🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <840993449snz@howl.demon.co.uk> JW@howl.demon.co.uk  writes:

> Personally I feel that there is no evidence one way or the other, so
> therefore we should take the attitude that many of the pictures shown
> were taken in appalling circumstances and should be banned.  Even if
> it does Demon financial harm to ban them, it might also harm Demon to
> be seen not to be against child pornography.  At some point, we have
> to decide what we are for and against.

You seem to be missing the point, and possibly don't understand how
newsgroups work. A newsgroup is not a watertight compartment, residing in a
particular place, it is simply a convenient label on a message to allow
usenet users to select the messages they want to read. ALL usenet messages
are available for propagation all over the world.

If a particular Internet provider decides to refuse messages posted to
particular newsgroups, this will do no good at all, as the messages would
simply be posted with other newsgroup names in them instead. The people
genuinely interested in the material (legally or otherwise) would soon find
out where to look, but the people already using the replacement groups for
their legitimate purpose would soon get thoroughly fed up with extraneous
(not to mention offensive) material coming down their phone lines.

I notice this is crossposted to misc.kids. Well, how would you like it if
the half-baked propagandists at the government got their way, and (say) all
alt.sex.* groups were unavailable from UK providers ... then the purveyors
of porn started posting it in misc.kids instead? Would you then be happy for
this group to be banned, and then the next, and then the next?

This is why most users of usenet feel they are being made scapegoats in a
government attempt to stir up righteous indignation for their own, political
ends. The only way to stop porn etc., is at source. Once it exists, it can
be disseminated by post, in magazines, over the telephone, by satellite TV,
via privately-accessed computer systems, and, yes, via the Internet ... but
if you think you can stop it by blocking up parts of the net, you are
clearly allowing indignation to cloud your judgement.

You might just as well ban the posting of items through the Royal Mail that
are of the size and shape of a porn magazine (even though they might
actually contain a copy of New Scientist). If you did this, of course, porn
would just be sent in a different shape and size instead. This is closely
analogous to trying to censor usenet ... block all messages which are
currently correctly labelled alt.sex.* etc., (thereby allowing parents to
control access to them if they see fit), and the material will simply emerge
in disguise, and be far more difficult to filter.

The reason why governments etc., are stirring up trouble is nothing at all
to do with porn, or bomb-making, or any of the other ostensible reasons. It
is because all governments fear free passage of information between citizens
more than they fear almost anything else. Governments ... all governments
... not to mention large corporations ... survive by misleading the people
they clainm to represent. The Internet provides a way for people to
communicate with each other unfettered by those governments and
corporations.

Give in to this current batch of hysterical propaganda, and you will do
nothing ... not a single thing ... to slow down porn, paedophilia,
terrorism, or any of the other monsters they are holding up before us. What
you will do is cooperate in the destruction of a medium that has saved
countless lives in repressive countries, by getting out information about
what has been happening ... a medium which permits people all over the world
to communicate with each other, sharing culture and understanding.

Children do not need to be saved from the Internet. The Internet needs to
be saved from vested interests so that todays children can grow up with
access to information these interests would want to keep away from them ...
about their health, their environment, and the conditions of their
compatriots around the world. If you want to do something about porn etc.,
then use the Internet to do it ... help track down the sources rather than
shooting the messenger.

-- 
Tim                                   [the best things in life are expensive]