By Graeme Wearden, 25 February 2004 08:50
NEWS The most senior officer from the UK's Hi-Tech Crime Unit has called for websites devoted to subjects such as cannibalism and necrophilia to be closed down, claiming they contribute to internet criminality.
Detective chief superintendent Len Hynds, who is the head of Britain's National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU), said on Tuesday that the most vulnerable people in society need to be protected from corrupting influences.
"For the internet to take the final step to adulthood it must first deal with those fringe elements that choose to promote abhorrent activities like cannibalism and necrophilia," Hynds told the e-Crime Congress 2004 in London.
"For it [the internet] to continue to grow as a mainstream medium for businesses, education and entertainment, it must design out the minority factors that inhabit cyberspace for their own perverse gratification," Hynds added.
According to Hynds, websites devoted to such extreme material are the online equivalent of graffiti and litter. He believes that taking a zero tolerance on this kind of content could make the internet a more law-abiding place.
But a clampdown on sites devoted to subjects such as cannibalism could be all but impossible to enforce.
Earlier this month, it was reported that a man convicted of murdering a special needs teacher by strangulation has been a regular visitor to pornographic websites that included images of necrophilia.
The family of the victim has called on internet service providers to close down or filter out such material, but the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has already warned that the legal position is complicated.
"At the IWF we do sometimes receive complaints about websites and material which contains adult content, but unless they are hosted in the UK and may potentially be 'borderline extreme' in terms of content, i.e. it is unclear as to whether the images may be illegal, it is not within our remit to further investigate these sites," according to a statement from the Foundation.
"Due to the increasing diversity in social attitudes, 'adult' content, the context in which it is viewed and possessed and any 'influence' it may have, is very difficult to govern," the statement continued.
Hynds' statement may also anger those who believe that one of the web's great strengths is that it accommodates such a wide range of interests, free from censorship.
Graeme Wearden writes for ZDNet UK
Comments
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1. Rob Penn
Yet again people are blaming the tool and not the user. They want to sort this problem out then the root of the problem is deeper than something like the internet, your talking social change.
Prehaps it's best to attack the internet it's a lot easier than tackling the real problem.
2. K Boehnert
Censoring the internet will not solve the problem of misguided/fooled/perverted people in our society.
In general the internet is a place of freely distributed information that benefits more than it harms.
People who want to censor the internet are like ones that ask for cars to be banned from all use just because there are accidents. The benefit of transportability against the small numbers of (deadly) accidents far outweights the use of cars.
3. Ian Williams
Hinds says "For it [the internet] to continue to grow as a mainstream medium for businesses, education and entertainment, it must design out the minority factors that inhabit cyberspace for their own perverse gratification". Surely it is one of the strengths of the Internet that it serve all those interests as well as the more extreme "minority" aspects without infringing on each other. Ever more extreme censorship will not help businesses, education and entertainment in any way, it will however further erode our civil liberties.
4. Law abiding web user.
There was murder, rape, child abuse, fraud, and a hell of a lot more during the hundreds of years of human civilisation before the Internet came into being.
You need to stop the people to stop the crime, not target the tools they use. Governments and law enforcement seem to pour a lot of effort into 'closing down the Internet' to prevent crime, while there are corporations making profits exporting weapons to third world countries. I accept that the Internet is used by some individuals to commit crime, but it has a million other uses that help humanity. What else does a gun do?
5. Tim Jackson
Paedophiles eat fish and chips. So let's close down all the fish and chip shops.
Please engage brain before starting mouth!
Just because undesirables take an interest in something doesn't mean it is a cause of undesirable behaviour, or that removing it will reduce that behaviour.
6. Joe
Well this was put rather simply by Thomas Jefferson many years ago.. "Those that trade freedom for security will soon find that they have neither." I'm sorry but each and every freedom of expression you take away limits the world in which we live. Do I agree with these things? most times not. Do I want them gone? NO Because when the time comes to express myself I want the ability to do it as well.