Prime Minister David Cameron: Google, Bing and Yahoo! 'Enable' Child Porn
from the look-how-furrowed-my-brow-is,-dammit! dept
"I'm going to try to regulate [insert concept or technology here] because I really have no idea how it works," said no politician ever. "Bad things are happening and we're going to do something about it!" said too many government officials to count.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron is at it again, fretting about child porn and saying grumbly things about holding search engines responsible for the actions of others. This is one of Cameron's favorite hobby horses: porn on the internet, both legal and otherwise. He's pushed for mandatory porn filtering on every new computer and insisted any business offering open wi-fi block access to the nasty stuff.
Child porn is the new focus, thanks to the recent high profile trial (and conviction) of Mark Bridger for the kidnapping and killing of a 5-year-old girl. Bridger's computer showed he had viewed pictures of child sexual abuse shortly before the kidnapping.
Despite the efforts already being made by search engines and ISPs (including Google's new child porn database that it's sharing with competitors and law enforcement), Cameron is insisting these just don't go far enough.
David Cameron will tell internet companies including Google they have a "moral duty" to do more to tackle child abuse images found by using their websites.Strange. I would have thought the "moral duty" lay with those creating and viewing the exploitative material, not the inadvertent go-between whose job it is to index web content. Complying with a blacklist seems like a good idea, but there are two problems with that idea: determined people will get around the blacklist and blacklists tend to inadvertently block legitimate searches.
In a major speech on Monday he will call for search engines to block any results being displayed for a blacklist of terms compiled by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop).
Why these search engines need to comply with the blacklist in Britain is a mystery, considering every major UK ISP already filters the web using this list, according to the head of the CEOP.
Jim Gamble, chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), said the blacklist currently used to filter the vast majority of UK internet connections had been a "fabulous success".
At that point (2009), only small "boutique" ISPs had yet to adopt CEOP's filtering and the Home Office estimated roughly 95% of internet users were covered. But Cameron insists that more needs to be done, even as ISPs voluntarily comply with most government recommendations -- like "splash pages" that warn users they are attempting to view illegal material.
[T]he prime minister will call on firms to go further, with splash screens warning of consequences "such as losing their job, their family, even access to their children" as a result of viewing the content.Everything already in place just isn't good enough. Apparently, it all needs to be bigger and bolder and subject to brand new laws created in the climate of panic and paranoia that usually follows high profile criminal activity. Cameron won't be satisfied until he tames the Wild West.
"I'm concerned as a politician and as a parent about this issue, and I think all of us have been a bit guilty of saying: well it's the internet, it's lawless, there's nothing you can do about it.But, when Cameron says "responsibility," he means it in the governmental sense, which has nothing to do with personal responsibility and everything to do with the government acting as a national conscience and finding someone to hold responsible for the child porn problem. It won't be child pornographers or their audience, however.
"And that's wrong. I mean just because it's the internet doesn't mean there shouldn't be laws and rules, and also responsible behaviour."
"There is this problem ... that some people are putting simply appalling terms into the internet in order to find illegal images of child abuse.Do it or we'll make you do it.
[W]e need to have very, very strong conversations with those companies about saying no, you shouldn't provide results for some terms that are so depraved and disgusting...and that, I think, there's going to be a big argument there, and if we don't get what we need we'll have to look at legislation."
"So it's about companies wanting to act responsibly. If you think about it, there's really a triangle here. There are the people uploading the images. We've got to go after them. There are the people looking at the images. We've got to go after them. But there is also in this triangle the companies that are enabling it to happen, and they do need to do more to help us with this."Hi, I'm a seach engine. I index the web and bring you the results you ask for. I don't create child porn, nor do I consume child porn, but please, hold me responsible for the actions of others. The legal team at Google, Bing or any other search engine is always easier to locate than a child pornographer. It's the path of least resistance and taking on "tech giants" on "behalf" of the people makes government officials feel big. Win-win.
Cameron wants the search engines to return no results in response to CEOP's blacklisted terms. It seems like such a little thing to ask, and Cameron is certainly pitching it that way. They just need to "do more to help us." But what happens when law enforcement, intelligence agencies or the government itself decides other search terms are a problem, perhaps coming from an angle of "combating terrorism" or "preventing hate crime?" Almost everyone agrees those are "bad," but do they really want their search results censored and filtered and sorted according to secret blacklists? Probably not, but it likely won't matter. Agreeing to this allows the government to get a foot in the door.
On top of the collateral damage, there's the fact that filtering search engine results is going to make a lot of headlines but do very little to curb the trafficking of child pornography. Jim Gamble of CEOP feels we've already maxed out the effectiveness of web and search filters -- something he pointed out back in 2009.
At the frontline, web filtering is now viewed as a peripheral issue. Gamble agreed with the charities that filtering is useful, but added it was ineffective against "hardcore predators" who swap material over peer to peer networks and for whom "the internet has moved on".The pros don't bother with public web sites and search engines. They go P2P and circumvent every filter put into place by government intervention. Gamble realizes this and has already shifted the agency's focus to peer-to-peer networks. Unlike Cameron, Gamble doesn't waste time constructing stupid "triangles of responsibility" in order to pin the blame on the biggest, easiest target.
"I believe filtering is good to avoid inadvertent access that will disturb or damage a young person, or deliberate novice access," Gamble said.
Gamble, a former intelligence chief in the Police Service of Northern Ireland, was however keen to head off accusations of an attack on peer to peer technology itself. "We can't blame technology - it's people," he said.Maybe Cameron should spend a little time actually discussing his plans with CEOP before using the agency's name in vain in order to attack search engines for being search engines. CEOP seems to have a handle on the problem -- the real problem. It's too bad Cameron's more interested in publicly displaying how deeply concerned he is than making actual progress against child pornographers.
"Peer to peer is a valuable resource for the online community. Our focus is on child protection."
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
Filed Under: blocking, child porn, david cameron, filters, search, search engines, secondary liability, uk
Companies: google, microsoft, yahoo
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
No. If they use a search engine at all (not very likely) they're typing euphemisms. Perfectly legal and natural words in place of child pornography.
If someone wants to read an adult story about some TV show/cartoon/anime/whatever characters having sex, they don't type in "Dragonball sex story". They type in "Dragonball lemon". Lemon is a euphemism for a descriptive sexual story. So even if you're a kid at home and Mommy and Daddy have set up web filters for the word sex, you can get around it by searching for lemons.
Basically, what's going to happen is Cameron will one day hear that those looking for CP type in Innocuous Word X. So he says "Ban Innocuous Word X". Then Innocuous Word Y. Then Word Z. Until the entire flippin' English language is blocked from search engines and those child pornographers in England are searching on Baidu in Mandarin Chinese.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
The cheese pizza with the dough and tomato sauce, I mean.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Bad people shouldn't be allowed to use good words, or else how can I tell who is a bad person?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
This...was not a smart move by myself.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Except this is not the case. If law enforcement did the most basic investigative jobs it would be enough. Filters just brush stuff under the rung because they don't deal with the source.
no, you shouldn't provide results for some terms that are so depraved and disgusting...
Oh but there's tons of depraving stuff everywhere that are perfectly legit, legal and that have an audience. I'm fairly sure that if someone goes looking for "masturbation" "eel" and "dildo" or "cucumber" or whatever they know exactly what they want to find. (Apparently there's market to that but I had to actively search to confirm it and while I think it's plain disgusting I'm not calling a ban or something)
It seems like such a little thing to ask, and Cameron is certainly pitching it that way. They just need to "do more to help us."
Maybe if they actually did their investigative jobs...
But what happens when law enforcement, intelligence agencies or the government itself decides other search terms are a problem, perhaps coming from an angle of "combating terrorism" or "preventing hate crime?"
What happens? My site dedicated at covering and analyzing terroristic stuff gets censored. The site leaking stuff from "terrorist" Snowden that has "ties" with Al Qaeda gets censored. My site with rap lyrics that talk about violence and stuff gets censored.
"Peer to peer is a valuable resource for the online community. Our focus is on child protection."
Seems SOMEONE is sane.
It's all about some moronic moralism and the need to get votes.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
But, but... if you can't see the problem, that means the problem is gone! More importantly, if you can't see the problem you get to claim credit for solving it. -Politician logic in a nutshell
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Cameron KNOWS his scheme won't work. He's not dumb. What he's counting on is that a significant portion of UK voters are dumb.
He wants this to be intrusive on the lives of normal people, it gives him "mindshare". "If you got this screen by searching for something innocuous please know that you and David Cameron are heroes who are stopping Child Exploitation!!"
Believing politicians are stupid is a VERY dangerous premise and they're counting on it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
In addition, it is expected that this should cost the taxpayer, rather than the ISPs. Added to that is my fear that this is the 'thin end of the wedge,' so to speak.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
You must "think of the children" and any pedophile would heartily agree
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Search engines DO make a good point to control the web...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Search engines DO make a good point to control the web...
Maybe, but if so, it would render the search engines substantially less useful and accurate for all searches. Which means that people would stop using them and start using alternatives.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
"Google, Bing, and whatever, is taking billions out of our economy and costing us millions of jobs! They should be made to fix this!," the politicians will say.
Also "Terrorism!"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Making people read a document before they eat their fish and chips warning them about the dangerous of fatty foods and not controlling their portions.
Isn't it amazing they secretly spy on everyone, but can't seem to find child porn people? Instead they want private companies to do their work for them, or at least just cave in once again to waste money on a pointless system that earns them another soundbite about how much they care.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
How many
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
wow
Is anyone else bothered by the idea that its illegal to "view" something?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: wow
Small steps to the end goal.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: wow
Would he have abused and murdered a child if he had never seen CP in his life?
Child abuse and murder happened before CP was available, I know, but is it possible that fewer people would "graduate" to actually abusing a child for real if they hadn't first seen them abused online? I think so, based on accounts I've read of crimes against women and children. In many of these cases, the perpetrators were watching or reading about it first, then "inspired" to commit the crimes.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: wow
I'm a huge skeptic of this case if you didn't guess, trail by media with such weak evidence doesn't sit well with me.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: wow
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: wow
Put on your wall in big letters
"CORRELATION DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSATION"
Given an individual like Mr Bridger who has the capability and desire to do what he did then the question " would you expect him to view CP?" is equally invalid.
Look carefully at the "accounts you have read" and ask yourself whether there is any real evidence for causation.
I could point to the fact that scaremongering about CP can also lead to violence. Someone I knew was murdered because he had "allegedly" had CP images on his computer. Ask yourself if the person who murdered him would have done so if he hadn't read all the scaremongering that goes around. Now ask yourself if David Cameron's speech should itself be banned on his own argument!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: wow
I draw your attention to the following report, where you will find a Member of Parliament arguing that '...filters [for regular porn] would make a difference, [as] the killers of schoolgirls April Jones and Tia Sharp had accessed legal pornography before moving on to images of child abuse.'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23401076
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: wow
The fact is that all kinds of disreputable behaviour are represented in the media yet only a few types (usually involving sex or certain types of violence) are ever accused of provoking the same thing in the real world.
Without some further, and much more carefully obtained, evidence you would have to either assume that the argument works everywhere (in which case any fictional portrayal of wrongdoing of any kind would be off limits) or nowhere.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: wow
It's possible, sure, but is supported by exactly zero evidence. Lots of things are possible, limited only by our imaginations, but we shouldn't legislate on what might be. We should legislate on what is.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: wow
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: wow
Very much yes.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: wow
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
yahoo is bing
(it's how they count bing marketshare at existing, as well)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: yahoo is bing
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: yahoo is bing
They just think "google", and type google into google to get to google. etc.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I'm really tired of hearing this come up, and I wonder when they are going to realize that this over-simplified dumbed down explanation is insulting them.
If this is what you were told, all the reasons come down to this: You (or the person who told you this) are too stupid to understand the basics of how 'the internet' works.
I'm not saying the intelligence to comprehend it isn't there, but if your eyes glaze over during the explanation forcing the person explaining it to give up and you don't actively try to understand it on your own before trying to decide how it should be improved, you are being willfully ignorant which is downright stupid and inexcusable.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
What the politicians desire is an Internet filter, and child porn and porn are such excuses. With a filter in place it becomes much easier to add political sites that the politicians do not like to the filter, and of course the RIAA and MPAA and friends will push hard to add whichever site they want to the filter.
Forcing stuff underground has two advantages for politicians, it remains largely invisible to the public, and it makes the formation of large political protest and opposition groups much more difficult.
The incumbent powers almost certainly desire the ability to dominate political discussions and set the political agenda by getting their views in front of the public, and keeping opposing views from any wide circulation.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Diversion and hypocrisy
What a jackass.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
When the web was an infant
This has been one of the biggest problems with Internet nanny systems is that they do not have the AI to discriminate...I mean even humans are still debating what constitutes obscene, so I don't know why people think that there is a magic push button the Internet that Google or any other technological entity can simply push and magically make all the bad sites go away. Sometimes the stupidity of people (especially those in power) astounds me.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: When the web was an infant
The problem is twofold. One is that perfectly innocent - or even important - speech can be locked by incorrect filtering. The other problem is that language changes, and often changes rapidly.
It's simply not feasible to both accurately filter current slang and keep up with changes in terminology without negatively affecting legitimate speech and content. Sadly, politicians often don't care about the feasibility as long as they're seen to be "doing something".
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
I think it was flagged because of the link... looks like spam to me.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
I think they're hoping to get search engine ranking moreso than actual visitors. As if rel="nofollow" isn't standard on most comment platforms anyway.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
That's one of the reason I laugh at the trolls whenever they complain about their comments getting caught in spam filters, as though there's some kind of personal vendetta against them. I have a blog that gets less than 100 visits on a regular day, and I get at least 10 spam posts that have to be manually filtered. I dread to think how many comments get flagged on this site, especially with the morons making "genuine" comments that contain links and phrases that are constantly being flagged because of the idiocy of their comments.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
It is spam.
Same link, different name and a general comment not really pertaining to the article here also:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130719/15245523870/michael-morisys-favorite-techdirt-pos ts-week.shtml#c226
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
He's also asked "Which important piece of news has filtering been able to black out in recent years?" A question he apparently asked on Twitter, no less.
Is it just me, or is the Prime Minister of the UK taking a less sensible, less grounded in reality approach to the usefulness and practicality of filtering the internet than the future President of Iran?
When did that happen?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
We are pushed into a childrens library
What I object to is that they are making it opt-out of the childrens internet - it is like being pushed into the blinking childrens library.
The government are treating us like kids.
You can be sure they not only want to control child porn - which few would say was a bad thing - but also want to control things they disagree with e.g. anything which they consider anti-authoriterian.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
duh
So does having children! We must punish parents!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: duh
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: duh
They're working on it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Will only affect UK residents anyway...
Just don't use the UK variety of a given search engine.
Example:
Don't use google.co.uk, use google.ch instead and switch your language to Englisch with a single click.
If you want to know if any UK filtes are in place, just do a search for the same items in both search engines and compare results.
Works similar for other search engines. I'd trust the Swiss varieties most.
Easy to outsmart filters, isn't it?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Will only affect UK residents anyway...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Will only affect UK residents anyway...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Google's Porn Database
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Google's Porn Database
Note that Google does have personnel vetting videos posted on YouTube for various things, but child porn postings there are unlikely.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Google's Porn Database
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Google's Porn Database
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Google's Porn Database
It's not a question of inflation, but identification. Can you tell at a glance whether a subject is a minor or just a young-looking 18-year-old? Should naturist images of children be considered "child porn"? Do you include pornographic drawings?
Is "probably" another way of saying it's just a guess?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Google's Porn Database
In the US, at least, there are prosecutors who would say naturist magazines with children are child porn. I will avoid arguing whether that is true or not, but one has to be cautious about possessing such images considering it is such a hot-button topic. I have a photo of my grandfather holding me over his head when I was two years old. I was unclothed and it's a full-frontal view. Does that make me a pedophile because I still have that picture. No, but I won't be posting it on the internet.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
food enables food poison
tylenol enables overdoses
laws enable abuse of laws....and people
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The problem with default filters
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It just goes to show...
Apparently... the higher a position you have in government, the more of your brain must be removed to make room for um... hmm... I'm not sure what they get in return actually...
I just know that 99.9% of politicians are dumber than a 5 year old... especially when it comes to computers and the internet.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: It just goes to show...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Clearly the search engines have already blocked child abuse images from their search results. What more does Cameron want from them?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Too bad Jim Gamble is no longer CEO of CEOP
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
SDcard makers enable child porn.
Browser makers enable child porn.
Operating systems enable child porn.
Computer hardware enable child porn.
Your ISP enable child porn.
Children enable child porn.
Let's ban everything, it's so much easier than getting a half-decent common sense.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
inb4 da big block
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
a lesson for David Cameron
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Seriously though the enablers are actually the people making it not Cameras, Google, Yahoo, Bing, Tor, or anything else internet related. Point the blame where it needs to be ffs. "The sick fuckers making it!"
I mean blaming Google for child porn is like blaming Trojan for destroying DNA evidence.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Seriously?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Seriously?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Just has not got a clue
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
BULLSHIT
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Leaked Document Proves FBI/ICE Set People Up With Child Pornography
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
child porn
They allow this stuff because they are profiting off of it.
1st point) Yahoo had lots of hard core child porn. It was flourishing because they were allowing it too. When they got heat from the FBI they finally started getting rid of it as soon as it would pop up - which they could have don all along. For several years they were allowing child nudes and child modeling sites promo groups. Yahoo was the go to place for child modeling sites to promote their sites. After allowing these sites to exist for several years- essentially partinering with them and claiming it was too difficult to shut them down, they finally did it with little effort.
Google has eliminated much child porn and from what I've heard a lot of overall porn. again without much effort. Bing refuses to do either. Only because they don't want to loose the business or bing just likes child porn
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: child porn
[ link to this | view in chronology ]