Images, not searches should be illegal

Stuff reports:

British Prime Minister David Cameron challenged the Internet search engine providers Google, Yahoo and Bing on Sunday to block images of child abuse, calling for more action against online pornography.

In a television interview, Cameron said search engines must block results for searches using blacklisted keywords to stop Internet users accessing illegal images.

Cameron’s demands should be resisted. Search engines should not blacklist keywords. Where does that stop?

If people deliberately access child abuse images on the Internet, then they are breaking the law and can be charged – as they should be.

But having a blacklist of search terms (as China does) will end up also blocking searches for educational resources that fight child abuse.

The hard core traders in child abuse images tend to not use the web much anyway. They do file sharing in chat rooms etc.