the UK’s Labour government has introduced legislation that they say is designed to protect children from harm from the Internet. the Online Safety Act 2023 is part of a raft of measures “for our own good”, but is there something darker going on?
the Internet. a global source of knowledge or a force for evil?
when Englishman Tim Berners-Lee took a system called ARPA-Net and designed a method for the free exchange of information for all, it was seen as more groundbreaking than the conversion of the Bible from Latin to common language. for the first time, no one had to rely on 3rd party versions of knowledge. now we had the pure, unfettered truth available at the click of a mouse.
governments were horrified. they had spent centuries controlling what the people heard, framing acceptable opinions to keep them in power and making sure no one heard anything other than their own narrative. now all that control was threatened. and there was nothing they could do about it. so they put all their resources into ways to restrict it criminalise it altogether. but to no avail. here was something non-territorial, global, in the ether. out of bounds of them.
the heresy of information
there had to be another way to stop this heresy. and like the Catholic Church before them, they set up their own version of the Spanish Inquisition to seek out the digital heretics. the parallels of those dark days are striking. the Church set about to discredit the free thinkers by framing them as evil. and now, just as then, the internet providers are being burnt for allowing the information highway to reach into our homes. the latest tool is the Online Safety Act. this is the stake that they hope will burn social media.
should the state be the ultimate control of our lives or are we perfectly capable of making decisions for our own lives and family?
trust me, I’m a politician. its all for our own good
should we welcome anything, particularly in the guise of the protection our children, without thinking about the motives behind such seemingly harmless and benign measures, or should we beware of politicians acting to save us from ourselves. that is the real question. should the state be the ultimate control of our lives or are we perfectly capable of making decisions for our own lives and family?
of course society is flawed. parents fail children, we harm each other both by neglect or deliberately. but equally, so does the state. except they do it on a grand scale.
it provides the first Internet off-switch for information. and they will justify it by stopping what they will proclaim as “disinformation”.
let’s talk about the bill itself. Called the Online Safety Act 2023, it tries to create the means to stop subversive or unsuitable information being shown to children. its introduces fines and other financial penalties. its seeks to traverse national boundaries for control. and yes, that can prevent some of the bad guys hurting our children. but it also provides the first Internet off-switch for information. and they will justify it by stopping what they will proclaim as “disinformation”.
now you click, now you can’t
the problem with controlling the medium that carries information rather than just the internals of the content is that a Bad State can turn off not just bad stuff, but what it doesn’t want you to know. its the inquisitors dream. the total control they craved delivered as a protection for our kids.
its perfect. for the State.
time for parents to step up
instead of relying on the State to parent our children and run our lives, parents should take control of their children’s content consumption just as parents are responsible for what their kids eat, their Internet consumption is their duty, too.
too many parents blame everyone else but themselves. that’s how it is. we have to live in an imperfect world and own it.
its not perfect. certain parents will fail their children. certain children will have the sort of fragile personalities that can be damaged by a comment from someone nasty at school. you can’t legislate for that. neither can you perfectly tailor content for children when parents hand their phones over to their kids out of laziness or to keep them quiet. when bad things happen. too many parents blame everyone else but themselves. that’s how it is. we have to live in an imperfect world and own it.