There’s a fascinating conversation raging online at the moment, sparked by this interview given by the Culture Secretary Andy Burnham to the Telegraph newspaper.
The main issues that have sparked the debate are the idea that the internet could be subject to the same age ratings as DVDs and video games in order to protect children from “offensive” content. And also a comment that the minister made about plans to talk to the new US administration in a bid to draw up international rules for English language websites.
This of course has led to plenty of comments (not just from bloggers, although they’re well represented) about who exactly owns the internet – not the UK government it seems, and do we really need a nanny state when there’s netnanny?
Also interesting is the number of posts from people who think that Mr Burnham’s comments show a complete lack of understanding about the internet and how it works. One of most vociferous is on the prolific TechCrunch blog which offers some opinions on why age ratings, and government intervention as a whole, cannot work online.
To date the Telegraph piece itself has generated almost 200 comments, there are another 50 on the TechCrunch site and Andy Burnham’s colleague Tom Watson is also hosting the debate on his site where he encourages an open debate about digital social responsibility and promises to pass all comments on.
I think this one is set to run into 2009. Happy new year!
