UK MPs: Google Blocks Child Abuse Images, It Should Block Piracy Too

nk497 writes "If Google can block child abuse images, it can also block piracy sites, according to a report from MPs, who said they were 'unimpressed' by Google's 'derisorily ineffective' efforts to battle online piracy, according to a Commons Select Committee report looking into protecting creative industries. John Whittingdale MP, the chair of the Committee — and also a non-executive director at Audio Network, an online music catalogue — noted that Google manages to remove other illegal content. 'Google and others already work with international law enforcement to block for example child porn from search results and it has provided no coherent, responsible reason why it can't do the same for illegal, pirated content,' he said."

Please Mr Google...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just filter out every mention of UK Members of Parliament and their policies from your search results for, say, 28 days, and see how keen the censorious, self-aggrandizing, cockwombles are on compulsory filtering after that.

Block the politicians sites as well

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want censorship, you should be willing to accept censorship directly as well.

Yet another creeping power grab

[JosKarith]

What a surprise. Start with the slam-dunk of getting them to ban CP (After all if you don't agree it should be banned you must be a pedo sympathiser) , then turn round and say "Well you can block that illegal content, what about this?"
What next, demand Google block sites of banned political parties? Disallow all dissenting opinions? Silence religions you don't like? This is why we shouldn't have allowed the thin end of the wedge in in the first place. Give centralised control an inch and it'll take a mile.

Here we go

[Dunbal]

Mission creep. It always happens. First it's to prevent "child porn" or "terrorism". Then someone gets a bright idea - "but we can get x this way too!". And then someone else wants to use it for their pet agenda. What you end up with is police in body armor and assault rifles storming your house to confiscate files in a civil (not even criminal!) case, Kim Dotcom style.

Re: Piracy rationalizations in 3... 2... 1...

[tmosley]

I know right? Why use our brains when we "think" of the children? No need to have sentences that mesh with the crime. After all, why should there be any difference between the sentences for downloading a couple of images into your cache and kidnapping, violently raping, torturing, and then murdering a hundred children? I mean, that's practically the same thing right?

Re:Piracy rationalizations in 3... 2... 1...

[Lumpy]

Because they do it to me.

My personal information I never get paid for, yet companies pirate it from me daily.

Re:Child abuse != Piracy

[tlhIngan]

You can look at illegal child porn images and instantly know that they're illegal, but you can't just look at a file and know either way if its illegal or not

Determining if an image is child porn is not as easy as you make it seem. In fact, a lot of people get caught up in child porn laws doing stuff both parties consent to.

E.g., if a parent posts a photo of their baby on Facebook - is that child porn? If they were dressed in only a diaper? For a LOT of child porn definitions, this actually counts.

Or what happens today - sexting. Teens send pics of themselves in sexual positions. By practically all definitions, that's child porn. And many a teen have ended up snarled because the images fit that definition perfectly, despite both parties being of similar age and equally consenting. Heck, even if it's photos of themselves it can still count.

Determining when a particular image is child porn or not is not simple at all. Of course, it's somewhat easier in that a site that specializes in child porn images generally won't be used by teens sexting each other, but still. You also end up with sites like 4chan and reddit where they may have questionable images...