sparkindarkness | UK government censoring internet porn

So the Tories and their mini-mes are looking at censoring all the nasty porn from the net for the sake of the children.

They wish to block all “sex sites” for everyone in the UK and rather than opt out of them, force you to opt in to them if you wish access.

First of all, I don’t recall either of these parties campaigning on controlling what media I consume. I’m pretty sure absolutely no-one voted for that. But I expect little else from the Tories and their sidekicks.

I’m going to put aside the whole issue of the fact that if parents are really hair-on-fire terrified of their little 7 year olds surfing the web and looking at the nekked sexing then maybe, just maybe, they would want to take precautions themselves

I’m even going to put aside the idea that kids are so utterly traumatised by the porno because I’m not convinced on that one either, to be honest.

No, I’m going to look at these web filters and what nasty, poisonous things they are.

These filters filter out sex. And STDs. And sexuality. And gays and lesbians and bisexuals and trans people and anyone else who is LGBTQ. Want to find information about testicular cancer or breast examinations? Hmmm could be difficult. These filters are often so grossly wide that even “it gets better” videos are being censored.

In fact, anyone following my constant bad news round ups will see that there has been a repeated theme of net providers, libraries, mobile phone providers, wireless providers and even Amtrack in the US blocking completely non-pornographic websites if they presumed to include anything GBLTQ related – including sites like Pink News. Gods, there’s a current kaffufle now because Google was having a snit about adverts for “Queers in History”A series of completely non-sexually graphic biographies – because they’re not “family friendly.” Yeah, guess how pornographic they are?

I do not trust the UK government or the technological gurus behind the ISPs, even remotely, to implement this in a way that won’t censor huge swathes of the GBLTQ internet to say nothing of the various other sites on everything from health to sex education.

And no, allowing people to “opt in” to porn will not cover this problem. People shouldn’t have to opt in to pornographic content in order to access blogs by gay people, news about gay people or adverts selling books about us. We’re not something obscene to censor, damn it and our lives do not belong in brown paper envelopes.
And, even aside from the principle, the kids who need this info, who need to find the gay community, who need to reach these sites, this information should not have to go to their parents and ask for access to hardcore porn to do it!

I do not for a second think that this law could be brought in without doing severe harm to us – nor do I think bigoted Equalities Minister Theresa May or her Igor, Lyn Featherstone would realise or care about the damage or act upon it.

In short, this law is going to be a trainwreck and, worse, it’s one of those laws that is likely to pass as everyone wails about the children and those nasty nasty pornographers.