There is a bit of concern being expressed by a few people in this country over the Prime Minister’s plans to censor the internet.
The first step is to force ISPs to introduce ‘family friendly’ filters to block pr0n and copyrighted material (this has started). Users can opt in by asking their ISPs to turn the filter off.
The next stage will be to block extremist sites. I’m not sure if people will be able to opt in to see these.
One of the concerns is that this is the start of a system that will make North Korea seem quite liberal. Although I don’t see that happening (until after the next general election) I am not happy about this creeping censorship.
I just wonder how other CoGers would feel about this, and if you think it will happen in places like the States?
With everything else going on over here in the US, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an attempt to put something like this through, though it’d likely fail so hard you’d be able to see the fallout from orbit. Can’t keep 'Mericans away from our pr0nz.
Not necessarily, I guess. Having been in the local news here lately (a lot), the pron industry has come under fire in LA County for labory safety regulations. From what I understand, its practically ousted the industry from LA, which is odd, because from what I understand, it’s where most of it is produced.
@PadrinoFive7, was that the condom issue? I saw an article about that a while back in my Android’s news feed. I kind of thought driving them elsewhere was one of the goals.
It was, and now they’re working on further precautionary regulation according to recent stories. L.A. makes so much money off of the industry, it’d be odd for them to drive it away.
Honestly, I hadn’t been following the e-cig trend, except that a few seedy tattoo shops have sprung up in the area which also push e-cigs and e-juice. And they’re creepy. And several places around here have put up notices that e-cigs are also not allowed in places where regular smoking isn’t allowed. @Lee_Ars, correct me if I’m wrong, but that includes some public venues around Houston. (I could swear I heard a radio ad for some event that said “no smoking, including e-cigs.”)
On the topic of e-cigs, where you can use it is still a big semi-controversial thing that the e-cig community has been dealing with for the last few years. I’ve been vaping for 4 years now, and in that time we’ve evolved from crappy little batteries and cheap Chinese e-juice to a lot of USA-made devices, juice, mods, and the like. The equipment is getting better and safer, and now the biggest problem we have is that the government(s) is/are going to get involved sooner or later, if they haven’t already.
There are places trying to ban the devices as being “too accessible to children”, which I find laughable since any respectable vendor won’t sell any sort of nicotine product or accessory to anyone under 18 anyway. There are places banning them for “looking like smoking”, which I can kind of see in the case of a ban on airlines, but in the middle of a public place? The big ones, however, are the places trying to ban or over-regulate them on the basis that they’re a “drug delivery device”, which is laughable because technically so is a cup of coffee or a normal cigarette. Hell, if they’re worried about nicotine, they should ban tomatoes and carrots too.
I have a friend who vapes and doesn’t even us a nicotine product. So what the hell are you banning there?
Banning “looking like smoking” can they ban kids pretending they are smoking at the bus stop when it’s cold?
Anyone else concerned about taking their kids shooting one day and having them sent home from school for talking about it? My son in law hunts, my brother in law hunts, my oldest daughter hunts, I take my youngest to the gun show with me, we go target shooting together, my dad carries, my wife and I are getting our license to carry, and the pre and post school care center says that if she says the word gun she can be sent home. News stories all over about kids with toy guns, or pieces of paper with drawings of guns, or pointing fingers, pretend bows, whatever, being suspended or expelled concern me.
This is an area with a local state prison, and the state police post is just down the road. So police and corrections officers show up at school carrying all the time, people open carry at the softball fields, which aren’t school property, some people actually still have gun racks in their trucks. This is a gun friendly area, but the schools are pushing back and it does worry me. Why should I have to tell my six year old that she can’t tell anyone what she did over the weekend? Or that she has to be careful about talking about it?
