Online labelling - surveillance state or international guidelines?

There are some interesting feedback comments on Write to Reply for the Digital Britain interim report. The most interesting to us, is the big question of how to restrict and label content. There seem to be two issues here: firstly, how do you stop children accessing content online that is legal but could be damaging to them (adult content, for example); and secondly, how do you stop illegal content being posted in the first place?

We’ve gone on record elsewhere talking about the various labelling options (and how difficult they will be to enforce, given geographic, religious and cultural differences across borders), and the need for clarity on who takes responsibility for ensuring illegal content doesn’t make it online. But there is a different debate taking shape now: is the report too concerned with safeguards and labelling content, and not enough with how to connect and engage people in the first place?

For what it’s worth, I don’t think you can separate the two. In order to engage online in a positive way, you need safeguards in place so that an online experience isn’t tainted by accessing material that is upsetting or offensive. And I don’t just mean adult content, or content that most decent antivirus programmes can be adjusted to filter out by responsible parents. It’s the gray areas – what constitutes bullying online, for example? Is it ok to threaten violence, for example? We’ve seen recently that it’s perfectly legal to leave children alone and let them work out their own rules for our entertainment (Channel 4) but public accusations of exploitation and bullying led to that TV content being withdrawn. What do we do in the same situation online? A teacher in a playground has a moral duty to intervene. Who has that duty online?

I don’t believe in China-style censorship, nor a surveillance state based on ‘moral panic’. But I do believe that we need guidelines on what is, and what isn’t acceptable online. But as content can originate from anywhere in the world, government-appointed bodies should co-operate internationally on developing these standards. That really would be progress.