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."

Comments

Re:Blocking Child Porn

[HBI]

Ah yes, more moderation based upon leftist principles.

I hope this makes you feel better when you lose in November.

Re:Foot in the door

[Wavicle]

Finally, they could do just as well by setting up a department to find these websites and report them to authorities, which would be useful without the problems of accidental censorship.

Somehow I doubt they are out there spending great deals of effort blocking child porn web sites that could be shut down with just a phone call.

More likely they are blocking child porn web sites that can NOT be shut down with just a phone call. There is no shortage of people out there dedicated to eradicating internet child exploitation. You don't see these things popping up on geocities because it would come down within minutes and all information they had on who posted it would be turned over to the authorities.

I don't see child porn as a political or religious issue. I don't see any need to protect it. It is unlikely that a server delivering child porn is also delivering important information on breast cancer. I think selective censorship of child porn is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.