The British government put a new scheme
blocking certain websites from being accessed into place which officially began
on 1st January 2014. A month later and people are already up in arms
about what this ban is doing to their right to surf the net. With this in mind
we ask was there any point in the first place?
Have you encountered this ban Oliver Rawlings
readers? The chances are that you will; the funny thing is that unless you’re a
regular viewer of illicit websites (not judging if you do) then you shouldn’t
have.
So this brings up the question, if you don’t
view these websites then why are you coming up to banned webpages. It was never
meant to actually be this way; however it looks like the people who have
carried out this policy have made some mistakes.
The policy was brought in by the coalition
government to curb access to porn. Basically Cameron introduced legislation that
required internet providers to block porn and other controversial websites.
However there’s more to the policy.
Naturally the ban was put in place to protect
children; they’re too young to legally be viewing such content anyway. However
many have argued that it’s a sort of shaming device. This is because you have
to contact the internet provider to have the ban removed.
However it’s had unintended consequences. This
ban was only supposed to effect websites with content viewed as a risk. However
ever since the ban has been put into place, it has effected a whole host of
websites that nobody could ever consider harmful.
It’s blocked access to harmless sites such as
the BBC and there’s another unintended consequence. It’s blocking access to
sites that provide help and education such as sex education websites and LGBT
rights websites.
It’s clear to see how this has happened; these
types of sites, whilst not gratuitous, do have content that is in some way
linked to adult issues. However it’s clear that there are people out there who
need access to these types of websites to get the type of information they need
to make sure they stay safe.
So in this way the ban hasn’t worked. Would it
ever have done really? I can see where David Cameron was coming from; however
blocking these sites is a violation of freedom of speech, even if it is a
somewhat minimal one. Should we ever be encouraging a restriction to freedom of
speech in a democratic society?
So Oliver Rawlings readers it’s not a question
I’ve got an answer to. What is clear is that the current system definitely
isn’t working and it needs to be reformed. Only time will tell where it all
goes from here.
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