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Posted by on Jul 27, 2013 in Culture, In the news, Law | 1 comment

More on Cameron’s clean feed

Why am I not surprised that the proposals in the UK for internet censorship (with an opt in if you want a dirty feed) seem to go far beyond child pornography or even hard-core pornography in general – if we go off this Wired story? Just as happened in Australia with the clean feed proposal that so many of us argued and lobbied against, there appears to be all sorts of scope creep going on in the UK. Check out what is being claimed by the Open Rights Group, apparently based on discussions with ISPs that are in the know.

We need to be cautious about claims that are based on hearsay and are nowhere near properly documented, so I await further evidence of what exactly is planned in the UK, but this information is certainly consistent with the path was taken by the recent, similar proposals in Australia. At this stage, it sounds credible to me. In any event, such scope creep is all too likely with these sorts of schemes, whatever might be the current plans. The “clean feed” proposal was bad policy in Australia, and it is bad policy in the UK. These sorts of policies require vigilance and opposition wherever they are pursued.