Six British ISPs are filtering access to Wikipedia

[Milambar]

Is the image sexual? I don't know and I'm not going to go out of my way to take a look in this day and age's political climate. I don't need to be giving ammunition to the rozzers to trump up charges to aquire my DNA.

What I take issue with is the way in which VM implement the block, with a fake "Page not found" error, as opposed to "The page you are trying to access may contain potentially illegal content, and Virgin Media has chosen to deny you access to it." or something along those lines.

With fake error pages, we will never know what pages are there, but blocked, and what pages really aren't.

Thats just a sidenote tho.

[Thomas.Fisk]

Ignoring discussion on whether the image is illegal or not, the more important issue is why VM are blocking anything.

They aren't the police, and neither are the IWF, so why the hell are they blocking any part of my service based on the word of a third party?

[Maggy J]

Originally Posted by Thomas.Fisk

Ignoring discussion on whether the image is illegal or not, the more important issue is why VM are blocking anything.

They aren't the police, and neither are the IWF, so why the hell are they blocking any part of my service based on the word of a third party?

Hmm! Well I'm pretty sure a large company with the name Virgin attached to it will have sought legal advice about an issue like this before taking such an action...after all any media company is going to make sure they aren't likely to face prosecution at some point and will be thinking about all those parents who use and whose children use their services.

Agreed censorship seems to be the thin end of the wedge BUT you are living in cloud cuckoo land if you thing that the internet is going to avoid it's effects altogether.

[nffc]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

Hmm! Well I'm pretty sure a large company with the name Virgin attached to it will have sought legal advice about an issue like this before taking such an action...after all any media company is going to make sure they aren't likely to face prosecution at some point and will be thinking about all those parents who use and whose children use their services.

Agreed censorship seems to be the thin end of the wedge BUT you are living in cloud cuckoo land if you thing that the internet is going to avoid it's effects altogether.

Why not?

It's the internet, there are no laws governing the internet as an entity. The only applicable laws are the laws where the site is based/hosted, in this case the US. WP have already stated this particular image is legal under US law and so are not obliged to remove it (It has also been suggested the image is legal in the UK anyway though it is dubious under an exemption for art), hence they have not done so.

What next? It's not about protecting the child in the image (they did consensually pose for it and probably get paid a significant sum for doing so) since the image is old. It's not even really about the issue of child porn or Wikipedia.

It's more the point that an unelected, unaccountable body can control what we view on the internet. So let's say someone complains about something else to the IWF. They remove it. Where do you draw the line? What about them editing content they don't want UK users to see? That's something you see in North Korea and China not the UK.

Not to mention the fact they have done this totally inappropriately. They should be getting a court of law to prove this image is illegal under UK law and getting the court to order Wikipedia remove it. But if they do that, what about the host of other sites showing the image? Amazon, eBay, other etailers? Should we censor them? At the end of the day an internet encyclopedia having an image about an album - as well as the controversy over its cover - is a poor medium to censor.

Take a look at the wider picture and you'll see the bigger deal. As I said, this is not about child porn, Wikipedia or anything - though this has kinda triggered the controversy. It's about censorship. Looking at the base of this, it was only a matter of time before something triggered this, if not this, it would have been something else.

[Maggy J]

Originally Posted by nffc

Why not?

It's the internet, there are no laws governing the internet as an entity. The only applicable laws are the laws where the site is based/hosted, in this case the US. WP have already stated this particular image is legal under US law and so are not obliged to remove it (It has also been suggested the image is legal in the UK anyway though it is dubious under an exemption for art), hence they have not done so.

What next? It's not about protecting the child in the image (they did consensually pose for it and probably get paid a significant sum for doing so) since the image is old. It's not even really about the issue of child porn or Wikipedia.

It's more the point that an unelected, unaccountable body can control what we view on the internet. So let's say someone complains about something else to the IWF. They remove it. Where do you draw the line? What about them editing content they don't want UK users to see? That's something you see in North Korea and China not the UK.

Not to mention the fact they have done this totally inappropriately. They should be getting a court of law to prove this image is illegal under UK law and getting the court to order Wikipedia remove it. But if they do that, what about the host of other sites showing the image? Amazon, eBay, other etailers? Should we censor them? At the end of the day an internet encyclopedia having an image about an album - as well as the controversy over its cover - is a poor medium to censor.

Take a look at the wider picture and you'll see the bigger deal. As I said, this is not about child porn, Wikipedia or anything - though this has kinda triggered the controversy. It's about censorship. Looking at the base of this, it was only a matter of time before something triggered this, if not this, it would have been something else.

Governments are governments..they want to legislate for everything in an effort to protect their citizens..and you ignore the effects terrorism has had on censorship at your peril.

You can go on about the larger picture all you want..you won't keep governments out of the internet just because you wish it..also you can't insist that governments protect your interests on the internet and yet that they shouldn't interfere in the freedom that you want to enjoy in cyberspace.

You can't have your cake and eat it any more.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by nffc

It's more the point that an unelected, unaccountable body can control what we view on the internet. So let's say someone complains about something else to the IWF. They remove it. Where do you draw the line? What about them editing content they don't want UK users to see? That's something you see in North Korea and China not the UK.

There's two sides to the coin. While I do not like the thought of the internet being unnecessarily censored, I can see that some censorship is needed. For one simple reason: To prevent exploitation of vulnerable people. There are a *lot* of people with a warped taste. And no, I am not talking about softcore porn, or even hardcore or violent porn (such as Bondage). I'm talking seriously perverted (involving kids, rape etc). A friend's brother worked for the Police on the Obscene Publications squad. His job was actually reviewing the items confiscated by both Police and Customs with a view to possible prosecution. He said he frequently saw things (although he could not go into details) that made him physically sick, and as a result of the job had a very negative view of humanity.

That kind of stuff is now freely available on the Internet, and people can sometimes come across it by accident (misspelling a brand name in google for example, as I have).

[nffc]

Originally Posted by Stuart C

There's two sides to the coin. While I do not like the thought of the internet being unnecessarily censored, I can see that some censorship is needed. For one simple reason: To prevent exploitation of vulnerable people. There are a *lot* of people with a warped taste. And no, I am not talking about softcore porn, or even hardcore or violent porn (such as Bondage). I'm talking seriously perverted (involving kids, rape etc). A friend's brother worked for the Police on the Obscene Publications squad. His job was actually reviewing the items confiscated by both Police and Customs with a view to possible prosecution. He said he frequently saw things (although he could not go into details) that made him physically sick, and as a result of the job had a very negative view of humanity.

That kind of stuff is now freely available on the Internet, and people can sometimes come across it by accident (misspelling a brand name in google for example, as I have).

I agree with you. However, that content is clearly illegal in the UK as well as probably in most countries where it would be hosted (since the law of the hosting company's country applies here).

They should go about it properly and get a court order to remove the image from Wikipedia, not just censor the page with a blank screen. Or did they not do that, because they knew full well they would lose, since it is not child porn but covered by the art exemption?

[Milambar]

Ive been having a think about this..

I can understand somewhat, censoring images that relate to child pornography, but why censor the whole article when they could just censor the image?

I can only think of one reason, and that is to get us to accept censorship "in our best interests". Make the start of censorship be over something controversial like child pornography, and work up from there. Get us to accept censorship over this issue, then work in more and more categories, until 1984's Minitrue is a reality.

Thin end of the wedge, start of a slippery slope, or a genuine issue?

You decide.

Sureley Wikipedia should remove the image, i'm against censorship and all but that particular image, yes it's an album cover, is still extremley sickening! The IWF are usually right 99.9 % of the time, it's just this one occasion that it all seems a little out of hand. On wikipedia's for not just simply removing the image straight away to stop anything getting out of hand (yes have an article written about the offending cover, but don't show the image) and on the iwf and isp's for over zelous blocking of a worldwide popular, informative site without even debating it or engaging in any dialogue first with the wikipedia owners.

[mdwh2]

Originally Posted by Stuart C

There's two sides to the coin. While I do not like the thought of the internet being unnecessarily censored, I can see that some censorship is needed. For one simple reason: To prevent exploitation of vulnerable people. There are a *lot* of people with a warped taste. And no, I am not talking about softcore porn, or even hardcore or violent porn (such as Bondage). I'm talking seriously perverted (involving kids, rape etc). A friend's brother worked for the Police on the Obscene Publications squad. His job was actually reviewing the items confiscated by both Police and Customs with a view to possible prosecution. He said he frequently saw things (although he could not go into details) that made him physically sick, and as a result of the job had a very negative view of humanity.

And does this image fall into that category? If this image was of actual child abuse, no one would be complaining about it being blocked, and Wikipedia would have removed the image anyway, since such images are rightly illegal in the US.

(Although note the OPA is another matter - that criminalises images of fictional and consensual acts involving adults, merely because some people find them offensive. The justification for criminalisation should be that non-consenting people are harmed in the production, not that they are distasteful. If your friend was sick from what he saw, then why on earth take up the job? No one asked him to look at the images - and if the OPA didn't exist, he wouldn't have to!)

@justreading: Should images from Wikipedia be removed everytime someone somewhere in the world complains?

[TheDon]

Originally Posted by justreading

Sureley Wikipedia should remove the image, i'm against censorship and all but that particular image, yes it's an album cover, is still extremley sickening! The IWF are usually right 99.9 % of the time, it's just this one occasion that it all seems a little out of hand. On wikipedia's for not just simply removing the image straight away to stop anything getting out of hand (yes have an article written about the offending cover, but don't show the image) and on the iwf and isp's for over zelous blocking of a worldwide popular, informative site without even debating it or engaging in any dialogue first with the wikipedia owners.

Bowing down to censorship is NEVER the right course of action.

Where do you draw the line? Maybe they should remove the articles on the holocaust to keep the holocaust deniers happy too.

As for Virgin Media blocking access to child porn for it's own legal reasons, VM are no more responsible for you viewing child porn using their connection as they are you downloading illegal content. That is, they aren't. They are a conduit and there are many safe habour provisions that protect them, they're only liable if they themselves host the content on their servers, so blocking access to it to protect themselves legally just isn't an argument.

VM should also not be thinking about protecting people using it's service from seeing slightly questionable material, that is not their job. Their job is to supply a connection to the internet, and anything legal that is on the internet should be accessible. If people don't want to see slightly questionable content they're free to install net nanny.

You have to look at the two sides of blocking this, and decide which one is the better option, you can leave the image viewable, and I gaurentee there will not be a rise in child abuse cases, or people searching for child porn, or people turning to paedophilia, simply because no one is going to go out of their way to find porn on wikipedia, it's just too inconveniant when a google image search does the job so much better (hey, lets block google!) or you can remove it, proxy everyone going to wikipedia, and therefore deny a huge amount of people access to an encyclopedic article, and stop them anonymously editing the entire encyclopedia. I know which option makes more sense, the consequences of one FAR outweight the consequences of the other, but the current thinking seems to be that our freedoms aren't all that and we should throw them away at every opportunity.

I bet this decision wouldn't last 10seconds if it was challenged in court.

[Matth]

Well it was discussed on BBC Radio 4 "Today" programme, and boith sides robustly defended their position.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today...00/7770541.stm - Go down to 08:54 for the clip.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7770456.stm - BBC News article.


One issue that was not mentioned, is there any mechanism for getting off the list?

It also appears that the terms of use for the block list do not allow for independent review, so it seems the IWF are able to hand down arbitrary decisions while being answerable to no-one. Who watches the watchers?

[Scurra]

Originally Posted by justreading

The IWF are usually right 99.9 % of the time, it's just this one occasion that it all seems a little out of hand.

This is a very, very bad argument to use. Any organisation that is setting itself up as a private monitor that is controlling access to content without the express permission of a user must be 100% accurate. Why do you suppose we got all upset about Phorm?! A good proportion of the argument against their scheme is remarkably similar.

The issue here isn't really the accuracy or otherwise of IWF, it's (a) that this image doesn't only appear on one (or even a few) web pages, as a simple Google Image search will reveal, even with SafeSearch switched on!, and (b) the blocking seems to cover the text of the page, not just the image itself, which is clearly crossing the boundaries of what the IWF declares its remit to be.
Now it's unclear as to whether (b) is the fault of VM's implementation of the system (I'm not techie enough to know), although anecdotal evidence suggests that other ISPs have handled this issue in other ways. (FWIW I think that the IWF is trying hard to do an impossible job, but examples like this reflect very badly upon the IWF rather than the case in question.)

There obviously is a side-issue about the image itself - I accept that it may well offend some people, but as has been observed, a case brought to court would be thrown out within moments; this is an extreme example of Ross-Brand syndrome.

[sparky621]

There is a very famous Vietnam War photo of children running away from what I think is a napalm attack. One girl in the photo is naked. Is that going to be censored too? I haven't seen the album art myself but things should always be taken in context.
The picture was probably perfectly legal even in the UK whan it was released
Take it too far and even the Sistine Chappel will be closed to the public!

[Maggy J]

Originally Posted by sparky621

There is a very famous Vietnam War photo of children running away from what I think is a napalm attack. One girl in the photo is naked. Is that going to be censored too? I haven't seen the album art myself but things should always be taken in context.
The picture was probably perfectly legal even in the UK whan it was released
Take it too far and even the Sistine Chappel will be closed to the public!

That photo is different.It wasn't posed,it isn't considered to be 'art' and it's not remotely sexual and it's a news photo and it was most definitely an 'in the public interest' story.