It's no secret that politicians tend to churn out press releases touting their accomplishments, no matter how mean or insignificant. But it is still possible to be surprised on occasion, which brings us to today's announcement by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat.
In his press release, which was reproduced uncritically, Cuomo claimed that AOL has "agreed to eliminate access to child porn newsgroups, a major supplier of these illegal images" and said that the company will "purge" its "servers of child porn websites." By newsgroups, Cuomo is referring to Usenet, a free-flowing discussion area that predates the Web.
The press release included the obligatory encomiums from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's Ernie Allen, who added: "This is another tremendous step forward in ridding the Internet of child pornography. Attorney General Cuomo continues to lead the fight against child pornography and I applaud his efforts to cut this horrific material off at the source."
There's just one problem with the press release. AOL isn't doing anything different today than it did yesterday. "We have not changed any policies or procedures as part of today's announcement," AOL spokeswoman Allie Burns told me via e-mail.
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Originally Posted by Reppy
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