The Government has toned down its support for internet blocking and moved to distance itself from a leading anti-porn campaigner.
Last year, the Government threw its weight behind the idea of ISPs blocking all porn by default unless adults specifically requested a full service.
However the ISPs didn’t find this idea practical. They rolled out the compromise idea of providing blocking software to individual subscribers so that they could be tailored as required. ISP’s would also ensure that these facilities would be made crystal clear to new subscribers.
Now it appears the Government is distancing itself from the original idea of blocking porn by default at the ISP level. Foreign Secretary William Hague explained in response to an open letter from rights groups:
We believe that parents should be provided with wide tools to enable them to voluntarily block harmful and inappropriate content.
It is important to distinguish between Government encouraging people to make more use of existing protections as a matter of choice, and the Government deciding what people can and cannot do online.
Our plans do not prevent access to legal material, but seek to make it much clearer that protections exist, and to encourage their use.
The Home Secretary also distanced the Government from MP Claire Perry, who has been campaigning for a block on all porn, a stance that has raised concerns among internet freedom groups. Hague said:
The position of Claire Perry regarding the default filtering of adult content is not the position of this Government.
