Back in January, I wrote about proposals in Japan to require filtering for minors using mobile phones. Now there is a new proposal in Japan to require ISPs to block child porn sites:
The ruling parties will introduce legislation for Internet service providers to block access to child pornography sites with major providers in favor of the move, sources said. A project team of Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito members will draw up a bill to revise the law prohibiting child pornography after the Golden Week holiday period. It will aim to have the bill passed by the Diet in the current session, the sources said. If such a revision passes the Diet, it will be the first measure involving the legal blocking of specific Web sites, albeit in the form of a nonbinding guideline.
This is an ongoing trend that isn’t going away, as it’s hard to defend not filtering child pornography. This is an ongoing problem with the global Internet when you have certain countries (particularly in Eastern Europe) who are lazy about shutting down sites involved in criminal activity, including child porn. The interesting question is – where does this lead?
Filed under: Filtering, Governments, Policy
