How the UK Minister for Culture & Media justifies web censorship
May 5th, 2011A paragraph taken from a letter written by (or on behalf of) the Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, to a Member of the UK Parliament, who had expressed their voters’ concerns over the government’s moves to encourage ISPs to block websites aimed ‘primarily’ at copyright infringement:
“Many users of infringing sites may be unaware that the sites they are viewing carry content unlawfully, and they may find it useful for such unlawful sites to be less readily available.”
Just… wow. Orwell would be proud of such a literary creation. I thought previous New Labour governments were Big Nanny, but this is just absurd. A website owner does not have full rights to the words on the website. Please, Mr ISP, take an active and detailed concern in what websites I visit, and save me from the commercial horror!
Full letter available from its eventual recipient, Matthew Temple (http://www.mattytemple.com/)