IWF Backs Down On Wiki Censorship 226
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."
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.
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!
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.
Re:Be honest! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm Relieved (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Kinda makes you wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
What else have they censored that dont have the "name recognition" like Wiki or Amazon?
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.
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.
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.
Re:not a "child porn" image (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 be a great pity if we find ourselves fighting our own states through the stupidity of do-gooders. No matter how compelling their mission. Fight the crime not the side effects.
So great news and I hope that the offending item becomes available again after a discrete interval. It is of course all over Google image search and no doubt unpleasantly popular as a result of the ban.
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".
Pyrrhic victory (Score:2, Insightful)
1. Wikpedia admins
2. Jimbo Wales personally
3. Cabals
4. The marketing and legal teams of Corporations
5. Governments
Still, one censorer less is something I suppose.
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!
Re:Be serious. (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:You'd think... (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 looking for. They maintain that the image is indecent, and that they will continue to try to censor sites that host it (or images like it).
which raises the question as to whether procedures need to be put in place to prevent mistakes happening again.
They specifically state that they will continue to investigate sites (or at least UK sites) that host that image. Clearly they do not consider their previous actions to be "mistakes."
I hope for one thing- that the IWF now ensure they concentrate on what they're supposed to concentrate on, helping prevent child abuse
I won't hold my breath. Seems like they are backing away from a high-publicity situation. But there is nothing to suggest that they won't continue censoring to the limit that public outcry can support, including censoring numerous sites that do not contribute to child abuse. This is not a trend I like.
Re:Be honest! (Score:3, Insightful)
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
- George Orwell, 1984
Re:Whoo! (Score:5, Insightful)
Its almost like they were trying to do the right thing and realised they did the wrong thing.
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."
Re:not a "child porn" image (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, you can't (and thus shouldn't be trying to) outlaw people's desires. You can and should outlaw child molestation, and on the scale of things it's a fairly evil thing to do, so the punishment and/or societal protection mechanisms employed against the offender should be severe.
One can argue back and forth about whether child porn should be illegal; drawn and animated (as opposed to photographed or videotaped) child porn may provide an outlet for the desires of pedophiles, and thus shrink the market for "real" child porn; it may also be a "gateway drug" for the real thing and thus grow the market.
I have seen no evidence speaking to whether allowing drawn or animated child porn is a net increase in the safety of children, and so I have nothing to base an opinion on other than ideology.
My ideology is that you shouldn't block things because they're "indecent", as the IWF wants. You should block them because their presence or production is demonstrably harmful. The girl on the cover of Virgin Killer consented to being photographed; exactly what is the harm caused?
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].
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 ?
'Censorship by Edit' imposes UK/EU views gloablly (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Be honest! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:They should head for Lowestoft then (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.