Porn For All In UK?

British Government Rejected Online Porn Ban

The UK government has recently rejected demands that ISPs install automatic filters on porn material online to protect the kids. After a joint consultation of the Department and Education and Home Office, the ministers have agreed that broadband providers won’t be required to put default blocks on porn content, and the responsibility should lie with parents.

During the consultation, there were suggestions for a process whereby users would have to “opt in” if they wanted to see adult content, instead of being freely available for any users to access. But the report delivering the government’s response to the consultation read that broadband providers would continue to use a so-called “active choice” system employed by such providers as BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media. The system involves encouraging parents to set certain controls on specific content instead of being putting it under the remit of the provider.

The consultation in question revealed that only about 1/3 of parents would back the placement of default blocks to be enforced by Internet service providers, but it wasn’t deemed high enough by the authorities to warrant blocking of content for all Internet users.

The report in question also emphasized the difficulties in actually enforcing the blocks, with an overzealous approach also filtering out content pertaining to such topics as sexual health, while failing to block all the porn video on the Internet. Privacy advocates also criticized the proposals. For instance, Big Brother Watch claimed that the authorities have taken measured approach to the situation. The outfit pointed out that the proposal recognizes that it is parents, not the government, who are responsible for controlling what their kids can find on the web and rightly avoids any kind of state-mandated blocking of legitimate material. Moreover, the companies are already responding to demand from the parents who want to see filters.