Thursday 18 September 2008

More laws... Just what we need...

Apparently the UK Government is redrafting a law from the 60s preventing the promotion of suicide to make it explicit that the law applies to online content as well as audio and print. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7620676.stm How on earth do they reckon they are going to enforce this? I'm by no means pro-suicide, and no matter how depressed I've been in the past I've always viewed suicide as giving up and I never considered it an option; however this sort of thought policing always annoys me. Sure someone explicitly trying to get people to end their lives is below contempt; however someone who legitimately believes what they are posting has a right to post their opinion (and hopefully be ridiculed for it). It is also legitimate to post this as a starting point for debate. What about fiction? What about discussion about euthanasia? In addition to the general objection to being told what I can or can't do... How many blogs host content in the UK? If I'm in the UK and want to post a pro-suicide blog, what's to stop me just blogging it to one of the many US based platforms? Do they really think that emo kids googling for info on suicide are going to hit the "Pages from the UK" radio button? OK. Rant over.