Oliver Rawlings
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Tuesday, 11 March 2014

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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