Reigning in the internet

Culture Secretary Andy Burnham wants us to "think of the children!"

The Cabinet minister describes the internet as "quite a dangerous place" and says he wants internet-service providers (ISPs) to offer parents "child-safe" web services.

Giving film-style ratings to individual websites is one of the options being considered, he confirms. When asked directly whether age ratings could be introduced, Mr Burnham replies:"Yes, that would be an option. This is an area that is really now coming into full focus."

Would these age ratings apply to an entire site, or to individual pages? Would they apply to, say, newspaper sites?¹ How, exactly, will this help with english-language content hosted in the United States?²

Mr Burnham's internet equivalent of the British Board of Film Classification is going to be awfully busy.

ISPs, such as BT, Tiscali, AOL or Sky could also be forced to offer internet services where the only websites accessible are those deemed suitable for children.

So if your house has an internet connection that is shared between the kids and the parents, how will that work, exactly? Short of reintroducing an AOL/Compuserve-style walled garden where they directly control all content displayed, how can an ISP possibly guarantee that an internet connection is child-safe?

He also says that the Government is considering changing libel laws to give people access to cheap low-cost legal recourse if they are defamed online.

Legal recourse that is "cheap" is, pretty much by definition, not going to involve lawyers and magistrates and court hearings and what have you. Presumably this means placing some sort of obligation on ISPs to take down content unless they're absolutely confident it isn't going to be considered defamatory. Alternatively, perhaps police will be given the power to dispense simple, speedy, summary justice (NB: link is to PDF file) by handing out Fixed Penalty Notices to people who own a website someone has complained about.

It's also worth noting that Burnham justifies all this by citing concerns about "content, harmful content, and copyright.". Presumably whatever infrastructure he envisages for producing a 'child-safe' internet also be expected to produce a libel-free internet that contains no unauthorised copies of copyrighted material.

So, it's a walled garden for every hard-working family in the UK…

1. Will we one day see a child-safe version of The Sun online? ↩
2. The article suggests that Burnham will be talking with the Obama administration about this idea. Good luck with that. ↩