Greetings. Politicians make a lot of stupid and self-serving statements for political points. Now comes word that in the UK, politicos are calling for the blocking by default of all "porn" sites. They're supporting this inane concept with the bizarre and completely inaccurate assertion that ISPs have already successfully blocked child porn in some significant way. That's a completely ridiculous claim -- the removal or blocking of certain sites says little useful about the overall universe of such materials online, especially from well cloaked sites, or via non-Web-site movement of such items through other Internet channels -- all of which are known to continue largely unabated despite Internet blocking efforts.

By the way, who gets to decide which sites qualify as "porn"? The government? Concerned citizens? A newly constituted Morality League?

Given that Google can be handy in finding any information of interest -- including everything from porn to policy to potatoes, will the UK government suggest blocking of Google by default as well? No? Then their anti-porn system may have more than a few holes. Gosh darn it, search engines have this nasty habit of finding what people want, whether or not the government moralists and protectors of the faith approve.

Hmm. What about blocking YouTube? Lots of somewhat "unwholesome" material on there, too. That's what free speech is all about. Oops, forgot, we're talking about the UK. No worries about free speech guarantees there -- no pesky constitutional Bill of Rights to get in the way of Her Majesty's thought police. Though to be fair, it's not clear how much longer the Bill of Rights will be fully operative here in the States for that matter.

Yet to assume that you could block children (except for the very youngest) from accessing materials that they really want to see is living in Fantasyland. Kids will be the first to find workaround and proxy sites -- even if they have to set up their own! And most of the parents won't be the wiser.

This appears to all be leading (and the linked article hints at this) to the requirement that Internet users only be allowed to access by default an "approved" list of sites that have been guaranteed as cleansed by the government (might want to leave out most of those pesky political sites as well, right?)

Anyone wanting access to materials on the porn list (or other broader forbidden lists) would of course be closely watched as a known pervert and/or potential enemy of the state.

Cue the Ministry of Love.

--Lauren--