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Metropolitan Police try to censor Usenet newsgroups

``` [I've been getting a lot of mail about this. I'll spare you my opinion.]

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TITLE: Metropolitan Police try to censor Usenet newsgroups

Links to related information (updated Monday morning)

Metropolitan Police try to censor Usenet newsgroups

The Clubs & Vice unit of the Metropolitan Police has written to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) supplying them with a list of groups that they believe to contain pornographic material, asking ISPs to monitor the newsgroups and decide what action to take. They express the hope that with your co-operation and self regulation it will not be necessary for us to move to an enforcement policy

The nature of Usenet means that, unless an ISP wishes to take responsibility for checking to see that each article in the police list of over 130 newsgroups is not pornographic, the only reasonable course of action that they can take is to remove the groups from their service. Indeed, some ISPs have already expressed the view that by monitoring any groups, they might leave themselves open to claims of responsibility for all. Viewed this way, the police letter is little more than a request to ISPs to remove the listed groups from their servers and deny access to their customers.

Why is this important? It's all porn after all, isn't it?

That's certainly the position that the Clubs & Vice unit would like you to take, but as anyone who looks through the groups will tell you, there is more than just porn. Groups like alt.sex.homosexual, or alt.homosexual are used by gay people for discussions, or meeting each other. While there may be material on some of the groups listed that few would condone, it's by no means the case for all. How about alt.sex.fetish.tickling, or alt.sex.fetish.watersports? They may not be your thing, but should people not be allowed to discuss it?

The Clubs & Vice unit says so. For those who aren't familiar with them and their works - you might, perhaps, have expected the Computer Crime unit to have been worried about the Internet - the Clubs & Vice Unit, based at Charing Cross, have a certain amount of history when it comes to other people's sexual preferences.

Remember the prosecution of Attitude, the London club? Or some of the raids on Clone Zone? How about the prosecution of Club Whiplash? The harassment of the Sadie Maisie and Gummi clubs, which resulted in their mving from Club 180 in Earls Court? All strings to the bow of the Clubs and Vice unit.

They even questioned the Lesbian & Gay Christian Movement over a link on their web pages! (You can find the same link on our pages; it takes you to a computer in America, and the text of a poem by James Kirkup that's illegal in the UK. Is a link illegal? Maybe we'll find out - we think it's like putting up a notice saying "Go to this address in Amsterdam and you can buy filthy magazines")

What can you do?

We believe that you should complain to your Internet provider, and point out that censorship is not a realistic option on the Internet. The technology will always allow people to get round it. For those who don't want to see certain material, filtering programs like NetNanny are now quite widely available. The Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) seems willing to co-operate with this initative; they should be challenged to suggest less intrusive methods

only a few gay newsgroups have been hit this time, but in the

CompuServe affair earlier this year, many legitimate gay discussion forums were made unavailable. The record of some of the people concerned in this latest action doesn't give us much comfort, and we believe that you should act now to ensure that free access to gay areas on the Internet remains.

What is Digital Diversity doing?

We're working on some material to release to the press, and extra information for this web site. Please check back in a few days for more information.

If you have written to your ISP, we'd like to hear their response. You can join in a discussion about this matter on the Digital Diversity Campaigns list, and over the next few days we'll be putting together more information, including a form letter that you can adapt and use to write to your ISP.

If you have other ideas for campaigning, we'd like to hear them!

Metropolitan Police try to censor Usenet newsgroupswriting

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Metropolitan Police try to censor Usenet newsgroups