Six British ISPs are filtering access to Wikipedia

[TheDon]

Originally Posted by peanutkp

Personally the pic in question though in this day and age I would consider out of order, maybe at the time it was art or whatever I don't know, but with the way things are these days then yes it is pushing the boundries of what is now acceptable.

So surely the place for such a picture is in an encyclopedia article about it with a section detailing the controversy of the image?

I'm not seeing the logic in blocking it in the one place the image makes perfect sense, when a google image search finds hundreds of other copies of the image where it's usage isn't as justified.

[peanut]

Originally Posted by TheDon

So surely the place for such a picture is in an encyclopedia article about it with a section detailing the controversy of the image?

I'm not seeing the logic in blocking it in the one place the image makes perfect sense, when a google image search finds hundreds of other copies of the image where it's usage isn't as justified.

Yes you are right, but maybe not in it's entirety, maybe slight blurs or parts blacked out is enough. Who can really argue with that.

But I do accept at the same time what you are saying. But the trouble with that, if that encyclopedia was a place where nothing was censored then it could attract and be the 1st port of call of certain people and interests for all the wrong reasons.

[haydnwalker]

Amazon too seem to allow the image to be broadcast...should they be a banned site too?

[Sir John Luke]

Not Amazon.co.uk though, as far as I can see.

[Barton71]

Originally Posted by Sir John Luke

Not Amazon.co.uk though, as far as I can see.

Makes no difference. Amazon.com is still viewable within the UK.

The IWF have over stepped their remit, or at the very least are on the very fringes of their remit. If i remember correctly they tried the same thing with 4chan are year or so ago and had to reverse the decission.

Someone said earlier that wikipedia should remove the image and solve the problem, but i think that would confound the problem. They would be caving in to censorship if they done so, and if the IWF can see that they can get away with it once, they will continue to do it again and again.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Barton71

Makes no difference. Amazon.com is still viewable within the UK.

The IWF have over stepped their remit, or at the very least are on the very fringes of their remit. If i remember correctly they tried the same thing with 4chan are year or so ago and had to reverse the decission.

Their remit is to stop the distribution of any image, or block any website/page that could be considered offensive under law. They have apparently done this. How is that not within their remit?

Someone said earlier that wikipedia should remove the image and solve the problem, but i think that would confound the problem. They would be caving in to censorship if they done so, and if the IWF can see that they can get away with it once, they will continue to do it again and again.

OK. We relax the censorship a bit, forgetting for a moment that the rules on Child Pornography are there for a reason.

How for do you relax them? Do you allow pictures of nude children? Nude children in sexual poses? Nude children in sexual poses with other children? Nude children in sexual poses with adults? Nude children having sex?

Clearly, the ones involving sex are bad, but Wikimedia "caving" in to demands to censor it's own images (which, as has been noted, it does anyway just not pictures of nude children apparently) will not compound any problem.

Remember, while this album cover image was allowed in Germany, it was banned in other countrys and well before the current politically correct climate started.

Reading the discussions on Wikipedia on the image, the arrogance of some of the people posting is staggering. They appear to think that Wikipedia serves some higher purpose than a website that enables people to provide occassionally accurate information to other people.

[mdwh2]

It's not just the image that's blocked, but separately, there is a block on the encylopedic text, which is clearly legal.

A knock on effect is that all accesses to Wikipedia (i.e., for any page) through these ISPs come through a single IP address. As a result, Wikipedia have had to disable anonymous edits via these ISPs, as they cannot distinguish between different users when it comes to abusive edits. Existing registered users can continue to edit.

Even if the block on the image is seen as reasonable (although personally I think that should be up to a court to decide), that does not excuse these two issues - which is a fault of the IWF and ISPs block, *not* Wikipedia.

Originally Posted by Zhadnost

I think that if VM got accused of propogating Child Pornography once they'd been informed of the content, it could be extremely damaging to them.

Whilst it's true that there's a lot of scaremongering as soon as the words "child porn" are thrown about, I'm not convinced that an ISP would get in trouble merely for allowing access (as opposed to hosting) - there are many ISPs that do no sign up to the IWF's list, and it is not a legal requirement.

If anyone was going to get hassle from the tabloids, Wikipedia would be the more obvious choice. Not to mention that places such as Amazon are hosting this image, with no blocking taking place. (And note that Amazon are making a profit from selling the album - why aren't people here criticising them?)

And removing the IWF censoring is not the only option - at the least, surely they should communicate with the IWF that this system is (a) blocking clearly legal material, and (b) causing problems for their customers due to the way it is implemented?

There is also the issue that Virgin Media falsely return a fake "page not found" issue (unlike Demon for example, who explain that the page is censored, and why). Virgin Media could fix this issue, without worrying about being accused of supporting child porn. If we cannot access a website, how do we tell if this is a problem with the site, or it has been intentionally blocked by Virgin Media?

I'm rather worried by all the comments that Wikipedia should remove anything that might be offensive to someone!:

Originally Posted by Stuart C

What I do have a problem with is Wiki's reaction. Not only have they blocked edits from a lot of the customers of those ISPs (understandable due to the way the ISPs have blocked access to the page, but hardly in keeping with the Web 2.0 ethos),

That is the fault of the ISPs, for putting all accesses through a single IP.

but the fact that Wiki are refusing to remove the image, because apparently, they don't censor.

Right, they don't censor unless it is illegal in the US where Wikipedia is hosted, and good on them.

Or do you think that images should be removed just because they might somewhere "potentially" be illegal, or because they are blocked somewhere? In that case, you can kiss goodbye to all images depicting adult sexual content (due to countries that ban porn), all images depicting Mohammed, as well as any political commentary that might be critical of countries such as China.

The answer to censorship is not more censorship.

That's what confuses me. They are happy to edit pages because they are poorly writtten, but if something is potentially illegal, that's fine.

That's false - images that are illegal in the US are removed. But "some independent body in another country decided to block it because it might potentially be illegal" is not the same thing.

Yes, I think that worrying about poorly written content in an encyclopedia is more important than worrying about whether it might offend or get blocked by some organisation in some country in the world, whether it's China, Sudan, Iran, or the UK. I'm not sure what's so strange about that.

Reading the discussions on Wikipedia on the image, the arrogance of some of the people posting is staggering. They appear to think that Wikipedia serves some higher purpose than a website that enables people to provide occassionally accurate information to other people.

Not at all - the purpose is to provide accurate information to other people, which cannot be effectively done if material has to be removed as soon as someone somewhere finds it offensive. I'm astounded by the arrogance of people who think Wikipedia must comply with whatever they want to see. If you don't like it, then run some filtering software, or configure your browser to not sure the image (which incidentally would be more effective than this block - the image is still visible if you use one of many alternative URLs, or a link directly to the image, yet, as I say, they've also blocked entirely legal textual information).

How for do you relax them? Do you allow pictures of nude children? Nude children in sexual poses? Nude children in sexual poses with other children? Nude children in sexual poses with adults? Nude children having sex?

It's quite simple - they relax them to allowing things that are legal in the US. I'm not sure what's so complicated about this - so extending the argument to "nude children having sex" is ridiculous. Where exactly the line is drawn is up to the US courts, not private organisations in other countries. It's not like the US is some lawless country - are their laws on child porn not good enough? Even in the UK, it's clear that nudity is not automatically child porn - unless you think owning the album Nevermind is illegal. Why has this image never been prosecuted in 30 years of child porn law?

Originally Posted by Horace

However, Wikipedia should probably remove the image anyway just stop the possibility over-zealous network admins in schools and other institutions blocking the whole domain.

But then you are on a slippery slope - I mean, we've already slipped from "might be child porn" to "might be unsuitable for children to see". There are large numbers of images that school admins might decide aren't appropriate for young children to see. The answer is not to start stripping Wikipedia for everyone. If a school wants to filter content, that's up to them.

Like it or not, Wikipedia has never been intended as a child-friendly encyclopedia - it has many articles on "adult" topics. If someone wanted to start their own fork that was child-friendly, then they'd be free to do so, and that would be a much better solution, than trying to change Wikipedia from something it is not.

Indeed, due to the fundamental way Wikipedia works, it is impossible to guarantee it being child friendly - you can't guarantee that someone might upload the pic again, or write "penis" all over an article. Even if it's reverted quickly, a child might see it, and schools may block based on that alone. But Wikimedia *have* been working on child friendly projects - e.g., see http://www.soschildrensvillages.org....or-schools.htm . It seems that people are quick to criticise, yet it is Wikimedia who are doing the hard work of providing material for both adults, and material suitable for children, whilst those who criticise seemingly do nothing.

---------- Post added at 19:51 ---------- Previous post was at 19:36 ----------

I originally posted in "Virgin Media Services" as I believe there are issues specific to Virgin Media here (aside from the more general debate):

Virgin Media have responded on the newsgroup virginmedia.support.broadband.cable (on news.virginmedia.com) - their response is to blame Wikimedia!:

"This is not something that technical support would have any information or
control over. This is not only Virgin (as stated in the article) but
multiple ISP's .

"Sorry if this has caused any inconvenience but is not a fault but an active
measure to stop inappropriate content on the Internet."

And:

"I stated that we are unable to offer support for this issue. It is due to a
decision make in conjunction with the IWF to block sites containing
potential offensive material. The reason for the block isn't actually with
virginmedia but with wikimedia. They have blocked editing rights to their
service as VirginMedia are using a transparent proxy to this site and
subdomains. This is identified as a single IP; therefore wikimedia are
unable to moderate as it would moderate every VM customer."

* This misses the point that the blocking of the IP address is not at issue here. What is at issue here is Virgin Media's block on clearly legal material (the article text, rather than just the image), and that the system is causing problems for their customers due to the way it is implemented (placing all accesses to Wikipedia through a single IP).

* It is also not something that they have no control over - signing up to the IWF's blacklist is a choice, and as they say themselves, a decision made "in conjunction with the IWF". If they must continue using the IWF's list to censor, will they be communicating these issues to the IWF?

* There is also the question of why are Virgin Media faking "page not found" errors, instead of informing the user why it has been blocked?

Are there any Virgin Media people here who can give a more informed response?

thanks,
mark

[grubbymitts]

Really, what a daft thing to censor. A simple Google Images query brings up hundreds more copies of this photo. Whether it is child porn or not is up for debate, but banning it on ONE site is just stupid.

Meanwhile - I am now waiting for the Pedofinder General to come and take me away because I dared to click on the offending link...

[Barton71]

Originally Posted by Stuart C

OK. We relax the censorship a bit, forgetting for a moment that the rules on Child Pornography are there for a reason.

How for do you relax them? Do you allow pictures of nude children? Nude children in sexual poses? Nude children in sexual poses with other children? Nude children in sexual poses with adults? Nude children having sex?

Clearly, the ones involving sex are bad, but Wikimedia "caving" in to demands to censor it's own images (which, as has been noted, it does anyway just not pictures of nude children apparently) will not compound any problem.

Remember, while this album cover image was allowed in Germany, it was banned in other countrys and well before the current politically correct climate started.

Reading the discussions on Wikipedia on the image, the arrogance of some of the people posting is staggering. They appear to think that Wikipedia serves some higher purpose than a website that enables people to provide occassionally accurate information to other people.

That argument would stand if the image was illegal. Works of art are protected under the law. The problem here is that the IWF and the police have decided, off their own backs, that the image is illegal. They are deciding for the rest of society what it acceptable to view and what isnt.

If someone was being paranoid, they might say that censorship, such as this, might start with an image which it could be argued, should be censored, but then it spreads to censoring other, more politically motivated sites, which, although not illegal, the government or the police might deem dangerous or embarrassing. Damian Green might understand.

[TheDon]

Originally Posted by Barton71

The problem here is that the IWF and the police have decided, off their own backs, that the image is illegal.

The police haven't decided anything. The IWF have no direct links with the police, and nothing they decide goes through the police. It's staff have the sole say in what should and shouldn't be blocked.

Interestingly the IWF state their remit as dealing with "Child sexual abuse content hosted worldwide and criminally obscene and incitement to racial hatred content hosted in the UK"

Is the picture child sexual abuse? I don't think ANYONE can argue that it is, and even the subject of the image says it's not sexual abuse and has no issues with the image, so they have clearly overstepped their remit.

[Barton71]

Sorry i thought i had read that they sought advice from the Met.

The IWF statement also said that they blocked the page because the image was "potentially illegal" and not "illegal".

Maybe someone could answer this. Who are the IWF accountable to? As their block list is secret, is there a body which over sees the activities of the IWF to ensure that they are not blocking access to sites which are legal?

[Acathla]

http://www.iwf.org.uk/corporate/page.48.htm

http://www.iwf.org.uk/public/page.103.htm

---------- Post added at 00:26 ---------- Previous post was at 00:25 ----------

Also, they issued a statement which tbh is rubbish.

http://www.iwf.org.uk/media/news.249.htm

[Matth]

Maybe it would be simpler if WP dropped the image, it was propsed for deletion and and immediately slapped down per WP:Notcensored. It is not proven that the image is illegal, it is not abuse, and while the decency is questionable, it would seem to be a mistake to judge a published major label record cover image in the same way as a grubby porn site. The defence of the "Notcensored" principle (other than according to legal requirements of the host country) by the Wikipedia community is always robust, otherwise it will be the thin end of the wedge, and a stick used to beat down anything that some parties may have a problem with.

The other thing, if the not so transparent proxy gave a forwarded_for then the collateral damage could be reduced.

In one stroke, the IWF have changed the perception of them from "protecting against abuse to "Interfering busybodies".

I have noted an obscure path to some other sites, passing through 62.30.249.131 - I think aboutus.org (another wiki) was one.

And now we KNOW what 62.30.249.131 is, it's the "Virginmedia IWF proxy" - a SINGLE ONE for both ex-NTL and ex-TW, and bringing back the same kind of issues as the general transparent proxies for any site unlucky enough to be passed through it for the sake of a single dubious piece of content.

[Chicken]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

As a professional dealing with pubescent and prepubescent children I regard that as a pornographic image.That is a blatantly sexual pose...

Sitting down is a sexual pose?

[mdwh2]

Originally Posted by TheDon

The police haven't decided anything. The IWF have no direct links with the police, and nothing they decide goes through the police. It's staff have the sole say in what should and shouldn't be blocked.

This is correct in general, though the BBC say "The IWF spokeswoman said a reader had brought the image to the foundation's attention last week and it had contacted the police before adding the page to their list." ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7770456.stm ).

It's still mad anyway - it's the courts that should decide legality, not the police.

Originally Posted by TheDon

Interestingly the IWF state their remit as dealing with "Child sexual abuse content hosted worldwide and criminally obscene and incitement to racial hatred content hosted in the UK"

Is the picture child sexual abuse? I don't think ANYONE can argue that it is, and even the subject of the image says it's not sexual abuse and has no issues with the image, so they have clearly overstepped their remit.

Indeed - I think the reasoning comes from http://www.iwf.org.uk/public/page.103.htm , where they state:

"Please note that "child pornography", "child porn" and "kiddie porn" are not acceptable terms. The use of such language acts to legitimise images which are not pornography, rather, they are permanent records of children being sexually abused and as such should be referred to as child sexual abuse images."

Now this is a perfectly good point if we are talking about images of child abuse, but the problem is that child porn law does not always equate with "child sexual abuse" (an example would be that images of 16 and 17 year olds are now counted as child porn), especially when they include anything that might "potentially" be seen as "indecent".