‘Something Very Wrong In The UK’
July 30th, 2013Via: New Zealand Herald:
A new law will require ISPs block objectionable online content by default. Although there is an option to opt-out, anyone wanting the filter removed will need to contact their ISP to ask that it be switched off.
Censorship proponents argue that the filter isn’t a bad thing – keeping ones family safe from dodgy online content can only be a good thing right? The filter can also be turned off – even if that does mean an embarrassing call to your ISP.
Sadly it just isn’t that simple. Although there’s lots of examples of objectionable online content, the term objectionable is so hopelessly broad that it could encompass all manner of seemingly harmless content. Already reports are surfacing that the filter will block way more content than just the adult content that was originally talked up by the UK government.
Worse still, the arbiter of what is objectionable appears to be the UK government, which scarily has the potential for some nightmarish Orwellian form of social control.
This may all sound like the stuff of nutty conspiracy theories, but the reality is that it wouldn’t be too much of a reach for the Brit government to legislate for the removal of the “opt-out” component of the filter, or to deem anti-government websites as objectionable.
