Internet service providers in Ireland are already blocking access to certain Usenet newsgroups to comply with the Child Pornography Bill, currently being drafted. But the proposed legislation might make it necessary to block Web access too, if it becomes illegal to store or transmit child porn.
Telecom Eireann recently announced it would no longer carry any alt.binary newsgroups on its Internet service, Tinet. Acknowledging the inconvenience caused to many customers who used inoffensive newsgroups, Tinet has blocked all the alt.bin and alt.binaries groups due to crossposting - the phenomenon where the same message can be sent to many groups.
Tinet is not the first Internet service provider (ISP) to ban certain newsgroups: IOL hasn't carried these newsgroups since it started in 1992 - though it says it did this for economic reasons rather than to block child porn.
The Child Pornography Bill is set to ban production, distribution and possession of child porn, referring specifically to its communication over the Net. Some newsgroups are dedicated to child porn, but users often cross-post child porn material to other, non-porn newsgroups.
The Bill could make it illegal for ISPs to provide access to these newsgroups too, though it would be impossible for ISPs to identify every pornographic image in every posting in each of the 30,000 newsgroups on Usenet.
Electronic Frontier Ireland, whose aim is to promote the use of the Internet and bulletin board systems, welcomes attempts to prevent child porn, but is unhappy with the way the Bill is shaping up. Spokesman Dave Walsh says: "People expect the Government to handle it but parents should educate kids how to use the Net."
Walsh says ISPs in Ireland cannot police the Net, and porn should be tackled at source. He compares attempts to block porn to China's attempts to block western media on the Net, where every Web page is checked centrally.
Most newsgroups are also available on the Web, through services such as Dejanews (www.dejanews.com) and Zippo (www.zippo.com). While the ISPs might not carry the targeted newsgroups directly, they will still carry them indirectly via the Web, and any serious Web user would still be able to locate them without much time or effort.
This is where complications arise with the Child Pornography Bill. ISPs can decide not to carry certain newsgroups in order to avoid the charge of possessing child porn, but much of the Web is now based on "caching" technologies - the ISPs could unconsciously be caching Web pages which contain pornographic images. Would the proposed legislation regard this as possession of child porn? And by transmitting these Web pages to their ultimate users, are the ISPs distributing child porn?
Walsh argues that the ISPs are carriers, and cannot be responsible for what goes over their lines. If the post office and telephone companies had to check the content of every letter and phone call there would be uproar. The ISPs are hardly to blame if customers use their services to access porn pages stored in other countries.
Attempts to legislate for the Internet are welcome, especially in the serious area of paedophilia. But hopefully the forthcoming legislation will recognise that the Net, traditionally a free-speech international zone, cannot effectively be policed by the ISPs.
Eoin Licken is at: eoinl@iol.ie