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British Telecom Blocks Access to Child Porn Sites
An anonymous reader writes "British Telecom has taken the unprecedented step of blocking all illegal child pornography websites in a crackdown on abuse online. The decision by Britain's largest high-speed internet provider will lead to the first mass censorship of the web attempted in a Western democracy."
What worries me is this could be a foot in the door situation.. It is hard to justify the first ones but then easier for future blocks. P0rn, Warz, Hax all could be disappearing from a website near you!
It's a crime to block these services on the end user's side whilst leaving them at large on the internet; they should be taking them down at the source.
Good motives here, but are there controls in place to ensure ONLY kiddieporn is banned by this method?
My fear if this came here is that it would be used to block all manner of 'improper' political sites.
Slippery slope.
nude anime gallery
Before everyone does the kneejerk censorhip response, this seems no different than what goes on in real life. Access to child pornography is blocked in real life. Your local Kwik-E-Mart is not going to be carrying Russian Lolitas Monthly next to the Playboys and Penthouses. Nor should they.
The only issue to be concerned with is whether or not the list of blocked sites is accurate or not.
And of course, this will not stop the knowledgable pedophile, but if it can keep some companies from earning money via paid subscriptions, good for BT.
It's not the child porn, it's more that this is potentially the first step on a slippery slope.
Shouldn't that read "attempted by a large ISP"? Could this result in mass-migration to other services, or are no others viable? As an aside, are cable modems available in Britain?
I do think this is a slippery slope, especially since "pornography" is always hard to define... Are "innocent" shots of (semi)naked teens on Scandinavian beaches "porn", for instance? Who decides?
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
I'm going to side with freedom of speech (and thereby child pornography on the internet.) I in no way approve of or condone child pornography. I think it's disgusting the way that some people get off by exploiting children too young to fully understand the consequences of their actions. However, censorship is a slippery slope. Once we allow the child pornographers to be blocked, what's stopping them from taking the next step and censoring all they deem obscene? What about outlawing anonymous forums because they facilitate obscenity? How long until you have to get your sites white-listed by ISPs to even be viewed in the UK or any other nation that follows this same path?
I'm not insane, just concerned. I say fight the problem of child pornography (etc..) from the other end. Arrest the people, not the websites and protocols.
one more thing..
i know tons of you will say things like "this is just the beginning, wait till they think they can do this again" and you're right. They can do more, but I can gaurentee it isn't as important as this by magnatudes! Seriously, I would rather have not one child be sexually abused for losing one of those "inaliable rights" everyone loves.
dont' get me wrong. I'm a bit worried myself about the abuse of this system, but for now it seems ok.
But let's be a politically aware and active bunch instead of bitchers and whiners and actually _DO_ something when it's wrong.
Blocking kiddie porn = Good
Being proactive against bad laws = Good
sitting on your ass in your mom's basement and complaining about losing rights when you have no clue how politics and laws work = bad
This isn't a troll, but seriously THINK about what powers we as citizens have (of whatever country you reside in). You CAN make a difference if you try hard enough. Martin Luther King never was what he became without hard work, dillegence and direction.
Sorry about replying to my own post, but I had to clear a few things up. I hope you guys don't see this as a rant but something insightful.
Just my 0.02
The alterative is trusting a government body that you have real freedom of information rights. Say no more.
So I'm more that a little concerned the "solution" is to ban urls... wtf?
--
"we live in a post-ideological world..." - Billy Bragg.
What? No way! They're only going to filter known sites. It's not BT's job to go looking for child porn just so they can block it. What if a new website was put up, and BT users accessed it before BT managed to filter it? BT should NOT be held repsonsible then.
i dont think this is a very smart idea, not as much from the free speach perspective, but from a law enforcement point of view. the only thing that will happen is that this kind of material will be distributed in other less transparent ways.
Every major child-porn bust in both western europe and the US has linked the end users with the web sites via their credit card, this is a good way both to bust end-users and to get a good statistical overview of the problem.
Also if the sites are actually on the web it is also much easier for law enforcement to trace people / places where this kind of material originates.
I mean, it would become a nightmare scenario for law enforcement if every end-user of child porn actually took the step and started downloading / posting everything anonymously w/PGP encryption on usenet or other message boards, it would be close to impossible to monitor and no credit card to trace.
just my two cents
And what about the first legit child abuse support site they block? Do they get blocked and shut down too?
Or next month, when its another 'crime against society' they decide to block?
There goes free speech out the window. Don't get me wrong KP *IS* wrong, but you don't deal with it this way, by beginning the process of restricting speech, as once you start, its far to easy to add another item to the 'unapproved knowledge' list out of political pressure.
Ever hear of the Salem witch trials in America? This is similar to how that got started: People in power, imposing their twisted views of right and wrong on others.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
but removing this content is the right way. Every single state on this planet has laws against child pornography.
Most illegal pictures the Britons found were on webservers in the USA. You can find data here. In USA are laws against child porn. You can remove the content.
But, there's a difference between taking actions whose target is the pornographers (shutting the sites down) and taking actions whose target is the general public (blocking access).
Plus, I don't understand why it's so wrong that child pornography gets exchanged. Obviously, the creation of the images in the first place is bad, but, by banning the exchange of them in addition to the creation, we're creating a legal taboo and sending a message, saying that, if you like pictures of naked kids, then, Houston, we have a problem.
What about sites like rotten.com, for people who like pictures of violence and decay? Shouldn't those images be illegal, too? Some of them are photographic evidence of criminal acts!
I don't think it's really appropriate to declare any private exchange of information illegal, ever. I don't think it's really appropriate for the government to interfere much with what property a person can own and what they can do with it. It's all paranoia. If someone wants to have guns and bombs, maybe they should be watched carefully, but the key point is, have they caused any harm to anyone or anything else yet, by merely having those items?
Maybe they just like pyrotechnics *shrug*. I know I've made gunpowder and little film-canister explosives, with the intent to detonate them just for fun, without causing harm to anyone else. Sure, maybe detonating them without a pyrotechnics license would still be a very bad idea (because then there's no guarantee I have proper training), but, if I had a license to do something dangerous, there's no reason I shouldn't be allowed to do it.
Nobody ever said freedom was an easy thing.
I suggest that anybody who believes in freedom like I do move out and colonize some area with me. We'll set up a country centered around freedom..
Oh wait! They already did that, it's called the U.S. of A. But then why does said country have so many laws prohibiting so many types of possessions and a few types of speech?
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
A lot of people are screaming about how banning child pornography cannot possibly be twisted into A Bad Thing, but it is not child pornography that this debate really centres on.
The issue most people have is a large corporation having sway over what it's users can and can't view.
It's not just child porn, what happens if someone posts anti-BT comments or messages? I've seen enough companies censor their support forums by banning users and deleting posts that criticise their service, do we really want a company able to censor the entire internet? the 'net is one of the few havens of totally free speech availible, and if BT is given the power to block one sort of site, then they will use it as a 'test case' to gain the right to block other kinds of sites.
Next will go the anti-government sites. Websites that criticise the government, simply blocked from view thanks to BT. Then regular porn sites. Scream at me to say I've got my tinfoil hat on over this, but all I see is a large corporation taking it's first tentative steps towards 'sanitizing' the internet. Blocking child pornography is just the start - the company can block child porn and live safe in the knowledge that anyone who objects will be labelled a paedophile or a supporter of child pornography. Then they can start sliding other categories onto their block lists, safe in the knowledge that anyone who objects to it will get the full wrath of the following knee-jerk reaction:
"Oh so you don't like internet censorship, then, do you? what do you want, then, you want kiddie porn all over the place then? is that what you want!" - BT looks good by proxy of public hysteria.
First it's the big, bad child-porn sites. Then it will be the big, bad anti-government sites. Then it will be the whole porn sector, then whole swathes of the internet that do not agree with 'company policy'. Like I said, I might have my tinfoil hat on over this, but the world seems to get a little closer to something out of a cyberpunk novel everyday.
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
No it isn't a good idea.
Remember Prohibitionism era ? It was effectively trying to cut the production and distribution of alcohol, but it never worked because the demand for alcohol was consistent and was probably reinforced by the fact alcohol become a "forbidden thing" and we all known how youngsters are attracted by things that are forbidden by adults during their transition to maturity. Police spent enormous resources trying to address the "alcohol" problem, just to see all the effort wasted because it was a pointless investment to begin with.
"Tracking and hunting" approach, typical of today knee-jerk reactionism, doesn't address the psycological problems child pornographers have, which probably is caused by an unhealthy approach to sex, seen as a "problem" or "filthy issue" instead of a completely natural expression of human beings. Education on the subject of sex works in the long term, while repression and prohibition has done more damages then good.
Have any IPs that hit child porn sites logged and investigated.
I believe that's called "entrapment." And if you can find a way to legally justify it for suspicion of one type of crime, it becomes easier to justify it for other crims.
For example, let's say someone is writing a book. For research, he wants to know how much contract killing costs. He googles for rates, and may or may not find the information he's looking for. Within days, however, his apartment is raided and his equipment confiscated. Shortly, he's charged with some sort of pre-murder or conspiracy crime.
What good is freedom of speech, if you don't have the freedom to find out what to say?
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Which is exactly why you shouldn't be making those decisions. Well, we lost some rights, but now all children are safe. (Well, they aren't actually safe. We gave up free speech on the Internet so that pedophiles would have to find other ways to get kiddie porn, and the abuse rate hasn't gone down much.) How many more rights should we give up for the illusion of safety?
And what if we did give up all our rights and were made relatively safe? What's the point of being safe if you can't enjoy basic human rights?
"Think of the children!"
We'll do more to protect them by protecting their freedom.
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
Plus, I don't understand why it's so wrong that child pornography gets exchanged.
OK, so how about me and a few of my buds gome pay you a visit, strap down you and your girlfriend for a hot bukkake fest, film it as we do so and then we make your shame and humilation available for perverts to wank over via the internet for all eternity?
Can you still not see what's so wrong about that?
But the argument is, child molesters are disturbed individuals. Do economic rules apply so simply to them? They will be disturbed and wanting to molest children regardless of the price associated. Decreasing the supply, which drives up the "price" (scarcity), is not going to make fewer people want to molest children, which seems to be implied in a lot of arguments against child pornography (it might lessen how much it happens, but it won't decrease the desire to). "Looking at dirty pictures of children" is always listed as "contributing" to the molestation of children. If I run across some random picture of some naked 12-year-old who reminds me of a girl I had a crush on in junior high, how exactly am I contributing? It's not as if I went out looking for that picture, and, unless I communicate my interest to suppliers, they probably won't even know that one more person saw that picture, because information, unlike a physical object, is easily reproducible. Do you think the suppliers sit there watching their hit-counters and access logs and think, ooh, more people are finding my site, I need to molest more kids!
Of course, is it really necessary to assume such individuals are through-and-through disturbed? That's what society argues, but, psychology is not an exact science.
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
For those of you that think this is a slippery slope censorship issue, think again.
What you are trying to do is link the relationship between free speech and censorship to BT's actions.
What do you think free speech is? Your right to say whatever you want whenever you want wherever you want and make someone else pay to distribute it for you? If so, you have no idea what free speech is.
Free speech is your right to have an hold unpopular ideas and convey them (at your own trouble and expense) to others if you wish.
You cannot use this right to abrogate the rights of others. So you can't libel or extol the use of violence against your fellow citizens. You also can't steal from others by forcing them to pay for the distribution of your ideas.
BT has every right in the world to engage in these actions.
This article is not about the government suppressing ideas that it does not like. That's the only censorship that is truly dangerous.
This is a private company. They can block what ever they and their shareholders wish. They are in the marketplace of ideas and goods.
If it really bothers you, then compete with them.
But don't try to tar and feather them with the misuse of poorly held ideas.
www.bannination.com Two things float to the top he
Plus, I don't understand why it's so wrong that child pornography gets exchanged. Obviously, the creation of the images in the first place is bad, but, by banning the exchange of them in addition to the creation, we're creating a legal taboo and sending a message, saying that, if you like pictures of naked kids, then, Houston, we have a problem. Whoa there homie! You have a very naive view of what entails child pornography, as, I think, many people do. When most people think of pornography they think of some man or woman showing their goodies to the world, but that's not really porn. Imagine the last porn movie you saw with all the anal, vaginal, oral action you can stand. Got that in your mind? Ok. Now imagine that applied to unwilling children anywhere in age from 1-12 years old. Starting to get the idea? The reason that child pornography is SO revolting is NOT because it is simply "pictures of naked kids", but it's images of children being raped and sexually tortured which adults are procuring for their enjoyment. Once I understood that, the entire CONCEPT of child pornography became repellently EVIL and INEXCUSABLE. I say, shut the fuckers down and arrest any sick fuck who believes viewing images of the raping and sexual torture of unwilling children is a "harmless" way to get themselves off. blue
And the presence of this filter is going to help you filter your babysitters how?
Fine, that's one definition of CP. What happens when the person responsible for censoring sites has a different definition of CP? There are sites with naked kids, just naked, no 'action'. Is that CP? There are sites with kids dressed in swimwear, sexy clothes, etc. in suggestive poses. Is that CP? There are sites that sell kids clothing and use pictures of kids in the clothing to sell it. Some people get off on such sites. Is that CP? There are sites where kids themselves put up pictures of themselves to share with their friends.
You can use the most extreme, offensive, evil concept of CP to justify your point of view, but just like anything else, most actual situations will not be that extreme, and will not be so easily defined.
And I don't like the NRA. Should I demand my ISP block those sites too? And I believe in a woman's right to choose, so maybe I should demand my ISP block anti-abortion sites? I don't like the republican party. Should I demand that the ISP block their sites?
Anyone who now responds with "but that's not the same thing!" is missing the point. Blocking something that most people (myself included) is a universal evil sounds like a good idea, but it sets a dangerous precedent. It can be twisted around to allow someone to start blocking sites that have unfavorable political views by associating them with child porn in some way. Do this enough times, and eventually they'll stop even trying to make the association since censorship will become a fact of life.
Freedom of speech means NOTHING if it is not open for all. Freedom for all, or freedom for none.
Also, consider this: Child porn would not be around if there was not a demand for it. Perhaps the problem should be addressed there, rather than accepting this band-aid solution.
Karma: Frotzed (mostly due to the Frobozz Magic Karma Company)
I can do alot to protect my daughter from perverts, but how do I protect her from people trying to micro-regulate the internet?
I've seen numerous comments lamenting this action as the beginning of a "slippery slope". I think this is a side effect of seeing the world as binary. Regardless of all the binary computers, the world is fuzzy. Too bad more people can't apply that. Defending kiddy porn because you don't like the idea of a secretive psycho-moralist witch-burning society is lame. I personally don't care whether the sites are blocked; I just want to kill the child molesters who set up these sites.
.25% murder. Our legal system has no sensible way to deal with these issues.
In some ways, it comes down to deciding on a lesser of n evils (or, in rare circumstances, n goods). I don't want any government or private agency or person to secretly search my house, library records, or financial records. I don't want to be thrown in jail with no charges, no lawyer, and no acknowledgement that I've been imprisoned. Nor do I want murderers to get out of jail before pot smokers; it usually comes down to making unclear choices. And what is a "kid"? 6-year old - kid. 17-year old, in a country where 16-year-olds are adults - different answer.
The abortion rant is similar; partial-birth abortion sounds to me like 99.9% murder (of an infant, no less), while a day-after contraceptive sounds like
So I suggest we assess each action as it happens, and stop forcing it into a binary view.
~, not ==/!=
But how is that different from the things on rotten.com?
In several ways:
- Firstly, most of the people in the pictures on rotten.com are dead.
- Secondly, for those who aren't, rotten.com regularly take down such pictures at the request of lawyers.
- Thirdly, rotten.com is a legally run site with a named owner and so can be dealt with through the criminal and civil law. Distribution of kiddy porn site illegal in almost all jurisdictions, and so people whose rights are violated won't have legal recourse.
- Fourthly, it's irrelevant. Two wrongs don't make a right.
- Fifthly, answer my question: how would you feel if me and a bunch of pals were to come around to your place, forcibly rape you and submit you to terrible indignities, and then distribute the film on the net for the rest of eternity?
Or, how about the recent pictures of Iraqi POWs being tortured?
I imagine that those Iraqi prisoners are only too happy to have those photographs published because they serve to highlight a terrible injustice that has been done to them. My guess is that most people in that situation would want the world to know what happened to them. But if they didn't, they have a right to privacy. The people who are publishing those photographs are easily identifiable and again subject to the civil and criminal law -- unlike child pornographers.
Kiddy porn, in contrast, isn't produced so that right-thinking people can view it to see what a terrible crime has been committed against these poor children. It's passed around between people who have that particular kink in their make up, as fantasy and masturbation fodder. There are no parallels at all that I can see between photographs of human rights violations, no matter how embarrassing they might be and kiddy porn.
Child porn doesn't operate with the same pay-site mentality that you're talking about. It's illigal, it's underground. People aren't molesting kids to make money from it, people are molesting kids cause they want to molest kids.
The darkness... controls the music. The music... controls the soul.
The difference is that the first two were targeted judicial actions brought on by a "vindictive" accuser. The "third", as you put it, is not a witch trial in any sense of the Salem trials or McCarthey trials. Noone's work has been blacklisted, no opinion made illegal, no person unduely arrested, much less executed as in Salem.
... I mean, hell, it's the anniversary of D-Day, when a whole lot more people died in one battle on one day than the most recent war in 4 months across a nation... perspective.
The Dixie Chicks still hold concerts. Half of the Senate are vocal opponents of the administration's policies on terrorism. Michael Moore still got his movie out, and he's won a few awards I hear. Speaking out against authority today is nothing like how it was in ages past.
It's one thing to learn from history, but it's another to realize what portion of history is fact and what is propaganda. It's best that we all learn perspective from the past, instead of blindly believing what we are told today
I think it's a sad and telling statement about our society that every poster in this thread who criticized this decision also felt compelled to include a disclaimer, "I do not support child pornography."
That fact is what makes actions like this insidious. You begin by pushing an issue that is so black-&-white, it's nearly indefensible. You begin by condemning something that absolutely no one wants to support. And you gain momentum.
crib
Please don't read my journal
And the where do you draw the line argument holds little water. In every avenue of deciding what is permissable in society there are people making judgements of reasonableness. There are very few black and white issues, but that doesn't and shouldn't stop people tackling the worst of the problems.
My mother has pictures of me as a young child taking a bath in her wash tub. She also has many pictures of my brothers and sisters and I swimming in the local watering hole. We're all starkers. They're all in her old photo albums - she even used some of them as part of a collage at my HS grauation party as part of a "roast the grad" display. Is my mother a child pornographer? What if one of the guests looked at it a little too long? Obviously that makes them a pedophile and they should be locked away.
My brother just e-mailed me a picture of my niece playing in her wading pool - topless! What about pictures of my wife on the beach (in her bathing suit) with someone else's topless child in the background? Is that kiddy porn? My local hospital has a large full-color poster of about a dozen toddlers, lined up "cheek-to-cheek", with some sort of cute saying on it? KP? Why not? Are the toddlers too young?
What about a picture of a 12 year old girl in her underwear? That can't ever be right! Except in the Sears catalog. But only pedophiles read that section right? Is Sears contributing to the lust of pedophiles? Boycot them!
What about that Discovery Channel show about growing up and aging where they line up 100 people from infant to 100 years old, one for every age, all naked?
The argument for pornography, and by extension, kiddy porn, is "I'll know it when I see it". The problem with that argument is that what is one person's porn is another person's art (or research, or marketing, or memories, etc). Another problem with "kiddy porn" is that the subject is SO taboo and SO reprehensible that there is an instant knee-jerk reaction to it without any rational thought.
Even my questioning the "status-quo" like this will invariably brand me as a pedophile. This makes about as much sense as my being branded a terrorist because I question the effectiveness of "security measures" that substantially inconvenience me and terribly embarrased my 14 year old daughter who was "caught" wearing an underwire bra on our trip to Europe and had to be "felt-up" by "the lady", in front of everyone.
The cry is: "It's for security!"or "It's for the Children!". Well, security is good - if not taken to mindless extremes, and protecting children is also good. But are we really about protecting the children? If so, why is is so easy for people to find KP online but so hard for the police to find it and shut it down? And, as another poster pointed out, what about totaly computer generated or hand-drawn material? What happens when "no children were harmed in the making of this film?".
Yeah, I know, "the material will fuel the lusts of the demented pedophile" and he will therefore be forced to hunt down neighborhood kids. Just like my neighbor downloading pictures from alt.sex.bdsm.* will force him to become a sadistice rapist, or like playing GTA will force the my son to steal cars and run down pedestrians or, God forbid, the next time I see a cross-post of bestiality, I'm going to just have to take out after my poor dog.
OK, I'll admit that I'm stretching the connections a bit. But it seems to me that trying to censor the end-user is not the solution. While it MAY help those who use Internet Exploder from being "accidentally" exposed to KP when their computer get hijacked and bombarded with pop-ups, shouldn't the effort be focussed on finding the people who are actually exploiting these poor children? And don't tell me that viewing a cross-post on Usenet is "contributing to the exploitation". I didn't ask for it, I didn't pay for it, and I'm sure as hell not gonna act on it.
In my personal opinion, people who get sexually excited by looking at pre-pubescent children have a phlychological problem, just like people who look at a pony and get that "special feeling". But, and I'm going out on a limb here, I'd be willing to bet that, of those who don't just view ALL pornography as wrong, a vast majority prefer to look at younger,
"terrorism" and "pedophilia" are the root passwords to the Constitution
You force your opponents to take an unpopular stance. Just as "Give Sen.Corruptus Money And Power In Order To Save The Children" is becoming tired and cliched, "Give Sen.Corruptus Money And Power To Save Us From Nukulor Terrism" is on the wane, but "Give Sen.Corruptus Money And Power To Save Us From The Pedophile Menace" is a fresh and new scam. You won't give Sen.Corruptus money and power? How dare you support pedophillia!
Forget that most sexually molested kids are interfered with by their relatives or even their parents, the thing that people fear the most is evil strangers, hiding in the bushes in children's playgrounds, "grooming" children on the internet, jerking off to strangers' baby photos. The press have whipped the public into an absolute hysteria over the Evil Pedophile Menace, and it's fertile political capital for anything you want to do.
The first thing any opponent of yours has to do is concede that Pedophiles Are Evil Agents Of Satan, which is basically agreeing with 99% of whatever you propose to do. If he doesn't, then He Is Siding With Those Evil Monsters. His hands are completely tied. All he can propose is something even stronger and accept your position even more than you do. Of course, your proposal will do fuck all to save anyone, let alone the children, from the pedophiles. It's all a ruse to get money and power. But if anyone dares suggest that, They Are In League With The Sick Pedo Beasts.
As well what is the definition of 'kiddy porn'. Is simple naked children, i.e. nudist web pages, kiddy porn? In many places that *is* becoming the standard: take a picture of your children bathing and you goto jail.
Is this painting the next to be blocked? This one or perhaps this?
Perhaps spamming such art around would desensitize people to the hysteria that has developed over the past 20 years surrounding this topic.
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