| THIS IS NOT A PEDOPHILIA SITE! |
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| If you landed here looking for child abuse images, you should know that your IP address has been captured, together with your search terms. Think about making better choices. |
I am so used to hearing about how Canada has more restrictions on free speech that I was a little surprised to read a story on the wires this morning about groups wanting Canada to clamp down on pedophile websites.
Jack McClellan, the operator of a website for “Girl-oriented pedophilia in Washington state” proudly boasted that Epifora, a Montreal based ISP, is the host, according to an interview covered by Crime Scene Blog
“I don’t think I’ll have any problems with that; there’s some other pedophile sites on there,” he said. “My Web host is Epifora, which is kind of this notorious host; all they do is pedophiles.”
A quick check of the WHOIS database confirms that Epifora is currently hosting his website. The site claims
The primary purpose of this site is to promote association, friendship; and legal, nonsexual, consensual touch (hugging, cuddling, etc) between men and prepubescent girls. I don’t practice sexual touching of such girls, am not a sex offender, and am not prohibited from being around children.
Epifora has been in the news before. In the past, some net neutrality advocates have cited Verizon’s decision to cut off access to Epifora because of its violations of Verizon’s acceptable use policy. Epifora’s home page lists “accept controversial speech” as being one of its premium services.
Still, Epifora has a link to the Canadian Association of Internet Providers which claims to support Canada’s Internet Child Exploitation Action Plan. In its media release on the subject, CAIP said the group was instrumental in establishing the Canadian Coalition Against Internet Child Exploitation and its action plan
designed to help protect children from online sexual exploitation and to assist in bringing those who victimize children to justice.
Defenders of Epifora have nothing to be proud of. Why would Canada be a safe haven for such sites? Will CAIP act quickly to distance itself from this kind of material?