Gov wants to make the UK the 'safest place in the world to go online' The government has today announced a “major new drive on internet safety” for which it will enlist the world's largest technology companies in order to make the UK the “safest place in the world for young people to go online.” Going online is serious business for young people, who can now encounter every flavour of evil that …
From being exposed to ideas the government doesn't want you to know about. I have to say, I never expected that fascism in this country would have a geography degree from Oxford, or that its puppet in the Home Office would have had, as a claim to fame, the job of "aristocracy co-ordinator" on Four Weddings and a Funeral (unless this is a very good joke by a Wikipedia editor.)
It sounds like the bubble-wrapped Internet with comprehensive logging is becoming mandatory.
What's wrong with configuring your own parental control software or setting your own router rules? Apart from the government not deciding what is safe and what isn't and not logging everything, obviously.
So...where do parents fit in all this? Because they bloody well should do parenting.
So, pensions screwed, people working till they are in their 80s, elderly care screwed, nhs on its knees, cuts everywhere, energy costs rising, divided nation, lack of workers rights, subsidised wages because somehow a decent wage is an affront to ukplc.
"But hey - lets tackle something else that we know we can't actually fix and lets fail at this too."
UK Gov - take a step back. Get out of your collective arses and do some actual proper governing as opposed to silly policies that you think will get you public opinion, but will end up just costing taxpayer more for less.
Your comment should be forcibly tattooed on the forehead of every single member of parliament. Can we setup a Kickstarter campaign to raise the money to do this?
MPs: Tossers every one of them - either for doing the wrong thing, or for being ineffectual in opposing the apparently universal shit-headedness of all recent governments.
"Whats wrong with doing something with your kids other than sticking them in front of a computer?"
What's wrong with sticking them in front of a computer? It's no different from sticking them in front of a TV, or sticking them in front of a book, or any of numerous other activities. There's plenty of both fun and education to be had in all kinds of places. The important thing, as always, is that they need appropriate education and supervision. Throwing your kids out the house to hang around smoking on a street corner for hours on end every day isn't a great idea, but that doesn't mean we ban the outdoors. Similarly, sticking them in front of a computer to do whatever they like with no supervision for hours on end every day is a bad idea, but that doesn't mean banning computers is the solution.
If anything, given how important computers and programming are, not sticking your kids in front of a computer from time to time is practically neglect - how are they supposed to function in the modern world if they never learn to use such important and ubiquitous tools?
@Dan 55
"What's wrong with configuring your own parental control software ... "
Because my children and their partners wouldn't have a Scooby. In any case I suspect my 8 year old grandchild can get around any blocks they put in place. Often said but none the less true. I can offer only limited help, sometimes I get the "Dad's got his tinfoil hat on again" look.
Fortunately they are able to make sure that their children get the correct advice and help about social media etc. They will see nothing wrong with the government mandating blocks on content - partly because they understand their technical limitations in this area and because they have already sold their soul to Google, Facebook etc. It is just part of normal life to them.
My first thought too. And that's just what the Conservatives claim to protect us against:
"But Conservatives in Government have stood up for hard-working people from stealth taxes and nanny state interference."
http://press.conservatives.com/page/11
Pity the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 does not apply to political parties.
Going online is serious business for young people, who can now encounter every flavour of evil that humanity produces without even leaving their homes — something which wouldn't have been possible for their parents watching the BBC in the '70s.
I beg to differ, we had the scary Tom Baker period in Doctor Who, before he got toned down into the not scary Tom Baker period.
Icon is the Doctor reaching for his coat and scarf.
Being a bit of a 60's/70's/80's TV enthusiast, I can add that whilst TV today is more porn, more gore, more brutality, more in-your-face, the older stuff is more scarier and more nastier by any measure you wish to choose. Threads? The Changes? Even Blake's 7 just killing everyone at the end, bang! Dead, gone. Devil worship at every corner, evils under the bed, and the humanity of the evils... rape, for example, in many James Bond films even.
" the older stuff is more scarier "
The TV stuff that scared me in the 1950s was: "Quatermass"; "Quatermass and the Pit"; "Nineteen Eighty Four"; Polio public information films. Dad was a volunteer in the Civil Defence - but no one really took on board just how a nuclear attack would devastate the UK.
Magazines like "Health & Efficiency" circulated in the playground - and gave us a black & white nipple-less, pudenda-less, mis-education about the human body.
For all our school days we were exposed daily to mutilations, tortures, and murders in graphic form - held up as sanctity and punishments via the social control of organised religions.
Although I whole heartedly agree that all the above programmes are quality and scary.
and TV was so much better before , where do i start ? cowell ? reality blah? , no basically everything ....
Do you think it affected you more because you were children?
Nice Tom Baker who kept telling Leela off was hilarious. "You can't go around using Janis thorns" then takes an elephant gun out on the Thames to go rat hunting.
A theme revived somewhat under McCoy's outing where he kept telling Ace off for making Nitro 9 then on a few occasions asked if she'd ever listened to him about it, and could he have a little bit for a special job.
They only way to truly be safer (not 'safe' that's impossible) is to teach the population (adults and kids) to question what they see. To challenge what is printed on the web and what is sent to them in emails, messages etc.
But then if they start to intelligently question things in the cyber world they might look up and question things in the real world. They might develop an awareness of what is actually going on.
We don't want that do we?
Lets just pay lip service to it and keep everyone in their boxes.
My kids had no restrictions to their access.
they were taught the basics 'if it looks too good to be true - it ain't', 'if you don't like it, leave the page - if it's really bad let me know, (no judgements)', 'trolls are easy to spot' etc.
One was on on Habbo Hotel (oh, these fools have no idea how it was back then) and said that someone she'd not met or chatted to before was busy being chatty and asking her to 'download a cool game'.
I explained to her what was going on and that I wanted to to some screen grabs as proof so she threw out a shiny lure and started reeling him in by asking innocent questions about the 'game'.
Eventually he twigged and she let him know that we'd got info on his user name and several screen shots which we were sending to Admin.
Dunno if it did anything other than make him change his underwear but as an educational tool it was priceless.
The politicians like to think they know something about the internet when, in fact, they haven't the faintest idea about how it works.
The internet, the economy, business, science, technology, arts, sport, culture, etc, etc, ...
To rephrase an old saying, those who can do, those who can't try to get elected.
How are they going to do that then? Even safer than China or Burma, where there is strict Internet censorship? How about North Korea, where they don't really have an Internet and what they do have is firmly under Government control? Their Internet there is probably even safer than China's. Societies with this degree of oversight and "Internet safety" have far more serious problems a few dodgy websites.
"Something tells me this is PR and nothing else"
Sorry no this is something much more sinister. They are trying to establish the concept of protection as equivalent to restricting access. Once that idea settles in for the majority who don't care as long as they have Facebook, the valves will be slowly closed until we can only see what we are allowed to see.
"[...] they will never stop us seeing what we are not allowed to see."
They will make criminals of everyone - and go beyond those bounds to instil fear of inadvertently crossing a blurred legal line. Then it will become everyone's legal "duty" to inform on anyone who they suspect of indulging in "immorality". Paranoia is contagious.
"The number of suspected online child sex offenders identified across the East of England has nearly trebled in three years, the BBC has discovered."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-39075753
"[...] and most people wont inform on anyone."
Unfortunately history shows that it happens very easily in human society. For example: The Reign of Terror after the French revolution; Russian, German, Chinese totalitarian regimes in the 20th century. To a lesser extent the McCarthy purge of "UnAmerican Activities".
"most people wont inform on anyone."
It may or may not be "most", but that's completely irrelevant. Plenty of them will, whether because they believe it right, they profit off it somehow or they've been blackmailed to - also irrelevant. All that matters is that informants _do_ work.
"Something tells me this is PR and nothing else"
Much worse than PR. This is an attempt to justify ever increasing surveillance and censorship. Theresa May appears to be another religiously motivated dictator - who unfortunately has her hands on the levers of power.
"How are they going to do that then? Even safer than China or Burma, where there is strict Internet censorship?"
Y'know those times when you ask a question, and then inadvertently answer it in your own follow-up question?
Yeah, that.
Imagine the new nanny state internet bill gets signed into law. It is an instant success and kiddies immediately stop sexting each other. Instead they sneak off behind the shed to play doctor when their parents are distracted.
What was the point of all this?
Okay, the 'Claire Perry test' : (aka,does this person know what they are talking about).
"Karen Bradley MP PC.
Buxton Girls' School and Imperial College London, where she graduated with a BSc in Mathematics"
Quite promising so far, imperial and maths, refreshing change from the usual Oxford and PPE.....
"In 1991 she joined Deloitte & Touche as a tax manager, and after seven years she became a senior tax manager with KPMG. In 2004 she set up business as a fiscal and economic consultant before rejoining KPMG in 2007, where she remained until her election to the House of Commons."
That was less encouraging really. No techie stuff at all there, except possibly Excel. I'll bet she can do a mean pivot table.
So conclusions. The Perry Test Failed. Again. Grossly under qualified and under experienced to be making these sort of executive decisions. The ministry of fun is traditionally somewhere you can put people who fall into conservative parliamentary minority groups (ie, anyone who isn't a wealthy, publicly educated oxford graduate with a penis), to make the cabinet look a little more diverse. Digital skills and knowledge should surely not be impossible to find in this day and age?
A BSc - but not Hons. And then straight into a non-technical job So better than a PPE but only up to clicking the headings on a pivot table. It is terrifying the lack of real digital skills and knowledge 'up there'. I wonder if they are as afraid of technical nous as most managers seem to be.
Sounds like she would be qualified to take on the role of Chancellor and sort out the tax system (poacher turns game keeper). Of course she will never manage to do that, you never put a minister in charge of something they might understand, if you did that they might sack the useless civil servants that supposedly serve them
NOPE, parents do NOT rely on any safeguards. Parents come largely in two forms, those who look after their kids - taking them to places to do things and perhaps help them to use the computer safely and those who don't care and let their kids do what they like when they like... and if those kids are on a computer doing porn it means they aren't on the street shooting crack or breaking old womens legs. Frankly the government is trying to ramp up an excuse to further censor and monitor us all. Worse than 1984 ever envisioned but of course if you disagree you are painted as a dangerous perverted terrorist who beats and buggers kids and should be locked up for societies good
Government just chasing the wrong target - again; they seem to think that the only people who matter are tut-tutting Daily Mail readers. This is the lot who have come out with the mind boggleinglly stupid guidance that Streets should not be named after local heroes ‘in case they are paedophiles'.
Do we know what is current government guidance at tilting at windmills ?
This is about ensuring that no one can criticize the government without being caught. May even eventually be used as an excuse to reinstate the ID card scheme (another tax on being here).
Frankly come the glorious day we should put all these politicians on a one way rocket to the sun.
>Frankly come the glorious day we should put all these politicians on a one way rocket to the sun.
What a waste of a perfectly good rocket and fuel, and what did the sun do to deserve that? (unless you meant strap them on a rocket heading towards the headquarters of The Sun?).
Until people can open emails without getting crypto blackmailed.
Until people can surf without the fictional Cheshire Police page internet is dangerous.
Unpleasant pages are not dangerous.
Cryptoworms are.
Viruses are.
GET THE PRIORITIES RIGHT GOVERNMENT
GET GCHQ tracking the cryoto virus teams, then send in the SAS to clean up the mess. They are supposed to be world class so I am not asking too much.
Any of the commenters above have young children? I have a 3-year-old and an 8-year-old. It's hardly as easy the comments above suggest. When I'm minding the young one, how am I supposed to constantly monitor her older brother? I can't cut off net access, his school requires much of his homework be done through websites or apps, including Google Docs.
I can't tell you how many hours I have spent fiddling with privacy and parental control settings and applications between a chromebook, a tablet and the Xbox One his maternal uncle (and thus my wife) insisted on. And he still constantly finds loopholes. For example, I've cut off his YouTube access on all the devices. So imagine my surprise when I get copied on his e-mail that he has comments on his new video. He was making videos of himself and his sister with the tablet and, thanks to Google's integration of everything, sharing them to YouTube via the camera app.
And, BTW, this isn't about porn that I can just filter away. It's about the complete jerks that populate every corner of the web, from commenters on newspaper websites to popular YouTube stars to how gamers talk to each other. Starting around age 5, kids eat that stuff up. They think it's cool and it clearly affects how they act.
Frankly I would welcome some regulation here. Not of internet content, but requiring that devices offer useful and usable parental controls. For example, the parental controls on standard chromebooks are very limited. Such as you can either allow all apps or none. So if I want him to do school work on a chromebook, I have to allow alll. What is most annoying about this is that the chromebooks that google sells to schools can be tightly configured even down to per app time limits. Why can't they make that software available to parents? And why can't I easily configure an XBox to do something like only play games, allow anyone to play anything E10 and below, while disallowing chat and purchases? And Google needs kids' accounts - ones that let parents whitelist allowable activities. They let me do this with my staff at work so I know they have the capability.
lowwall - amazon fire has kids accounts. I got a few of em for my nieces at xmas. I dunno how useful they are - but you basically 'admin' the tablet, and they get an account that gives them access to only the apps and stuff you want them to have access to. I think it would be pretty limiting to >12s maybe, but for younger kids it might be worth a look ?
I do have a cheap Amazon Fire tablet. We bought it for my son when he was 5 and have handed it down to his sister. It does work well if all you need a tablet for is to temporarily distract the little ones. We give it out where their patience runs out in the car or at restaurants. It's especially useful if you have Amazon Prime because they give you versions of some kids' games that have in-app purchasing stripped out and you can download several videos at a time for offline viewing. But it falls apart if you need to go outside Amazon's walled garden. Even after sideloading Google Play, I was unable to get certain apps he needed for school to work. And it suffers from the same lack of granularity in its parental controls that everything else does. For example, you can set a total time limit for all apps, but not individual apps nor can you distinguish between school and entertainment apps.
"It's hardly as easy the comments above suggest."
Well said. I think the commenters who regularly tell people how to parent are not parents themselves.
You can't just cut off internet access and "do something with your kids". And we can't nanny them all the time they are online because we have a life, other kids, housework, a job etc. So you need to talk to them, yes, but you can't supervise 100% and yes they know how to find a VPN, for instance to enable snapchat via the school wifi.
I am not advocating mandatory government content filters and I don't have a simple solution but it's just not that simple.
That's our rule. Ok, so he's only 11 and a lot is still to come, but the screens are in that living room and a condition of having a phone is its subject to us looking at it at any time, it's codes must always be known to us, and it doesn't go upstairs.
That, and actually communicating with him, seem to be helping... So far.
This will totally work- just like banning under 18's from buying alcohol stopped me from getting pissed on scrumpy when i was a teenager. Just like putting "Parental Advisory" on records featuring 'colorful' lyrics stops kids from buying them. Making certain websites off limits will make them more attractive and kids will somehow obtain the details of an adult's log in details which allows them to access those sites (and possibly draw some unwarranted attention to the surfing habits of the adult whose details they use).
Meanwhile, it allows the Government to portray itself as 'caring' and 'pro-family'; all the time introducing policies which are uncaring and positively detrimental to the health and well being of many families.
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