Pirate Bay founders defend hosting pedophilia discussion site

posted by soulxtc in bittorrent // 545 days 17 hours 14 minutes ago

Though disagree with its subject matter and opinions, they defend the site owner's freedom of speech.

A story making its way around the internet concerns server hosting company PRQ and its owners and operators, Fredrik Neij and Gottfried Svartholm Warg, who are also two of the founders of the Pirate Bay BitTorrent tracker site.

The site was previously shut down and removed by a Danish hosting company and has now been hosted by the servers at PRQ for a few days.

In an interview with the Stockholm morning daily Dagens Nyheter, Svartholm Warg said he decided to host the site despite disagreeing strongly with the content.in question, believing freedom of speech and the importance of debate are larger issues at play.

"I have read the material and personally I don't agree. They claim among other things that children can have voluntary love affairs with adults, and that is completely ridiculous. But I believe more in an open debate than in burying our heads in the sand. They have the right to say this," he said.

The site in question also argues the importance of freedom of speech, posting a notice on their site that notes that "When it comes to fear of pedophiles most things are set to one side - logic being the first victim, then freedom of speech and last but not least the law."

The site also plans to make space available for individual pedophiles' personal websites, making the issue liable to become much more contentious in coming months if it grows into a bastion of pedophilia supporters and propaganda.

Furthermore, it may just be the ammunition that the IFPI and other copyright lobbying organizations need to turn public support against the free-wheeling file-sharing Swedes of the Pirate Bay.

To be clear, the Pirate Bay in no way condones pedophilia, and a look around the site turned up no related content for download as some have claimed but, again it will make it harder to maintain such widespread popularity and support if people begin to think that their ideals connotate freedom without any boundaries. Surely some boundaries are necessary in a civilized society, for without them we have chaos yet, is it true in the case of speech and thought? Are they to be bounded by restrictions or is it far more important that we all are able to say and think what we please?

I'd argue the latter, that as despicable and disgusting as pedophilia is, it's still important that we are able to discuss and debate the ideas in an open and public forum.

Let's just hope it's not the silver bullet that the IFPI's been looking for.