The UK internet filter: Banning ‘rape porn’ will censor LGBT, feminist sites and won’t stop rape

Banning rape porn. It’s the latest UK feminist thing that’s actually being taken up by politicians. And it’s the latest Hydra head to be reared in the cyclical moral panic over Innocent Kiddies Being Corrupted By Porn. (Not that the corruption of our kiddies has ever been proved, but then who needs to rely on

The slut shaming site: outing and extortion – and it’s all LEGAL

http://www.potentialprostitutes.com is a website where anyone can submit a name, phone number and other details to forever create a record f that person being a prostitute. The site calls sexworkers “offenders” and encourages the general public to “report an offender” so sexworkers will be taught “a lesson”. There is no mention of clients’ roles or

Should we have an international law for the internet? Trolling, policing and injustice

Matthew Woods, a teen who joked about April Jones on Facebook, has been sentenced to 12 weeks in prison. As a follow-up to the ‘Private and professional spheres’ post, I will now explain why this is ridiculous. OK, forget the too-obvious arguments that prison will only lead to unemployment or paying thousands of pounds of

No more safe spaces: The Private and the Professional collide

The divide between our private life (who we really are) and the professional persona we don in the workplace is more blurry than ever before. Facebook and Twitter, once non-official, social spaces of trivia and rebellion, have become corporatized hunting grounds for PR, marketing and advertising. People have been arrested, prosecuted and fired or jailed for jokes