Thus, the Scottish-based owner of Demon Internet, yesterday denied
a report that it has failed in its recent pledge to seek and remove
paedophile newsgroups from its servers. In promising to police its
own servers, Thus broke ranks with its rival ISPs.
In the UK, ISPs are not legally required to police their
servers, but are required to remove illegal material if it is
brought to their attention.
Silicon.com yesterday reported that its own investigation showed
that the newsgroups Thus promised to remove are still active and
updated frequently. Silicon.com quoted Keith Monserrat, Director of
Legal & Regulation at Thus as previously saying: “It is shoddy
to argue that it is too difficult to police content." But
silicon.com said he now admits that monitoring content is
impossible, despite following the recommendations of the Internet
Watch Foundation (IWF). Silicon.com also quoted an unnamed police
source as saying that Thus has done “diddly squat.”
Thus yesterday hit back at the allegations. Keith Monserrat
said:
"In the last seven days, we have removed 30
newsgroups from our servers which accounted for 91% of all
paedophilic content reported to the company by the IWF in the last
two years. Hardly a statistic from a company that's done 'diddly
squat'."
He added:
"For a publication like silicon.com to try
to drive a wedge between the IWF and ourselves is unfortunate when
we are both working towards a common goal which is to remove
paedophile content from the internet… We've absolutely not taken a
u-turn on this. We want to redouble our efforts with other ISPs to
encourage everyone to take a public and forthright stand against
child pornography. It is vital that the industry works with
Government and Law Enforcement to develop workable guidelines for
what should or should not be removed."
Monserrat said his compnay would welcome a debate with
Silicon.com or any industry body on the wider legal issues
surrounding content on the internet.
