Wikipedia Founder derides UK porn filters, says they "won't work"

[Half Monk 697]

The UK government's internet censorship program has been met with a lot of negative feedback from a lot of critics now including the Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.

 The 46 year old has joined the critics of David Cameron's porn policies, dubbing them absolutely ridiculous. He stated that the technology needed to implement the filter simply wouldn't work.

 

 

Attacking it's very concept, he notes that the idea that such a filter would deter paedophiles is ludicrous. He points out that under this policy, all a "paedophile" would have to do would be simply to request his ISP to give him access to porn legally, defeating its purpose.

Additionally when we use cases of a paedophile who's been addicted to child porn videos online, you realise all that Cameron's rules would require him to do is opt in and say, 'Yes, I would like porn please'

 

Wales instead argues that the prime Minister should instead divert the funding being used to implement this program into the police, allowing them to enforce existing laws instead of doing something akin to chasing shadows with flashlights.

 

Several other critics call for stricter parenting and policing instead of what is seen as a vastly heavy handed and puritanical approach.

The porn ban is to be implemented by all UK ISPs by the end of the year requiring all users who want access to porn to have to "opt in" as pornography is now disabled by default.

 

The Government claims that the reason for the compulsory filter is the fact that children have easy access to porn on the internet though their mobile phones and computers, disregarding the fact that similar filters exist on an opt in basis across ISPs today as well as the fact that all phones also get a porn filter in their browsers.