Today, barbarians of the unruly and unruled Internet are less dangerous. Today, your sleep will be sounder, your dreams more colorful, your future freer. For today, Britain, you are one step closer to achieving China’s harmony-promoting, children-protecting Net filtration system, which we lovingly refer to as the Great Firewall. And how great it is: no porn, because it can be eradicated like rats; no discussion of historical events, so as not to offend the sensibilities of certain mothers who would prefer to forget those things ever happened; no YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, New York Times, or Bloomberg, because screw ‘em; and no dissent (and why would there be dissent?). Hadrian’s Firewall, we’ll call it. You’ll love it, as we do.
David Cameron, your prime minister, is a wonderful man of principle with only the best intentions. He understands nothing is more important than children, who necessarily need paternal guidance, who need love and doting, yes, but also discipline and authority. For the world is a dark place, a scary forest, populated by evil. Against these unseen shadows, mortal parents are not enough, for they are fallible. There is a more perfect parent, one with the power to block the forces which would corrupt your village from the heart. Trust him, for no one loves you as unwaveringly and unimpeachably.
Surely you have heard that the Chinese company Huawei controls your Net filtration system. Pay no mind. Who cares about those critics who say the UK is, today, in one way more similar to Russia, North Korea, and other Internet-censoring countries than yesterday. You are one step closer to safety, to symmetry with the traditional values on which your island nation is built, to harmony, the kind that we enjoy every morning, and every night. Remember: autocrats love their children, too.
Look and listen to David Cameron, your most perfect father:
I want to talk about the internet, the impact it’s having on the innocence of our children…
The innocence of our children.
…how online pornography is corroding childhood and how, in the darkest corners of the internet, there are things going on that are a direct danger to our children and that must be stamped out.
Must be stamped out.
I’m not making this speech because I want to moralise or scaremonger but because I feel profoundly, as a politician and as a dad, that the time for action has come.
The time for action has come.
This is, quite simply, about how we protect our children and their innocence.
Their innocence. The children.
Now, of course, a free and open internet is vital. But in no other market and with no other industry do we have such an extraordinarily light touch when it comes to protecting our children.
Protecting our children. Their precious innocence.
Children can’t go into the shops or the cinema and buy things meant for adults or have adult experiences; we rightly regulate to protect them.
Regulate. Protect them.
But when it comes to the internet, in the balance between freedom and responsibility we’ve neglected our responsibility to children.
Everyone, together now, with a single voice: We are all children. We are all innocent. We have been neglected.
And all the actions we’re taking today come back to that basic idea: protecting the most vulnerable in our society, protecting innocence, protecting childhood itself.
We deserve that.
That is what is at stake…
A more innocent world.
…and I will do whatever it takes to keep our children safe.
(H/T Torval Lokison) (Image via)