At his press conference yesterday Gordon Brown gave an indiciation that he had some plans for the Internet especially given concerns about pornography and all the nasty "inaapropriate content" as it is euphemistically called these days. That moral compass of his is clearly twicthing.
We shouldn't panic though, as Brown said that he was "not interested in censorship at all, but I think we do need rules governing some aspects of the internet". At some point I hope that one of his civil servants points out that we alreayd rules governing the Internet and it is very much self-regulating, and quite bloody good at it actually.
The network transcends national borders of course, so the idea that you can have legislative governance is largely absurd unless you start restricting access to the network, in which case, guess what, you are talking about censorship, and the side issue of concern there was eloquently pointed out by Guido the other day.
I would imagine that, for a son of the Manse with a strong moral compass, as we are so often reminded, it';s not just the incomprehensibly wrong things that happen online in relation to children, but also pornography in general.
After all, his Government is trying to criminalise the possession of all manner of pornographic material that it considers morally unsound but is often between consenting adults. So why wouldn't he be willing to promiote a bit of Net censorship too?
All this talk of inappropriate content and the Government's decision to try and ban us from what it has decided is extreme does make me chuckle when it's placed against figured released under Freedom of Information about civil servants being caught looking at less than savoury things on the office computers at the Treasury and the Education Ministry over the past number of years.
Over at Brown's old department of the Treasury they've had 12 cases of people looking at "inappropriate content" since 2000 resulting in 2 resignations and 1 sacking, and other assorted disciplinary action. Now ok, that's not a lot you may say, but the Department for Children, Schools and Families (formerly Education and Skills) has managed to beat the Treasury by a factor of well..... a lot.
According to figures I received yesterday, since 2000 there have been 87 cases where breaches of Internet use policy, which basically covers looking at either three things, illegal software/hacks, porno, or distasteful content have occured. These incidnets have results in 18 dismissals, and 11 resignations (the rest discplinar).
How ironic that the department for children, which is presumably one of the key players in devising any strategy and policy to protect children online should be firing and/or experiencing a resignation because of its staff looking at dodgy Internet sites at a rate of three a year.
Even some of the biggest blue chips don't manage that sort of level of porn browsing on company time!
Note: The figures do not include email misuse.
3 comments:
" Strong Moral Compass" almost inevitably leads to the Inquisition and Gulag - remember that when someone tells you its a good idea.
That report doesn't break down what exactly constitutes "inappropriate content" does it....?
Because some Departments are very enthusiastic with their banning, sweeping up all manner of legitimate sites. I happen to know of one that bans Adobe's home website because 'you can download stuff from it'.
Its a shame that the number of civil servants viewing porn is so low. Far better for them to be getting their rocks off on porn than finding yet more things to ban.
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