The filter survey is closed. Here are the results

David Heath
Thursday, 22 July 2010 00:25

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

38,427 people can't be wrong, can they?

Seventeen well-known organisations, ranging from major news outlets to niche-focussed sites, promoted a web-poll with a very simple question: "Would you vote for a political party that supports the internet filter?

After a week of voting, the poll has closed and the results are in.

Interestingly, the question was posed on the Tuesday before the election was called, and closed the Tuesday after.  Casual observation of the aggregating results suggested that the calling of the election had no significant effect on the relative proportion of the voting, but it may have increased the level of interest.

So, what were the results?

Of the 38,427 who voted, 809 (a little over 2%) agreed that they would vote for a political party that supported the internet filter.

390 people (almost exactly 1%) claimed to not care one way or the other, although why they made the effort to vote is an intriguing side-issue.

This leaves 37,228 (slightly under 97%) who claimed they would not support a political party that supported the filter.

On the face of it, this would seem like a significant refusal of the filter, but it is important to place the numbers in some kind of context.