If there is God somewhere around us, he’s permitted pornography as a way of celebrating his creations! Right? Not according to the UK’s Christian “Mothers’ Union”, which is exactly as fun as it sounds: they’ve negotiated a porn blockade.
Under the new system, the Guardian reports, porn-seekers will have to manually opt-in to receive titillating websites — that’s right, they’ll be blocked by default. The initiative’s meant to keep little kids away from porn. Which, sure, probably isn’t a bad idea. But it’s a parent’s job, not a centralised opt-in server’s job.
This also means that adult customers of the four (large) ISPs affected — BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin — will have their names associated with the HELLO, YES, I’D LIKE TO MASTURBATE WITH MY COMPUTER list. The privacy risks here are huge. What if that list were to leak? It’s nothing to be ashamed of, but not something you want floating around, either. And in England, maybe now it is something to be ashamed of. [Guardian]
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