WorldCom Forced To Block Questionable Sites

Cutriss writes "Seen on Wired, this article briefly mentions how the Pennsylvania State Government is forcing UUNet to block access to five child pornography sites, under their new state law. No mention was made as to whether they were domestic or foreign. I'm certainly no fan of kiddie porn, but this ruling also serves as a blow to the 'common carrier' status that any whatever-tiered ISP should have in theory, and in practice. Also, this is a state law, not a federal one, but the end result is nationwide. This isn't a whole lot different from Yahoo! France being sued for making auctions of Nazi propaganda viewable by French citizens."

Comments

Re:Who's rights we talking about?

[baskil]

Some things are worse than censorship. Prioritize. I don't think that anyone would argue with you that child pornography is worse than censorship. Those sites should be closed off at the source. Shutting off access for a few million potential visitors does NOTHING to protect these children from being abused. On the other hand, the restriction of these sites sets a prescedent that government/special interest groups can influence a content provider to restrict access. First this, then some news site that doesn't agree with with the government's view or rulings. And then, slowly, your right to free speech erodes away. There are better ways of solving this problem.

Re:Who's rights we talking about?

[lostPackets]

You're missing the point. The concept of Kiddie Porn turns my stomach as well. No one here is arguing that child pronography is an acceptable thing.

Personally, I think anyone caught producing or directly distributing it should be deal with harshly.

The point is that the PA goverments is ordering a carrier to take full responsibility for the content. If you plot a crime using the phone is the phone company liable?
Wait I forgot, it's just like terrorism. Since I don't support this "I must not care about the children". Well bullshit, I have a five year old I love to death, I think the people who are caught pursueing these site's and certainly the people creating this material should be thrown in prisions so lonely that they'll pay spiders for sex. That doesn't have anything to do with the issue at hand

Child abuse

[0x0d0a]

Children were being abused before the Internet even existed, and they'll still be abused after Worldcom implements this decision

Child abuse (at least in the US) is a lot lower than it would have been in, say, the Middle Ages, or even a hundred years ago. Don't lose sight of this -- it's not some new, looming danger -- it's something on the drop.

Now, obesity or cancer is another story...