Re: ::a timeline of Pete Townshend and the Internet:: part II [1999]

[Ken in MD <seahawkman2001@xxxxxxxxx>]

keets wrote: 
>>This year is an important point in establishing
whether Pete started the anti-child porn campaign
before the Landslide site was busted i.e whether it
might be a constructed defense as some have suggested.
<<

It appears that he did not.  The quote comes from an
interview from BBC Radio 3 that "Fiona P" transcribed
and posted on December 12, 1999. (Thanks Fiona!) 

http://www.igtc.com/archives/thewho/1999/Dec/msg00207.html

The interview itself is not dated but it looks like it
came from right around when Lifehouse was broadcast in
early December. This is the earliest I can find where
Pete mentions child pornography on the Internet and
warns against it.  Matt's interview w/ Pete in the
Lifehouse project section at PT.Com was done in August
1999 but it doesn't mention the subject.  (If anyone
knows of something earlier please speak up!)

So, Landslide Productions was busted in early
September 1999 and Pete's first statement against
Internet child porn appears two months later. It is
not clear how widely this bust was publicized -
certainly the ensuing investigation of clients was not
publicized for two more years.  However, the site was
closed and subscribers who queried it were answered by
undercover police.

Let us keep in mind that the sequence alone does not
"prove" anything - arguing that it does is a logical
fallacy: _post hoc ergo propter hoc_
that is, "after this therefore because of this." When
one thing occurs before something else it does not
mean that it "caused" the latter thing to happen. 

One can argue just as persuasively that Pete's remarks
in December 1999 came as a result of his having
stumbled across the child abuse image by accident
after seeing "The Waiting Children" documentary. This
is what Pete has said. I believe him. And, as Roger
said yesterday, "You have to weigh up all he's done
against this."   

>>Thanks for doing this<<

Thanks for being a careful reader.

Ken in MD
"All a truly great artist can do is create an area or
mechanism that leads to spiritual uplift." Pete












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UNCONDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR PETE TOWNSHEND. 
NO 'What Ifs' NECESSARY.
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