A couple of weeks ago the Parlament and the Prime Ministerin the United Kingdom began a debate over whether pornography should be automatically banned from the internet. The blocking would be at the network level and people would have to contact their Internet Service Providers (ISP) to opt in to the viewing of the adult images.
Google favors education over technical measures saying “We believe that children shouldn’t be seeing pornography online. We disagree on the mechanisms. It’s not that easy. There is a problem about the extent to which we deskill parents by giving them simple solutions.”
Sarah Hunter, Google’s head of public policy had this to say in regards to ISPs being criticized for not doing more to stop children from accessing pornography through the internet: “We should be making more effort than we’ve done in the past to make sure parents really do know the risks children face online.” But Google doesn’t believe that taking away legal pornography is the way.
There are serious worries that this automatic ban on pornography will eventually lead to censorship. “There is a world of difference between offering sensible child safety, and trying to persuade adults to live with layers of censorship,” said Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group.
Google has the problem of thinking that the UK has the freedoms that the United States has, when in reality the government there has a stranglehold on the people and can and will dictate what they must buy and what is appropriate for their citizens (see TV License). This act will happen, it is just a matter of when. Mostly because no one will come out and defend their right to watch pornography without sounding like a perv!