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back to article Gov wants to make the UK the 'safest place in the world to go online'

The government has today announced a “major new drive on internet safety” for which it will enlist the world's largest technology companies in order to make the UK the “safest place in the world for young people to go online.” Going online is serious business for young people, who can now encounter every flavour of evil that …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Safe...

    From being exposed to ideas the government doesn't want you to know about. I have to say, I never expected that fascism in this country would have a geography degree from Oxford, or that its puppet in the Home Office would have had, as a claim to fame, the job of "aristocracy co-ordinator" on Four Weddings and a Funeral (unless this is a very good joke by a Wikipedia editor.)

    41 1 Reply
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Childcatcher

    Two words spring to mind...

    Nanny State...

    29 0 Reply
    1. Dan 55 Silver badge
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      Re: Two words spring to mind...

      It sounds like the bubble-wrapped Internet with comprehensive logging is becoming mandatory.

      What's wrong with configuring your own parental control software or setting your own router rules? Apart from the government not deciding what is safe and what isn't and not logging everything, obviously.

      12 0 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Two words spring to mind...

        There will never be a bubble wrapped internet no matter how much they try.

        6 0 Reply
        1. Elmer Phud
          Reply Icon

          Re: Two words spring to mind...

          'cos there's always a queue of people waiting to pop it?

          4 0 Reply
          1. Anonymous Coward
            Reply Icon
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Two words spring to mind...

            A bubble popper know as 4chan

            1 0 Reply
            1. Anonymous Coward
              Reply Icon
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Two words spring to mind...

              >implying 4chan hasn't completely been taken over by normalfags for years

              1 0 Reply
              1. m0rt
                Reply Icon

                Re: Two words spring to mind...

                So...where do parents fit in all this? Because they bloody well should do parenting.

                So, pensions screwed, people working till they are in their 80s, elderly care screwed, nhs on its knees, cuts everywhere, energy costs rising, divided nation, lack of workers rights, subsidised wages because somehow a decent wage is an affront to ukplc.

                "But hey - lets tackle something else that we know we can't actually fix and lets fail at this too."

                UK Gov - take a step back. Get out of your collective arses and do some actual proper governing as opposed to silly policies that you think will get you public opinion, but will end up just costing taxpayer more for less.

                25 0 Reply
                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Reply Icon
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: Two words spring to mind...@ m0rt

                  Your comment should be forcibly tattooed on the forehead of every single member of parliament. Can we setup a Kickstarter campaign to raise the money to do this?

                  MPs: Tossers every one of them - either for doing the wrong thing, or for being ineffectual in opposing the apparently universal shit-headedness of all recent governments.

                  2 0 Reply
      2. Dave 15
        Reply Icon

        Re: Two words spring to mind...

        Whats wrong with doing something with your kids other than sticking them in front of a computer?

        7 2 Reply
        1. Cuddles
          Reply Icon

          Re: Two words spring to mind...

          "Whats wrong with doing something with your kids other than sticking them in front of a computer?"

          What's wrong with sticking them in front of a computer? It's no different from sticking them in front of a TV, or sticking them in front of a book, or any of numerous other activities. There's plenty of both fun and education to be had in all kinds of places. The important thing, as always, is that they need appropriate education and supervision. Throwing your kids out the house to hang around smoking on a street corner for hours on end every day isn't a great idea, but that doesn't mean we ban the outdoors. Similarly, sticking them in front of a computer to do whatever they like with no supervision for hours on end every day is a bad idea, but that doesn't mean banning computers is the solution.

          If anything, given how important computers and programming are, not sticking your kids in front of a computer from time to time is practically neglect - how are they supposed to function in the modern world if they never learn to use such important and ubiquitous tools?

          11 1 Reply
      3. Trigonoceps occipitalis
        Reply Icon

        Re: Two words spring to mind...

        @Dan 55

        "What's wrong with configuring your own parental control software ... "

        Because my children and their partners wouldn't have a Scooby. In any case I suspect my 8 year old grandchild can get around any blocks they put in place. Often said but none the less true. I can offer only limited help, sometimes I get the "Dad's got his tinfoil hat on again" look.

        Fortunately they are able to make sure that their children get the correct advice and help about social media etc. They will see nothing wrong with the government mandating blocks on content - partly because they understand their technical limitations in this area and because they have already sold their soul to Google, Facebook etc. It is just part of normal life to them.

        0 0 Reply
    2. Voland's right hand Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Two words spring to mind...

      You sure? I am pretty sure you got a few letters wrong.

      I thought you meant Nazi State.

      All hail our future great chancellor(ess) Adam Sutt... Sorry Theresa May. All that not hail, Lark hill awaits you - so we make the environment safe, you understand...

      15 2 Reply
    3. H in The Hague
      Reply Icon

      Re: Two words spring to mind...

      My first thought too. And that's just what the Conservatives claim to protect us against:

      "But Conservatives in Government have stood up for hard-working people from stealth taxes and nanny state interference."

      http://press.conservatives.com/page/11

      Pity the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 does not apply to political parties.

      14 0 Reply
  3. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Coat

    Going online is serious business for young people, who can now encounter every flavour of evil that humanity produces without even leaving their homes — something which wouldn't have been possible for their parents watching the BBC in the '70s.

    I beg to differ, we had the scary Tom Baker period in Doctor Who, before he got toned down into the not scary Tom Baker period.

    Icon is the Doctor reaching for his coat and scarf.

    20 0 Reply
    1. Rich 11
      Reply Icon

      If you've never seen multiple crewmembers murdered by an anti-matter Mr Hyde you've never lived.

      1 0 Reply
      1. TRT Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Being a bit of a 60's/70's/80's TV enthusiast, I can add that whilst TV today is more porn, more gore, more brutality, more in-your-face, the older stuff is more scarier and more nastier by any measure you wish to choose. Threads? The Changes? Even Blake's 7 just killing everyone at the end, bang! Dead, gone. Devil worship at every corner, evils under the bed, and the humanity of the evils... rape, for example, in many James Bond films even.

        2 0 Reply
        1. Dave 15
          Reply Icon

          TV today

          TV today is a pointless waste of energy, made even worse by the offensive tactics of the BBC and licence collection who bully in a most disgusting way anyone who decides not to have one of the infernal contraptions to watch pointless American and Australian soaps.

          6 3 Reply
        2. Triggerfish
          Reply Icon

          Having grown up with some of it. I can say legitemately blakes 7 was pretty damn dark, Threads, The Mad death, Quatermass, and who the hell looked at Sapphire and Steel and thought yeah faceless ghosts whistling old war songs that's definetly a kids program?

          12 0 Reply
          1. TRT Silver badge
            Reply Icon

            Watership Down, Plague Dogs etc. Films. Animated ones at that. Plague Dogs was a UK A rated, regraded to PG. Watership Down was a U! And you can hardly get darker than those too, surely.

            6 0 Reply
            1. Triggerfish
              Reply Icon

              Oh God watership down and plague dogs, I must have repressed them

              Must say "When the wind blows" was a great cartoon for a young kid living in London to be shown at school also. Expecially with everyone saying things like "yeah they'll drop 3 or 4 on us at least".

              6 0 Reply
        3. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          " the older stuff is more scarier "

          The TV stuff that scared me in the 1950s was: "Quatermass"; "Quatermass and the Pit"; "Nineteen Eighty Four"; Polio public information films. Dad was a volunteer in the Civil Defence - but no one really took on board just how a nuclear attack would devastate the UK.

          Magazines like "Health & Efficiency" circulated in the playground - and gave us a black & white nipple-less, pudenda-less, mis-education about the human body.

          For all our school days we were exposed daily to mutilations, tortures, and murders in graphic form - held up as sanctity and punishments via the social control of organised religions.

          4 1 Reply
          1. Triggerfish
            Reply Icon

            How about The Day of the Triffids? I seem to remember the eighties version being somewhat more hardcore than the recent effort.

            8 0 Reply
            1. TRT Silver badge
              Reply Icon

              I know the programme itself was a bit shit... but...

              The Tomorrow People. Theme music & opening titles. Enough to make you crap your pants.

              2 0 Reply
              1. Colin Millar
                Reply Icon

                Re: I know the programme itself was a bit shit... but...

                Not nearly as shit as the recent US remake - just a bunch of pouty kids seeing who could shout "It's all about Meeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!" the loudest

                2 0 Reply
                1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge
                  Reply Icon

                  Re: I know the programme itself was a bit shit... but...

                  Although I whole heartedly agree that all the above programmes are quality and scary.

                  and TV was so much better before , where do i start ? cowell ? reality blah? , no basically everything ....

                  Do you think it affected you more because you were children?

                  0 0 Reply
    2. Elmer Phud
      Reply Icon

      Arrr, ye've got a woman's scarf, so ye have

      8 0 Reply
      1. TitterYeNot
        Reply Icon
        Coat

        "Arrr, ye've got a woman's scarf, so ye have"

        Arrrr, and I'll wager that floppy fedora never had 16 shipwrecked mariners tossing in it...

        9 0 Reply
    3. Gritzwally Philbin
      Reply Icon

      Yeah, but scary Tom Baker was awesome when he kicked Chancellor Goth's ass in the Matrix in the Deadly Assassin. 9 year old me, was terrified and awed at the same time. Nice Tom Baker who upbraided Leela for killing people wasn't nearly as fun.

      0 0 Reply
      1. TRT Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Nice Tom Baker who kept telling Leela off was hilarious. "You can't go around using Janis thorns" then takes an elephant gun out on the Thames to go rat hunting.

        A theme revived somewhat under McCoy's outing where he kept telling Ace off for making Nitro 9 then on a few occasions asked if she'd ever listened to him about it, and could he have a little bit for a special job.

        0 0 Reply
  4. 0laf
    Big Brother

    Cynics unite

    They only way to truly be safer (not 'safe' that's impossible) is to teach the population (adults and kids) to question what they see. To challenge what is printed on the web and what is sent to them in emails, messages etc.

    But then if they start to intelligently question things in the cyber world they might look up and question things in the real world. They might develop an awareness of what is actually going on.

    We don't want that do we?

    Lets just pay lip service to it and keep everyone in their boxes.

    30 0 Reply
    1. Elmer Phud
      Reply Icon

      Re: Cynics unite

      My kids had no restrictions to their access.

      they were taught the basics 'if it looks too good to be true - it ain't', 'if you don't like it, leave the page - if it's really bad let me know, (no judgements)', 'trolls are easy to spot' etc.

      One was on on Habbo Hotel (oh, these fools have no idea how it was back then) and said that someone she'd not met or chatted to before was busy being chatty and asking her to 'download a cool game'.

      I explained to her what was going on and that I wanted to to some screen grabs as proof so she threw out a shiny lure and started reeling him in by asking innocent questions about the 'game'.

      Eventually he twigged and she let him know that we'd got info on his user name and several screen shots which we were sending to Admin.

      Dunno if it did anything other than make him change his underwear but as an educational tool it was priceless.

      9 0 Reply
    2. Dave 15
      Reply Icon

      Re: Cynics unite

      Most obvious things to question are government press releases and statistics.

      6 0 Reply
  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Gov wants to make the UK the 'safest place in the world to go online"

    Good Luck with that

    9 0 Reply
    1. hplasm
      Reply Icon
      Meh

      "Gov wants to make the UK the 'safest place in the world to go online"

      Tell them to leave it alone, then.

      17 0 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "Gov wants to make the UK the 'safest place in the world to go online"

        But... But... The politicians like to think they know something about the internet when, in fact, they haven't the faintest idea about how it works.

        7 0 Reply
        1. Arthur the cat Silver badge
          Reply Icon

          Re: "Gov wants to make the UK the 'safest place in the world to go online"

          The politicians like to think they know something about the internet when, in fact, they haven't the faintest idea about how it works.

          The internet, the economy, business, science, technology, arts, sport, culture, etc, etc, ...

          To rephrase an old saying, those who can do, those who can't try to get elected.

          5 0 Reply
          1. Anonymous Coward
            Reply Icon
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: "Gov wants to make the UK the 'safest place in the world to go online"

            Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach. And those that really, really can't, try to go into politics.

            4 0 Reply
      2. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        WTF?

        Re: "Gov wants to make the UK the 'safest place in the world to go online"

        How are they going to do that then? Even safer than China or Burma, where there is strict Internet censorship? How about North Korea, where they don't really have an Internet and what they do have is firmly under Government control? Their Internet there is probably even safer than China's. Societies with this degree of oversight and "Internet safety" have far more serious problems a few dodgy websites.

        20 0 Reply
        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "Gov wants to make the UK the 'safest place in the world to go online"

          Something tells me this is PR and nothing else

          1 0 Reply
          1. 8Ace
            Reply Icon

            Re: "Gov wants to make the UK the 'safest place in the world to go online"

            "Something tells me this is PR and nothing else"

            Sorry no this is something much more sinister. They are trying to establish the concept of protection as equivalent to restricting access. Once that idea settles in for the majority who don't care as long as they have Facebook, the valves will be slowly closed until we can only see what we are allowed to see.

            14 1 Reply
            1. Anonymous Coward
              Reply Icon
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: "Gov wants to make the UK the 'safest place in the world to go online"

              in the end they will never be able to restrict access and the idea wont settle in for the majority who do care about this, they will never stop us seeing what we are not allowed to see.

              1 0 Reply
              1. Anonymous Coward
                Reply Icon
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: "Gov wants to make the UK the 'safest place in the world to go online"

                "[...] they will never stop us seeing what we are not allowed to see."

                They will make criminals of everyone - and go beyond those bounds to instil fear of inadvertently crossing a blurred legal line. Then it will become everyone's legal "duty" to inform on anyone who they suspect of indulging in "immorality". Paranoia is contagious.

                "The number of suspected online child sex offenders identified across the East of England has nearly trebled in three years, the BBC has discovered."

                http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-39075753

                3 1 Reply
                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Reply Icon
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: "Gov wants to make the UK the 'safest place in the world to go online"

                  in the end all of that will fail and not work

                  0 0 Reply
                2. Anonymous Coward
                  Reply Icon
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: "Gov wants to make the UK the 'safest place in the world to go online"

                  It likely they wont be able to make criminals of everyone or instil fear of inadvertently crossing a blurred legal line and most people wont inform on anyone.

                  0 0 Reply
                  1. Anonymous Coward
                    Reply Icon
                    Anonymous Coward

                    Re: "Gov wants to make the UK the 'safest place in the world to go online"

                    "[...] and most people wont inform on anyone."

                    Unfortunately history shows that it happens very easily in human society. For example: The Reign of Terror after the French revolution; Russian, German, Chinese totalitarian regimes in the 20th century. To a lesser extent the McCarthy purge of "UnAmerican Activities".

                    1 2 Reply
                  2. DropBear
                    Reply Icon

                    Re: "Gov wants to make the UK the 'safest place in the world to go online"

                    "most people wont inform on anyone."

                    It may or may not be "most", but that's completely irrelevant. Plenty of them will, whether because they believe it right, they profit off it somehow or they've been blackmailed to - also irrelevant. All that matters is that informants _do_ work.

                    2 1 Reply
                    1. Anonymous Coward
                      Reply Icon
                      Anonymous Coward

                      Re: "Gov wants to make the UK the 'safest place in the world to go online"

                      in the end informants of any kind wont work

                      0 0 Reply
          2. Anonymous Coward
            Reply Icon
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: "Gov wants to make the UK the 'safest place in the world to go online"

            "Something tells me this is PR and nothing else"

            Much worse than PR. This is an attempt to justify ever increasing surveillance and censorship. Theresa May appears to be another religiously motivated dictator - who unfortunately has her hands on the levers of power.

            9 0 Reply
            1. Anonymous Coward
              Reply Icon
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: "Gov wants to make the UK the 'safest place in the world to go online"

              in the end surveillance and censorship will fail

              0 0 Reply

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