British Telecom Blocks Access to Child Porn Sites 835
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."
Foot in the door (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this a good idea? (Score:2, Insightful)
Just because child pornographers will find other means of getting their porn (xeroxing it at 7-11 for one), it doesn't mean that we should give them MORE alternatives.
Shut the fuckers down. Have any IPs that hit child porn sites logged and investigated.
Child pornographers have forfeited their rights.
Blocking Child Porn (Score:2, Insightful)
You anti-everything-censorship people shut up, just because it's information doesn't mean it shouldn't be promoted or blocked for that childs' protection. Think if you found out by a cop that your kid was abused and his/her pic was online for pedo-freaks to masterbate to?
Makes your stomach twist doesn't it?
It's a crime (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Foot in the door (Score:2, Insightful)
Good motives but... (Score:4, Insightful)
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 [sharkfire.net]
Re:Foot in the door (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Foot in the door (Score:2, Insightful)
Soon those Anti-BT websites will mysteriously stop working, then who knows what else.
It makes it easier for NTL and other companies to introduce censorship, now that they know they're not the first.
no different than the real world (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Blocking Child Porn (Score:3, Insightful)
It will happen.
nude anime gallery [sharkfire.net]
Re:Blocking Child Porn (Score:4, Insightful)
Typo? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
I hate to do it but... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Blocking Child Porn (Score:4, Insightful)
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
Go BT. (Score:5, Insightful)
The alterative is trusting a government body that you have real freedom of information rights. Say no more.
WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
So I'm more that a little concerned the "solution" is to ban urls... wtf?
Re:It's a crime (Score:5, Insightful)
I can imagine situations, for example, where planned parenthood sites might get blocked because they have the words "children" and "sex" in close proximity. I wonder if BT has a plan to deal with kind of situation? My intution says "no".
What alternatives are there to keyword searching? Manually identifying sites? Who is going to do this, and isn't it a crime to download pages from such sites just to check whether they should be filtered?
Re:Typo? (Score:4, Insightful)
The low down on British Telecoms is as so, you have 3 major telecoms providers, BT, NTL and Telewest. BT are everywhere, NTL and Telewest have fairly large areas, some you can only get one or the other, but you can always get BT.
Now, BT are the major ADSL provider, NTL and Telewest are the cable providers. As stated in the article, BT have alot of ADSL resellers eg Yahoo! who according to the artcle, would come under this.
If you want to leave BT, this leaves you with either most likely NTL or Telewest for cable, or switch to another ADSL provider. There are quite a few ADSL providers, if you already have ADSL through BT it should be perfectly possible to come off BT and the pricing is pretty competitive.
However, even though there is an OK range of choice, I doubt we'll see any mass anti-censorship protest of people switching from BT as to the majority, you'll just look like you're against BTs efforts to clean up child pornography, and with alot of recent paedophile news over the last few years, you won't be very popular.
Re:IANAL yadda yadda yadda... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I hate to do it but... (Score:3, Insightful)
>(etc..) from the other end. Arrest the people,
> not the websites and protocols.
But this *is* fighting child pornography. By putting barriers to the potential demand you're actually affecting the offer.
I'm willing to lose some of my 'rights online' if I can improve the 'rights offline' of some children by accepting this kind of measures even with the risk of potential misuses.
No problem with me.
not a good idea (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Who is to decide? And what comes next.? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Filtering is the wrong way (Score:3, Insightful)
Most illegal pictures the Britons found were on webservers in the USA. You can find data here [guardian.co.uk]. In USA are laws against child porn. You can remove the content.
Re:I hate to do it but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Slippery Slope is a lame argument (Score:2, Insightful)
It isn't like societies that profess "free speech" haven't been dealing with the question of where to draw the line for 200+ years. New media takes a bit of time to figure out where to draw the line. That doesn't mean that a line can't be draw somewhere. At some point I full expect to see a court decision or two that I disagree with. I also expect that a reasonable set of rules will eventually be established.
Re:I hate to do it but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Did you read what you just wrote before you posted it?
Let me run it by you again, with a bit of clever editing to make what you said just that much more obvious:
I am going to side with child pornography on the internet. I in no way approve of or condone child pornography.
It tastes like hypocracy, doesn't it. Now choosing a side here is a no-win game, so I'm not going to. But make sure you clearly understand that your 'free speech' means unlimited access to 'snuff films', 'rape films' and 'child abuse films' on the internet, just as much as it means unlimited access to 'some dude over in Iraq posting about how bad things are'.
Is it worth it?
Very Frightening Possibilities (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:I hate to do it but... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Who is to decide? And what comes next.? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why, then the public simply infers, since they are blocked, that they are child pornographers.
KFG
Re:I hate to do it but... (Score:5, Insightful)
The ISP is striking at a cloud of smoke with a sword. They can scatter the cloud and hurt people on the sidelines but they cannot make the cloud go away. You have to cut the problem at the source. The internet does not lend its self well to censorship.
Re:It's a crime (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because no one appears to be willing or able to answer the question why people are interested in images of (semi) naked 'underage' individuals (children) doesn't mean that by continuing to evade the issue in the long term even more damage will be inflicted than when society as a whole would stop pretending that things one doesn't like can just be ignored and/or suppressed without any negative side-effects.
On a sidenote, I've got loads of images of (semi) naked young children in my possession, in various positions, including a number of close-ups. I would assume that they are mostly underage.
It's called a friggin' medical encyclopedia.
Re:Foot in the door (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I hate to do it but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes there is.
There is a legitimate argument for blocking harmful material, and some would say there is a legitimate argument for blocking immoral material.
However, blocking illegal material is, by definition, blocking material the government doesn't want you to see, if you accept it as legitimate, you are accepting every possible act of government censorship.
In china, for instance, certain kinds of political material are illegal, so by your argument there is nothing wrong with the Chinese government blocking it.
I know this may sound pedantic, but this is one of those confusions which we are encouraged to make by the state and it's friends in the media. One we all need to be wary of. Slipping betwen `immoral' and `illegal' is easy and dangerous.
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:1, Insightful)
If we lose 2% of freedom and liberty every year it wont seem like much,
It's ironic, but security is a major threat to liberty.
It's easier to put a live crab in cold water and slowly boil it rather than dropping it in boiling water (it'll realize it's being killed and struggle).
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:My theory: "The Universal EEW!" (Score:1, Insightful)
in Japan very common type of manga hentai is involving prepubescent girls and boys.
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Re:Blocking Child Porn (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:Foot in the door (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:1, Insightful)
You cant deny God given rights before you know someone is guilty. I mean, you can
Child pornographers should be arrested, as in you send the cops to their door to find out what the fuck is going on. Otherwise, these vermin will just use encryption and exist
Re:Foot in the door (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not the censorship you are looking for... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Blocking Child Porn (Score:1, Insightful)
Look, you just don't get it. This solves nothing
There are better solutions to these problems.
Seek out and infiltrate the rings and arrest them.
in related news, illegal stuff is illegal (Score:3, Insightful)
One the functions of governments is to crack down on illegal activities and generally enforce their laws. As long as it's illegal, this is what I'd expect.
Now you might argue that this material shouldn't be illegal. Go ahead and argue, but you're not going to get any sympathy from me.
Re:Blocking Child Porn (Score:3, Insightful)
Then you are in favor of shutting down schools, putting a stop to youth athletic activities, removing youth participation in religious ritual, and make child care centers illegal? Better make gay porn illegal too, popular prejudice states that gays are pederasts. Might as well get straight porn while you are at it, it degrades women, and makes men beasts - they might start slavering over the children if they are allowed to feed their sick urges.
Trying to make the world a better place is an admirable goal, but this knee-jerk "it's for the children" approach to restricting the adult world is dangerous and offensive. It's sad and disgusting that children are ever sexually abused, but I am not in favor of preventing it at any cost, and that seems to be exactly what you are arguing for.
Re:Blocking Child Porn (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who is to decide? And what comes next.? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Foot in the door (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Foot in the door (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd prefer to keep the internet a dumb network thank you very much
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Agreed (Score:1, Insightful)
I've seen some argue that it's okay to filter all illegal content of the internet.
The warning lights should start flashing at that very instant. Different things are legal in different parts of the world. If we follow through with that argument, we should respect chinas right to filter out content they don't like. We should respect every single countrys right to filter out what they arbitrarily has defined as illegal.
It should be quite obvious why that is not acceptable.
Thus, this will be fought by those that want child pornography the same way people that wants free speech fights for it. Cult of the Dead cow released software called something like "Peekaboo" or something like that a few years ago, to fight censorship. The freenet project is ongoing, and getting better all the time. Other variants also exist.
The problem is quite simple. One cannot say that it's okay to filter out any illegal stuff, without at the same time accepting that other regimes filter out what they deem illegal.
Re:no different than the real world (Score:3, Insightful)
And a less imperfect (though still pretty silly) analogy would be a taxi company refusing to drive you to a place for the purpose of obtaining child pornography.
Any anaology that involved removing all references to illegal behaviour and insert innocuous behaviour (a strip club) in its place is going to distort the position, not provide insight.
Re:I hate to do it but... (Score:1, Insightful)
There seems to be a lot of slashdot readers thinking this is a good idea. I find them a bit naive. While you'll have problems finding anyone that admits to support child pornography - there is a legitimate reason to fear this slippery slope.
I've seen some argue that it's okay to filter all illegal content of the internet.
The warning lights should start flashing at that very instant. Different things are legal in different parts of the world. If we follow through with that argument, we should respect chinas right to filter out content they don't like. We should respect every single countrys right to filter out what they arbitrarily has defined as illegal.
It should be quite obvious why that is not acceptable.
Thus, this will be fought by those that want child pornography the same way people that wants free speech fights for it. Cult of the Dead cow released software called something like "Peekaboo" or something like that a few years ago, to fight censorship. The freenet project is ongoing, and getting better all the time. Other variants also exist.
The problem is quite simple. One cannot say that it's okay to filter out any illegal stuff, without at the same time accepting that other regimes filter out what they deem illegal.
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:3, Insightful)
And yes, I do think that such individuals are disturbed. Period.
Funny thing is .... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who is to decide? And what comes next.? (Score:2, Insightful)
Actully those events have transpired three times since the British Empire claimed land in North America. First there were the witch trials in Salem, then the Red Scare, spear headed by Senator McCarthey back in the 50's, and the most recent one with people speaking out against the government as being "unpatriotic and a terrorist". You'd think people would learn from the past already...
Slippery slope? fuzzy logic versus binary logic (Score:4, Insightful)
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 ==/!=
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:3, Insightful)
Child porn is a law enforcement issue. Ever heard of police? Warrants? Courts? Due process? No, it appears not.
I expect BT to comply with law enforcement. IPs hitting child porn sites SHOULD ALREADY be logged and investigated. But I do not expect them to CENSOR, since it applies a direct enforcement action. When the cops come to your house to arrest you and take your porn, they are censoring you, but rightfully so.
Still, this social wrong of censorship will be fixed eventually when BT finds itself overcensoring from verve, even in the narrow sense of "only child porn sites". I now expect them to start censoring gun sites, etc. It's now only a matter of time before they lose enough customers that they'll feel the pinch.
Re:Blocking Child Porn (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll bet that there were children among the casualties when allied forces liberated France during 1944/1945. Guess we should have called off D-Day. Rather lose some rights than let any children get hurt.
Ironic that this topic should come up on the 60th anniversary of D-Day. I would say that this move by BT makes an absolute mockery of the memory of that day.
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.You just proved my point. The citizens can indeed make a difference, but that needs to come about by getting at the source of the problem, which is the people supplying kiddie porn and the ones that demand it. As I said in another post, censoring is a band-aid. It doesn't get at the real problem.
Re:Blocking Child Porn (Score:1, Insightful)
NO. Posting publically is part of the abuse. If you think that having been abused it would all be over for you and that those images being available around the world, coming back to haunt you, would be nothing then you seriously lack any sense of empathy . The WORST part may be over, the continued distribution of the images is still a terrible crime against the abused individual.
Re:Filtering content is NOT illegal (Score:2, Insightful)
This is a social problem that needs a social solution, not a technical one.
Re:no different than the real world (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a subtle difference here, however, and its a matter of economics.
Putting together and mass-publishing a magazine is not easy or cheap. It takes a good deal of money to do it. So your average Joe Citizen is not going to be doing it anytime soon, no matter how passionate he may be about his opinions. But the internet is a different story. Anyone can post a website very cheaply. The web gives an outlet to Joe Citizen to express his views. Because this medium is so easy to use and helps promote such freedom, it needs to be treated more gently than print media.
Also, consider this: Say someone were to put together a child porn magazine and actually get some stores to carry it. When the police find out, they will indeed remove the magazines from the store, but they will also shut down the publisher.. The court order would likely be granted the same day. This is NOT happening with the kiddie porn websites. Instead they're choosing to just do a mass censorship of all of them and sort it all out later. But there won't be a later. Politicos will simply pat themselves on the back for "removing" this evil from the net, and because of most people's "out of sight, out of mind" mentality, they'll reward them with votes. Meanwhile, the child porn sites set up shop elsewhere and the cycle of abuse continues.
Attempt != success (Score:1, Insightful)
FBI announces they will arrest all murderers.
RIAA announces they will produce CDs that cannot be copied.
NASA announces they will have humans orbiting Alpha Centauri in 2005.
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Foot in the door (Score:3, Insightful)
The only people with a legitimate excuse are people who downloaded misnamed files from p2p programs like Kazaa but if you only have 1 file on your harddrive you will not get prosecuted. You should not be browsing p2p networks at work. What are you so worried about? Explaining to the cops how you accidentally downloaded a few hundred child porn movies?
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:5, Insightful)
In Real Life (Score:2, Insightful)
Freedom of Speech is a very nice cocept. I agree on that, but isn't that freedom limited? Shouldn't Freedom of Speech end where discrimination, racism, hate and torture start?
We are talking about children here. Kids, forced to have sex with adults. Scarred for life!
Stop bullshitting about censorship. This is something totally different.We are not talking about anti-government opinions. I would be one of the first to protest about such a censorship since I do it on my website (here [menteb.org]).
We are talking about breaking the Human Rights here. If this 'censorship' leads to a massive decrease of child pornography on the web: hell yeah! if not: hell yeah! Every country should be doing this!!
If it's up to me, go get every discriminating, racism-spreading no good website such as www.stormfront.org and take them down!
Re:Who is to decide? And what comes next.? (Score:3, Insightful)
Denying rights without due process is a Bad Thing. This means that someone, somewhere, is sitting in judgement of another person's words with no responsibility to do the job fairly.
BTW, the "views" of a hate group cannot in any way be "harmful". Actions, yes. Voiced opinions, no. The power of free expression isn't that people can say inoffensive things in public, it's that one can stand on a street corner and say things nobody wants to hear.
Re:Foot in the door (Score:2, Insightful)
"You are attempting to access a site we believe is child pornography. If you would still like to view the site click here."
Optionally, they could add "If you choose to continue your IP will be logged" and/or "your information will be sent to the authorities".
Safety for the accidental porn browsers, and if it was actually an anti-BT site people can still get through.
Yeah, you can still get through... and have your name on a list of people looking at child porn.
Eh... wha? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Dixie Chicks still hold concerts [sonynashville.com]. 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 [cannes.fr] 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
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:1, Insightful)
Okay, I don't believe that continued distribution of pictures of a child being abused is harmless to that child. I think that knowledge of it at least would cause great psychological distress.
Yes there are many situations where distress isn't a good enough reason to ban something, that doesn't mean there are none where it is adequate. Child pornography seems to me to be a very extreme example, and banning distribution of the images that result seems to be entirely justified.
Re:Foot in the door (Score:3, Insightful)
And have you no sense of proportion? Which is worse, kiddie porn, or the outside chance of collateral damage? If you say collateral damage, then you must also be against real time block lists for anti-spam purposes.
Re:Foot in the door (Score:5, Insightful)
Although porn consumes a large percentage of internet bandwidth, it's easy to overestimate it's importance. Multimedia is just by it's nature a high bandwidth activity. If there were 10,000 people dealing with email and one person watching porn videos the one person would probably be using more bandwidth than the 10,000.
Re:Foot in the door (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Foot in the door (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, and murder was a great choice of crime to ban first. Those sneaky politicians starting out with banning the heinous crimes so that they could eventually introduce laws against jaywalking. If only enough people like you were around at the time, we could have stopped the politicians making murder against the law, and we'd all now have the freedom to cross the street as and when we choose. Boy, that would make the world a better place wouldn't it?
Re:in related news, illegal stuff is illegal (Score:1, Insightful)
That's one of the things that this move will jeopardize. There's people out there who do think CP should be legalized. There's also many more people who think that adult/child relationships should be legal. There's lots of pedophiles out there whose only way to learn about themselves and each other is through information web sites, message boards, etc. These are the places that are not doing anything illegal, but which are likely to be flagged as "child porn sites" even though they're not.
I'm surprised that I haven't seen any comments discussing why making it harder to find CP would be bad. If there's a supply of porn out there for pedophiles to get at, it gives them an outlet for their sexual desires. When it becomes very difficult to find any, then what's the pedophile going to do to relieve his sexual desires? He's going to go out and make his own CP. So instead of a bunch of guys perving over pictures on the internet, you have a bunch of guys going out into the world looking for kids to exploit directly.
Whether you believe that analysis or not is irrelevant. The free speech issues are very real, and are much more dangerous. Free speech isn't intended to protect popular speech, but unpopular speech. Anything relating to pedophilia is at the very top of the list of unpopular topics. For the most part the governments of the western world have allowed discussion and meetings on the subject, but that's not where the problem is. It's ISP's, hosting companies, and regular people who don't understand free speech that are the biggest obstacles. Even if you have a 100% legal pedophilia related discussion board, you'll have an extremely hard time finding a web host that will carry it, or an ISP that will let you serve it yourself, and if you do manage to get it online, you could be DoS'ed out of existence by the "think of the children" drones. Now someone can report such a site to their ISP to have it blocked as a child porn site, even though it isn't. They never check to verify if it is or not, they'll just block it to be safe. Never mind that they're stifling the very sort of discussion that free speech is intended to protect.
Re:Filtering is the wrong way (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes, but what constitutes a child. I have sex with my 16 year old girlfriend in the UK and that's fine. However, in the USA that's classified as paedophilia.
Look at this discussion... (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:Foot in the door (Score:2, Insightful)
Remember high school? (Score:1, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephebophilia
I'd wager that most adult males are the same (whether they can admit it to themselves or not), and the answer is in the title of this post - most of us went through our sexual awakening in high school. We became interested in the opposite sex (or same sex, doesn't matter), and for a lot of us, that image has become the very definition of sexy. Look at the popularity of "teen" porn as numerical justification for my theory.
Others no doubt got aroused even earlier, and some of them will have formed those images as their definition of sexuality. Regardless of what society tells them, that is what truly arouses them, even if they keep those feelings bottled up (which isn't considered a healthy thing to do by psychologists).
As with any society, most grow to accept and understand their sexual interests and don't take them to extremes, and thus fly "under the radar" as it were, and harm no one. Of course, a few cannot control themselves enough and become sexual predators (this isn't specific to underage sex by the way, just look at the amount of documented adult to adult rape cases which would most likely be in roughly the same proportion as the proportion of adults who love adults sexually, to those adults who love children sexually). These are the people that need the help of society to prevent them harming others in their own pursuit of happiness. The automatic derision heaped upon them by society at large is what prevents a lot of these people from coming forward and seeking help, for to do so is to imperil themselves with no reasonable hope of a fair trial.
The answer is to accept that everyone has their own definition of sexy, and sometimes we won't agree with that ideal. Just as I think that fake breasted, dark tanned blonde bombshells are really quite sick, you may think that my ideal of teenage, small breasted girls is sick. I don't get turned on by girls who haven't reached puberty yet, but I am positive that some do. Same goes for same sex stuff - just because I am turned off in a big way by homosexuality, doesn't mean that I think they are sick in any way. They ARE turned on by it, and that to me is what really matters. If they like it, then I am happy for them and will support them completely, because I too understand that you really can't help what you find sexually attractive.
It's the repression of your natural feelings that leads to problems, not the encouragement, understanding and support of them.
Posted anonymously because not everyone is as tolerant as I am, sadly.
Re:Foot in the door (Score:1, Insightful)
IWF censors more than that. (Score:3, Insightful)
This last is a major issue. It's similar to the "hate speech" issue on college campuses. It would be a great excuse for, say, blocking Aljazeera [aljazeera.net]. (They have cool anti-American cartoons, in Flash. Some of them are anti-white-people.)
Re:Foot in the door (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Foot in the door (Score:5, Insightful)
It also allows them to block other things they don't like. Blocking their competitors websites is probably too obvious, but if the boss wants to support some issue, throwing a warning about child porn in front of a page will make most people turn back immediately.
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.
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:2, Insightful)
Censorship on the other hand will bend the market only one way: more scarce means more expensive, means a lot more likely that someone will be tempted to create new porn with real children.
Compare scenarios:
a. make completely legal (_not_ moral or socialy accepted, just legal) posessing and exchanging child porn, but illegal to perform or record sexual acts with children and enforce it;
b. make it equally illegal to produce, posess and exchange child porn.
Now, a. is a handlable situation. Someone makes new material (for little financial gain), it's possible to catch it as soon as its product sees the light of day.
b. on the other hand is a lot harder to handle because it gives the producer a lot of material incentive to make new stuff, and the consumer a real interest to keep the producer's identity secret.
And for people who don't do it to make money, well, censorship doesn't affect them at all. If anything, maybe its absence makes them easier to catch if they record and distribute.
This looks a lot like soft drugs. It is easier to handle them if they're legal, but that's impossible because of a social taboo. Granted, nobody gets hurt growing pot, but this only makes the right decision mode dificult to make.
Re:Look at this discussion... (Score:2, Insightful)
If you have a good argument against the purposal then state it. However a string of what ifs is not a good argument.
This is not a foot in the door kind of thing. A telecom doing this will not in any way make anyone here (or else where) feel that other types of sties might have be more justifiable in being blocked too.
Re:Question (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Foot in the door (Score:3, Insightful)
BUT it is a good thing, this means that no one can, ACCIDENTLY go onto a child porn site.
Everyone here who's ever mistakenly run across a child porn site during normal, regular web browsing raise their hand.
Thought so.
In 8+ solid years of browsing the web I have NEVER seen so much as the suggestion of actual kiddie porn on any web site I've ever been to, whether I visited it inadvertently or not. But watching the news on television, you'd think every other web site hosted by a non-corporate entity was constantly plotting to serve pre-teen lolita hardcore to unsuspecting old ladies everywhere.
Knee-jerk Reactions (Score:5, Insightful)
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,
Re:WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, the whole concept is bullshit. When you turn 18, you don't get magically smarter. You aren't endowed with some kind of better judgement that lets you decide whether or not you want someone to take pictures of yourself naked. In fact, even after you're 18, you still can't make some decisions regarding this subject. If I take a picture of myself naked when I'm 17, then send it to someone when I'm 19, I'm distributing child pornography! I'm not even sure of the legality of *looking* at that picture after I'm 18. Does that make any sense whatsoever?
It's called WEDGE POLITICS. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Remember high school? (Score:3, Insightful)
Point is that even paedophiles can abandon this personality once they realize that it's utter nonsense to maintain it.
I don't think so. If you're a 'normal' male, could you just 'abandon' your personality of finding 17 - 30 year old women attractive? Could you just stop wanting to sleep with them, stop looking at them as something other than a regular person, stop the deep, deep feelings you have towards them and start wanting to shag men instead, because that's what society found acceptable?
I couldn't.
Definition of Kiddy Porn (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [ibiblio.org] the next to be blocked? This one [ibiblio.org] or perhaps this [ibiblio.org]?
Perhaps spamming such art around would desensitize people to the hysteria that has developed over the past 20 years surrounding this topic.
Re:This is why they don't block at the source (Score:2, Insightful)
"The first, present in Usenet but not on the web, is scans from magazines and such that were, at one time, legal to possess, but were criminalized during the Reagan administration (I think). "
As we can clearly see, the child pornography issue was solved after these materials were outlawed by Reagan. (Just ignore the explosion in child abuse since the pedophiles now sought to gratify themselves on real children instead of mere images of them).
"I'd always assumed this meant casual nudity (like nudist camp photos) but the guy I spoke with corrected me and said a lot of them are highly sexual poses and attire, with genital closeups"
If 'casual nudity' / nudist photography is ok, what additional harm is created when there are different poses or 'genital closeups'. A simple nude photograph does no harm, apparently, but look out, change the pose around and suddenly...what? The devil comes out and gets them?
"And exploited is the right word. Regardless of the fact that there's no penetration involved, these are poor kids making very little money "
I agree, children should make more money when they work the farm, do chores, do work, or do the other million things their parents command them to do that is exploitation.
Re:Foot in the door (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Foot in the door (Score:2, Insightful)
I liked your example about blocking competitor's webpages, what if a BT employee's relative had a electronics store and had his competition blocked? Hell, what if I just pay that employee to block webpages I dont like.
This censorship is just the beginning, 'illegal' music will be next. Then after F/OSS is outlawed, that will be on the list.
Re:This is why they don't block at the source (Score:2, Insightful)
"That's just silly."
What is silly is you've yet to define the additional harm that comes when a simple nudist photograph that now has posing, or different parts of the body is in focus.
"Child sexual abuse has always been prevalent. "
Very likely, so what is your point, that it is a worthy goal to fight against evolution? Humans go though puberty at about 11-13, yet we are not suppose to be attracted to people in this age group since 500,000 years of evolution is simply wrong, very wrong, and evil.
Re:Is this a good idea? (Score:1, Insightful)
All I know is I haven't seen that. Have you? Are you a collector of child porn??? You seem to know a lot about it.
However, the reality behind it is precisely the same as that of you and your girlfriend getting gang-raped at gunpoint by me and my pals, and putting your ordeal on the net for everyone to see. Just because you can't see the gun in shot, that doesn't mean that what you see is consensual.
If you believe that the latter is indefensible, then you have to conclude that child pornography is as well. Tracy Lords' movies -- made when she was over 16 but under 18 might count as consensual
Most "child porn" I have heard of (pop-ups, etc) involves "teens". Naughty teens. Naked teens. Hot wet and willing teens. Mostly, I would guess, older teens. In the 16-18 age group, as you mentioned.
Re:Look at this discussion... (Score:5, Insightful)
Keeping it in the open.
As soon as you drive it underground, the people that REALLY want it will find a way to distribute it. Charge more for getting the 'goods' to the 'consumers' and it becomes another string to the bow of organised crime.
Drugs. Prostitution. Alcohol in prohibition..
Think it got rid of the problem? Or did it simply make a lot of money for just the kind of people you really didn't want the laws to be making money for?
Whoever thinks that simply filtering child porn websites is a quick fix is smoking something strange, and hasn't thought about the effect it'll have (i.e. driving it underground, and the police being then less able to track potential paedophiles as other methods of distribution are found).
Re:Foot in the door (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:IANAL yadda yadda yadda... (Score:1, Insightful)
if you decide to filter what your users say and do, then if they say or do something "bad," then you are responsible for failing to filter it.
Re:Look at this discussion... (Score:1, Insightful)
There's a difference between forbidding private ownership of nuclear weapons and censoring the instructions on how to make them, just like there is a difference between forbidding the molestation of children and censoring pictures of/stories about them.
Re:Slippery slope my ass (Score:3, Insightful)
is it universally wrong? consider: 2 15 yr olds having sex, and using appropriate protection. this is legal in many (most?) countries. now these kids record it with their webcam, and put the result on the net.
there are no victims here, it's not universally wrong. but it IS childporn.