🚀 go-pugleaf

Following the appearance of an article in this mornings press, I have
been asked to forward the following statement:

Malcolm Muir
Demon Internet


PRESS STATEMENT

                  DEMON INTERNET'S POLICY ON CENSORSHIP

 - 25th August 1996 -

Following the article published in 'The Observer' - 25 August 1996,
Demon Internet wishes to clarify its policy on the censorship of the
Internet:

Demon Internet condemns the presence of illegal material on the
Internet.  Its policy on censorship is simple - it is not the author of
the content on the Internet as it is only a provider of connectivity.
Currently it is aware of no reliable way to monitor the 2 Gigabytes of
news (equivalent to 500,000,000 words) per day.

Trying to restrict news by deleting selected newsgroups by name is
counter productive in that it does not remove the content and it only
serves to move it from the restricted groups into those with less
obvious names. This would have  the added effect of making such
material more likely to be read unintentionally or fall into the hands
of minors.

Demon Internet has been working closely with the Home Office, the DTI,
the police and software developers such as the Platform for Internet
Content Selection (PICS), Recreation Software Advisory Council (RSACi)
and Microsoft.

Demon Internet has already made a commitment to addressing these issues
- on the 14th August, Demon Internet announced that it will be shipping
the latest version of Microsoft Internet Explorer which is PICS and
RSACi rating enabled allowing its customers to regulate the content
they access on the Web.

                             - ends -

Press Enquiries:
For further press information, please contact:

James Gardiner                        Simon Jones / Matthew Turmaine
Demon Internet                              Harvard Public Relations
http://www.demon.net/                     http://www.harvard.co.uk/
Tel: 0181 371 1000                                Tel: 0181 371 3711
Email: pr@demon.net                              Email: pr@demon.net

-- 
Malcolm S. Muir                                Demon Internet Ltd.
Sunderland                                     322 Regents Park Road
England                                        London N3 2QQ