Planned censorship of "esoteric" websites and web forums!

[Saskia12]

Dear friends,

I wanted to share with the community here an important issue that's going to affect anybody interested in free access to spirituality or web forums online: The UK Internet censorship bill. Its been launched as a censor against child pornography websites to protect our children, however what is not known about it is that esoteric websites and internet forums are also included in the bill - without being publicly announced... Spiritual, occult and esoteric websites are conveniently being categorised to the same degree as pornography, terrorism, violence, suicide etc…! This means that all paranormal, supernatural, occult, new age, spiritual, alternative religion websites etc... will soon be banned from public viewing in the UK (and it may very well be an example for other countries to follow, as Canada and Australia have already announced similar plans) if we don't do anything about it. If this matters to you please help spread the word so we can all group together and stand up to this bill.

Please sign the petition and read more info at change.org/en-GB/petitions/uk-prime-minister-david-cameron-stop-the-unnecessary-censorship-of-esoteric-websites-and-web-forums
The infographic below summarizes in a simple way what's going on. Feel free to add it to your website if you wish to raise awareness about this issue. It is a courtesy of reachinglight website and you can get a free copy here: reachinglight.com/infographic-uk-filter-block-esoteric-content-worldwide-implications/

Thank you and blessings!
Saskia

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[eye_of_tiger]

I wish to warn all members that signing this petition automatically creates an account for them on change.org.

Whether you want one or not!

I do not have a password to change.

How can I get back into my account, once I closed my web browser?

Click on the downward facing triangle under your name, which appears without warning at the top of the page.

The privacy settings are definitely a reason for concern. The default is that everyone on the site can view your profile (and possibly also your email address?).

Click on settings and go to the final option which is to close the account.

At least you can opt out of having an account with them.

But closing the account is unrecoverable, and also unfortunately removes your signature from the petition, and you cannot create a new account later with that same email address.

Or at least that is what I believe is the case.

Also decide before signing it whether you want your signature which is actually your name and location to be openly displayed in the list on that page.  :smt017

Read the terms and conditions very carefully before signing. Clearly I did not, and I am sure that many of you would do the same as me.

Very discouraging, particularly for a site which claims to be about internet user's rights and privacy.

EoT  :smt009

[eye_of_tiger]

An update to my previous posting.

Judging from an email which I received this Monday morning from the petition organizer whose name is Jaime Tanna, thanking me for my participation and encouraging me to tell my friends to also add their signatures to the growing list, mine is still on there even though I have since deleted my account.

EoT

[Rohiniranjan]

Dear friend,

Those who have sincerely and seriously embrace or have been embraced by this loosely coined meta-tag of OCCULT would not feel one wee iota of surprise!

A large CHUNK of humanity seems to be moving back (yet again?) towards fundamentalism, despite its oft-repeated ingresses and failures!

Who would have thunk that in 2013, mankind would still reach for the gut-reaction of the same approach, despite its repeated failures over decades if not centuries!

Perhaps educational boards must be rallied to provide more funding to History lessons and teachers who can teach the younger ones to pay more attention to HISTORY!

Before HIS-STORY becomes MY-STORY when these kids grow up and some even become HISTORY-MAKERS!

I am not a History teacher and associated with any Teacher's union, etc.

Just an aged observer of Human Beings and their ANTICS!

Love and Light,

Rohiniranjan

[eye_of_tiger]

My good friend Rohiniranjan wrote:

Those who have sincerely and seriously embrace or have been embraced by this loosely coined meta-tag of OCCULT would not feel one wee iota of surprise!

I am as you predicted hardly surprised to learn this, but I am at the same time feeling terribly saddened that humanity is putting itself through all of this fundamentalism nightmare again in what appears to be a 21st century return to the Dark Ages of extreme religious intolerance, persecution on a major scale and superstitious insanity.

EoT

[Rohiniranjan]

My good friend Rohiniranjan wrote:

Those who have sincerely and seriously embrace or have been embraced by this loosely coined meta-tag of OCCULT would not feel one wee iota of surprise!

I am as you predicted hardly surprised to learn this, but I am at the same time feeling terribly saddened that humanity is putting itself through all of this fundamentalism nightmare again in what appears to be a 21st century return to the Dark Ages of extreme religious intolerance, persecution on a major scale and superstitious insanity.

EoT

Ahoy Mate!

Two somewhat wizened, but not jaded or weary travellers as we walk two separate but parallel paths hopefully going to the same place; it has always been a joy to see one another and our steady gait and personal progress and occasional conversations across the valley (chasm?) indicates that this long journey was worth it and not a lonely one, certainly!!

Love and Light,

Rohiniranjan

[spiritalk]

In trying to protect children from such things as pornography, we may also eliminate too much other information, as this bill seems to be addressing.  The powers that be never seem to leave well enough alone.  I would welcome a pornographic site our children can use rather than censorship!  Censorship will destroy all free thought which is the creative juices we are all capable of using (unless censored).  

We do not own our children, we merely borrow them for a lifetime.  If we love all children we must find a way to teach them without censorship on any topic, because censorship sets up a person's rights to be abused.

If we have a good relationship to the children in our care, we will find they question and seek answers and you are a resource they use.  A teacher may be another.  But you can be on top of their understanding before it can be perverted.

God bless, J

[eye_of_tiger]

Dear J,

This is something on which we will never agree.

I believe in contrast that some degree of censorship and internet filtering will always be needed to properly protect children, and that your suggestion that any of us should welcome a pornographic website that children could use is both irresponsible and potentially offensive to most loving and caring parents.

My issues are not with censorship itself, but rather with how much there is of it these days and how much more widely it is going to be applied in the future, when compared to the original well intended purpose for which it was originally designed.

The UK government is among several others including the incoming coalition government in Australia who are attempting to deceitfully and secretly smuggle a very different and much more diverse definition of what qualifies as being inappropriate for being viewed by children to esoteric websites, which includes psychic and spiritual help forums such as Mystic Board.

A world without some level of control through censorship over what our children and grandchildren are exposed to both through the internet and other media  is not a world that most parents would like to even begin to imagine in their worst nightmare.

There are always serious and complex problems with censoring any websites from children or adults, mainly related to how different the laws are in each country, but a complete lack of any attempt to do so would lead to total anarchy, manipulation and abuse on a major scale by people whose interests will always be to remain faceless and undetected in what they are doing, until it is too late for the authorities to be able to do anything practical to further protect or save the innocent victim.

Snuff films are not limited to over 18s.

A snuff film is a motion picture genre that depicts the actual murder of a person or people, without the aid of special effects, for the express purpose of distribution and entertainment or financial exploitation.  

I would add "for sexual pleasure exploitation by paedophiles and necrophiliacs", to the above definition.

How perverse and unnatural does something have to be before it is called pornographic enough to be censored or filtered out from being viewed by our children?

EoT  

[swetha]

I believe this post was made for esoteric sites and maybe we should stick that topic.