There is a great, as in amusing, report over at the Register today about a Government website that had been set up to help kids learn more about government services available for kids with some games and projects and sections aimed at parents and teachers. It all sounds pretty good so far doesn’t it?
Trouble was they used a name for the site that is already in use elsewhere on the internet for a gay porn site. I haven’t attempted to look myself but according to TheRegister.co.uk if you do a search for Busters World on Google the first site that comes up is probably one you would rather your kids did not see.
Apparently the site has been taken down for now while the Government Department responsible considers their options and presumably tries to think of a safer website name. I do have some sympathy with the civil servants behind this as they would hardy expect a name like this to be a poblem. It seems like a perfectly reasonable name for a kids related website.
This raises an interesting paradox. If the government are to check for porn sites before they name a website they will have to do searches for porn on government computers whilst at work which will, almost certainly, go against all their own rules about using government computers for browsing porn and could well lead to them looking at illegal content.
On the other hand, if they don’t do this it will allow the possibility of a similar gaff in the future. Which does rather prove the point that simple laws and blanket rules are a nonsense and common sense should always prevail.
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