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UK ISPs Are Censoring Wikipedia
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sun Dec 07, 2008 10:23 AM
from the how-not-to-accomplish-something dept.
from the how-not-to-accomplish-something dept.
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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IWF Backs Down On Wiki Censorship 226 comments
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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Links (Score:5, Informative)
Facebook group against this [facebook.com]
Pledgebank ISP boycott [pledgebank.com]
Wikinews story [wikinews.org]
The technical press are swarming. Dunno if the national press are too as yet.
The IWF apparently sought the advice of police before blocking. Now, the police in the UK are notorious for trying it on with censorship cases, so that doesn't mean the image is illegal.
The album was released in 1976; child porn was illegalised in the UK in 1978. If the album was distributed in the UK since 1978 with that cover, it's probably legal.
The album cover has been reprinted in many books. Most of those books are in the Briitsh Library. Are those now obscene?
Question for all: Has this precise image ever come to court? In the UK, in the world?
The IWF had it pointed out that they were censoring encyclopedia text, which was clearly not illegal. The IWF responded that they needed to block the page to block the image effectively. This is of course utterly ludicrous bollocks, but apparently that's the advice the IWF have received.
They were also asked if they'd be censoring Amazon as well. They said they'd have to get back on that one.
It's the clbuttic error [today.com], but this time on a top-10 site for everyone.
Disclaimer: I do press for Wikipedia/Wikimedia in the UK as a volunteer (and I've been on my email and phone all last night to about 2am and today since 9am). However, I am not a WMF employee and cannot legally claim to speak for them, only as a volunteer editor.
ONE controversial piece of content has caused this (Score:5, Insightful)
Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sigh (Score:5, Funny)
whooosh
Parent
A case of virality over a lack of virility? (Score:5, Interesting)
Here we go again :( (Score:5, Insightful)
I do hope it hits mainstream media like the BBC, checked it just now but no mention of it.
Makes me remember the quote that was posted in this [slashdot.org] thread:
"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation" - quote from Mein Kampf.....
Seriously though, do they actually believe that pedophiles are sitting and watching that one image on wikipedia?
Angry Be Customer (Score:5, Insightful)
I've already complained from their contacts page [bethere.co.uk]. Now I am wondering which ISP to move to. Obviously anyone with Phorm is right out (BT, for instance), as is anyone with a strict download cap. Any suggestions?
Like everyone else here, it's not that I want to look at child porn, but rather that I object on principle to censorship. I didn't realise I was helping to fund this sort of thing [iwf.org.uk] with my broadband subscription
Extreme example I know, but today it's "criminally obscene content" and "incitement to racial hatred", and tomorrow it's the British equivalents of "Tianamen Square" and "Democracy". If I have a choice, I'm not funding that.
Child Nudity is Prohibited in the UK and Ireland (Score:5, Informative)
Under UK law, an image of a naked child is usually considered child pornography; context is irrelevant. Garda (the Irish police) reported that, between 2000-2004, 44% of "child pornography" cases in Ireland involved images which depicted no sexual activity whatsoever*. Child pornography laws in Ireland are very similar to those of the UK.
In a strict legal sense, this censorship is justified; the problem is the law itself, which should not define nudity as "pornography". The frequently used term "child abuse images" is used to invoke strong emotions and discredit those who disagree with the current laws. Don't forget that if the IWF fail to maintain outrage over child pornography, they'll lose their funding.
I have written a detailed summary of UK child pornography laws, here [newgon.com]
* The content of indecent images [attractedtochildren.org]
Re:Child Nudity is Prohibited in the UK and Irelan (Score:5, Informative)
I thank all the gods for the Slashdot link location notifier.
Parent
Re:That's OK. (Score:5, Insightful)
To the administrators of Wikipedia:
Play hardball. Block those 6 IPs from any access whatsoever, explain why, stick to your guns.
The worst thing that will happen is, people in the UK will become stupider, while those who are not participating in this censorship will be advantaged, so your enemies will diminish themselves by their own hand and your friends will become more powerful allies by virtue of the gift you have given them.
Parent
Re:That's OK. (Score:5, Interesting)
Totally agree. I'm on one of these ISPs, and I'm appalled by this censorship. I'd like to take it a step further though. Organise a DNSRBL along the lines of SpamHaus that contains a list of IPs on ISPs that perform censorship. Redirect any port 80 requests from people in that IP range to a page explaining that, their ISP is only allowing them access to some arbitrary subest of the Internet, rather than the whole Internet, they are now allowed to view your page. Make it easy for other organisations to use. When you have a choice between Virgin Media at £25/month for a small subset of the Internet, or a small ISP at £30/month but with access to Wikipedia and all of the other sites that value freedom then it's not such an easy choice as when price is the only issue.
Profit making sites probably can't afford to join in (unless they have a left-leaning demographic and use 'we oppose censorship' as a marketing gimmick), but there are lots of non-commercial sites on the 'net that would.
Parent
Re:That's OK. (Score:5, Funny)
What? So it's really a service called virgin media which block virgin media? That sucks :/
Good idea.
Parent
Re:That's OK. (Score:5, Insightful)
I predicted it! Just yesterday I said it's only a matter of time until wikipedia get filtered by the Australian. Well I was off by about 10,000 miles but I was right that SOME government would eventually filter wikipedia & suppress freedom of knowledge.
And I agree with the parent poster. If the UK Government is going to stupidly censor the internet, then block the whole damn country until the UK citizens rise-up and demand "freedom" and "liberty" from their Parliamentarian Oligarchs.
BTW here's the picture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Virgin_Killer.jpg [wikipedia.org]
Wow. It's a naked girl. Contrary to being insulted, I think it's beautiful. The naked human body is a testament to the Creator's majesty and perfection, not a sin, and I see no reason why we should cover-up a naked human anymore than we cover-up a naked deer or naked bear or naked seal. There is *nothing* shameful here. "Because God created it, the human body can remain nude and uncovered and preserve intact its splendor and its beauty." - Pope John Paul II.
Parent
Re:That's OK. (Score:5, Funny)
The naked human body is a testament to the Creator's majesty and perfection, not a sin, and I see no reason why we should cover-up a naked human anymore than we cover-up a naked deer or naked bear or naked seal.
You forgot naked beaver.
-
Parent
Re:That's OK. (Score:5, Funny)
I have beavers in my backyard.
They are completely naked and despite the protests of my Bible-thumping neighbors, the beavers are welcome to remain on my property & be as naked as a jaybird if that's what they desire.
Parent
Re:That's OK. (Score:5, Funny)
Worked just fine for me (BBB, Sweden), so now I've found out they had a small nude girl on their cover and have spread the URL. Also it made me kind of naughty feeling and penis-tingeling ....
Streisand-effect indeed.
Parent
Re:That's OK. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well done UK, you screwed our heads now!
Parent
Re:Confirmed, Be There ISP is blocking access (Score:5, Insightful)
I could see it... I am not being filtered. Frankly, I don't see child porn... I can see where some might think so, however. For something to be porn, it has to inspire me to touch myself... this does not. A female has to have that shape of a woman which this child does not. And of course the "naughty bit" must be showing. It's not. But I suppose people who actually like that sort of thing would find alternative sources of access to this art. Close one door and there will be hundreds more available.
Parent
Re:I think that by modern law, they are in the rig (Score:5, Interesting)
If you read the article, you will find that the depicted girl had no problem with the image, when asked 15 years after publication. And by the way, I disagree that this should be classified as child porn. It's not porn. It's nudity. This is akin to Berlusconi ordering to repaint a 300-year old painting [reuters.com] because it depicted a naked breast and happened to be hanging in his office.
Parent
Re:I think that by modern law, they are in the rig (Score:5, Interesting)
I know that the girl didn't mind. It doesn't matter these days - remember, these days, we (the society) convict children for producing and distributing child porn when they make and share nude pictures of themselves!
To remind: I'm not saying that the censors are morally right here. I'm saying that they are legally right. Singling this one case of stupidity is good, but we should really point out the root of the problem, which is the laws on the books. We should fix those, rather then fighting the symptoms.
Parent
Re:I think that by modern law, they are in the rig (Score:5, Insightful)
If somebody, anybody, finds it sexually stimulating then it can be pornography.
Now that's just asking for trouble. Should we chop off everyone's feet because someone out there has a foot fetish?
Parent
Re:Let's have a closer look (Score:5, Insightful)
Virgin Media user - they just drop the connection so it looks like the website you're connecting to has some sort of problem.
Absolutely despicable - I'm less bothered about the censorship aspect than I am about the "breaking the Internet" aspect. If they're going to go dropping random connections because they don't like what may be transmitted in the packet, how on Earth am I meant to reliably troubleshoot any internet issues?
Parent
Re:It probably is chold pornography (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, are pictures of kids in non-sexual settings child porn? Plenty of parents still take pics of their kids in the tub...etc.
Now...granted...this album cover, well, could be taken as a bit more suggestive that those type of pics, but, she is not in any sexual situation, so is it child porn? Or, these days, does any nude picture of someone under (age in you area) constitute child porn?
At any rate..I'm guessing they will have a problem with:
Houses of the Holy [wikipedia.org]with the kids climbing up the rocks
And Blind Faith [wikipedia.org]'s album.
Sigh...are we going backwards or what? These albums have been out forever, and are classic....why are people having such a fit now?
Then again....on the classic rock station the other day...I was shocked to hear them censor Pink Floyd's "Money", The Who's "Who Are You", Steve Miller Band "Jet Airliner"....and a couple of others. These songs have been played since I was a kid....why are they censoring them NOW?!?!?
OH well...time for juice and coffee....and You kids get off my lawn!!
Parent
Um, it's not pornography (Score:5, Insightful)
That picture is more art than porn, even though it has an underage naked girl in it.
--Coder
Parent
Re:It's not appropriate content IMHO... (Score:5, Insightful)
I personally would of liked to see the CPS bring charges against Wikipedia. ... I'd prosecute the publishers (Wikipedia)
Why? Whilst you might argue that the record company profited from this image, how can this be said of a free encyclopedia that is using the image solely to document an encyclopedic article on the album? If anyone should be prosecuted by your argument, it should be the record company - though I wonder why they haven't done so in 30 years of child porn being illegal in the UK...
Lets be real clear here... this is an image that is of a minor in a sexually provocative pose being used for profit (marketing). It is child pornography. That's not in a grey area
Really? Well thanks for clearing it up. Whenever we are unclear of whether a particular nude image is "indecent" or not, we can just go ask Numen on Slashdot, as he obviously knows.
Or ... rather than debating on forums, we could get some legal experts to argue the case, in front of, oh I don't know, some randomly selected members of the public who could then make a decision, having heard arguments from both sides?
Parent