MPs not satisfied with the intrusion into our private lives so far want to go further (well, ain’t that a surprise?).
A cross-party parliamentary inquiry into how safe children are online has concluded the government and internet service providers need to do more.
It found that children were easily accessing pornography and websites showing extreme violence.
The inquiry called on the government to back moves for stronger filters of adult content.
Forget porn for a moment for that is just the Trojan Horse these fuckers are using in their quest for ever more control. This is about control of our lives, about micromanagement and the “protecting the children” argument is the usual one wheeled out when the puritans want to make another grab at our personal liberties. And, besides, who will mind if the porn industry suffers, eh? Martin Niemöller eat your heart out.
As I said, porn isn’t the issue here. You see, even if you don’t have children, they still want you to have the filters – unless you tell them otherwise, in which case you have just identified yourself to them as unclean.
Conservative MP and chairwoman of the Independent Parliamentary Inquiry on Online Child Protection Claire Perry said: “Our inquiry found that many children are easily accessing internet pornography as well as websites showing extreme violence or promoting self-harm and anorexia. This is hugely worrying.”
If this is anything like the other studies we are frequently bombarded with in an attempt to justify yet more illiberal impositions, then we can take this one with the proverbial pinch of salt, too. And if children really are looking at this stuff in their droves, then I blame the parents.
“While parents should be responsible for their children’s online safety, in practice people find it difficult to put content filters on the plethora of internet-enabled devices in their homes, plus families lack the right information and education on internet safety,” she added.
No. It is entirely the parents’ responsibility and absolutely none of the government’s business, despite the puritans and busybody MPs with nothing better to do thinking otherwise. Parents and parents alone are responsible for what their children watch – and there is a plethora of software available to them to apply whatever filters they choose.
ISPs must take more responsibility, both in providing internet safety education and appropriate filters, she said.
No, they should not. They provide a service they are not there to take responsibility that is in the parents’ domain any more than those busy bodying MPs are.
The MPs also recommended that the government appoint an internet safety tsar.
Oh, fer cryin’ out loud! Like we haven’t got enough of our money being pissed up the wall by these binge legislators? Mind you, it’s not as if we are in the middle of a recession and have to watch the pennies, I suppose…
What we need is a government reduction tsar.
Agreed. I covered this on my blog, too. I do think it’s deliberately diversionary though. I think they’re trying to get people to not focus on the larger issues we face, like our collapsing economy. I also suggest that we should “Vote Them All Out.” Seriously.
So…
If you want to look at a bit of porn you have to phone a call centre in Mumbai to get permission?
That said, I’d be happy to take on this new role of Internet Safety Tsar. I wouldn’t require payment, I’d do it out of the joy I’d derive from examining all that questionable material, I mean, it would need to be checked wouldn’t it…
Amazingly Perry is stupid enough where this “policy” will go. After using the trojan horse of kids seeing porn to get the filters in, she will then move swiftly onto “extreme” violent sites (whatever that is defined as, but they’ll probably get Ester Rantzen to define it), then self harming, then anorexia… and then what?
Anything racist, anything homophobic, anything anti-green policy, anything anti-Olympics, anything anti-Mumsnet?
It is a slippery slope. You are right about where the responsibility lies. Clare Perry has demonstrated herself unsuitable to be trusted as an MP, based on such knee-jerk and poorly reasoned “something must be dones” as this.
What is it with the use of the word, ‘Tsar’, these days?
The russian title could be down it all being Communism “hiding in plain sight”….or could be that they think it makes them sound all kinda fancy-schmancy like. 🙄
Most particularly anything anti-“olympic”
After all we KNOW, don’t we that TEAM GAMES are good for you and everyone loves them …..
And any protest will get you jailed (oh they already did that, didn’t they? )
This sort of thing is already happening I’m afraid.
I have a Vodaphone Dongle to use when I visit my mum in Cardiff. It’s pay as you go and pretty pathetic at the best of times (dial up speed). Well I’m sat in mum’s front room and checking my spam filter when I came across an email from Ann Summers. Oh ok I said to myself, let’s see what overpriced shoddy goods they have on display for the sex starved. Well guess what? Vodaphone wouldn’t let me open it! Yes I had to ring someone somewhere for permission. Well I couldn’t be arsed, but even so. Oh and another thing. Counting Cats, as do most blogsites have a blogroll that links to various sites. Well again when at my mum’s I tried to link to Biased BBC, to see what they were up to, and again was blocked and had to ask permission. Insidious or what?
Now that you mention it…I’ve a BB Torch on Vodafone that wouldn’t let me visit some blogs or news sites at first though I never bothered ringing them to ask permission.
Not had a problem for a while so I’m wondering if your internet habits are tracked for a while to ascertain your probable age then allowed automatically.
Or I could just be paranoid 🙄
Strong with them, the Force is…
On a more serious note, my Orange dongle wouldn’t let me access my webmail account until I got them to remove the filter. So the filtering system is somewhat odd, to say the least.
Hello, is that talk talk?
Ah, good. Would you mind just turning off my filter for the morning as young Saddam is at flamethrower practice with his Mum and I’m absolutely dying for a great big juicy WANK!
Thanks awfully. Ta-ta!
“What we need is a government reduction tsar”.
One will not be holding ones breath for that appointment to be made. Reduce government? The very idea.
😈