🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Ocd8aPRfaB58EwQ4@tarrcity.demon.co.uk>, Wm...
<tcnw51@tarrcity.demon.co.uk> writes

>I don't particularly want to look at them but Demon / THUS decided 
>people shouldn't look at them and years have passed and they still 
>haven't said why?  Do you not get it yet, Richard?

Of course Thus said why! Thus published a press release giving their
criteria for removing newsgroups in February 2001.

        http://www.demon.net/pressreleases/2001/pr2001-02-20a.shtml

it says that "known paedophilic newsgroups" are removed. It has never
said that "only newsgroups on the current IWF list are removed".

You'll have seen that discussion of the policy by Thus staff mainly
consists of referring you to the statement of the policy. Given the
sensitivity of the topic, I don't think you can be surprised.

>I accept the fact that I am a pain in your rectum because I keep on 
>returning to this point but you will, I hope, accept that you are a pain 
>in your defence of something I think is (and was) wrong.

I am not defending the change of policy, for which I was not responsible
at the time and certainly am not responsible for now -- I'm just
continuing to draw your attention to the fact that Thus have a policy
for removing newsgroups.

You don't accept that some of the newsgroups that have been removed were
done in accordance with that policy -- however, there seems some doubt
that you understand what the policy is, since you continue to refer to
the IWF in connection with it.

>>... mind you, it's also irrelevant to the IWF list as well since it's
>>what the IWF staff have seen which matters, not "some people". However,
>>none of the many people who are in a position to "blow a whistle" has
>>ever suggested that the IWF's listing of a newsgroup is anything other
>>than justified. viz: the newsgroups that the IWF report as regularly
>>containing illegal-to-possess material do indeed regularly contain
>>illegal-to-possess material.
>
>You point being?  

I thought that point was relatively clear but I'll restate it carefully.

There is no evidence that the list of newsgroups promulgated by the IWF
contains anything other than newsgroups that regularly (for some value
of regularly) contain illegal-to-possess material. Since there are a
number of people capable of gathering that evidence and none of them has
ever found any evidence, one concludes (unless of course one wishes to
believe in a massive conspiracy) that the list is correct.

The initial part of the point is that the IWF look at lot harder at
these groups than members of the general public (and have access to
newsfeeds that many members of the general public will not use). So if
such a member of the public says "but I have not seen anything", one
cannot view this as being inconsistent with the IWF having detected
illegal-to-possess material in that newsgroup.

-- 
richard                                              Richard Clayton

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.         Benjamin Franklin