This is a new section for 2014 to discuss the introduction into Britain of a parental control system. The stated political objective of the parental control system is to prevent children from being able to access 'adult' content. However, there are many problems with the implementation, which appears to be ill-thought through and potentially unlawful.

The general assumption would be that 'adult' content relates to that which previously has been known as 'X' rated and pornographic. However, the system is being introduced without any clear criteria and the implementation is known to be blocking many ordinary  websites which contain content that does not fall into either of those categories.

The British parental control system has been introduced as a mandatory national measure, and is being made a  compulsory defaul for all adults subscribing to an Internet service. It therefore serves to block content to a large group of the population who arguably do not need to be protected.

If you like the articles in this section and you are interested in policy-making and the Internet, you may like my books A Copyright Masquerade: How Corporate Lobbying Threatens Online Freedoms and The Copyright Enforcement Enigma - Internet Politics and the ‘Teecoms Package’