Slashdot Mirror
UK Culture Secretary Wants Website Ratings, Censorship
kaufmanmoore writes "UK culture secretary Andy Burnham calls for a website rating system similar to the one used for movies in an interview with the Daily Telegraph. He also calls for censorship of the internet, saying, 'There is content that should just not be available to be viewed.' Other proposals he mentions in his wide-ranging calls for internet regulation are 'family-friendly' services from ISPs, and requiring takedown notices to be enforced within a specific time for sites that host content. Mr. Burnham wants to extend his proposals across the pond and seeks meetings with the Obama administration."
What do you mean "bring"? The UK already has a lot of censorship. The BBFC has been censoring media for quite some while.
The BBFC's job is classification, not censorship. It has no power to ban material or demand cuts in any material. It can withhold certification, but certification is only withheld where it's considered the material in question would breach the criminal law, usually the Obscene Publications Act.
It's worth noting that over the past 10-15 years the BBFC has trended towards permissiveness, granting certification to previously 'banned' films, often attracting the ire of politicians in the process and effectively pushing the boundaries of what can be considered (legally) obscene material.
It's also introduced the principle that artistic merit can be an overriding factor, such as a few years back when the German film Taxi Zum Klo was granted a certificate enabling it's broadcast on television, despite it containing a scene featuring actual urolagnia between two gay men.
Censorship is enshrined in law thanks to the likes of the Obscene Publications Act so any criticism should be directed at our politicians, not at a body which has no choice but to work with the law presented to it and which tries to be as liberal as possible within that law.
His idea seems to be (although he is being vague about it, probably on purpose) to have ISPs only allow access to sites (in context presumably meaning IP addresses) that have a certificate - one we can only assume has to be applied for.
If this is indeed what he is suggesting, its horrific. For crying out loud, Iran only operates blacklists. We would officially have worse Internet censorship than a nation that executes women for being victims of rape.
The reason totalitarian nations haven't tried a whitelist by the way, is the amount of work it requires. Of course, that may work to the advantage of the UK government. A slow process of being allowed to publish controversial material on the web would prevent non-government groups being able to react quickly to government abuse. By the time your web page got through the government approval (after your personal details have been lost a few times) the controversy has died down, government wins.
I don't want to live in a society where you need to apply to the government for permission to speak.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Not to be melodramatic, but computers and the Internet are probably the single-most important human acheivement in the past 1,000 years. Free communication has the power to transform our society from warring tribes to a true global civilization, concentrating efforts to better our lives. It's the first truly accessible bidirectional network (or "peer-to-peer" as corporate/government drones like to say).
It has the power to dislodge those who seek to position themselves between productive people (for tax or ideological control). These are people who don't produce anything useful; they are simply parasites on the system. Thus, the loss of a global communication network is of little negative consequence to them.
And these are their opening shots; thousands of petty little dictators from all walks of life (government, religion, busybodies, corporate) have zeroed in their guns and are beginning to fire. If they are not stopped, the end result will be disasterous. I did not spend the last 20 years of my life building another glorified cable TV entertainment network.
We, the technically inclined... the engineers who conceptualized, and then actualized this network... we hold the cards. We build and install the equipment, we write the software, and we understand what's at stake. We need to organize, and we need to do it now.
Perhaps a worldwide RBL that completely deletes a hostile force from the Internet, based on a vote. Australian government implementing a censorship plan? No packets to any subnet associated with the Australian government until those responsible are found and punished. New bill to restrict anonymity on the Internet, forcing people to use identifying information? Let's see how well that senator does without email. After all, if he gets his way - to damage our ability to communicate - should we not get ours?
Perhaps a worldwide union of engineers for a collective maintenance; all member engineer will refuse to cooporate with unethical requests (routing to censorship hardware, violating principles of net neutrality, etc), and the union will pay their salary, and assist in finding a new position, if they are terminated for insubordination. In any case, firing an engineer is expensive. Let's make these companies hurt.
The net routes around damage... yes. But nothing is invincible. If we fail to defend it, we lose everything. If a critical mass of governments succeed in inserting themselves as gatekeepers, we have lost. Not because secure communication will be impossible... nothing can stop the individual. But because it will stop the masses. And that's all they want.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC