PM Cameron Plans Great Firewall Of Great Britain
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UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, today announced plans that the government was considering passing legislation to block social 
networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as the Blackberry Messenger Service (BBM) during times of ‘civil unrest’.
This action has been prompted by the recent UK riots which insurers have said will cost the country “well over one hundred million pounds” to put right.
David Cameron said, “Everyone watching these horrific actions will be stuck by how they were organized via social media”. “When people are using social media for violence we need to stop them,” he added, “so we are working with the police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality.”
The move by the coalition government, which is seen as highly controversial, is likely to come across opposition from sections of the public as well as some of the businesses running the services themselves.
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Well I wouldn’t consider it a “Great Firewall of Britain” … it’s a bit sensational / exaggerating to say that because when we think of Great Firewall we think China. And China blocks LOADS of websites that are of threat to them ;).
I disagree partly – where would the Government stop? They’re apparently proposing blocking “social networking sites” during “times of civil unrest”.
Who decides what classes as a “social networking site” and “times of civil unrest”.
It sounds very wishy washy and reactionary politics to me.
If this was allowed through, which I doubt Labour or the Lib Dems would vote for, it would be the start of Internet censorship in Britain effectively.
I’m sure China only started off blocking a few websites during certain periods and look where that has left them now!
Well, if it went so far you know what democracy union would be like and other unions / organisations would be like and I think the government would be put under a lot of pressure to not go too far. And I’m sure it won’t wash well tieh the public, and the Conservatives will probably not be in power next time. The problem is, it’s only the three main parties all the time that are in power. It’s been the same for the past century.
I would hope that there would be enough pressure to stop them doing anything stupid but recently its been “lets block any sites related to torrents”, now its “lets block social networking sites in times of civil unrest”. It just seems like they want to add more and more things to this group and it worries me where it is going to end.
I think the biggest problem with the main 3 parties is that they are largely out of touch with technological and computing issues and really need to take advice from experts in the area.