Sexy Jihad

After quite a bit of negative feedback after a recent episode of Newsnight, the BBC has written a piece setting the record straight:

Now we’ve got that out the way, let us ask you a question. Why is it that every time the media starts to talk about the internet they feel compelled to bang on about paedophiles and terrorists and generally come over like a cross between Joe McCarthy and the Childcatcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?

So we seek to equate the internet with all bad things to scare you off it. At some corporate freudian level, there’s some truth to that accusation.

…

But there’s a third explanation as well. Sometimes it’s legitimate.

Friday’s piece sought to make a very sophisticated point in the space of four minutes. The point was this: a file sharing protocol called BitTorrent now takes up a third of internet traffic, even by the most conservative estimates. The true figure is probably higher.

Some internet service providers aren’t very pleased about that, because although they sell their internet connections as unlimited usage, if people actually take them up on the offer then they can’t actually cope with demand.

“Boo hoo,” I hear you say to them. “Build some more wires in or whatever it is you do. That’s what we pay you for.” But no. The wicked ISPs have, increasingly, opted to block BitTorrent (and indeed other P2P protocols as well) using technology known as traffic shaping.

Good piece which shows (as ever) the the BBC is capable of intelligent journalism and discussion (unlike certain other networks….)

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