IT Question for pprune moderators/techies

[FNG]

This has nothing to do with aviation, but I would be very grateful for any information from those involved in running pprune or others with experience of operating internet services on the extent to which such services can be pro-active in keeping material off their sites which would be illegal for some reason (eg defamatory, obscene, or in contempt of court).

I suspect that for the most part the service provider (whether it be an ISP or the operator of a bulletin board) has to be re-active, acting promptly to remove material once it appears and perhaps banning those responsible, if known, from accessing the service. I assume that even a bb as tightly and well managed as pprune appears to be cannot so configure its software as to prevent the appearance of particular categories of material, as it would be impractical to set blocks or filters which would detect offending material without also catching harmless stuff, and which could not simnply be evaded by those well aware of the dumb literal-mindeness of even the smartest of computers.

I freely confess that I am asking this question for reasons germane to a legal case I am working on at the moment (I'm a barrister). My only mitigation for this crime is that I have sometimes offered fellow ppruners free (and I hope accurate) legal advice on various topics in other fora.

Thanks for any help you can offer. You can get reasonably technical in your replies if you like, as although I am sometimes forced by financial exigencies to dress in public like an 18th century clergyman, I do have a reasonable 21st century layperson's understanding of grey things with buttons on.

PS: for any real or virtual lawyers wishing to join in, I already know about the decision in Godfrey v Demon Internet, and the E-Commerce Directive.

[ 09 July 2001: Message edited by: FNG ]

[Evo7]

[to what extent can] services be pro-active in keeping material off their sites which would be illegal for some reason (eg defamatory, obscene, or in contempt of court).

Ultimately, the only way you can be sure is to have a moderator read each and every post and decide if it can or cannot be posted on the board. That approach still depends on the judgement of the moderator. You could, I suppose, have several who take a vote, but....

Short of that, there is in effect nothing you can do to be sure that no material that is 'unsuitable' makes it online. People have tried many things, from filtering words to guessing how much flesh colour should be in an image, but you can never get a computer to understand text or interpret an image.

HTH

[PPRuNe Dispatcher]

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[FNG]

Many thanks, the position is as I thought it would be.

[PPRuNe Towers]

FNG,

You'll no doubt now be aware of the precedent set regarding Demon and their real time inability to control messages and images.

For others: This was with regard to their legal position if recent pictures of those convicted of the Bulger killing were published on the internet with Demon being that site's ISP.

Were always happy to receive feebies FNG so I wondered if our protective verbiage published above roughly tallied with your reading of this most recent ruling?

Regards from the Towers
Rob Lloyd
[email protected]

[FNG]

I was involved in the case you mention so am a bit limited in what I can say, but will get back to you on this.

[PPRuNe Towers]

We'd really appreciate it as and when you can. Errr, do you take PPruNe badges for the fee????