Monday 23 February 2009

Did you even know our internet was filtered?

The BBC reveals something I wasn't even aware of, which is that 95% of ISPs are blocking sites given to them on a fucking list by the government. They kept that one quiet.

Obviously, I've never encountered a problem, primarily because I've never wanted to look at child porn. I'd prefer it if that kind of stuff didn't exist, but the sad truth is that it does, and blocking it just drives it to other places (p2p, newsgroups, etc - which then would handily give them a way of stopping filesharing overnight, with the "but there's child porn on there" excuse). But does this not set a dangerous precedent? If 95% of ISPs are willing to block a list of "illegal" sites that his handed to them by the government, what's to stop "other" sites being blocked? Blogs? Anything that slags off Gordon calling him a one-eyed Scottish incompetent cunt (which he is) could probably be blocked under some sort of twisted Terrorism Act.

What other sites are on there? Is it just child porn, or are there other sites the government does not agree with? This is the stuff of Communist China.

Mind you, the Wikipedia article on the subject mentions:

Lawyers representing the British chemical firm Tate & Lyle PLC, manufacturer of the artificial sweetener Sucralose, have used UK libel laws to compel the US-based health activist Joseph Mercola to block Internet access, from the United Kingdom, to articles claiming that sucralose is harmful. If a UK user tries to access an article mentioning Sucralose on the Mercola website then the site instead displays a message with the text: 'Attorneys acting on behalf of the manufacturers of sucralose, Tate & Lyle PLC based in London, England, have requested that the information contained on this page not be made available to Internet users in England.'


Fuck me. I wish there was a list out there of what was blocked.

P.S. The Internet Watch Foundation are a bunch of cunts.

Update: Eircom have now agreed to block access to sites the Music Industry doesn't like. OK, it's Ireland, but the fact that their ISP is willing to bow down to a consortium of private fucking companies is an absolute farce.

Us next...

6 comments:

manwiddicombe said...

Is that the same Joseph Mercola that is mentioned on Quackwatch?

Not that it changes the story, but others might point to such information as a validating reason for doing so.

Henry North London 2.0 said...

Ive known about the Splenda thing for a year or more

Sucralose is a derivative of chlorine based sugar and it was found when they were looking at insecticides

AngryDave said...

It wont be long before they try to ban us looking at blogs like this. I think that communist china has become a role model for these bastards.

Anonymous said...

Chlorine-based sugar?

Henry, may I gently suggest that you go and talk to a chemist?

(And no, I do not mean a pharmacist - thought most of them probably know more about sugars than you evidently do)

banned said...

At least when the time comes Gordon will be able to buy filtery stuff straight from the Chinese instead of wasting shed loads of our money getting civil servants to devise it, or perhaps not.

Henry North London 2.0 said...

Sucralose is sucrose with chlorine added