I have written this counter petition because I object to the nanny state meddling intrusively in the lives of innocent, law-abiding, well-behaved children and their parents, which is precisely what will happen if Tina Plant's petition to PM Theresa May titled: "Make parents legally responsible for restricting internet & social media use of under 16's" succeeds. First of all, there is no way that the UK government could force millions upon millions of families to buy, in my opinion, Chinese Great Firewall style software. It would probably be impractical and virtually unenforceable. How would the PEGI - style system work, when the internet is a global network? Would foreign companies be subject? It would probably end up like COPPA, where because a company wants to work in one country, it becomes applicable in every other country. Facebook, for example, would probably have to create a separate division for the UK to comply, or just pull out of the country, in my opinion. Or enforce the rules across the whole world.  

I also believe in civil liberties, civil rights and the greatness of the internet. This petition intrudes heavily into the personal lives of the UK population and is telling parents how to run their kids lives, and is telling our children what they can watch and view and what they can't. I believe a society works best when information is as open and free as possible, and the internet is one of humankind's greatest achievements. The openness of the internet is something we should be celebrating and it should be our children's birthright to enjoy the great and unprecedented richness of knowledge and fun that can be found on a free, unrestricted, open internet. Generation Z is the most tech-savvy generation in human history, and we should be celebrating their great knowledge of the internet, not seeing it as a bad thing and taking away their rights. I am a 15-year-old teenager and I know many peers at my school who know how to use the internet very responsibly and safely, perhaps safer than their parents, as they know more about the internet than any generation in human history. 

As for Tina's fear of inappropriate content, most children over the age of 12 or 13 can actually distinguish the appropriate from the inappropriate. Children are generally mature before the age of 16. And even if they do look at "inappropriate" content, a very vague description, the state should not intervene if they do it out of curiosity and do not harm their safety or anyone else's pleasure. And as for concerns about pedophilia and child predators, this should be tackled at the source. Why don't we spend our taxpayer money on strongly urging families to report suspicious activity and recognizing pedophilia as the sick mental illness that it is, and sending people with pedophilia symptoms to a mental system to be treated and/or castrated? That would actually solve the problem, rather than putting than just covering up the problem with a band-aid as this would do. 

To finish off my case against the petition, I think we should look back at history. People have often used "safety" as an excuse for authoritarian policies. George Bush used the situation after 9/11 to push the PATRIOT Act, which spies on millions of Americans and Theresa May and Amber Rudd are using the threat of terrorism to push their "snoopers charter". This is comparable and perhaps even worse in my opinion. As Jeremy Corbyn once said "You don't defeat terrorism by ripping up human rights". I say "You don't defeat the problems facing young people by destroying their human rights to an open and free internet". You tackle the problems at the source. 

I would recommend that Tina Plant considers my perspective as an experienced in tech teenager, and that we can hopefully persuade her to allow under 16s to have the same internet freedoms that adults have and pursue progressive and humane solutions to the problems that we face.

I rest my case