
      • Reported - view

      Calvin Hobbes thanks, awesome reply.

      It's interesting that you can't find these hosts, is it possible that NextDNS doesn't pull from the master branch? Or that NextDNS pulls the latest lists infrequently?

      Attached are some screenshots showing what I see in my logs.

      • Calvin_Hobbes
      • 1 yr ago
      • Reported - view

      NextDNS Superfan yeah….I tried to find those two entries within the third party lists, but didn’t see them.   I didn’t put in too much effort though and one was 404.   I don’t use the porn filter myself.  

      Now if they wanted to create a new category for conspiracy theory sites, that would be fantastic by me.   I have RWNJ family members trying to convince me that stuff is legit 

    • A_drianne
    • 1 yr ago
    • Reported - view

    That's really interesting both those are right wing/conservative news sources... Im sure that was no accident

      • NextDNS_Superfan
      • 1 yr ago
      • Reported - view

      a_drianne well, there’s no proof of anything targeted, but yeah it’s at least an odd coincidence.

      I’m trying to think of a way to test whether “similar” sites are being flagged as porn. Any ideas?

      • Calvin_Hobbes
      • 1 yr ago
      • Reported - view

      a_drianne everything is a conspiracy, amirite?

    • g70p
    • 1 yr ago
    • Reported - view

    clean your host files in the windows etc\drivers\(you are being redirected somehow to porn sites). Not a nextdns missconfig I believe.. If not on windows (don't know how to help reinstall OS's

    • g70p
    • 1 yr ago
    • Reported - view

    "I’m trying to think of a way to test whether “similar” sites are being flagged as porn" - peerblock might help to determin ip's being called each request. ANyway if your host's files are clean run malwarebytes, might be root infection.

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Content aside

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