Regulating the web?
Posted by rantingkraut on November 17, 2008
New Labour’s Barbara Follett is quoted in the Guardian as saying that the internet needs to be regulated “the sooner the better”. She wants an ‘age identification card’ for online access and pre-screening of user generated contents uploads. Don’t expect things to stop there. Once the mode of delivery is regulated in a way to facilitate official oversight, expect directive regulation of contents next. Politicians are already complaining about the political opinions expressed in online commentaries. Given the lack of restraint the UK government has recently shown for traditional limits to power, there is no reason to expect that they wouldn’t go there. Directive regulation of contents, however, is simply censorship. Censorship usually starts by wanting to protect children and then moves on from there until the objective to protect anyone who might take offence.
HT: samizdata
UK Voter said
Of course this will end up being political censorship. The worrying thing is the Australians have already introduced a form of internet censorship, no doubt this Labour government will use that as an example of what we should be doing. The British public is on a slippery slope, we are witnessing more and more government intrusion and restrictions every day as further restrictive practices are added within the small print of every piece of legislation. Everyone needs to wake up to this and say NO!
The Web’s Wild West Days Are Gone « PSRK SEO EXPERT, search engine optimization, seo news, seo tools, seo trick, intenet marketing seo expert said
[...] The U.K. Culture Minister Barbara Follett “wants an ‘age identification card’ for online access and pre-screening of user-generated content uploads. Don’t expect things to stop there. Once the mode of delivery is regulated in a way to facilitate official oversight, expect direct regulation of content next,” a libertarian blog pointed out recently. [...]