City Councillor Ewan Aitken was forced to close his community website May 11 after he learned there had been links and ads for adult websites placed on it. Aitken reportedly learned of the porn intrusion the hard way, when a protest site known as edinburghsucks.com complained about the links under a headline reading, "Rev. Councillor Aitken Promotes Porn." Aitken is also a minister in the Church of Scotland.
The protest site article said they tied to Mate1.com for "intimate dating" with women around the world. Others were ads for lesbian chat, loans, debt counseling, and psychic readings. The links and ads were on the site without his knowledge or permission, according to Scottish news reports.
Mate1.com did not return a query for comment from AVNOnline.com before this story went to press, but Edinburgh Internet café Bytes and Slices owner Benjamin Deschenes told reporters there was a strong prospect that Aitken's site was hacked, since maintenance was generally haphazard during the site's life.
"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."
Aitken told reporters he planned to close the website anyway but needed help doing it because he is "Internet illiterate." The site was intended to include community information and local history as well as maps, a biography with contact information for Aitken, and links to the Edinburgh City Council and the Labour Party.
