Photographs and video clips of naked children have been found on Usenet groups. In addition to child pornography, illegal depictions of sexual violence and pictures involving sex with animals have also been distributed through the same channel.

Helsingin Sanomat monitored message boards on Sonera’s news server for two weeks. The company’s server was used for the distribution of hundreds of pictures of child sex.

The material ranged from scantily-clad and naked boys and girls to actual sex acts. There were also explicit video clips, paedophile stories, and, for instance, music by a boys’ choir.

Internet experts say that the same material was on the servers of nearly all service providers. Photographs and videos sent from false addresses are added daily, and can be viewed by all customers of the service.

Usenet discussion boards are an old Internet service developed before the introduction of the World Wide Web. The service allows users to discuss various topics and exchange files.

He adds that the service providers themselves are not in violation of the law if they do not know what kinds of files are put on the servers. Active monitoring is also not one of the duties of the police. "The Finnish Road Administration is not held responsible if people drink and drive", Loikka points out.

On the Sonera server, child pornography is distributed in groups with names such as "erotic pictures of 13-17-year-olds", or "pre-teen erotic pictures", and "incest sex".

"The number of groups is slightly below 20,000, and there are no guarantees as to what they contain. We would have to go through them every two days to get certain knowledge of their content", says Sonera’s Group Manager Arttu Lehmuskallio.

Sonera also removed some of the groups after learning about them from Helsingin Sanomat. Nevertheless, several groups with names suggesting child porn content were left on the server.

Internet service providers are currently pondering how to prevent access by their clients to foreign child pornography sites. However, Reijo Svento, Managing Director of the Finnish Federation for Communications and Teleinformatics (FiCom), says that there are no plans to interfere with Usenet discussion groups.

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