The best of 'Reader Comments': Tackling online child porn

Following some high-profile news stories, including the decision by Thus to proactively seek out and take down illegal content, we received over 100 reader comments, debating the need to stop the spread of such content while also protecting individual freedom. (http://www.silicon.com/a42814 ) Most responses supported Thus' move, but here is a cross-section of comments...

--Not a censorship issue?
From: Martin Newlan

I congratulate Thus on taking a stand on paedophilia. They need positive support from other major industry players. This is not a censorship issue society has to have some boundaries of acceptable behaviour in the protection of children.

--An ISP's right to choose
From: Seamus Kelly

Anyone who carries content, like Thus, surely has a right, indeed a freedom of their own, to choose what content they carry.

--All about responsibility
From: Keith Lowde

Freedom of speech is a right of those who are prepared to take social responsibility. At last an ISP is recognising that it shares the burden of responsibility.

--Laudable but impossible?
From: Anon.

Much as I agree that paedophile material should be removed from the web, there is an insurmountable problem! How do you define "paedophile material"?

--Definition problems?
From: Anon.

How are you going to apply your definition? It is totally subjective! For example, is an image of a naked child playing on a beach pornographic?

--Merely driving offenders underground?
From: Anon.

Unarguably, child pornography is unacceptable. In this instance, Thus has acted commendably. The worms are deeds which may be technically illegal, but blocking information on such deeds may prove fatal. Are we to block sites and content that relate to drugs, for example? I think not.

The internet is not a nice place, and people should travel there as responsibly as they would in any other foreign environment where cultures and viewpoints are not the same as their own.

Freedom of speech is a massively important right but often quoted in the wrong circumstances. Published abusive pictures and text are not speech. Choosing not to allow something to be published on your own servers is not censorship. Censorship would be preventing publishing elsewhere.

Thus should be congratulated for their move.

I am writing to the various ISPs that I use asking them to follow the lead of Thus, and make some efforts in that direction, and if not then to please explain why. If I don't get a satisfactory response then I will stop using that ISP. I suggest that others should do likewise.

--A PR stunt?
From: Andy Nash

Presumably this guy at Thus has some idea of how they will do this? If he did say, then it should have been included in the article - if not, this sounds like a shameless PR stunt.

There is too much info on an ISP's server to monitor it by hand. Therefore it must be automatic. So what does your little porn-hunter program look for? Perhaps, filenames such as nakedchild.gif - nope, they can disguise the filenames. Perhaps, the content of the image? I know of no software capable of judging whether a photo is of an 18yr old legal porn star, or someone's poor child being abused.

I work for an ISP which adopts, in my opinion, the only reasonable course of action at present: If we find it, we inform the police, and remove it if the police are not worried about spooking those they hope to catch [removing it right away might alert those responsible that we are onto them and they would disappear]. I am sure every ISP in the land would take the same stand over this or any other illegal content.

How do we find it? Customers may report, ordinary web browsers may report it, or we may ourselves bump into it by seeing suspicious filenames in server logs. If anybody can tell us of a better way, please let us know.

In the meantime, Thus should quit insulting the ethics of other ISPs with its conceited self-righteousness (and assuming this is the cheap PR stunt it appears to be) stop attempting to capitalise on the existence of child porn for their own benefit, and work with other ISPs to help the industry devise a way to put an end to this filth.

--Merely driving offenders underground?
From: Peter Preen

I believe that all child pornography should be swept from the web, if it is at all possible. But first we must be certain that the benefits of cleaning the web are not negated by the dangers of driving the paedophiles even further underground, where they would be harder to find and monitor.

-- Why do we have to be 'safe'?
From: Mark Harold

HELLO! Child pornography is millennia old. You can't blame the ills of the world on computer porn you lazy half-wits, why not try spending time educating people and giving them free access to the net, porn or not. We don't ban cars, and they kill people, including children. As far as I know is not an html tag. Oh yeah and gifs can't make you go blind, animated or not. So get over yourselves.

-- Where do we draw the line?
From: Jason Reading

Is it possible to draw a line when monitoring communications? Last year every man and his dog was up in arms over the government-proposed Bill to monitor emails, yet we now expect the entire internet to be monitored by the ISPs. We do not expect mobile phone operators to monitor for illegal activities being planned using their networks. If we did, drug distribution would be significantly impaired.

The flavour of the month is paedophilic material but that is caused by related stories make the press recently. If a homemade bomb goes off next month, would we expect bomb making information to be removed? Both are criminal activities but can you justify blocking one and not another?

Just to play devil's advocate, should all hacking information be removed? It is a criminal activity after all! How would the "hacking community" react to such an action? They are the only people with adequate resources to bring the internet to its knees.