I am 100% with Taboo on this.
It is not a censor.
It is an opt-in/opt-out filter.
If you don't want it on, you don't have to have it on.
Seeing as how hardly anyone here even lives in the UK or know it's judicial processes, I'll just explain why it's difficult for this to progress any further to censorship.
David Cameron is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He is the leader of the Conservative Party, which sits in the House of Commons in Westminster, in a coallition government alongside Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrat Party.
In order for David Cameron to get any law passed he has to introduce it to Parliament.
The House of Commons will vote on it.
In order for it to get passed, the majority of the House of Commons has to vote in favour of it.
The Government of the UK at the moment is a coallition government because during the last General Election (when voting citizens of the UK vote for their local MPs to go sit in the Commons) no single party was able to gain the majority.
The Conservative party had the most votes, but not the majority. It can not become the Government until it has majority, so they joined a coallition with the LibDem party and put their votes together to become the Government.
What this means is that for the Government to introduce a law, it needs the whole of Government (the majority group) to vote it in.
The Conservative Party (Tories) need to get all their back-benchers (non Cabinet or Department Ministers) to vote in favour. That can be done.
It's much harder for the Tories to get the LibDems and their back-benchers to vote in favour for the laws.
That is because 2 different parties with differing views are trying to agree on something.
Throw in the fact that the Labour Party and other minor-party members sit in the opposition and will likely vote against Government Proposals, if they disagree, then it becomes shakey on the certainty of whether or not Government propositions get passed.
There is no guarantee that anything the Prime Minister or the Tories or the Cabinet proposes will get through.
Even if it does get through, it doesn't stop there.
It has to go the House of Lords.
These are Lords who are not voted in. Some are chosen by governments, some are hereditary peers.
These people, from all number of backgrounds, also have to vote in agreement.
If they don't, it gets bounced back between the House of Lords and the House of Commons, making ammendments until they both agree.
This can take an entire parliamentary year.
If it doesn't get through in that year, then it has to be re-published again the following year.
Including all of it's multiple entrances and write ups to introduce the Act, which take weeks or months.
It then has to bounce back again between the Commons and the Lords, assuming the Commons votes in favour of it again (which can always change based on how individual MPs are influenced by their costituencies).
It has the option in it's second year of ignoring the House of Lords and going through as a law.
It does however take a considerable length of time for the law to be put in place.
It may never get acted upon.
It might take so long to get acted upon, that a general election comes along, and the new government ignores it for the rest of time.
This has happened before.
During this time however, there are also the chances for the courts to take objection to it.
Namely the European Court of Human Rights.
These people (wrongly in my opinion) have the ability to issue a certain law as illegal and usually being against Human Rights.
If they do that, the UK has to ignore the law.
We can not continue with it, unless we either drop out of the European Union, or we start to suffer European sanctions, where we suffer trade embargos among other things.
When the EU steps up, we usually do what they say, because it is much easier than anything else.
So what this all boils down to is the fact that any law put forward by Government has an incredibly long and difficult path before it actualls gets passed, let alone enforced.
If the Government were to start putting down stupid censorship laws, as you seem to naively think they will, then it has the exact same problem.
The UK is not a dicator state and it will not be enforced by the Army. (Especially seeing as how the Army is not even loyal to the Government, but the Royal Family).
If it puts forward ideas that are incredibly poor and appear to be invasive and unfounded, it will almost certainly be stopped by Opposition votes, alongside rebellious Back-Benchers.
If it gets through the Commons, it will almost certainly be stopped by the Lords.
If it gets through the Lords, or waits a year, it will almost certainly be stopped by the EU.
The next UK General Election is in May 2015.
What that means is that in the next year, 2014, politicians will most definitely start looking towards gaining poll positions for votes in their constituencies.
No back-bencher, even if he has the Whips after him, is going to vote for a highly controvercial Act when his constituent citizens are telling him they won't vote for him if it gets passed.
Even if a censoring law gets passed, it will recieve such a massive political backlash that the Tories and Lib Dems will not get voted in during the next General Election.
The new Parliament and Government will listen to what the people have said, and they will remove the law.
That is entirely possible.
No Parliament can bind a future Parliament. That is a part of our unwritten constitution.
So seriously, shut the forget up about your naive paranoid delusions that the UK will turn into a dictatorship with Etonian David Cameron at the head.
Your stupid views are not needed, especially when you don't even understand the system you're talking about.
Go back to fearing your own government.
Now let me address this change to the filter.
It is good.
There is absolutely no reason not to allow these things to be blocked from the eyes of children.
It is blocking research. The graphic material that promotes unfounded loveual expectations, usually linked to exceedingly innocent things, which is readily available to any person at an internet-connectec computer, including a young under-age impressionable child.
It is blocking alcohol and smoking.
These two are already banned for the most part in UK TV, Film and Magazines.
They are the two biggest killing drugs in this country and they do not need to be seen by the under-age.
There is nothing wrong with children being prevented from seeing these.
It is blocking "extremist related content".
These are terrorist linked websites that display all sorts of information, from making bombs to planting them in busy city locations.
It is this sort of thing that the Police and Government spend millions of pounds and hours a year trying to take down.
It is these sorts of things that cause such incidents like the tragic death of Drummer Lee Rigby earlier this year, and the Boston Bombings.
It is blocking "anorexia and eating disorder websites".
These are websites where people will glamourise eating disorders.
The same eating disorders that harm and even kill hundreds of people every single year.
The sorts of things that cost UK taxpayers millions of pounds in Health Care, Rehabilitation and Housing.
No impressionable child should ever be seeing things like this.
These are common social diseases that ruin entire lives.
It is blocking "Self Delete related websites".
Websites where the concept of Self Delete is equally glamourised.
Confused and impressionable teenagers find websites like these and live on them.
You've all seen or heard of people who moan about how poor their lives are and post pictures of themselves cutting themselves.
For every fake person who is doing that to get attention, there is some poor soul who actually feels so lost (because these websites tell them they are) that they have no place left to go than to take their own life.
It is blocking "web forums".
I can't say what sort of web forums it blocks, if it's all of them.
But think how many there are out there that are entirely unfit for any child to visit.
Places where all of the above are expressed in large amounts.
Even places like here, which are exceedingly tame and fit within the confines of most laws, are incredibly vulgar and rude, and not at all safe for young children.
Blocking the dangerous ones is good.
No parent would say they want their child open to these sorts of places.
It is so unbelievably easy to get to any sort of these websites.
Even for children, who can be led there from innocent views.
Just googling something you think is safe can take you somewhere you wouldn't want a child to be.
A filter system is beyond helpful for anyone with children.
And it is entirely optional.
It is not forced on you. No one is losing out.
Do not comment for a tl;dr.
If you ignore the post and comment against it, your opinions are void.
