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IWF Backs Down On Wiki Censorship
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Dec 09, 2008 04:10 PM
from the that-streisand-thing-again dept.
from the that-streisand-thing-again dept.
jonbryce writes "The Internet Watch Foundation, guardians of the Great Firewall of Britain, have stopped censoring Wikipedia for hosting what they considered to be a child porn image. They had previously threatened to block Amazon for hosting the same image." Here is the IWF's statement, which credits the Streisand Effect for opening their eyes: "...in light of the length of time the image has existed and its wide availability, the decision has been taken to remove this webpage from our list. Any further reported instances of this image which are hosted abroad, will not be added to the list. ... IWF's overriding objective is to minimize the availability of indecent images of children on the internet, however, on this occasion our efforts have had the opposite effect."
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UK ISPs Are Censoring Wikipedia 668 comments
Concerned Wikipedian writes "Starting December 4th, Wikipedia administrators noticed a surge of edits from certain IP addresses. These IPs turned out to be the proxies for the content filters of at least 6 major UK ISPs. After some research by Wikipedians, it appears that the image of the 1970s LP cover art of the Scorpions' 'Virgin Killer' album has been blocked because it was judged to be 'child pornography,' and all other attempts to access Wikimedia foundation sites from these ISPs are being proxied to only a few IP addresses. This is causing many problems for Wikipedia administrators, because much of the UK vandalism now comes from a single IP, which, when blocked, affects potentially hundreds of thousands of anonymous users who intend no harm and are utterly confused as to why they are no longer able to edit. The image was flagged by the the Internet Watch Foundation, which is funded by the EU and the UK government, and has the support of many ISPs and online institutions in the UK. The filter is fairly easy to circumvent simply by viewing the article in some other languages, or by logging in on the secure version of Wikipedia."
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not a "child porn" image (Score:5, Funny)
Let's get it right; the IWF didn't say the page was porn; they said it was "potential illegal child sexual abuse." Most people seem to have assumed this was because the album cover artwork on the Wikipedia page [wikipedia.org] included an image of a naked girl, but the reality is that IWF only wanted to protect children from the horrors of having to listen to anything released by the Scorpions.
NOFX - Fuck The Kids (Score:5, Insightful)
but the reality is that IWF only wanted to protect children from the horrors of having to listen to anything released by the Scorpions.
Than and all they had to do is make a press release, and garner worldwide attention. Some of it negative, but think of all the increased support by religious types. This was just an elaborate marketing ploy on their behalf that is sure to increase donations to their coffers while providing free media coverage over such a nonstarter of a band, issue and picture.
Parent
Hmmm (Score:3, Informative)
IWF is organization set up by ISPs. I believe their remit is to flag and block anything possibly illegal, allowing the legal/illegal argument to then be made (and any action taken). Their REAL purpose is to keep governments off the backs of ISPs - we're regulating ourselves, so you can leave us alone.
Now.
New bit of law just rolling out (Jan '09) outlaws 'extreme porn' in the UK. Complete and utter knee-jerk, poorly thought out c
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Everybody seems to be focused on the Scorpions Album Cover and its not the cover thats important, it's the now proven fact that the internet for the UK is filtered monitored and blocked!
This event was a slip up, we were not supposed to know about the censorship and filtering going on. The big question in the UK is what else is being blocked and why? People outside the UK should know that the UK is being monitored and filtered (People in the UK should know too but probably the majority still don't). What is being blocked in your locale? It is highly unlikely that any of us are getting an unfiltered service.
How much of what we read is honest reporting and how much propaganda? what don't we get to read whats missing ?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I see that the "page not found" blocking still seems to be in effect, at least for my connection.
This is a welcome move announcing that it was a mistake to block this particular instance. It is the height of foolishness to block an encyclopedia, particularly for content that has been in the public domain for thirty years or so.
Thought crime should not be something that the free world invokes as a weapon against criminality. We have fought wars with states that created the idea of thought crime and it would
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You're in the UK, I presume? It could be because Wikipedia was in turn blocking a lot of the UK -- someone more technical minded than me can explain that part of it. Guess it'll take a bit for them to remove that block, too.
Re:not a "child porn" image (Score:4, Informative)
It wasn't Wikipedia blocking people from the UK specifically.
It was Wikipedias' limits on edits from anonymous users from a single IP. A side effect of the filtering was that all traffic from the ISPs being filtered by the IWF was that all of the requests came from the IWF IP, so it looked like everyone in the UK was sharing a few/single IP address.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So great news
Are you reading the same summary as me?
IWF's overriding objective is to minimize the availability of indecent images of children on the internet, however, on this occasion our efforts have had the opposite effect.
Note that IWF said "oops, our censorship didn't work this time", not "censorship is wrong".
I don't think this is good news. I think it's bad news, as opposed to worse news: the IWF will continue trying to censor the Internet, it'll just be a little smarter about it.
Let's also be clear about the distinction between pedophilia, child porn and child molestation; one is a sexual preference, the second is sexual imagery and the third is sexual activities.
In my world view,
Re:not a "child porn" image (Score:5, Insightful)
What about the disgusting child porn proudly features on Nirvana's Nevermind album, Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy, Blind Faith's self-titled album [cddesign.com]; also Van Halen's Balance [wikimedia.org] album cover, The Coppertone Girl [wikipedia.org], and all the Family guy jokes about child sex and bestiality(Stewie: "I'd do her, do her, lose the pigtails and we'll talk, ugh who hasn't done her?" as well as Brian's relationships with human women), The now well-discussed showing of Bart's pecker in the Simpsons movie, The Winger song "Seventeen", The Police song "Don't Stand...".
Hmmph. I guess we're all guilty of possessing and consuming what people call "child pornography".
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Hmmph. I guess we're all guilty of possessing and consuming what people call "child pornography".
Maybe you pervs are all guilty, trying to pass off your fetish as "mainstream". I haven't heard of any of those things. Family Guy? Nirvana? WTF are those?!
Except Winger. I've heard of them, but not the song "Seventeen". Must be one of their less popular ones, after they sold out.
Why stop at albums (Score:5, Insightful)
Why stop with the albums of decedant rock bands, Wikipedia is full of images of naked children [wikipedia.org].
Parent
Good Grief (Score:5, Insightful)
omeone better start blocking this bit of smut from that den of molesters at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Raffael_030.jpg [wikipedia.org]
Sick, I tell you, sick!
The end times? (Score:5, Interesting)
huh, a censorship organisation that's capable of acquiring new information, and using that to change their actions.
I didn't think that I'd live long enough to see the day where such a thing would happen.
Isn't there someplace in Revelations where they mention this?
"And yea, look ye unto the people running the anti-child porn organizations on the intertubes. For they shall learn the error of their ways (temporarily) and it shall be a sign that the end of all things is upon you."
Still... (Score:5, Insightful)
They are also admitting that kiddie porn images can be copied and transferred all over the world with no effort.
Unfortunately, I bet they still think it's possible to censor thoughts out of existence.
I'm Relieved (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'm Relieved (Score:5, Insightful)
you would think people would realize when these policing agencies are crossing the line.
Unfortunately, your enthusiasm will fall flat when you learn that the policy still remains in effect and it's just this one case that has been corruptly allowed to remain. This is how they get their cake, eat it, and have the IWF legitimized. I imagine the meeting went something like "OK, if we give them this one, their complaints about the general policy will lose force."
Parent
child molestors... (Score:3, Interesting)
The only thing that I find hilarious about this is that the people behind groups like the "Internet Watch Foundation"
are from the same social strata that regularly gives us child molestors of the likes such as Marc Dutroux in Belgium
along with his cronies in the Belgian Government.
But of course the child pornography / pornography / minority rights etc. etc. debate is just the right orbital slot
for the popular indignation needed to fuel the underlying agenda which is to monitor and restrict free thought
and free speech, I think many of us not so profane anymores have already realized this.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't like the suddenoutbreakofcommonsense tag (Score:5, Insightful)
...not in this instance anyway. These people were effectively forced to see the light and had to defend its indefensible actions. Finding that they could not and that, as the streissand effect goes, causes more attention to the matter than they were seeking.
I'm not sure what a better tag might be, but the image of cockroaches running away hiding from the light might be more apt in this case. These people seeking to censor too much find themselves in indefensible positions when light is shined on them.
I tried to look up the pictures on the web... (Score:5, Funny)
Kinda makes you wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
What else have they censored that dont have the "name recognition" like Wiki or Amazon?
Re:Kinda makes you wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that ISPs should be required to notify us when pages are censored. This is a "you've been censored" page from Demon [thus.net]; but there's nothing equivalent from Be, Virgin, Sky and the rest.
Parent
Re:Kinda makes you wonder... (Score:5, Interesting)
They denied that they "actively" block anything (?), and then suggested the blocked Scorpions page was a fault with Wikipedia or with my computer settings. I'm looking for a new ISP.
Reply from VirginMedia:
Thank you for your e-mail dated 7 December 2008.
We're sorry to hear you feel we have censored our internet connection, we are a part of the Internet Watch Foundation and this is a common code of practise between many service providors, we do not activley block content and do not have a list of blocked content nor do we provide a censored or uncensored Broadband service. Sites with restricted content may be blocked for many reasons, these include the providor of the website or service, your internet security settings or if the site has been removed or disabled or is having technical issues.
If you have further queries regarding this matter or any other issue, please use the link provided below:
www.virginmedia.com/contact
Please note if you reply directly to this e-mail your response will not be received.
Kind regards
Customer Concern
E-Contact Team
Virgin Media
Parent
Re:Kinda makes you wonder... (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know what happens in the UK and the rest of Europe, but I know here in australia they have already passed an amendment to the freedom of information act to *exclude* the internet blacklist from any FOI requests.
http://www.efa.org.au/2008/11/15/filtering-pilot-and-acma-blacklist-not-just-illegal-material/ [efa.org.au]
Yep, thats right. The AU govt is planning on increasing the blacklist of banned websites by an order of magnitude (that they will admit to, but now it will be difficult to tell), and they have taken steps to make sure there can be no oversight
We all know how well this works, don't we. [cnet.com]
That scares me more than the actual censorship.
Parent
You'd think... (Score:5, Insightful)
...that an internet organisation that's been around since 1996 would understand the internet and would've realised the storm that censoring Wikipedia would cause and the resultant effect.
But frankly, to me there's a more important issue here- the IWF has accepted they're wrong which raises the question as to whether procedures need to be put in place to prevent mistakes happening again. The IWF is in a position of immense power and failures to perform their duties correctly need to have repercussions.
There have been various conspiracy theories as to whether the IWF was testing the water in light of Britain's new extreme porn law which makes BDSM and such illegal and hence whether the IWF was seeing what the response would be if they were to start filtering this out- particularly as scenes that could be deemed to be extreme porn exist in many common and publicly accesible places. To filter extreme porn as they do child porn they'd most certainly have to go after a lot more mainstream sites, it would no longer be a case of simply filtering out underground sites that only a small minority of people who are already classed as criminals visit.
Whatever the real aim of this was, whether it was simply a blunder or not, I hope for one thing- that the IWF now ensure they concentrate on what they're supposed to concentrate on, helping prevent child abuse and access to sites that really do gain money and so forth from such abuse and also that this has put to sleep any ideas of a power grab or increase in censorship to other, arguably harmless areas for the IWF.
Re:You'd think... (Score:5, Informative)
Agreed. And that new law about S&M porn is pure moralistic censorship with a thin, fabricated "think of the women/children!" justification.
Going after legitimate businesses like kink.com and insex.com is counterproductive to what SHOULD be the real concern: pornography that features nonconsensual acts.
Those kinky porn models enjoy what they do and get paid well [kink.com] for it. In fact, if you check out the 6th preview video for all of the segments featured on www.free-hardcore.com, you'll notice that pretty much every model that does a shoot says they'd like to do it again. Which is probably pretty shocking to all of those censor-happy prudes in government, considering the subject matter and the fact that they themselves are probably not interested in such sex acts. Otherwise they'd have to realize how stupidly ridiculous all of this is.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
the IWF has accepted they're wrong
Well, the IWF didn't really say "sorry, we were wrong to classify that image as indecent" or even "sorry, we were wrong to censor that website". What they actually said was "oops, we tried to censor but failed." As such, they are merely saying that they have reversed the censoring simply because of the publicity and the overall failure in suppressing the image (quite the opposite: more people were exposed to the image as a result of the ban).
This is hardly the admission of failure that many of us were lo
Thanks to IWF, now I've seen the image myself! (Score:3, Funny)
Before the efforts of Internet Watch Foundation, I had never seen the image they were all worked up about, which is at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Virgin_Killer.jpg [wikipedia.org].
And now, thanks to their tireless efforts to protect me from myself, I have seen it.
Good work, IWF!
They'll be back (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They don't need to, they censor sexually provocative pictures. Nude photos are fine.
To the IWF, as has been demonstrated, nude photos are sexually provocative.
Great Firewall of Britain? (Score:5, Funny)
"The Internet Watch Foundation, guardians of the Great Firewall of Britain...
Wouldn't that be "Hadrian's Firewall" in this case?
Re:Great Firewall of Britain? (Score:5, Funny)
No, that would be an Italian firewall used to censor Scottish content.
Britain cutting itself off from the rest of the world is better represented by the Channel Fogwall.
Parent
Some people forget.... (Score:4, Insightful)
the Internet is much, much older than they are aware of, and for a reason. The Internet has always been a "nasty" and "krass" place. During most of its existence, as text only, maybe there was more left to the imagination? Its great to have all the added bandwidth, but not the added hassle of "do-gooders".
Nobody is going to "regulate" or enforce their religious convictions here. Leave us alone!
Filtering (Score:5, Insightful)
IWF has decided to make an exception for this particular image, but the underlying attitude that led to its blocking remains the same. If not for the public scrutiny this particular decision has prompted, the image in question would still be blocked. I find that very disturbing.
The biggest problem I see with this sort of filtering is the fact that, at least for borderline cases, you rarely know whether the image being blocked is actually illegal. Usually it takes the due process of law to determine that a person producing an image has done something illegal, but with filtering all it takes to block an image is for the image to seem like child pornography. Whether it is or not is irrelevant. All that matters is the judgment of a private party.
What we have learnt (Score:5, Interesting)
o That the people trying to censor net access in this country are not just idiots, they're incompetent idiots.
o That the "blocks" that the major ISPs have in place are effectively useless; either they're incompetent as well, or (more likely) are paying lip-service to the whole idea by saying "yes, we subscribe to the IWF block-list" while using mechanisms a five-year-old could bypass.
o That Chris Morris was right.
Sometimes (as in the case of dodgy 70s album covers), this seems just a bit of a joke; but sometimes it isn't. During the early 90s spokesmen for the political wings of the terrorist organisations in the North of Ireland had to be re-voiced by actors, making interviews essentially impossible. I remember one occasion, after a particular gruesome bombing (many innocent people killed) when the spokesman concerned was able to hide behind the actor to get his message across without answering WHY his organisation supported this indiscriminate slaughter - the "censorship" rules had the exact opposite effect to what was intended.
best irony ever (Score:5, Funny)
Today from work (instead of working) I decided to check out the IWF website.
Turns out Getbusi content filtering proxy is blocking their site as "porn"
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Wikipedia confuses me. (Score:4, Informative)
Wikipedia says they do not censor. Yet they'll remove videos of male masturbation from -- the page on masturbation. They'll even remove images of people having sex and replace them with ridiculous drawings or drawings. They don't do that for other pages. Go to the page on a lion and they'll show you a big image, in colour, of a lion. No one says: "Well, a big image showing all the parts of the lion, and in colour, is just not necessary. Everyone knows what a lion is: A detailed image is not necessary to get the point across." But go to the Talk pages for fellatio or ejaculation and you'll see this exact argument used there. I would say they do censor. I think it's duplicitous of them to say that their official policy is "Wikipedia is not censored." And of course they censor child pornography from their pages, because it is illegal in Florida, where their main servers are.
Content still blocked by Blue Coat at my employer (Score:3, Interesting)
I just attempted to view the Wikipedia entry for "Virgin Killer" (the Scorpions album), and my employer's proxy content filter (supplied by Blue Coat) still lists this particular Wikipedia page as blocked:
Not sure if Blue Coat updated their records yet, but I'm about to complain to them about the content filter. This is the first time, incidentally, that I've seen any Wikipedia page blocked, though I've seen plenty of other asinine filters set up for other sites.
And for the record, I'm nowhere near the UK -- this is in Phoenix, Arizona. Nice to see how someone else's "community standards" are being enforced on me, across national boundaries.
'Censorship by Edit' imposes UK/EU views gloablly (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Whoo! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm rather surprised personally that they even admitted that it was their efforts that created the opposite effect rather than trying to label those talking about it as being "part of the problem" like most groups do for these kinds of issues.
Parent
Re:Whoo! (Score:5, Insightful)
Its almost like they were trying to do the right thing and realised they did the wrong thing.
Parent
Re:Whoo! (Score:5, Informative)
The IWF never admitted to doing anything wrong. They merely realized that the knowledge and publicity of this event harmed their main goal and purpose of censorship, and in fact had the opposite effect of making this image more widely known and seen.
This example is one good reason to (at least) make the blacklist completely public and transparent. When a government (or in this case pseudo-government) and highly public agency want to hide things then corruption will inevitably follow. Transparency will always be better than sneakiness. If a public agency that effects the public does nothing wrong then they should have nothing to hide.
Parent
Expect further censorship (Score:3, Informative)
Try doing a Google Search for this sequence [ viet nam war news picture girl running screaming ] Notice "naked" is not on the list. Nevertheless, the first result is this link http://www.lakeland.edu/studentservices/news.asp?article=4354 [lakeland.edu] A quite famous picture (won the Pulitzer Prize) is on that page. With a naked girl-child in it. Of course, you would probably tear off your clothes and run screaming/naked too, if you had a really close encounter with napalm. I'm pretty sure I recall complaints about the original publication of that picture. Probably by relatives of the same idiots who objected to that album cover.
The girl's name is Phuc. How long do you expect to be able to search for such an obscene word? Obviously, such a search could only be seeking evil images, and the nannies must prevent it...
Re:Be honest! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Be honest! (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in the 70s, everyone had a much more relaxed attitude to this sort of thing. According to wikipedia, there was even a spread of a naked 11-year-old girl in the Italian edition of Playboy in 1976. It is only in the last few years that activists have spread the idea that it is bad to look at pictures of naked children.
So, the picture was legal when it was first released, but may well be illegal now, at least in the UK.
Parent
Re:Be honest! (Score:4, Informative)
Do you have a link to the article where it has that Playboy fact? It sounds like trolling.
Here's the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Ionesco [wikipedia.org]
It took me less than a minute to do a search for that.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
- George Orwell, 1984
Re:mob rule (Score:4, Informative)
According to their statement, they have decided to never take any future action against the same image if it is hosted outside the UK, but if they find it hosted in the UK, it will be "assessed in line with IWF procedures", which means they will threaten the web site with prosecution.
Which of course means that those of us in the UK we will have to be content with seeing it on Wikipedia, Amazon and so on, or with buying it in record shops, or with reading books containing the picture, and so on, and so on.
Parent
You're making assumptions (Score:4, Interesting)
"So you think that people that pay for images of this stuff don't contribute to the perpetuation of it?"
I agree with the AC. If the images are just of naked children (almost half of the child pornography cases in Ireland relate solely to pictures depicting no sexual activity whatsoever), that question is irrelevant, unless a child is actually forced to pose naked.
You're also making the assumption that everyone who is arrested for possessing child pornography has actually purchased child pornography. Many child pornography offenders are caught after taking their computer to a repair shop, having their IP address logged and traced, etc. They probably haven't harmed anyone, yet their life is now damaged beyond repair.
There should be a law against producing, purchasing, selling, requesting and trading pictures of children being molested (mere nudity should not be criminalised), but laws against accessing and possession do nothing to protect children; they simply provide an easy excuse for the government to exert control over citizens.
Parent