UK Prime Minister More Interested In Regulating The Internet Than Regulating Porn

from the the-internet-is-for-smiling-politely dept

By the end of next year, every person connected to the internet in the UK will be subject to a government-mandated porn filter. The filter will be on by default at the ISP level, and if subscribers wish to be unblocked, they have to contact their providers by the end of this year and opt-in. Otherwise, it's gone.



Prime Minister David Cameron also recently made a series of unintelligible statements aimed at search engines, claiming they were the third part of a "triangle" that "enabled" child porn producers to find an audience. His proposed "solution" was to make search engines (and ISPs) filter the web and search results according to a government-approved blacklist. These bold "for the children" statements ignored the fact that both ISPs and search engines already actively block illegal images and supply info on these images to investigative agencies.



Cameron has had a hard-on hatred for porn for quite some time. But when recently cornered about the Sun's notorious Page 3 topless photos, he revealed his porn concerns are strictly limited to the Wild West Internet.

David Cameron has said he would never support a ban on topless images on page 3 of the Sun newspaper, as he set out plans for greater regulation of online pornography.



Pressed to explain the distinction between his proactive position on online pornographic images and his laissez-faire stance on topless images in newspapers, he said that it was up to consumers whether or not they wanted to buy the Sun.



"This is an area where we should leave it to consumers to decide, rather than to regulators," he said in an interview on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour.

"We have to always ask the question where should we regulate and where shouldn't we regulate, and I think on this one I think it is probably better to leave it to the consumer," Cameron said. "In the end it's an issue of personal choice whether people buy a newspaper or don't buy a newspaper."

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So, what's the distinction? Why should some offensive images be regulated and others graciously allowed to be subject to consumers' desires?If that question actually gets asked as often as Cameron makes it sound, I'd be surprised. And if it does, the first question receives a lion's share of the affirmative answers. And he's right, ita personal choice if people decide to purchase a newspaper containing gratuitous nudity. It'sa personal choice if people decide they'd rather have unfiltered access to the web. But only one of these choices is being actively limited by the guiding hand of government.If Cameron wants to be against porn, then he should be consistent in his views. If he wants to be for letting the public decide, then he should do that across the board. Hypocrisy is annoying enough without the weight of a government mandate behind it.It could be argued that "opting-in" for open online access to porn is equivalent to making the decision to purchase the Sun, thus leaving the fate of both strictly in the consumers' hands. But this argument is wrong, even if the difference between the two is barely noticeable to the consumer. Dropping a mandatory porn filter on ISPs adds an extra expense and a regulatory/liability burden these companies didn't have previously. Associated costs will be passed along to subscribers and whenever something goes wrong with the filtering software, it will be the ISP,the government, that has to deal with it.Meanwhile, porn is available at newsstands (and browsed at the parliamentary estate), unrestricted by Cameron's anti-porn crusade and free from regulation. Choosing to ignore one form while using the other as a whipping boy just sends the message that Cameron's more interested in controlling the internet than solving the porn "problem."

Filed Under: david cameron, internet, porn, regulations, uk