Web porn forces city councillor to axe site

Published on Saturday 7 May 2005 12:02

THE city’s education leader is being forced to close down his community website following a complaint about links to porn.

Church minister and councillor Ewan Aitken expressed shock that the site, which is aimed at "helping the community help themselves", also contained adverts for chat rooms and American loan firms.

The adverts were posted on the site without his knowledge or permission.

Councillor Aitken said he was "internet illiterate" and had intended to have the site removed for some time.

The complaint was made by the anti-establishment site www.edinburghsucks.com under the banner "Rev Councillor Aitken promotes porn".

It states that visitors to the website’s forum section can sometimes find a link to Mate1.com and take part in "intimate dating" with girls from around the world.

Adverts for lesbian chat rooms, loans, debt counselling services and psychic readings have also popped up, the complaint says.

The grievance about Cllr Aitken’s site is posted on the internet, under the banner "Edinburgh Sucks! An account of how the politicians are screwing our city."

As well as Cllr Aitken’s website, edinburghsucks.com also displays a range of newspaper clippings and comment relating to the council, the arts, charities and various political parties.

There is also an internet link to the Make Poverty History lobby which is organising a massive rally in Edinburgh in July to coincide with the G8 summit.

Writers of edinburghsucks.com have posted a message on Cllr Aitken’s website which says: "Pervert Aitken. Get the porn ads and the ads for spyware off this site."

Cllr Aitken was shocked to hear of the complaint about the website, which he said was devised by students in 2001.

The website contains a history of Restalrig, a map of the area and contact details for Cllr Aitken.

There is a biography of the Church of Scotland minister, who is also the council’s youth strategy and education leader.

The site, which features community pictures of children and the elderly and features the banner "Helping the community to help themselves", also has links to Edinburgh City Council and the Labour Party.

Cllr Aitken said he was "embarrassed" by the site and pledged to have it removed from the internet as quickly as possible.

"It was done as a project by some students and has never been removed," he said. "I’ve no idea how to remove it because I’m not internet literate."

The pop-up adverts occur when an internet browser enters the "forum" section of the website where the public are urged to make comments.

Internet search engines often seek to place ads on sites where the content matches what is being advertised.

However, Benjamin Deschenes, owner of Edinburgh internet cafe Bytes and Slices, said there was a strong possibility someone may have hacked into Cllr Aitken’s site as it had not been regularly maintained.

"The link itself is not secure because it’s not monitored by a professional host," he said.

"Anyone who has access to that link might be able to get the password and can modify the background programming you see on the site without anyone knowing."