Web Porn Being Banned in the UK – Government Seeking Control
I was told about this via Facebook and I could not believe it at first.
Apparently plans are afoot to ban all internet porn in the UK. Now, it’s not because I’m heavily into pornography that this comes as a shock; rather that the government is looking to control what we are able to access on t’internet.
The government is preparing to meet ISPs in January to discuss a requirement for users to specifically request access to porn rather than just being able to search for naughtiness using the engine of their choice.
Obviously the government are spinning this as being for the good of the children but, call me cynical, it just pangs of yet another governmental knee-jerk reaction to the whole WikiLeaks thing – if the government can get more control over the interwebs then they can better control what we get to see.
Conservative MP Claire Perry told the Sunday Times: “We are not coming at this from an anti-porn perspective. We just want to make sure our children aren’t stumbling across things we don’t want them to see.”
That is very noble and I don’t think that anyone is against that sentiment – but isn’t that the duty of the loving parents/guardians/teachers?
It’s of little surprise that this plan comes from the same Ed Vaizey who told the FT World Telecoms Conference that the Internet should be regulated, arguing that doing so was good for business, good for the economy and good for people”.
The other thing is – who determines what constitutes content as being pornography?
OK – some sites are blatantly explicit but would this blanket ban include academic sites discussing the subject? There are art and book forums which will discuss ‘pornographic’ works that may get banned in the same swipe as smuttyflith.com (that url isn’t taken by-the-way).
Are you happy about governmental censorship coming to what you browse? Are you fine with contacting your Internet Service Provider and asking for porn to appear on your puter?
Discuss (while we’re allowed to) below 😉
