Ridding the Internet of Child Porn: Filtering Isn't the Answer

Today's op-ed in Australian IT by Bernadette McMenamin, CEO of an organization called Child Wise is naive at best, dangerous at worst. McMenamin, whose organization seeks to prevent child sexual abuse, claims that Australia's internet filtering scheme is the solution to preventing child pornography on the Internet. She argues that ISP-level filtering is one part of a variety of efforts to curb child sexual abuse.

While I appreciate McMenamin's line of work and am certainly all for the eradication of sexual images of children on the Internet, filtering isn't the answer. Not only is it ineffective (filters can be circumvented), by simply filtering images rather than removing them, Australia will be simply putting a band-aid on the problem: the sites will still be available elsewhere. Wikileaks recently posted the filtering lists of Denmark and Finland, effectively publicizing a slew of child pornography sites. Ironically, McMenamin argues that:

Critics of this new scheme have argued that ISP filtering of child sexual abuse images simply will not work. However these filters are actually working very effectively in Scandinavian countries and in the UK as well as in recent trials in New Zealand.

While the filters may be working effectively within those countries, the publication of those lists and subsequent testing of the sites by curious readers has shown that they are, in fact, still live online (nevermind the fact that reports say that a number of the blocked sites are in fact plain old adult pornography).

Filtering may seem foolproof, but it brings a multitude of issues: IP addresses often direct to more than one site or service, effectively barring users from accessing other sites which share the blocked site's IP address; network operators would be unlikely to filter every instance of child pornography on the internet; and if a filter identifies sites by keyword, it is likely that sites not pornographic in nature could be blocked.

There is no simple answer to ridding the Internet of child pornography. But rather than simply block access to sites, efforts should be focused on prosecuting those who access child pornography, and working to take down sites which contain it.

Comments

[historymatters]

You know, I'm a good liberal in a lot of ways. But when it comes to child pornography and child sexual abuse, I think all the perpetrators should be tried and, if found, guilty, executed. Simple as that. There is no excuse, none whatsoever, for sexual abuse of children. I don't care what happened to the criminal in their own life or how stoned they were or whatever. It doesn't matter. Pedophiles are a cancer on the human race.

I once sat on a jury for a case against a guy charged with possession of child porn. The pornographic images were presented to the jury as part of the evidence against him. Once you see something like that, you never forget it. You never forgive it. It's sickening and there's never an excuse for it. NEVER.

[ForeignCommenter]

The point of the matter is that filtering the child porn sites isn't helping in bringing the child abusers to justice. Quite frankly they might be making it harder. Any criminal who sees the site they use on the filter list is just gonna avoid it like the plague, take their business underground, use encrypted and/or anonymized networks that are hard if not impossible to monitor by law enforcement agencies etc.

[degenerate1991]

Okay, so how does filtering get rid of the core problem of child porn (i.e. pedophilia)? It doesn't. Nor does executing the guy who got caught with it. The fact is that people do terrible things, and all the swat teams and hang 'em high juries in the world will never change that. Adding a filter to the internet opens the door for government control of the internet. The governments, whether out of good intentions or ill, will use things such as "fighting child porn" to justify their encroachments upon the internet, despite the fact that their efforts will never succeed in ridding the world of pedophiles. The best thing people can do is to parent their children well; the vast majority of child sexual abuse originates from within the family. Humanity could abolish the internet in its entirety and child sexual abuse would still occur.

[bknott]

This is not related to the article, but I agree 100%.

[RevBookburn]

This new plan is a spectacular display of stupidity. They would napalm the neighborhood because they saw a mouse. Like many efforts before, this new plan shall also 'filter' adult porn, song lyrics, any mention of birth control and abortion, anything gay-related, and all things deemed 'obscene' by the biggest peckerheads in the world. Rev. Bookburn - Radio Volta