A Ratings System for Websites?

Minister for culture, Andy Burnham, has told the Daily Telegraph that a kind of cinema style ratings system could be applied to websites in the near future in order to impose tighter controls on what children can view and better regulate online content. According to Burnham, the government intends to negotiate with the Obama administration in the US in an attempt to draw up a list of rules for English language websites.

The ratings system, is just one of the ideas being floated by Burnham and the government, the embryonic plan is thought to be a broader crackdown on the shadier side of the internet – a notion that is sure to antagonise advocates of online freedom of speech. On this point, Burnham appears to be in a bullish mood stating, “If you look back at the people who created the Internet they talked very deliberately about creating a space that governments couldn’t reach, I think we are having to revisit that stuff seriously now.” He did however, add that, “This is not a campaign against free speech.”

Any attempt at government involvement with the content available online is almost guaranteed to be met with hostility by large sections of the online community, though it appears that the government are serious.

Stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks. I’ve got a feeling this is going to be a big deal in 2009.

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