Yesterday's report from the Internet Service Provider Association of Ireland about illegal use of the internet makes an interesting read. Far from being the sort of sensationalist and inaccurate trash you regularly get to read in the media, the ISPAI's report provides a sober and well-written analysis of their hotline's activities in 2006, and most importantly of all, the analysis is backed up by lots of interesting figures.
Cutting to the bottom line, the hotline processed about 12% more reports in 2006 than in 2005, and of these there was a very small drop in the percentage of child pornography report. This is good news indeed, because internet access penetration in Ireland has increased significantly during this time - well more than 12%, although it would be speculative and probably inaccurate to conclude that there is less child porn on the internet in 2006 than in 2005.
Naturally, the irish media picked up on the press release, and both main printed broadsheets carried the story. The Irish Independent story noted the rise in complaints, whereas the Irish Times article took a more disinterested viewpoint, providing more facts and figures. In the online media, both Electric News and Silicon Republic headlined that child porn reporting was on the rise, while taking slightly different approaches in their content. The media need to sell stories, which is why their headlines will always blare a little louder when it's a touchy subject, but it's heartening to note that a mature and level-headed approach was taken in this instance.
Interestingly, the previous largest source of child porn complaints was from spam, which comprised over 48% of reported complaints in the Hotline's second report. This figure has now dropped to 35% and has been accompanied by an absolute drop in the actual figures. Can we speculate why? There are several possible reasons, the most likely of which is that spam filtering is now employed widely on most internet email accounts, which means that many junk emails advertising child porn simply won't get through to the intended recipient. But it would be more interesting to know whether the hotline's opinion that people are jaded by spam is really the primary cause for the drop here.
Good work by the hotline. They do an important and unenviable job, and have done a lot to tackle the problem of on-line child porn, both nationally and internationally.
Disclaimer: I do contract work for INHOPE, but the opinions above are strictly personal opinions and any speculation expressed is just that.
