UK Prime Minister David Cameron doesn’t have a clue about how the internet works, but that isn’t stopping his politician’s control freak nature from wanting to regulate it by his proposals to switch on adult content filtering by default.
Fortunately, the Open Rights Group and has posted a petition on its website to campaign against the PM’s dangerous idea. The text of the petition is as follows:
Dear David Cameron,
Everyone agrees that we should try to protect children from harmful content. But asking everyone to sleepwalk into censorship does more harm than good.
Filters won’t stop children seeing adult content and risks giving parents a false sense of security. It will stop people finding advice on sexual health, sexuality and relationships. This isn’t just about pornography. Filters will block any site deemed unsuitable for under 18s.
Please drop these plans immediately.
There are a number of problems with Cameron’s proposals as they stand. These include:
- “Set it and forget it” is the wrong message to send to parents. Filters will not stop children seeing adult content.
- Adult filters will not just block pornography. They also restrict access to sites deemed unsuitable for under 18s including information on alcohol and other drugs, forums, YouTube and controversial political views.
- When adults filters are in place, mistakes are made. Adult filtering can stop people accessing crucial advice on sexual health, sexuality and relationships.
- Adult filtering amounts to censoring legal content. The UK would be the only modern democratic society to do this (does the UK really want to emulate China, North Korea and Iran? Ed.). This sets a terrible example to other countries with interests in suppressing information.
Sign the ORG petition against Cameron’s proposals.
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