Slashdot Mirror
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."
As a matter of fact, I have children. And my stomach would twist if I got to know that they were abused and their photos posted. But my stomach would be rotating if the police, instead of prosecuting the involved parties, is busily updating the webfilters.
One of the most important facts is: The child abuse was already done, when the pictures got posted. With the open web, potentially everyone can look into it and notice it. I don't want child abuse happen to anyone... But it being back in the dark rooms no one has access to is the worst. Bring it to light, so we know, there is a problem out there, and we can do something about. If it gets blocked, then it goes on unnotified.
Fact is: Since pictures of abused childs are aviable on the web, the number of childs killed in abuses has dropped remarkably in Germany. From 40 per year in the Eighties down to six last year. That's 34 children rescued.
We can all sympathise with not wanting access to pedo sites, bomb-making instructions and anti-jewish hate sites. But there are, I think, several reasons why this is not at ALL a good thing.
a) Practical reasons. How on earth are they going to decide which sites are child porn sites? Do these sites announce themselves as such with a special logo? Or will the government employ 1,000 people who search google all day for new sites? Or will all sites that refer to "child" and "vagina" in the same sentence be blocked (I guess that includes nudist sites and anti-childporn sites as well)? For these practical reasons and many more, this idea will not be practical.
b) The slippery slope. OK, child porn is obviously bad. And so is antisemitism. And bomb making. So, the PLO site is soon to be banned too? All newsgroups that ever discuss bombs? Sites that sell radar detectors? Web sites taht discuss and encourage tax cheating? Anti-government sites? Exam cheat sites? When you accept that the government can decide what we are allowed to read online, this is a dangerous state of affairs.
c) Drawing attention bad. It will no doubt make it a challenge to get to the forbidden sites.
Censorship has never worked. My kids watch only shows that are rated "mature". While I sympathise with the intention here, the idea of a wise government that bans access to information is one that has never worked in the past and will not work now. It seems to me that enforcing existing laws against child porn (producers, viewers) would be a much better course of action; one more likely to lead to real results.
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BDOS ERR ON A:>
I'm sorry, but all these comments about a slippery slope are off track. They're not taking away rights - they're finally blocking content that you NEVER had a right to view in the first place. Outside of the internet, there is a clear division between kiddie porn and political speech/you name it - both moral and legal.
Some slashdoters seem to have a view that the internet is a realm where all information should be free and available. This is bullshit. If, for example, my personal medical records became avaiable there, I'd be pissed. This is yet another example of information that you have no right to have in the first place. There would be nothing wrong with shuting down a site that listed everyone's the medical history. Same case with the kiddie porn. I'm sorry, but anybody making an argument that filtering all content is illegal should have NO expectations of privacy. RIAA/cops/evil twin want your fingerprints? No problem, that resturant you ate at can put them online(hosted, of course, in a 3rd world country with at best lax law enforcement) - filtering content is, after all, illegal.
The only concern is that they have measures in place to unblock a site that is blocked in error, and that they make a best-effort attempt to minimize the number of errors.
Accidently finding such a site "could" get you into alot of trouble.
I have accidentally come across kiddy porn sites as a part of my search for free (consenting adult) porno. Whenever I saw a site that appeared to be located/run from within the US, I called the FBI and reported it.
My goal was two-fold, first I wanted to let the authorities now that these people are out there and if someone ever tried to accuse me of intentionally going to that site, the FBI's records would show that I called them and reported it.
Cracking down on kiddy porn is not an unreasonable restriction on free speech.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano