Internet: don’t link, don’t leak

The greatest concern of the blacklist being leaked is that it will provide a road map for those seeking to find these illegal sites. The blacklist will also provide vital clues to these people in their quest for finding like sites.

However, there is no need to maintain a list if, as I have argued before, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) organisation be given the powers to deregister these sites. Once deregistered, they disappear off the domain name servers (the internet’s address book) and cannot be accessed. Linking to them will just return an error. However, for this to work effectively, the owner of the site should have recourse to challenge the de-registration. If the site is illegal, instead of putting the site on a blacklist, the authorities should just go after the owners.

The proposed internet filtering system that is currently being tested is fast becoming a disaster for this government. In the meantime, the government is doing nothing to address the real problems children face online that I have outlined before: predators who groom them via chat rooms; bullies who harass and intimidate them via email and mobile phones; nasties who post photos of you taken without your permission; those who spread lies and rumours about you via social network sites; thugs who upload a clip of them beating you up - these are the real problems facing children.

* The blacklist was instigated by the previous government.