UK MPs barred from ‘inappropriate’ content
p2pnet news view Politics | P2P:- With the news that UK home secretary Jackqui Smith used taxpayer money to pay for gay porn video flicks viewed by her husband in the wings, official parliamentary censorship stops British MPs from cruising online for ‘inappropriate’ material in their commons offices, says the BBC.
“A filter on the Commons IT system blocks access to websites that contain ‘offensive or illegal content or are sources of malicious software’,” it states going on:
“The policy emerged after an MP was unable to access colleague Lembit Opik’s column on the Daily Sport site.”
The Daily Sport is an, “unapologetically trashy tabloid, with no pretensions at all to hard news coverage,” says British Newspapers Online.
But, “Perhaps the filters can be finessed so that my words of wisdom can be shared by one and all in the Palace of Westminster,” the Beeb has Opik, himself an MP, saying.
The Daily Sport, “has come under fire for its sexually explicit content, with Labour MP Claire Curtis-Thomas last year unsuccessfully bidding to have it sold to adults only,” says the story, adding:
“Guidance issued to all MPs in December 2007 warns MPs they have a duty to ensure the Parliamentary network is used properly ‘by themselves and their staff’ and to avoid actions that ‘threaten the integrity of the system or bring it into disrepute’.”
[The clip in the upper right is from a photo originally posted to Flickr as 'Lembit Opik at the Roundhouse' on September 13, 2006, by salimfadhleym says the Wikipedia, from whence it came.]
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March, 2009
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March 30th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
So….14 year old kids can read it…Legally….But M.P.’s in the house of commons cant? Because of explicit content….Hahahaha….This is how stupid the laws in the UK have become. What happened to save the children…lol.
March 30th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
I feel a lot safer now, knowing that MP’s can feel the arm of censorship right on their doorstep.
Maybe they will leave our home connections alone now they are unable to get their grot fix at work at our expense. Failing that, a freedom of information request for their home surfing habits that creates a scandal that brings them all down, will do.