False positives of Internet Censorship and the unjustified blocking of the gay porn site blboys.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Contents [01] Mail to me from a worried reader [02] Mail I sent to blboys.com asking about the case [03] Response from blboys.com [04] Some thoughts about the case Note: The site described in this mail is actually not a child porn site, even though google and the Finnish police seem to think so. According to the site administration, nobody ever contacted them or their hosting provider about it. I'm publishing this mail to show what kind of mental stress the false positives on Internet censorship can have on normal users. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [01] Mail to me from a worried reader ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 14:18:29 +0000 (GMT) Subject: Website To: muzzy@iki.fi Hello. I had been using one of the websites listed on the censorship list for quite some time without any suspicion of illegal content. The main part of the site is a thumbnail gallery linking to external websites, of which I'm sure all stated that models were over 18. All models certainly were portrayed as 18, and the thumbnail gallery stated that models were over 18.. There was a secondary part to the site where users could upload pictures of themselves, provided that they were over 18 in the pictures, and that they provided a facial shot for the website operator to verify their age (which they could omit from the gallery if desired). Every picture I viewd certainly showed users over 18 years, with the exception of a set of 3/4 pictures that I thought might be borderline. There was no facial shot. I closed the pictures, and did not open them again, but continued to use the main thumbnail gallery, as I thought that the website operators genuinly were only interested in legal content, and that they had indeed verified the age of the featured individual. I then did a google search on the site about 6 months afterward (after having continued using the thumbnail gallery), which would be about 6 weeks ago now. The site listing had been removed from google's search results for having been reported for child pornography. Of course this is the right thing for someone to have done that suspected illegal material, but I am now seriously concerned that I may have been unwittingly viewing illegal material. I have been physically sick a number of times, have spoken to the Samaritans twice and seriously considered suicide due to this discovery, as I am in no way interested in child pornography, I think it is absolutely horrific and that people who create, distribute and possess this material should be brought to justice. But I am terrified that I'll get a knock on the door from the police for having used a site that may have contained illegal material, even though I never consciously came across anything that was indicated illegal! Please help. The site for reference was www.blboys.com. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [02] Mail I sent to blboys.com asking about the case ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: Matti Nikki To: Blboys Admin Subject: ever heard anyone claim you host child porn? Hello, As you might be aware, the site blboys.com is considered child porn site by google and some national police forces as well. I'd like to ask you a few questions about this... Do you know if you have ever (accidently) had child porn on your site? Has anyone ever contacted you about this? If so, when, how often, etc? Do you know when you've been blocked by google? Have you tried contacting them about it and if so, what have they answered? Thanks in advance. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [03] Response from blboys.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 15:25:52 +0300 From: Blboys Admin To: Matti Nikki Subject: Re: ever heard anyone claim you host child porn? Well first of all I would like you ask you to introduce yourself and explain your interest. BLBOYS never had, even accidently, any child porn on its pages. We're very strict on monitoring all this and we do it all over the way and always did in the past. No, nobody ever contacted us regarding this and I really belive that this is a libel by a competitor. That's why they contacted Google - not us, not the hosting company or whatever. People who are really chasing CP and fighting it in the internet know how to act, and Google is not the thing. We are in the process with Google now, sent many letters to them, their legal department and so on. Our goal is to find out who's behind this and put them to court for libel, which majorly affects our business. It's very nice that they have submitted something to Google officially - a proove of the action. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [04] Some thoughts about the case ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The site in question, blboys.com, had at one point been in the Finnish censorship list. Since then, google has started unlisting it and displays a notice that the results have been removed due to child porn complaint. According to whois records, the site has been around quite a while, since 2002. There is contact information rather easily found on the site, but according to them nobody ever contacted them. This shows a worrying development for the Internet censorship even if it's officially targeted towards child porn. The filtering systems and practices have been designed to work without the justice system involved, so the site owners don't have a chance to get their opinions heard and they have no way to appeal for the decisions. This is extremely dangerous development for the freedom of speech online, when measures to block sites can be taken without any liability. What kind of countries wield justice that exist without responsibility? It throws out the core principles of democracy, and this totalitarian power is raising its head all over the world. Whenever "child porn" is mentioned, there's been an increasing trend in disregarding any rights the accused have. Can we please get our democracy back? Can we please uphold our judicial systems instead of developing these methods to bypass it? It should be obvious already that all sort of "voluntary" Internet filtering by ISPs which involve blacklists originating from the government agencies, are just a method of exercising power without any oversight by neutral parties. That's what Internet Censorship has been designed to do, and that's the only thing it's been designed to do. How can this kind of attack on our basic rights be ignored by the politicians and ISPs involved? PS. Anyone who thinks child porn filters can act as a part of democracy, I ask you one question: Who's responsible for the error when a legal site gets blocked? Here in Finland, nobody's responsible. -- Matti Nikki / muzzy@iki.fi / 2008-09-17