BT has issued a statement to Left Foot Forward apologising for any 'confusion' caused after we broke the news earlier today that their parental internet filters were allowing parents to block information relating to "gay and lesbian lifestyle websites".

BT has issued a statement to Left Foot Forward apologising for any ‘confusion’ caused after we broke the news earlier today that their parental internet filters were allowing parents to block information relating to “gay and lesbian lifestyle websites”.

The telecommunications and internet company blamed “an accidental mis-description” for filter settings which promised to block “gay and lesbian lifestyle websites”.

According to BT’s description, the filter also supposedly allowed parents to block information relating to “respect for a partner, abortion, gay and lesbian lifestyle, contraceptives, sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy”.

You can read the full story here.

The BT statement reads as follows:

“There has been an accidental mis-description of the way our parental controls operate. Some parents of very young children may wish to block sex education material. One of our optional filters does just that. It does not discriminate between heterosexual and LGBT content. We apologise for any confusion that has been caused. We shall revise the way we describe the optional sex education filters available for parents of very young children. The filters in question are not turned on by default, but are activated only if chosen by parents.”

Left Foot Forward is pleased that BT has acknowledged how offensive its original filter descriptions were and that it will be re-writing them.

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