Exploiting The Child Porn Fear To Get A Few Extra Votes
from the FUD-for-votes dept
Last week we had the story about how Pennsylvania was forcing Worldcom to block access to a number of alleged "child porn" sites. I'm sure that everyone agrees that child porn is incredibly bad. However, as we said last week, this is not the right solution and sets an awful precedent. Now, some more information about the ruling is coming out that makes it even worse. One of the sites that Worldcom is supposed to block is Terra.es, which is Spain's largest internet portal (and the owner of Lycos). Apparently, somewhere, somehow, someone posted child porn to a Terra.es site, and now they're supposed to be completely blocked. Is this going too far? Absolutely. Declan McCullough has written up an article talking about this and other political moves against child porn, noting that each one has taken place right before election time, as politicians want to use FUD surrounding child porn to win themselves a few votes. The article also mentions that Worldcom is expected to fight back against the order to block those sites. Update: So, it turns out that Worldcom has decided to chicken out and won't fight the order. Instead, they're going to block the sites - some of which have already been taken down by their owners.
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