BEIJING, Dec. 29 (Xinhuanet)-- Britain Culture Secretary Andy Burnham said that his country and the world should employ film-style rating standards for website in a bid to protect children from harmful and offensive material, according to media reports Monday.

    Burnham said the government was planning to negotiate with the administration of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama to draw up new international rules for English language websites.

    "The more we seek international solutions to this stuff -- the UK and the U.S. working together -- the more that an international norm will set an industry norm," Burnham said.

    He said an international ratings effort would help contain instances of indecency online, along with copyright and libel incidents.

    "This is not a campaign against free speech, far from it; it is simply there is a wider public interest at stake when it involves harm to other people. We have got to get better at defining where the public interest lies and being clear about it," Burnham said, considering any moves to censor the Internet might go to the heart of a debate about freedom of speech on the World Wide Web.

    The minister wants new industry-wide "take down times" so that websites like YouTube or Facebook would have to remove offensive or harmful content within a specified time once it is brought to their attention.

    (Agencies)