We’ve covered the ridiculousness of the UK’s « voluntary » web filters. UK officials have been pushing such things for years and finally pushed them through by focusing on stopping « pornography » (for the children, of course). While it quickly came out that the filters were blocking tons of legitimate content (as filters always do), the UK government quickly moved to talk about ways to expand what the filters covered. […]
That appears to be happening at an astonishingly fast pace in the UK. Index On Censorship has a fantastic article, discussing how a UK government official has already admitted to plans to expand the filter to « unsavoury » content rather than just « illegal. » […]
Of course, if you recognize that the continued expansion of such filters was likely the plan from the beginning, then everything is going according to plan. The fact that it doesn’t solve any problems the public are dealing with is meaningless. […]
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140418/15545526961/uk-filters-slippery-slope-mass-censorship.shtml