UK Websites to Be Age Rated
Andy, Andy, Andy.
Mr Burnham, Britain’s Secretary for culture, is not keen on the variety of scary stuff he finds on the internet when he searches for totally innocent sites in the name of research and he’s hoping to work with Obama to create ratings for websites.
Andy Burnham wants the US and UK governments to work together to police the internet to keep it safe for kids. In addition to his brilliant ratings idea, he also wants to force ISPs to offer services that only serve kid-friendly websites and “take-down times” that require sites to remove “harmful” content in a designated time period.
Beyond the obvious logistical problems here (Who rates the websites? What websites would assent to this? Where’s the line between kid-friendly and kid-unfriendly?), this is clearly an attack on freedom of speech rights.
Do you think this is a good idea? Do you think that this is plausible?
I agree that there have been some odd and unnerving things out on the interweb. But, to be honest you generally have to search for those things and if you do stumble onto something that you find displeasing then close the site down and, if you feel that offended and the site breaks the law – report it.
Why do we need another step into not thinking for ourselves?
