British Telecom (BT) has reported an increase in the daily number of attempts by UK-based Web surfers to access alleged child pornography sites blocked by BT’s “Cleanfeed” filtering technology. According to BT, when the company first started using Cleanfeed, the number of daily attempts was approximately 10,000 per day, while over the last 4 months that number has risen to 35,000 per day.The reaction in the press and by many analysts has been predictable enough; dismay over the statistics, and a call for more active filtering, blocking and self-regulation at the ISP level.

While nobody is going to argue against making a stronger effort to combat child pornography, the true implication of BT’s reporting is open to question. Does the increase in the number of attempts to reach sites blocked by BT really indicate an increased interest in child porn?

“These figures may suggest that people are becoming more brazen about what they are looking for online,” Jupiter Research Analyst Joe Laszlo said in an interview with TechNewsWorld. “It may also just suggest that BT is keeping a closer eye on this, and so they are noticing more than they were before.”

In fact, the numbers could suggest even less than what Laszlo posits. Here’s why:

BT’s blocking is based entirely on a blacklist maintained by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF). Now, I’m not about to question the mission of IWF, nor the intent of BT, as they fight online child porn in their own ways. Certainly the IWF and BT both have good intentions, and just as certainly online child porn is a serious problem that deserves the attention and best effort of law enforcement.

All I’m saying is that before we come to the conclusion that there’s some massive outbreak of pedophilia in Merry Ol’ England, perhaps the numbers should be subjected to a little greater scrutiny.

I’ve only scratched the surface, myself, and I’m already prepared to label this yet another example of the mainstream media jumping to a conclusion that lends itself to a sensational, rather than informative, story.

At first blush, the stats reported by BT would appear to be an ironclad indication of more child porn surfing going on in the UK. Looking a little deeper, however, indicates that there may be less to the numbers than meets the eye.

For one thing, while the IWF is generally thought of as anti-child porn group, the IWF blocks more than just alleged child porn sites (and that word “alleged” is important here, too). According to their website, the non-profit group is the “only authorized organization in the UK operating an internet ‘hotline’ for the public and IT professionals to report their exposure to potentially illegal content online.”

IWF is also very careful throughout their site and publications to refer to the content they block as “potentially illegal.” What this means is that the IWF inspects sites that are reported to them and assesses whether the content is “illegal to view” under the terms of the 1978 Child Protection Act.

The IWF also specifies three areas of content that they block: “child abuse images hosted anywhere in the world; criminally obscene content hosted in the UK; and criminally racist content hosted in the UK.”

It’s not clear from the published reports if the statistics reported by BT include sites blocked for reasons of being “criminally obscene” (but not necessarily child porn) or “criminally racist” – possibly because none of the sources reporting the story bothered to ask the question, or because they are unaware that IWF blocks more than just alleged child porn.

At any rate, given that IWF blacklists a variety of different site and content types, that the sites in question are only alleged to be illegal, and that the number of sites blocked by BT increases over time, the assertion that the reported numbers necessarily indicate a “sharp rise” (a term employed in countless media assessments of BT’s report) in attempts to access child porn on the part of UK surfers is specious reasoning, at best.

None of this has held back mainstream press outlets from jumping to conclusions, of course. A casual perusal of Google’s news section leads to headlines like:

• BT concern as child porn spirals – Times Online UK


• More try to access child porn – The Scottsman


• British Web attempts for child porn rising – United Press International(UPI)

I’ll have to research BT’s data further before I can draw any solid conclusions of my own – for that matter, the numbers and methodology may not justify drawing any conclusion at all. At the very least, though, I think we owe our Web-surfing peers in the British public the benefit of the doubt, and we shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that the UK is developing into some hotbed of pedophiles.

Now, if only the world press would extend them the same courtesy…