Blocking porn sites will save children's lives
The Universe
(July 25, 2004)
At long last Sir Christopher Bland, chairman of British Telecom has decided to approve the deployment of the computer technology that will effectively block access to child pornography web sites. It is a long overdue victory for decency.
This was brought about by the persistent lobbying of BT by children's charities. From time to time this column has appealed to readers to write letters to protect human rights and exploited children. This decision by BT indicates the influence that public lobbying can have in bringing about major changes in corporate policy that can protect children everywhere.
It is well known that server corporations like world.com and many others have ignored similar appeals. Blocking web sites will result in a big loss in revenue but this is a small price to pay to stop the trading in the abhorrent images of children being sexually abused.
Every picture is evidence of a crime having been committed against a child and the more it is shown, traded and transmitted, the more the child is demeaned. Possessing distributing and trading these images is now a crime in most countries and law enforcement agencies in Europe and the United States have scored remarkable success in recent years in tracing the offenders through the technological intricacies of the Internet.
The BT initiative is the first time that a huge server company has deployed the new technology that makes blocking possible. When someone attempts to access such a forbidden site, they will be met with a notice that tells them it is unavailable.
All this came about through the work of a gifted technological wizard John Carr a consultant to the children's Charity NCH. It has vast implications for many other server corporations in other countries.
When I wrote to the Philippine Internet Server Organisation (PISO) some years ago challenging them to find a way to block the criminal sites that harm children they told me technologically speaking it was not possible.
But now it is and there is no further excuse. Corporations everywhere must be pressured to follow the lead of BT and deploy the techniques and technology called Cleanfeed.
Critics claim that this measure is a repressive mass censorship of the internet and not worthy of a free society where the freedom of speech and communication is guaranteed. What they are forgetting is that accessing, downloading, possessing and transmitting child pornography is a heinous crime.
It is moral and civil obligation to prevent and stop crime whenever we detect it and it is all the more urgent when such crimes involve vulnerable and abused children.
