Gabriele Santoro 0

Internet Navigation Restriction in the UK

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Dear reader,


Please listen to our plea, sign and SHARE!

The other day, I was surfing the internet as per normal. I typed in the address of a website I normally go to, only to be presented with a big "Access Denied - Your ISP has restricted access to this website due to government legislation" message.

Going by the Wikipedia entry on internet censorship in the UK, we can read:

"The law provides for freedom of speech and press, and prohibits arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home, or correspondence, and the government routinely respects these rights and prohibitions. An independent press, an effective judiciary, and a functioning democratic political system combine to ensure freedom of speech and press. There are no government restrictions on access to the Internet. Individuals and groups routinely use the Internet, including e-mail, to express a wide range of views.[4]However, motivated by national security concerns, the need to fight terrorism and crime, and to protect children, the state has provided for vast surveillance measures over online communications and certain filtering and tracking practices do take place. Such practices may be encouraged or required by the state, but are also voluntarily implemented by private operators.[3]

A number of laws restrict the use of the Internet in the UK, including laws against possession of certain types of material,English defamation lawand theCopyright law of the United Kingdom. In addition, theObscene Publications Act 1959makes it illegal for websites that can be accessed from the UK without age restriction to contain certain types of adult content.[5]"



Now, I'm all for trying to interfere with terror organisations and whatnot, but the day we start restricting access to websites that are not harmful and exist for the sole purpose of informing, sharing and/or creating a community - I am not making examples on purpose - well, that is a sad, sad day for the internet and our community.


Imagine your children in 30 years time, they get up in the morning, turn on their tablet (or brain implant or whatever) and get given a choice of three websites to go to, and that's that. This is obviously a very extreme example, but the *direction* we are taking is highly worrying to me, and should be very worrying to you too, if you value your freedom of going where you want to go, reading what you want to read and, ultimately, your freedom itself.


So I ask you to please sign this petition. Hopefully we can raise awareness on this matter and get heard by the right people to try and instigate change on this unacceptable restriction of our freedom.

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