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UK Government Wants "Unsavory" Web Content To Be Removed

Posted by samzenpus on from the won't-somebody-please-think-of-the-children? dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The UK minister for immigration and security, James Brokenshire has called for the government to do more to deal with 'unsavoury', rather than illegal, material online. 'Terrorist propaganda online has a direct impact on the radicalisation of individuals and we work closely with the internet industry to remove terrorist material hosted in the UK or overseas,' Brokenshire told Wired.co.uk in a statement."

9 of 250 comments (clear)

  1. Fascists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Enough said.

    1. Re:Fascists by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In other news, most of Britain wants the UK Government to be removed and replaced by people who are not asshats. Unfortunately, it turns out that nobody who is not an asshat can be persuaded to want the job.

    2. Re:Fascists by causality · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In other news, most of Britain wants the UK Government to be removed and replaced by people who are not asshats. Unfortunately, it turns out that nobody who is not an asshat can be persuaded to want the job.

      In yet other news ... here's an idea! If you are concerned about propaganda causing your citizens to become "radicalized", why not take the most effective steps possible to prevent that? Create the most sane, free, reasonably run society in which civil rights are sacrosanct, all of the laws are sensible, and all of the laws are equally enforced.

      You'll find that far fewer of the citizens would ever want to do anything to oppose that. It's more effective than playing whack-a-mole with an ever-growing list of terrorists.

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
  2. Rember that porn filter by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Welcome to the slippery slope. First porn for the children, then illegal torrents, now what ever they feel like banning enjoy your fascism, And remember big brother GCHQ is watching.

    --
    ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
  3. Sure, let's lose the unsavoury stuff. by Badger+Nadgers · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Sure, let's lose the unsavoury stuff. 1) Politics 2) Religion 3) Bankers 4) Advertising

  4. Re:Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Been in the UK in the last 50 years? They've got ludicrous bureaucracies for *everything*. There are reasons that "1984" and "V for Vigilante" were set there, and that London has the highest percentage of government mandated CCTV/capita. Note also that they don't actually *use* the CCTV's to fight crime. They use them for bureaucratic monitoring, such as insisting that people pay the tax for cars in London, or that they park correctly. They're not used for pickpocketing, luggage theft, or even prosecuting vandals. (Those personal crimes are not considered "important enough" to justify checking the video records. Been there, done that.)

    Having yet another bureaucracy means more control of political discussion, pure and simple.

  5. headline != article by tomhath · · Score: 5, Insightful

    UK Government Wants "Unsavory" Web Content To Be Removed

    The UK minister for immigration and security, James Brokenshire has called for the government to do more...

    One bureaucrat suggesting the government should do more to flag YouTube videos is not the same as the UK Government wanting to actually do it.

    1. Re:headline != article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      The minister is not a bureaucrat. I can't tell whether you don't know what a "bureaucrat" is, or whether you don't understand the UK's political structure

      James Brokenshire is a politician. So a bunch of people vote for James, rather than the other options they were given, to represent them in the Commons, the elected part of the Parliament of the UK. Then, David Cameron - also a politician, and the leader of the biggest political party in the Commons, thus Prime Minister - selected James to be in charge of immigration and security. The actual people running immigration and security are all bureaucrats, but the guy at the top of the pile, deciding what to do, rather than doing it is the Minister, James, who is a politician.

      Now, "immigration and security" has bugger all to do with the Internet, so you are correct that James' opinion is not magically UK Government policy, but it's a mistake to say he's just a "bureaucrat". James gets to make policy, albeit not directly on this subject.

  6. Oh yeah, wasn't that the filter... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...designed by an advisor who was later arrested for CP?

    ...in a country whose government has collected a million pictures of naked Americans cyber-webcamming on Yahoo?

    ...that has one surveillance camera for every 11 people in the country?

    ...whose brilliant standards of morality lead to the persecution and destruction of everyone from Oscar Wilde to Alan Turing?

    Fuck you, James Brokenshire. How's that for unsavory?