The United Kingdom has, in the past, been notoriously difficult on Internet pornography. There’s even a Wikipedia page dedicated to their anti-pornography movement, if that’s any indication. A recent campaign sought to automatically block all pornographic content from being accessed by residents of the U.K. unless they explicitly told their ISP they wanted access. That surely wouldn’t have been entirely awkward. “Greetings, company that provides my Internet. I would like access to porn, thanks.” Thankfully, ministers have rejected this proposed filter.
The person leading the movement, Claire Perry, was “disappointed” by the outcome, even though public consultation found that only 35% of parents wanted an automatic block. It is, of course, terribly unfortunate when the public actually doesn’t want what the government wants it to want. We joke, but she did tell BBC News something similar:
Clearly [the filter] was not the preferred choice of the 3,500 people who responded to the consultation and we have to base policy on what’s been received not what we want.
Yes, you do have to base policy on what’s been received, not what you want.
Though they rejected the automatic filter, which would have required folks to opt-in to pornography, the U.K. government did say they want service providers to “encourage parents to switch on parental controls.” What form this might take in the future is unclear, but at least it’s not full outright censorship. So, there’s that.
- Porn-only search engine sees 50% traffic boost after Google institutes stronger porn filters
- The filters don’t appear to be all that effective though
- The Russian version of iTunes had massive porn problems
