God bless Birmingham, UK

[Schrödinger's Cat]

BBC NEWS | UK | England | West Midlands | Council ban on atheist websites

A city council has blocked its staff from looking at websites about atheism.
Lawyers at the National Secular Society said the move by Birmingham City Council was "discriminatory" and they would consider legal action.

The rules also ban sites that promote witchcraft, the paranormal, sexual deviancy and criminal activity.

The city council declined to comment on the possible legal action, but said the new system helped make it easier for managers to monitor staff web access.

'Very strong case'

The authority's Bluecoat Software computer system allows staff to look at websites relating to Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and other religions but blocks sites to do with "witchcraft or Satanism" and "occult practices, atheistic views, voodoo rituals or any other form of mysticism".

Under the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003, it is unlawful to discriminate against workers because of their religion or belief, which includes atheism.

National Secular Society president Terry Sanderson said the city council's rules also discriminated against people who practise witchcraft, which is also classed as a legitimate belief.

He said the society would initially contact the council and ask for the policy to be changed, and otherwise pursue legal action.

He said he believed he would have a "very strong case".

Mr Sanderson said: "It is discriminatory not only against atheists but they also are banning access to sites to do with witchcraft.

"Witchcraft these days is called Wicca, which is an actual legitimate and recognised religion.

"We feel very strongly that people who don't believe should not be denied the access that people who do believe have got."

He added that some opinion polls said that up to 25% of the UK population now considered themselves atheist.

A city council statement said the authority had a "long-standing internet usage policy for staff".

It added: "We are currently implementing new internet monitoring software to make the control of internet access easier to manage.

"The aim of this is to provide greater control for individual line managers to monitor internet usage, and for departments, such as trading standards and child protection, to gain access, if needed, to certain sites for business reasons."

"The authority's Bluecoat Software computer system allows staff to look at websites relating to Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and other religions but blocks sites to do with 'witchcraft or Satanism' and 'occult practices, atheistic views, voodoo rituals or any other form of mysticism'."

Pretty interesting how the absence of belief is lumped in there as a form of mysticism, but Christianity, Islam and Hinduism are left out of that category. This is basically censorship for the "undesirables".

[Smull]

I can understand a staff not allowing their members to search some of those things while at work like "the paranormal, sexual deviancy and criminal activity." but its complete bullshit to allow people to access Christian, Islam, Jewish, and Hindu websites and not atheistic ones. It wouldn't even bother me if they banned ALL religious websites, but why signal out the atheists?

[Schrödinger's Cat]

It's not just atheistic (atheist, agnostic, etc.) sites, but also anything that is considered "mysticism" by whoever made this policy (the quoted person in the article also mistakenly considers atheism as mysticism). They've singled out a large chunk for their employees, no doubt. It is discrimination based on religious bigotry against atheists and other beliefs that are traditionally deemed undesirable by Christians (e.g., witches, satanists, occultists) .

[WickedLou9]

Where I work they block almost everything.
ANything about:
1) Religon (All of it)
2) Sports ( all sports. Golf, football, baseball, horse racing, formula 1, everything )
3) Entertainment ( movies, TiVO, Sirus Radio, etc. )
4) Music ( iTunes, Rucuks, etc. )
5) Games ( anything about games, online games, web based games )
6) Other offensive stuff like porn( obviously )
7) Guns
8) Chat and some message forums like OT
9) All instant messaging applications
10) All outside email software like Yahoo and Gmail.
11) Any and all proxy sites including langauge translators ( which can be used like proxies)
12) Gambling
13) Real Estate ( I have no idea why )
14) all sites lke Ebay, craigslist, etc.

Welcome to corporate america!

[7960]

Originally Posted by Smull

I can understand a staff not allowing their members to search some of those things while at work like "the paranormal, sexual deviancy and criminal activity." but its complete bullshit to allow people to access Christian, Islam, Jewish, and Hindu websites and not atheistic ones. It wouldn't even bother me if they banned ALL religious websites, but why signal out the atheists?

especially when christianity itself is full of "the paranormal, sexual deviancy and criminal activity"

[WickedLou9]

I was suprised to hear that the UK has state funded religous schools too.

[Phantom]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

13) Real Estate ( I have no idea why )

When I worked a previous job, a lady worked as a realtor from her the desk of her day job arranging showings, closings, everything.

Also people can spend hours searching for homes during work hours.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

I was suprised to hear that the UK has state funded religous schools too.

Why's that surprising? The head of the state is the head of the church, in title at least. Churches also gets subsidies.

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by Schrödinger's Cat

Why's that surprising? The head of the state is the head of the church, in title at least. Churches also gets subsidies.

It;s just so opposite from what we are accustomed to here in the US. Religion and Government are strictly seperate here. I'm just so used to that, and I'm used to thinking of the UK as being pretty similar to the US in most regards that something so fundamental as church and state seemed like a given to me. I suppose I just never about it. It probably shoudln't have suprised me...After all... that is one of the main reasons that people left England for 'The Colonies'.

[avsp]

bcc & internet filtering, ..., story of my life mate

the idea that Birmingham City Council could knowing institute any given internet filtering policy at all is totally laughable, ..., & every one here knows it. I'm fairly tempted to publish the extensive correspondance I've had with them over this over the last 5 years but I wont coz they asked me ever so politely not to.

Notwithstanding this I think they're being unfairly criticised.

Firstly I cant find any member of BCC staff who has been blocked in such a fashion

Secondly there is inevitably going to be a bedding in period for any such system

Thirdly the s/w inself is American in origin & I'm willing to bet that their preloaded black & white lists categories are where the odd lumping in of atheism & witchcraft started.
The presumably over-cautious prudential approach to the concern strikes me as, very probably, a perculiarly 'American' one.
In a deeply agnostic society like the UK few people know of atheism & I think it likely that many people would struggle to see the difference anyway

I'd not be surprised if as responsibility for this is delegated down depts, (which seems to be the public reason for changing yet again), that numerous similar problems arise as managers, who arent trained for the task, dont see it as part of their duties & resent being forced to do it c*ck this up repeatedly.

Perhaps the only good fing about this all is that for the public internet their last change of filtering s/w was so very badly managed & the complaints so vociferious that I reckon they're too scared to change again & so I've been unaffected.

just think, ..., if I'd signed that piece of paper that would've allowed me back into the central reference libray I'd've been breaking confidentiality agreements in posting about this

Currently their public filter seems ok to me, ..., blocks all the leading porn & racist sites, ..., I can get to the National Secular Society, (who seem to agree that BCC arent doing this deliberately & make mention of the 'american'-ness of the s/w) & numerous wicca sites etc.

Liveleak comes & goes depending on how its being reported in the UK tabloids.

The only problem I regularly have is searchs or urls with the word 'weapons', 'swords' or 'guns' in them. I can ask for them to be unblocked but it takes weeks, ..., although getting all of fas unblocked took only a month.

People especially children are still able to use google image search with strict filtering switched off in order to find porn, ..., BCC are aware of this but claim that they can do nowt about it which I find a bit odd given that the system can detect google searches with the keyword 'weapon' but apprently not the string '&safe=off&'

BCC please note: the underlined section does NOT prove that i've been testing the filter at all, ..., just that I've seen/heard punters talking about doing so

[motivez]

A private business should be able to restrict its internet usage in the work place however it sees fit, no one is forced to work there, and unless you're a journalist or someone who requires unfettered access to information to your job, I don't see how people have much room to complain except for when there's clear double standards that show a favoritism towards one set of views, but even then, it's up to the employee to continue working there.

When it's a government though, I can understand the need to be equally open (or equally closed) and not allow certain viewpoints to be viewed as receiving favoritism or endorsement while others are blocked