Re: Wikipedia Censored

On Dec 8, 5:46 pm, Gary <postmas...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I just read this in umtm of all places. Thanks John, hope you don't mind the
cut'n'paste...

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Censorship_of_WP_i...
Dec_2008

http://tinyurl.com/5h3zhr

"As of December 6, 2008, most Internet users in the United Kingdom no longer
have full access to Wikipedia. Due to censorship by the UK self-regulatory
agency the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), most UK residents can no longer
edit the volunteer-written encyclopedia, nor can they access an article in
it describing a 32-year-old album by German rock group the Scorpions.
Wikipedia visitors in the UK have also reported performance issues accessing
the site."

Reported in, eg, the Guardian (who show half the image):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/dec/08/wikipedia-censorship

"The offending article, about German rock group The Scorpions' 1976 album
Virgin Killers, included an image of the record's controversial cover -
which featured a young naked girl with her genitals obscured by a crack in
the camera lens.
The image caused controversy when the album was first released, and was
eventually replaced in most countries - including the UK and United States -
by a shot of the band. However, the original album cover is still on sale in
the UK as part of a double album deluxe boxed set."

And now I confirm, I can't edit Wiki pages any more. Not that I did a lot,
but I have contributed material and edits to several articles.

Damn.

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Wikipedia is censored

* Rory Cellan-Jones
* 8 Dec 08, 09:29 GMT

Is the internet censored in the UK? Well, no, most of us would say -
you can get to any site you want, as long as it isn't breaking the law
- and even then, the authorities are unlikely to intervene.

But now customers of several big internet service providers are
finding that they cannot access one page of a website. And it's not
just any website - it's Wikipedia. The page that they cannot view is
about a relatively obscure 70s heavy metal band, Scorpions, and it has
been blocked because it includes an image of a controversial album
cover. That cover shows a naked child, and even back in the 70s it
proved too distasteful for many, and was withdrawn in a number of
countries.

Now the Internet Watch Foundation - which has been Britain's leading
online child abuse watchdog for the past 12 years - has put that
Wikipedia page on its banned list. The result is that those internet
service providers which are members of IWF have blocked their users
from accessing that page.

A host of Wikipedians is on the warpath, suggesting that this is
censorship by a self-appointed body which has no right to decide what
we can look at on the web. I caught up with one of them, David Gerard.
He acts as a spokesman for Wikipedia volunteers in the UK - though he
is not employed by the Wikimedia Foundation, the online
encyclopaedia's governing body (which has issued a press release). I
asked him why he was so angry when most people would probably support
any body which is trying to stamp out child abuse images on the web.

First of all, he stressed that he was not saying that he found the
image in question acceptable. "I personally find it distasteful," he
said. "But is it illegal?"

He went on to explain that there were two reasons that Wikipedians
felt angry: firstly, that IWF could decide on its own that something
was illegal; secondly, that its actions had blocked the text on the
page as well as the image itself.

Mr Gerard claimed that there was no evidence that any court had ruled
that the image was illegal - indeed it was in books that were stored
in libraries. "Are the police going to go into those libraries and rip
out the offending page?" he asked.

He went on to explain that it would have been relatively simple for
the IWF to block the image but to leave the accompanying text alone.
But he said that nobody had contacted anyone from Wikipedia - the
watchdog had just gone ahead and laid down the law.

This issue is the subject of feverish debate on Wikipedia mailing
lists and forums, and there is already a Facebook group to call for a
boycott of ISPs which censor Wikipedia. Some are suggesting that this
makes the UK little better than China in terms of internet censorship,
though other Wikipedia users are not quite so sure that this is the
right issue for an anti-censorship campaign.

So what does the Internet Watch Foundation have to say? A spokeswoman
explained that the image had been referred to them by a member of the
public. After examination - and consultation with the police - it was
assessed as "a potentially illegal image" and put on the banned list
that is given to internet service providers, who then block the URL.
She went on to explain that this is a routine procedure which is used
for all sorts of images that are reported to the IWF - it just so
happened that this involved one of the internet's most famous sites.

I've also spoken to one of the ISPs which is blocking the Wikipedia
page. A spokesman made it clear that the process was automatic - the
ISP just takes the list and implements its own blocking procedures. He
said that his company would certainly not be criticising the watchdog:
"The Internet Watch Foundation has a tough job and an important role
in protecting our children. We just have to support them - we can't
pick and choose."

So: a fascinating case which sheds light on the debate about freedom
of speech on the internet. On the one side, a body which has been
fighting to free the web of child abuse images, waging a war which has
the support of the vast majority of web users. On the other, the
digital libertarians who believe that once we let a group of unelected
regulators decide what is fit for us to see on the web, we are on the
road to Orwellian thought control. Who is in the right? You decide.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/12/wikipedia_is_censored.html

***
WM
www.critest.com
.

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