Control of Internet Pornography

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Recommended: The regulation of internet

The most critical concerns regarding the regulatory strategies revolve around the fundamental freedoms of expression and the right to personal autonomy which includes interference with a user’s right to the Internet. There is also the generic fear of the Internet being covered by political censorship. The creation of regulatory bodies and their mechanisms slowly encroached upon several Member States in the EU (France, Italy, UK, etc.) and sporadically across the world (Middle East, Australia, China, etc) and inevitably led blocking of different types of content (also known as ‘mission creep’). This invoked a fear amongst members of society especially those concerned with safeguarding their fundamental rights, and this led to the creation of several anti-censorship organisations. Having researched these organisations, there are a number of important issues that have been proposed.

Firstly, there is the argument of overblocking and underblocking caused by blocking and filtering mechanisms.

The reason the blocking strategy is so controversial in its application is because, on the Internet, there may be more than 50 websites that share the same IP address and it is technically impossible for an ISP to determine what content is held on domain names assigned to a specific IP address. Therefore, when the ISPs had to comply with the law, it resulted in a rather large number of blocking of innocent content on websites. BT’s Cleanfeed system apparently uses URL/IP blocking to prevent access to the list of sites identified on the IWF’s block list.

An analogy can be drawn in the incident of Steve Marshall (an English travel agent living in Spain) and his commercial websites aimed at Italian and French tourists. His domain names had been ...

... middle of paper ...

...ROPA - European Commission - Homepage. p. 11, n.d. Web. 10 Jan. 2011.

[2002] 1 Cr App R 6

Johnson, T. (2006), ‘Child Pornography in Canada and the United States: The Myth of Right Answers’, Dalhousie Law Journal, 29, p. 377

R v H [2005] EWCA Crim. 3037

S. 1466A(a)(2) PROTECT Act

Free Speech Coalition v Reno [1999] 198 F.3d 1083, 1102

Ashcroft v Free Speech Coalition [2002] 535 US 234, at 250

See s. 1, Protection of Children Act 1978 and s. 62, 65, Coroners and Justice Act 2009

R v Oliver [2003] 1 Cr App R 28, at 468

Howitt, D. (1995) Paedophiles and Sexual Offences Against Children. New York: Wiley & Sons

"Incest." P. Toons Forum. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Jan. 2011. .

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