Comments on: British government look at age ratings for Web sites http://tech.blorge.com/Structure: /2008/12/27/british-government-look-at-age-ratings-for-web-sites/ Technology news Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:15:02 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: Alastair Scott http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:/2008/12/27/british-government-look-at-age-ratings-for-web-sites/comment-page-1/#comment-153880 Alastair Scott Sun, 28 Dec 2008 08:29:01 +0000 http://tech.blorge.com/?p=10637#comment-153880 The man is clearly badly informed - I put it politely - because (quite apart from the actual proposal): 1. The Internet was _invented_ by an arm of the US Government (and controlled by it for a long time); 2. Libel is not an "emerging issue"; libellous comments have been part of the Internet landscape for as far back as I remember (almost 15 years), and there has been nothing stopping libel suits using existing law. Here we go again - proposing laws which overlap existing laws to give the impression of doing something. In his defence, there was a radio interview yesterday afternoon in which he was much more moderate (followed by a counter-interview which demolished his arguments ...) and the Telegraph is a Tory newspaper (whereas Burnham is Labour) so can be relied on for negative spin, leading questions etc. The man is clearly badly informed – I put it politely – because (quite apart from the actual proposal):

1. The Internet was _invented_ by an arm of the US Government (and controlled by it for a long time);

2. Libel is not an “emerging issue”; libellous comments have been part of the Internet landscape for as far back as I remember (almost 15 years), and there has been nothing stopping libel suits using existing law. Here we go again – proposing laws which overlap existing laws to give the impression of doing something.

In his defence, there was a radio interview yesterday afternoon in which he was much more moderate (followed by a counter-interview which demolished his arguments …) and the Telegraph is a Tory newspaper (whereas Burnham is Labour) so can be relied on for negative spin, leading questions etc.

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