W3C.org Briefly Censored In Finland 115
k33l0r writes "The web site of W3C, w3.org or w3c.org, was briefly censored (Google Translation) by at least some of the local ISPs. For an unknown reason the URL was mistakenly entered into the Federal Police's censor database. Some of the Finnish ISPs use the database to filter out questionable content such as child pornography."
Finnish online activist Matti Nikki describes some of the problems with this database-based censorship.
Re:Blacklists suck. (Score:4, Insightful)
To my knowledge, only even remotely comparable situation where so obviously legal site has ended up on the list is the site criticising the list. Of course, in case of w3.org, block was removed in hours, in case of the other site, it has been there for months (and it's till there).
The fact that, for instance, some gay porn sites have ended up on this list so easily tells something about the list. At least about the fact that thanks to horribly badly designed legislation, nobody putting these sites on the list actually needs to fear getting punished for misconduct, caused harm... or anything else.
Re:Questionable content? (Score:4, Insightful)
Some of the Finnish ISPs use the database to filter out questionable content such as child pornography.*
To be fair, I think that's a bit beyond questionable... don't you?
(*emphasis added)
It has been my experience that such things become a problem when they aren't questioned.
Re:Questionable content? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you know, when I was a kid, pictures of naked children were socially acceptable (after all, kids often didn't wear clothes on the beach, and everyone washes their own kids, right? So you're not seeing anything you haven't seen a thousand times before), and pictures of naked adults were not (because that's just not ... right). I think this establishes that, yes, it is possible to ask some questions here. You'll note that I'm not trying to imply any particular answers, but then while politically I oppose the abuse of anyone, my sexual tastes run only to adult women, so I'm hardly in a position to judge this with any sensitivity.
Think. Think is good. Think of the adults, think of the children, think of the society we are trying to engineer, but please, couldn't we try to think?
No matter where the right and wrong lie, you can't build justice out of knee-jerk reactions, and egging people on to visceral responses makes you one of, to be blunt, the enemy. Because, you know, it's that kind of unthinking action on the basis of hormones that we are supposedly trying to fight when we jointly choose to try to limit people's proclivities.
Re:Questionable content? (Score:3, Insightful)
a way intended to arouse the viewer
Care to define those terms so they are beyond question for us? I mean, there have been people who've said that skirts ending above the ankles are provocative, and there are people who can be aroused by just about anything.
This is a special case. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:That's no biggie... (Score:3, Insightful)
Now - this actually presents us with the reality that the filtering that occurs on the web is flawed.
If they only could filter junk like spam emails and annoying commercials the filtering would be better.
It's also worth to realize that "illegal" content is available in so many places that it's like filtering water with a colander. ("illegal" because not everything filtered is illegal - or only illegal in one country but not another).
Another impact this has is that whole domains/sites can be filtered out just because there is one single section that may have questionable content or that the site has been hacked.
Re:Grammar Nazi nitpicking (Score:4, Insightful)