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Online Protection Bill becomes "Censorship Bill"
Feb 11 2013 10:32 PM |
Malcolm Boura
in Censorship
Originally the Bill proposed that children should be blocked from access to pornography and pornography was defined as material intended to be sexually arousing. This was all perfectly reasonable; however amendments have been proposed which at first sight are perfectly reasonable and unfortunately far too many people won't think any further. This is the information I received from the Open Rights Group 11February 2013.Online Safety Bill: As with the Defamation Bill, amendments have been moved for the Online Safety Bill. Baroness Benjamin has put forward an amendment which would change the definition from 'pornographic images' to 'adult content', thus bring it under the terms of the Communications Act 2003. Lord Morrow has also moved an amendment which would insert 'at an age appropriate level' past the word 'content'.
The new line in the Bill would now read;"Manufacturers of electronic devices must provide customers with a means of filtering adult content at an age-appropriate level from an internet access service at the time the device is purchased ."
The danger here is the lack of any definition of what the words "adult" and "appropriate" actually mean. There are several shortcomings in this Bill that absolutely must be addressed:
- Appropriate must be defined on evidence and facts, not emotion, myth, and prejudice;
- Classification must be evidence based;
- Emotion and prejudice are not evidence;
- Over-blocking is just as serious as under-blocking, both result in serious harm;
- It must be clear which filters provide protection and which ones support prejudice and may be harmful;
- Freedom of Expression is important and must be protected;
- Blocking of web sites that are not harmful to children is libel;
- Blocking web sites without justification is just as much censorship as preventing the publication of a newspaper.
- There must be a practicable means to find out if blocked and to contest the blocking.
Letter writing to MPs is a priority
The Bill Team
BN has set up a team to tackle the shortcomings of this bill. Please contact via the RLO, Malcolm Boura. rlo@bn.org.uk
- Johnros, simon.edwards, Nick Evetts and 2 others like this
3 Comments
Should anyone be unsure of the name of the local MP, then a visit to the website http://www.theyworkforyou.com and enter your postcode in the box.
if seeing naked bodies is bad for us for some reason then the more that you see the worse it is censors have to see lots of them they must be completly bad and we must be protected from censors.