The Department for Education’s consultation on parental internet controls (aka the Great Porn Firewall of Britain) closes tomorrow (that’s Thursday, September 6th). For those of you who’ve not been following this one, this is the proposal to make ISPs block pornography unless you specifically ask them not to. It’s one of those ill-thought-out “think of the children!” initiatives which make it look like the government is doing something while being both utterly ineffective and actively harmful.
The Open Rights Group has a campaign page which makes it easy for you to tell the government precisely what you think of the Great Porn Firewall of Britain, and even if you only write two sentences, I would still strongly encourage you to head over there and submit a consultation response before close of business on Thursday. If you need inspiration, mine’s below:
My response to the Department for Education Consultation on Parental Internet Controls
A copy of this email is going to my MP. I am raising my concerns about the proposal for network filtering of adult content and default blocking.
I would like to submit the following evidence:
The proposals for default blocking of certain content are ostensibly there to make it easier for parents to restrict their children’s access to online pornography. Yet this is a blanket measure which will in one way or another affect all 26 million households in the UK. According the government’s own data only 7.5 million of those households actually have dependent children living in them. This is clearly a vastly disproportionate measure.
Additionally, such mechanisms are unlikely to actually work, either at the micro and at the macro level. From an individual household’s point of view, blocking content at the point of internet connection ignores the fact that different members of the household have different content needs. Content filters also have a tendency to not be very effective at blocking the kind of content they are targeted at, while also often blocking content which is harmless.
The proposals are of particular concern to the LGBT community as simple information about different sexualities can often be blocked by such filters. For children and teenagers growing up and beginning to question their sexuality in an environment which is often still hostile, lacks positive role models and where bullying is rife, the internet can often be a lifeline to finding more information, talking about one’s experiences and finding a more accepting community. The blocking proposals put this lifeline at risk and thereby put children at risk.
Finally, blocking as proposed at the internet connection level is open to future misuse and abuse and opens the door to censorship of other material without adequate justification or oversight.