UK: Web sites could be given "cinema-style age ratings"
The first step to government control and censorship?
"In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Andy Burnham says he believes that new standards of decency need to be applied to the web. He is planning to negotiate with Barack Obama's incoming American administration to draw up new international rules for English language websites. The Cabinet minister describes the internet as `quite a dangerous place' and says he wants internet-service providers (ISPs) to offer parents `child-safe' web services."
Source
Pornography is already being used by the Australian government as an excuse for a proposed new internet censorship system. Looks like the Brits are following suit.
8 comments:
Here's an idea. If you want to monitor the internet. Why not start with these Islamic terrorists sites first. You couldn't imagine the hate they spew on a daily basis.
These net nannies always want to sensor the ordinary person for 'politically incorrect" speech but won't touch the real haters on the net.
Personally I think they should keep their hands off the net entirely. But knowing our new Nanny-in-Chief they will follow the UK's lead on this.
Another right down the drain. Soon we will be just like Canada. Say the wrong thing to the wrong protected “minority” and you will he hulled off to the Human rights tribunal.
There is also an EU wide scheme under proposal in Brussels to require censorship of all "publications" by EU citizens.
Bloggers are explicitly targetted, but the wording is such that comments to blogs and posts to online forums would also be illegal unless OK'd by a censor and posted by someone with a license.
Don't make the mistake of blaming the politicians for what's coming. It is the fault of the people. When the people become weak and allow others to tell them what to think, the outcome is predictable. The weaker the people become, the more controls will be put on them. In the end, they will get exactly what they deserve.
I think this says it all, from the US Constitution:
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."
The question is "how would this system be used?" If a rating system is used to censor thoughts or content, then obviously it is wrong.
However, if it is used to give parents more information and allow them to control the sites their child visit, I have no issue with that.
Right now, we have the technology that allows parents to block certain television shows that are too violent or too explicit in their mind for their children.
If sites were rated like movies, television shows, video games and music, it would be another bit of information that allows parental control over what a child sees. I don't see that as a bad thing.
What would be morally and Constitutionally wrong is the government to start censoring the sites they feel are "wrong" or "offensive."
If my son is searching for how animals reproduce and inputs "horse sex," a software that blocks explicit beastiality sites based on a rating would be helpful to the parent and to the child in gaining the information they want. This scenario is why so many internet "filters" fail - they either block too much or too little.
It is a cause for concern when the government wants to limit information or thought. It should not be a concern if the government gives the average citizen MORE information to help in making the decisions the parent feels are morally and age appropriate for their children.
"Right now, we have the technology that allows parents to block certain television shows that are too violent or too explicit in their mind for their children."
sarcasm/on
What? You expect parents to get up off their fat asses and make sure their children aren't becoming sexual deviates. Isn't that the responsiblity of the schools, or maybe the state. It couldn't be the parents' job. How dare you suggest it might remotely be the parents responsiblity to raise their children.
sarcasm/off
Actually it's easier to filter TV shows than web site just due to the numbers of each involved.
you mean you want to leave it to the parents to raise their children?
Everyone knows that parents are utterly incapable of that, they don't have the necessary training and paperwork...
Psst, Nutcase, I believe that passage actually comes from the Declaration of Independence, not from the Constitution.
Post a Comment