City Council Blocks Access to Sites on Atheism, Wicca
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.
Source: BBC
If the software blocked access to all non-work related sites, they'd be on solid ground. They have a right to do this in order to prevent employees from spending work time on non-work activities. If the software blocked access to all sites dealing with religion, they might be on solid ground. Singling out religion for such treatment is questionable, but if they had evidence that lots of time was being wasted on religion-related sites and not other sites, that might be a legal justification for singling out religion. Picking just certain religions and/or religious/philosophical topics for filtering, though, is a form of religious discrimination.
I'm curious about whether this "Bluecoat Software" comes pre-configured to allow access to sites on Christianity and Islam but blocks access to sites on atheism and Wicca or if the situation is due to deliberate choices and settings made by the Birmingham City Council. If the former is the case, then a little bit of the blame is taken from the council but it would the case that the people behind Bluecoat Software are selling anti-atheist bigotry. If the latter is the case, then all the bigotry and discrimination lies with the city council.
Is it possible that there is some reasonable justification or explanation for blocking access to web sites relating to atheism? They've had a chance to offer one and this is the best they could come up with:
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."
So, do you notice any attempt to explain or justify why the government would allow employees to access sites relating to Christianity or Islam, but not sites relating to atheism or Wicca? Neither do I. All I see is an attempt to explain why web filtering was implemented at all, but as far as I can tell no one is questioning whether the city council should have any sort of filtering software in place. The city council is thus answering a question that wasn't asked and ignoring a question that was asked.
Although I may be wrong, it looks an awful lot like they expected to be asked or challenged on why they implemented web filtering and so had a statement prepared in advance for that, but they did not expect to be questioned or challenged on the details of that filtering. If this is true, the likely explanations are either that they are so oblivious that they never anticipated anyone disagreeing with such a decision, or they didn't realize that this would happen — as if, for example, one of the technical staff made this decision on their own and the council has been caught by surprise.
In such a situation they simply released the only statement they had in order to give themselves time to figure out what happened. Although I sympathize, that's not entirely acceptable or appropriate. If they really were blind-sided by this, they should acknowledge from the outset that they are unfamiliar with what's going on, will investigate closely, and will have further comments afterwards. Similar things have happened in other contexts, so this would be a reasonable course of action. If, however, they were complicit in the decision to block access to sites relating to atheism and Wicca, then they should be held 100% responsible for that decision — as well as all the bigotry and discrimination that goes along with it.
Comments
This is weird and disturbing. I hope it was just an oversight and that these words weren’t targeted as “offensive” or somehow harmful…? That would be discriminatory.
Not only is the Birmingham council’s action religious discrimination, it is also censorship. The council members or others responsible should be indicted for both crimes and removed from office.
If they were a private company, the censorship would be perfectly fine. It may even be that web filtering is appropriate. But the specifics are strange, and lumping atheism in with mysticism is quite strange.
In government offices, workers are not free to express their religious beliefs, and you know it.
Same with religious symbols.
If you are going to block discussion of religion, you have to block the negative too.
I love it when atheists cry like stuck pigs when forced to endure what they would like to do to others.
Who ya kidding, Austin?
We know you are a lying weasel.
I would not call it censorship - as Austin said, if they found that time was being wasted on sites not related to work, then it makes sense to block sites such as those. It is not them blocking it for the general populace, just for the workers that are in their charge. However, the fact that they chose those particular websites is what is concerning.
Since when?
Feel free to cite examples.
Did you not notice that religious sites aren’t being blocked?
Feel free to point out atheists who are calling for religious sites to be blocked.
That’s a serious accusation. Can you back it up?
>…allow employees to access sites relating to Christianity or Islam, but not sites relating to atheism or Wicca
I think this is the key. If it truly was “block[ing] discussion of religion,” then it would be no problem to “block the negative too.”
But if religion is not blocked, then it’s odd to block _some_ select religions and religious opinions.
At my workplace, some sites are blocked. Generally it’s fairly obvious _why_. Any site that contains sexually explicit content or illicit drug content is not viewable. I understand this. Our workplace machines are not for personal use, and there is no reason for anyone at my workplace to be looking up sex or drug related material. I don’t mind that my company censors the content of our work systems. But it would be odd if they, for example, allowed sexually explicit content to be accessible, but blocked such sites only if they contained homosexual material.
That would be hypocritical and discriminatory.
The whole thing sounds like suppression of an unpopular stance. I do object to the use of the word negative when mentioning ATHEISM, What is so negative? Christianity preaches that ATHEISTS are in league with the devil and evil does that sound positive?
Remember EVIL Spelled backwards is LIVE
God spelled backwards is DOG !!!!!!!!!!
I love how the “whining” card is seemingly played against atheists, but the person forgets to think “what happens if only Christian sites were blocked, or only Baptist sites?” Would that whine be legitimate? Of course that isn’t whining, that is discrimination and unfair! Of course.
The National Secular Society has written to the Council pointing out it is in breach of anti-discrimination legislation. I would expect this to be reversed in the first week of August. Basically, they haven’t got a leg to stand on.
You’ve picked up on this quickly.I heard about it a couple of days ago and only live about 50 miles from B’ham.I think there’s more cock-up than conspiracy here. Birmingham council has long been known as a beacon of incomptence.Very strange post from whogivesa..though.
I strongly object to Birmingham Councils’ decision. Again religion not able to take critisism about themselves but able to critise Atheism.
Afraid I suppose that their power is about to end. Maybe not now but in the future.
It looks like the URL filtering is preconfigured in the Bluecoat system. You can find the inappropriate line, grouping atheistic views with voodoo and occultism, on Bluecoat’s category list in the Alternative Spirituality/Occult section.
As long as Birmingham City council changes the default configuration to allow access to atheist websites they should be OK. Although you would have to draw into question whether it was a sensible idea to select the Bluecoat system in the first place. It really shows the Bluecoat company as being bizarrely bigoted.