Talk:Censorship in the United Kingdom

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Peer reviewers: Sbal123, Aberrant mushroom.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 17:05, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Obscene Publications Act
Shouldn't the Obscene Publications Act have a seperate entry (so it can be included in Category:British laws and/or the List of Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom)?? Lmno 03:46, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

No dissenting votes. Did it.Lmno 22:05, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Indecency vs. obscenity
This stuff is quite misleading. Lmno 00:15, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Shouldn't we talk about non-indecency/obscenity related censorship, too? --Penta 19:55, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Go for it :-) Lmno 16:30, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ministry of Information
Shouldn't there be something on the ministry from the First World War and it's infamous staff of 999? It was vital in censorship during the war years, and kept much information from the public during the war years. J.StuartClarke
 * Yes of course! Please add. Secretlondon 01:48, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Done. Feel free to add to it as you see fit. J.StuartClarke

What's infamous about having a staff of 999? Soczyczi (talk) 10:08, 15 January 2008 (UTC)


 * It was well known to the public, and 999 just appeared to them to be an amusing number of staff. --J.StuartClarke (talk) 16:48, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Weasel words
Could somebody add sources for some of the claims regarding the views of "some people"? Joe D (t) 01:07, 9 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't have sources, so I've changed the wording to 'There is no clear line between self-regulation in matters of expression and self-censorship' which is (I think) incontrovertible. Edit away if you don't like it, or better, add a quote from a legal or civil rights expert if you have any. --Squiddy | (squirt ink?)  10:29, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Religeous hatred
I'm sure some churches etc were in favour. It looks currently as though it was everyone vs the government. Secretlondon 11:50, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
 * The Muslim Association of Britain are in favour of it, I believe (can't find anything on their website, though), and the (more moderate?) Muslim Council of Britain are generally in favour but aren't happy with the watering down it recieved in the Lords on 1 Feb . George Galloway's RESPECT party are in favour of it too, taking the same line as the MCB . That's all I can find at the mo. --Squiddy | (squirt ink?)  16:24, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Need more examples
This article could use more examples of cases of censorship in the UK, especially modern examples. Perhaps even a section devoted to prominent cases of censorship. Kaldari 04:01, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Licensing act 1695
I think this has a place in any article about Censorship in the UK, this was the point when news papers became wide spread after this act lapsed http://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=367 The papers exploded at this time and there a great many within 5 years and as a result the electorate standing at around 200,000 or 4.3% (this comes from a book but i can not recall the name) were much better informed about politics the main topic of these papers to start with. It was not only news papers that this helped but they were the main thing that were helped.

There is a primary source here to show the date if need be: http://www.univ.trieste.it/~storia/GuidoOnLine/Proceedings_Parliament_1695_1745.htm

I will leave this here for a bit to see if anyone come up with anything more.

Internet censorship
Removed from article: "censorship occurs in many ways upon the internet primarily through the subtlety of gurilla marketing such as AOL upon the release of it's broadband service in the UK it has segregated US material from UK material denying access to many US chatrooms. Another example would be Yahoo instant messenger depending upon the country a person selects at the install stage will determine the radio stations available to the user e.g. A UK user will only get UK radio stations. "

Removed as I'm not sure it is censorship. Secretlondon 17:07, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Citations and references
Please consider adding them to the article, especially if they are Internet sources. Skinnyweed 23:22, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

No trials under Official Secrets Act?
"No cases have gone to trial where a newspaper or journalist has been prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act." The ABC Trial involved 2 journalists being prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act. They won their case but they were certainly charged. We should also mention the Richard Tomlinson book The Big Breach which they tried to censor too. Secretlondon 09:25, 1 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't know, but I'm removed it. Skinnyweed 17:13, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

OPA prosecutions
While I believe the comment is correct about there being no prosecutions for text-only sexual obscentity since 'Inside Linda Lovelace', there has been at least one successful prosecution for obscenity for drug-related material. I'll see if I can find a reference...

The position of online material is particularly interesting following a partially successful prosecution of a UK-based 'scat' (playing with shit) website. The owner was convicted of obscentity in relation to the free preview video, but cleared by the jury of charges relating to the larger members-only library. Lovingboth 14:05, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Northern Ireland
Would it be worth including mention of the censorship of Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein MP in the 80s Alastairward 00:24, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Scotland
This whole article on the UK seems to talk exclusivly about (or at least reference) english (+welsh) law. Are these UK wide laws or are there are diffrences in Scots Law? (seperate legal system) It needs clarification. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaosume (talk • contribs) 01:34, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Video Games
Should video games be included in this article, with reference to items such as Manhunt 2? AlasdairJohnstone (talk) 18:10, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Economist article about Libel laws in the UK + NY Review of Books
To be integrated in the libel section. MaxPont (talk) 14:39, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * One additional article from NY Review of Books "A Chill on 'The Guardian" MaxPont (talk) 09:15, 7 March 2009 (UTC)


 * One more article from The Economist "Libel tourism - Are English courts stifling free speech around the world?"MaxPont (talk) 18:08, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Other censors

 * Police - eg indecent displays. At least two statues in recent years. Nobody seems to know what indecent actually means so the law is largely determined by the whim of the police officer on the scene.
 * WHSmiths - will not distribute periodicals that they disapprove of. They dominate the wholesale newsagent business so they are the unofficial censor of the periodical scene.
 * Phone companies - internet access. British Naturism recently had to persuade Vodafone to change their policy.
 * ASDA - refused to put a photograph of a nude toddler on an 18th birthday cake.
 * Every ISP, every council, every police officer, publishers, distributors, retailers. The list goes on and on.

There is no regulation, agreed standards, right of appeal or any other reasonably accessible means of redress.

I can provide references but I am sorry, I don't have time to write it up at present.

Malcolm Boura, British Naturism. Rlo.bn (talk) 22:06, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Article in a mess
The structure of the article makes it look like a talk page. Could it be changed to look more like an article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.144.38.123 (talk) 20:01, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia
Nothing of the time Wikipedia was banned in the UK because of that album cover? 91.104.103.231 (talk) 18:49, 10 July 2010 (UTC)


 * See Internet censorship in the United Kingdom, a subtopic of this article. Christopher Connor (talk) 21:35, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Troubles
Should have seperate section in main article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.95.176.113 (talk) 17:27, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Press TV
I removed the reference to the unpaid £100,000 fine because it was not the direct reason for the licence revocation by Ofcom. See David Blair "Iran's Press TV loses UK licence", Daily Telegraph, 20 January 2012. Philip Cross (talk) 11:50, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Links
>> UK bans controversial French comedian(Lihaas (talk) 19:13, 3 February 2014 (UTC)).

"imagining the death of the monarch"
Not sure if this is true in the lead. Is this based on the old Treason Act 1800 "imagining the death of the King"? As What is refed is the current Treason Felony Act 1848 and that page says: 'It is treason felony to "compass, imagine, invent, devise, or intend": to deprive the Queen of her crown'. I also found but didn't read. comp.arch (talk) 15:25, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

"advocating for the abolition of the monarchy" - is this really censored? I find it very hard to believe. I'm fairly sure some of my friends have advocated for this and I haven't yet seen them prosecuted for treason. Perhaps I should report them... --Quadrow (talk) 17:52, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 1 one external link on Censorship in the United Kingdom. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070106225059/http://www.escortdistrict.co.uk:80/sex-and-the-law.php to http://www.escortdistrict.co.uk/sex-and-the-law.php

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 02:12, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 4 external links on Censorship in the United Kingdom. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20101207025139/http://www.thelocal.se/17188/20090127 to http://www.thelocal.se/17188/20090127/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080419011906/http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=554 to http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=554
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090224191202/http://www.iwf.org.uk/media/news.archive-2004.39.htm to http://www.iwf.org.uk/media/news.archive-2004.39.htm
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.escortdistrict.co.uk/sex-and-the-law.php

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 01:27, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Banning public authorities from boycotting doesn't match the ordinary definition of censorship
Or am I missing something? Doug Weller talk 08:11, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Northern Ireland
Have I missed examples of censorship in Northern Ireland? A quick news search shows recent ones, eg and, there must be many more? User:Connor Behan, perhaps you could add some? Thanks. Doug Weller talk 11:24, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Yep, the Guardian article links to a few. Is this why you added the template at the top? Connor Behan (talk) 02:45, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

The UK far right and freedom of speech
This is an interesting twist on censorship, its exploitation by racists and fascists. Doug Weller  talk 11:59, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes but there is a world of difference between exploiting actual censorship and exploiting a false narrative of censorship. These essays pretend that everyone at the rally is a Tommy Robinson or a Milo Yiannopoulos, ignoring the fact that some attendees have indeed been targeted by government overreach. Connor Behan (talk) 20:11, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

CitizenGo story about online police intimidation...
CitizenGo is an in the words of their own wikipedia article "ultraconservative advocacy group" and opposes same-sex marriage (and so might be fairly assumed to have an anti-LGBTQ+ standpoint).

A statement on this page: "It has also been condemned for what critics see as police intimidation. In 2016, former IT consultant Paul Perrin expressed resentment over the level of attention given to LGBT issues in the news. When an officer from an LGBT-specific account of the MPS joined the discussion, he or she allegedly revealed knowledge of Perrin's family members."

sourced from here: https:// www.citizengo.org/en/pc/36617-new-metropolitan-police-lgbt-network-threatens-critics-family-member-twitter

1stly it is a petition, but it's 'evidence' is a low-quality small image that reverse image searching hasn't shown up anywhere else. Furthermore trying to search for the text in it fails to bring up much luck. The "pperrin" account is a suspended one now, preventing digging through to find if the original tweet exists (and the met account is undoubtedly far too active to be able to adequately dig through). I did however come across a page (here: https:// www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/met_lgbt_network_tweets?unfold=1) that has a remarkably similar tweet with a remarkably similar date, to a different Twitter handle.

I would imagine such a story would be picked up by at least 1 mainstream newspaper, but it doesn't seem to have been at all. Given the above inconsistency, I'd challenge the reliability of that source. Should the sentence be removed? 188.220.86.46 (talk) 21:41, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I support removal. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:26, 11 February 2021 (UTC)