Council warns staff to steer clear of the cannibalism website – Birmingham Post

17 July 2008
By

But they can look a sites that ?contain images of swimsuits or intimate apparel or other types of suggestive clothing? – in their lunch hour. link

  • http://www.d-log.info/ D’log

    How did “atheistic views” slip in next to Satanism and the like? So it seems that the website of a cigarette-smoking atheist would be equivalent to Satanistic amputee cannibal-sex, in the eyes of the Council’s diktat?

  • http://www.jonbounds.co.uk bounder

    It’s a mad list if what Paul Dale says is correct — I guess that it’s a case of trying to clarify what’s SFW, so they can actually deal with any necrophiliac sado-masochists that try to surf bestiality websites (yes that’s right, they’d be flogging a dead horse).

    The addition of “atheism” thoroughly odd and almost looks like a mistake of someone doing it without thinking, lumping it in with the occult.

    As people will say (and I think the council are glad that it’s only been taken up by the Post in a joky way and not the Daily Mail) … imagine the storm if religious websites were banned. It’s the sort of thing the NSS(www.secularism.org.uk) get quite het up about. it’s PC GONE MAD ;)

    A FOI request (not mine, but it’s freely available info now) lists actively banned, technologically blocked, catergories of site as:

    Gambling (except thepeoples50million.org.uk & voteblackcountryup.co.uk)
    Hacking
    Nudity
    Online Storage
    Phishing
    Pornography
    Proxy Avoidance
    Spyware (Privacy Concerns)
    Spyware (Malware sources)
    Violence/Hate/Racism
    Weapons

    Seems fair. There’s also a list of 50 or so specific URLs – mostly openid sites – have no idea what the problem is with those.

  • Pingback: Self-portraits, dolls, cannibalism and writing blogs « Groves Media

  • dp

    This was one of the stories that made me go look at the Post forums – only to find nothing at all.

    I too noted the bit about ‘atheistic views, voodoo rituals or any other form of mysticism’, as though atheism is a form of mysticism. I believe the editors at Scientific American would be wondering how they might be construed as such, and whether council employees are expected to get their science from Lysenko.

  • dp

    Update: has anyone noted this story?

    It says “Lawyers at the National Secular Society said the move by Birmingham City Council was “discriminatory” and they would consider legal action”.

    I guess that means it’s not a typo after all, and I certainly hope there is a suit of some sort. Enough of pre-emptive mind control…

  • dp

    PS: I’m going to make my meta-tags and/or blog description include ‘about atheism and/or witchcraft’. A combined effort might get some innocent officer in trouble, and force a rethink.

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