[letmein]

A conservative member of the British Parliament has made a move to block all pornography from reaching Internet subscribers in the UK.

The British government plans to meet with Internet service providers in the country next month to discuss the idea of censoring all Internet connections and requiring users to specifically request access to pornographic materials from their ISPs.

Not surprisingly, children are being trotted out as the reason for this mass censorship. Said Conservative MP Claire Perry to the Sunday Times, “We are not coming at this from an anti-porn perspective. We just want to make sure our children aren’t stumbling across things we don’t want them to see.”

It’s a slippery slope the British government will be navigating here. Who will decide precisely what porn is? Will ISPs be required to install bare-skin-detecting software, and if so, who will pay for that? Will instructional videos such as breast-feeding demonstrations be considered porn? And how will British subjects feel about adding their names to a list of people who specifically asked for access to pornography?

Even though the Internet Service Providers’ Association in the U.K. said it would be expensive and difficult to block porn, the British government is pressing for this action.

One other question: Wouldn’t it be better for parents to be the ones who decide what their children can and cannot watch rather than the government? Where are the parents in this equation?

What a mess. Let’s just hope this insanity doesn’t spread across the world. We can be slightly reassured knowing that European ISPs are slightly more radical than their stateside counterparts when it comes to censorship.

http://mashable.com/2010/12/19/uk-porn-ban/