UK Politicians Still Pushing Bill That Would Improve Access To Child Porn
from the unintended-consequences... dept
Earlier this year, we wrote about the variety of problems with a proposed UK law that would require ISPs to publicly state whether or not they blocked child porn sites. As we noted at the time, this bill appears to do the opposite of what its supporters want. That is, it tells child porn providers and surfers exactly which ISPs to use and even gives them details of how the ISPs try to stop child porn, which could help those users get around the stops. Even more importantly, this is the wrong approach. It's sweeping the issue under the rug by dumping the responsibility on the ISPs to stop access to child porn, rather than actually stopping the activity and going after those responsible. If providers can determine which sites are offering illegal child porn, then they should have authorities shut the actual sites down and arrest those responsible -- not just block access to them. Blocking access doesn't get to the root of the problem and can lead to serious problems with totally innocent sites on shared servers being blocked as well. So, with all of this evidence that the law is a bad idea, why are some British politicians still calling for it? Admittedly, the article makes it pretty clear there's almost no chance of this bill becoming law -- but it's hard to see how it serves any purpose other than to make a politician sound like she's tough on child porn without actually being tough on child porn.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Tech ignorance
Basically the whole bill is drafted on the assumption that whether an ISP blocks child porn or not is a yes no question... which is rubbish! If this were true then forcing ISPs to publish their policies would force them to adopt a blocking policy. Problem solved - good law, guys.
But the assumption is rubbish. Blocking sites from an ISP is a greyscale. Proxy web pages, anon distributed file hosting... there are a thousand ways to circumvent (most invented in good faith to promote freedom of press and speech in oppressed countries) ISP blocking - and how good an ISP is at counteracting these is not a yes no question.
Providing the information on exactly how effecient each ISP is and what measures they are taking will just generate knowledge on how to circumvent blocks. It's far better to keep the perverts in the dark and monitor their activities.
Better yet to form an international body dedicated to shutting down the sites and tracking down the people responsible for posting content. Police newsgroups, and P2P networks and launch sting operations to catch people trading files... publicise results and scare the would-be's away. We could never completely shut down the underground markets, but we do have the resources to stop them becoming accessible to mr smith your would-be neighbour.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Tech ignorance
Technical enforceability is a non-issue in politics. The importance is looking good to your voters ("We have approved a law on that, if it is not wortking is the ISP's fault, not ours").
Otherwise why would Oklahoma have banned whale hunting within its territory?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Tech ignorance
http://judicial-inc.biz/marc_dutroux.htm
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Article title
"UK Politicians Still Pushing Bill That Would Not Block Access To Child Porn"
Comments? Or is this like a Bill O'Reilly moment --> "Shut Up!"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Bush 'r' gay
Boo YAH
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Bush 'r' gay
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Bush 'r' gay
...Just checking.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]