Arkansas- “Senator Jim Holt, the Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor, was giving Democratic opponent Bill Halter [pictured] the benefit of a doubt concerning his position on the board of a company that made money by distributing pornography and online gambling. Now that Mr. Halter has defended his company’s activities in his own words it is time to speak out” said Holt spokesman Dan Noble.
Holt stuck mostly to fiscal issues at a recent debate, along with questions about Halter’s 27 year absence from the state. Halter returned to Arkansas last year to run for Lt. Governor. Holt’s one brief mention of the pornography and gambling issue in that debate was in the context of dismissing Halter’s business resume.
“I always assumed that he disapproved of his company signing contracts with pornographers and online gambling interests that Congress has since clamped down on. My point Thursday was that he can’t ride his business experience to office when something like this was going on right under his nose without his knowledge. It now appears that whether he knew about Akamai’s specific activities or not, he has no problem with making money distributing pornography.” Holt said.
Halter sits on the board of Akamai technologies. In 2002 the Boston Globe broke the story that Akami was using University and even public school servers to store and to distribute pornographic content, including material that boasted, ” ‘the Web’s youngest teen girls’in live sex acts”. After the story broke, Akamai executives decided to “phase out” their relationships with producers of pornography and online gambling.
Halter defended his company’s actions at a press conference after the AETN debate. He is quoted in an Andrew DeMillo article as saying “The fact is this company delivers content over the Internet in the same way that phone companies deliver content over phone lines,” Halter said. “It’s hard to imagine somebody saying that the manufacturers of video tapes or phone companies are pornographers because of what somebody else does with their product.”
“His analogy is flawed.” Holt retorted, “If someone goes to the store and buys a blank tape and puts teen porn on it, the tape company is not responsible because they can’t know what is going to be on the tape. But if a company signs a contract with someone making teen porn to distribute the tapes, then they are responsible. They know what is on the tapes. Akamai knew what the content was. So does Bill Halter, but he is using flawed analogies to defend his company’s role as cultural polluters.”
“Bill Halter does not reflect Arkansas values” said Noble. “We hold that profit from porn is indefensible and Mr. Halter owes a better explanation to the voters of Arkansas on why he continues to associate himself with this company.” Noble commented.