Tech

UK PM wants Brits to beg to see naughty things on the Internet

Josh Peterson Tech Editor
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Power may be the ultimate aphrodisiac, but it has made things just a little bit more awkward for world’s the most surveilled society.

British Prime Minister David Cameron announced on Monday that U.K. households will soon have to ask their Internet Service Providers for permission to receive pornographic content on the Internet, BBC reports.

The Internet is for porn, observed the writers of the musical Avenue Q, but under the new regime adult content will be censored by default.

Cameron is claiming that the move is for the good of the children of the United Kingdom, stating that pornography is “corroding childhood.”

The crackdown includes increased targeting of child pornography, and also a ban on “extreme pornography,” such as simulated rape scenes, reports the Guardian.

So-called “family friendly filters” will be installed by the end of the year.

Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, a department of the U.K.’s Serious Organized Crime Agency,  is also “being given more powers to examine secretive file-sharing networks,” BBC reports.

Search engines like Google and Bing have until October to block pornography. The most recent U.S. effort to establish an internet censorship regime — the 2012 Stop Online Piracy Act — resulted in a legislative debacle.

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