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UK ISPs Are Censoring Wikipedia
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."
But who cares? Seeing how not pedo probably has that cover and instead wants something more sexual.
Turns out Wikipedia got to censor edits from the UK ISPs as well. ;)
my isp is filtering it :]
Facebook group against this
Pledgebank ISP boycott
Wikinews story
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, 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.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
When I try to load the wikipedia page for "virgin killer" album, I get "404 not found", "Not Found - The requested URL en.wikipedia.org was not found on this server."
I think this is coming from some proxy server. The page loads just fine from Google cache, images included.
--Coder
Heh.. I am behind the filter. Check here to see if you are. Damn Virgin Media..
The state you are in while your HEAD is detached... - wait, what?
Wikipedia should simply redirect those proxy ip's to a page explaining the situation and encourage the users to contact their ISP to solve the problem.
Congratulations on trying to shape Internet access. Just imagine if something actually IMPORTANT came along the UK didn't want you to see!
an exerpt... "This explains a lot if true; we seem to have multiple providers all simultaneously setting up a transparent proxy on Wikimedia, and only Wikimedia. In a way I hope it's not true because it means a media shitstorm, but... meh. Someone ought to contact, er, whoever the relevant authorities are."
I'm so glad. This is clearly a step that will relieve many children from suffering. I think we should stop talking about child abuse now and move on to the next big problem. Let's now censor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism and thus end and finally win the war on terror. It's about time because I can't stand hearing the phrase anymore.
Looking at the picture in question, I have little doubt that it would be considered child porn under the modern laws of at least US and UK, and possibly most European countries. So, if the UK indeed have laws that require ISPs to censor child porn, then they would have to censor this particular image.
Whether the pic actually should fall in this category, and whether the category is even meaningful, is another matter.
No cause justifies censorship!
Leave Wikipedia alone!
I personally believe Wikipedia worth 10000 child.
my isp is filtering it :]
Then you should ask for a refund. They are not providing the internet to you (as I assume they advertised), so you deserve a full refund.
Of course, good luck finding a better ISP :)
..people taking law enforcement into their own hands. Because "the internet is free to roam", or what is the premise here? ISPs still have too much power. It sort of plays into the net neutrality issue for me.
It reminds me of how some trolls who were constantly trolling me on IRC recently, when asked about their behaviour, replied to me "well, it's the internet!" (i.e. "deal with it"). This is not much better. I'd treat these ISPs as trolls, block them from my servers altogether, and that's that (that is, until I get a proper C&D court order).
Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.
Confirming the block on the Orange network.
The contents of the cited Wikipedia page are "Object not found". HTTPS fails to connect at all.
I read about the cover in a Cracked magazine list of the worst album covers ever. The image, or a censored version of it, appears in the article there. At any rate, within 5 minutes I had found my way over to Wikinews (on a completely different surfing tangent) and discovered the UK censorship story. Now curious, I headed over to Mininova to find that, sure enough, Scorpions torrents were suddenly hot stuff (lots of new torrents, tons of activity on older torrents). I'm not sure how this will reflect on album sales but it may just be that the stupid idea of putting a naked little girl on the cover has worked out to be a pretty damn good way of selling albums...even if it took over 20 years to start working.
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 because it depicted a naked breast and happened to be hanging in his office.
I have tested a proxy from UK. The article returned an empty page, but the image could be accessed directly without any problem. Other report problems with the image and the article, costumers of one provider get an actual error message with an explanation why a page was blocked.
UK users, please tell us what you can see.
It's on the register at least
...which by the way, you can find quite easily if you just make a search on google. Yet another example of something dumb that affects people who have nothing to do with child pornography, and does absolutely nothing for people that are interested in it.
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 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?
It's not just about this single article. Since there are only a few proxies guess what happens when I just tried to create an account on English Wikipedia:
Visitors to Wikipedia using your IP address have created 6 accounts in the last 24 hours, which is the maximum allowed in this time period. As a result, visitors using this IP address cannot create any more accounts at the moment.
I couldn't also use password recovery function for my old account because:
Your IP address is blocked from editing, and so is not allowed to use the password recovery function to prevent abuse.
THIS is serious.
I've already complained from their contacts page. 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 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.
The tao of democracy: the government you can vote for is not the real government.
Simply routes around it. This is what everybody does in China.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
The term pornography was intended to refer to photography which contains sex. This album cover does not depict that so therefore it should not be considered pornography.
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
* The content of indecent images
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free" ~ Nineteen Eighty-Four
They are a registered charity in UK. SO, it only need UK citizens to make the move to have that status removed! As a charity they are entitled to several TONS of fiscal advantages... That you pay with your taxes. If there is anything I'm against is ANY kind of censorship... And filtering content is just a camouflaged way to do it. ;)
p.s.- This message is protected by free speech and free opinion laws. Also the opinions are mine and mine alone and don't carry anything more then my opinions and facts that are of public knowledge. All judicial complains about this post have to be settled in an arbitration court in Lisbon/Portugal.
If the album's name is "Virgin Killer", I think Virgin should take a stand on this.
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.
As has been suggested on the register - should these pages now be blocked:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevermind
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Faith_(album)
for having pictures of naked children.
My God ! What about:
http://www.abcgallery.com/T/titian/titian4.html
While the picture in question on the Scorpions album cover might be in poor taste 30 years after the event it is NOT porn, it is nudity.
I've viewed the image (like many other Brits no doubt) and I'd never have seen it had it not been 'censored' ! Nice one ISPs - you've unwittingly caused it to be viewed many more times than had it not made it to the press.
How much other stuff are they not allowing me to see :|
... and not IP/domain based, can you guys in the UK use this HTTPS page?
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Main_Page
You can also substitute "wikipedia" in the above URL for Wikimedia Foundation's other projects to access them using SSL. e.g. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikisource/en/wiki/Main_Page for Wikisource. To use them in other languages, simple replace "en" with another language code (e.g. "de" or "ja").
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
I'm in the UK and I can't access the page. I am not so bothered about that more than the fact that it provides no mention of why its blocked. I would have no problem with them saying "It's blocked because of..." but to just blank it totally, is crap.
To view it, just google virgin killers and then look at the cached version. When will the idiots learn that this is the internet. There is always a way round it.
Also I think the strysand effect may well be helping the sales skyrocket.
http://www.writeitfor.us - Writing IT for the IT generation.
FYI I took a call from a reporter filing a story on this with the Guardian early this morning. The issue here isn't just that the image was blocked but that the text was too. Indeed, if only the image had been blocked it is likely the massive collateral damage the ISPs blocking has caused would not have developed.
[bio: alisonwheeler.net] [blog: alisonw.com] [web2.0: www.alisonwheeler.com/links]
"Looking at the picture in question,"
I haven't looked. But that demonstrates part of the problem. If this action is upheld you wouldn't have had the ability to become informed, and before forming your opinion on the matter you'd know as much as I do (i.e. nothing). They intend to take away an option you've already exercised. How do you feel about that?
All you did was try to make up your own mind.
Congrats to UK, now they have freed people of UK from child pornography!
Are we running out of terrirists and actual child pornographers so bad that someone actually has to be given salary for censoring Wikipedia?
I'd guess even UK could do much better with using the money to for example burning it and warming their houses than this.
Freenet.
Time to switch.
>>>would be considered child porn under the modern laws of at least US and UK, and possibly most European countries
FALSE. In the United States there are tons of books for sale, and nudist sites online, which contain naked images of children. The SCOTUS does not considered porn until there is sex, and simple nudity is protected by the First Amendment.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
I can confirm this on Be internet (which is really o2). I get a 404 when trying to access the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer.
And by the way, I disagree that this should be classified as child porn.
If somebody, anybody, finds it sexually stimulating then it can be pornography. You may not find penthouse centrefolds to be stimulating but that doesn't stop them from being pornography.
I'd say the primary test is the intention of the creator - is it intended to stimulate. A secondary test, as I've intimated, is if a viewer finds it sexually stimulating. This image is likely to pass on both tests and does show a child.
Yes this means an underwear magazine could be called pornographic.
If they'd only cast the image in marble I'm sure it would have been fine ...
It sucks. I never said anything to the contrary.
FYI I took a call from a reporter filing a story on this with the Guardian early this morning. The issue here isn't just that the image was blocked but that the text was too. Indeed, if only the image had been blocked it is likely the massive collateral damage the ISPs blocking has caused would not have developed.
What seems to have caused the damage is not the actual blocking (whether of just image or text as well) but the way that the blocking is implemented. If the ISPs had just blocked the URL(s) without making it seem as if all requests to Wikipedia from their customers all came from the same IP address, then it would not have caused all these problems and would probably have gone relatively unnoticed. They should either (using deep packet filtering) not altered the source IP of the requests or (preferably) used X-Forwarded-For and Via headers so that Wikipedia would know both that the connection came from a proxy and also the true originating address.
We are getting into the time where anything that is a *potential* hazard will be blocked out. Common sense doesn't matter, humanity doesn't matter. Just block the fucking thing.
WHO the fuck they think they are to decide what's good for me/us?
It's erotica. Porn = explicit SEX, or naked people in a way designed to arouse you sexually. Erotica= just naked people, can be art.
That picture is more art than porn, even though it has an underage naked girl in it.
--Coder
The British are being slowly strangled by increasing government surveillance and interference. The Brits seem oblivious to the changes that are occurring around them. If you slowly increase the water temperature you can boil a frog alive without it noticing until it passes out. That is Britain. Large scale reactions like cutting off Wikipedia are the only way the British will wake up before it is too late.
Whether or not that image should be considered child porn should be up to the courts to decide.
And from January, according to Government guidance, it seems the IWF are going to be handling reports of "extreme pornography" (that criminalises possession of adult images considered "extreme" and "disgusting", even those involving consenting adults, staged acts, and screenshots from legal films), which is broader and far vaguer than child porn law - so if they start blocking anything that might "potentially" be extreme, I worry that this could mean a lot more sites being blocked.
This also shows that they are willing to blacklist mainstream sites - well, at least they get points for being consistent I suppose (there`s nothing worse than selective enforcement) - but the point is that images that might "potentially" come under the extreme porn law have been found on mainstream non-porn sites. Now even if it may be the case that such a site would never be prosecuted, this shows that the IWF may happily censor any site that has a potentially extreme image on it, no matter what site it is on, or for what purpose it is there for.
It is also misleading that the site returns a fake 404 message - Virgin Media do this, although apparently Demon do not. Is this something decided on a per-ISP level, and something worth complaining to them about?
It's not like Wikipedia is hosted in some lawless country - it's hosted in the US, which has similar laws on child porn, and if it was really a problem it would be easy to cooperate with the US to remove the images.
Amazon also has these images, which are not blocked.
You neglect to add that most advertisements for childrens suncream would also be considered child porn, as would half the contents for a family pictures album.
May the Maths Be with you!
Um, what about cherubs, being most definitely representations of child-like angels (some even show genitalia) ? If I photograph a cherub in the UK, say from a painting or a sculpture, would that also qualify me?
See my journal, I write things there
So that means this famous historic Pullitzer-winning photograph is illegal in the UK ?
This law is f$#@ ridiculous...
@neonux
Yes, my kid find it sexually stimulating. Is it porn now?
Give me a break.
Someone arrest Robert Plant for his part in the cover art of Led Zep's Houses of the Holy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houses_of_the_Holy#Album_sleeve_design
It's actually this image from the ceiling of the Sistine, painted by a known pederast for an organisation that features pederasty prominently amongst its other sins. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Deluge_detail.jpg Accordingly there is no choice but to block all of wikipedia. But we must also block all of Michaelangelo's work, all greek philosophy, in fact all history up until 1968, and everything since then must be vetted carefully. Eurasia has allways been our allies we are at war with Eastasia.
>Looking at the picture in question, I have little doubt that it would be considered child porn under the modern laws of at least US and UK.
Interesting, because recently there was something of a 'storm'/'furore'/[insert tabloid adjective of choice here] over some photographs being shown in a UK gallery. It caused a big stink not least among photographers and artists concerned about freedom of expression.
The photo was called 'Klara And Edda Belly-Dancing' by photographer Nan Goldin and was part of a collection being lent out by Sir Elton John; at that point in time being shown at the Baltic gallery in Gateshead. It showed two girls messing about, one of whom was doing a sort of splits, she was, if I remember correctly, not completely naked but was at least without pants and her va-jay-jay was pointed directly at the camera, for all to see.
It was seized by the local cops and the media had a big to-do about it.
And then it was returned; considered not obscene:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/oct/26/artnews.art
We may have a great deal of empty-headed reactionary hysteria about the whole issue of children/nudity/sex here in the UK, but we're not at the point where they have to walk about in full niqab like wahabi women in Saudi Arabia, lest some stray paedophile get aroused. Well, not yet.
And if the Nan Golwin image is considered OK for the proles to view, it strikes me as entirely indefensible that the image we're all talking about now is being censored for being obscene considering its decorum when compared to the Goldwin image.
It would seem, comparing the two cases that the IWF are using criteria for judging images that goes against current standards that have been tested and reviewed, which would, in turn seem to suggest that they can't be trusted to censor what the British people see on their internets without credible oversight of their actions.
Their decisions clearly need to be opened up to (credible) scrutiny.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
That image got my website blacklisted by a datacentre and a major carrier (level3, who as a result considers my website a child porn distribution hub) when a user posted it on my site (it was there for about 5 minutes), sorry Wikipedia, you're screwed.
XFF headers are (obviously) not to be trusted in all cases; Wikimedia trusts them on an ISP-by-ISP basis. Virgin Media's were set up to be trusted, but it appears they've either fiddled the format of them again or just started leaving them out.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
XFF headers are being omitted, hence the problem that Wikipedia cannot tell the actual source IP
[bio: alisonwheeler.net] [blog: alisonw.com] [web2.0: www.alisonwheeler.com/links]
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?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Whilst you are correct that the law covers more than images of sex, this does not mean that all nude images are illegal. The term is "indecent". Why has possession of this image never been prosecuted in 30 years of child porn being illegal?
In a strict legal sense, this censorship is justified; the problem is the law itself, which should not define nudity as "pornography".
No, the problem is that this should be up for a jury to decide, not the IWF. If they decided that this image is "indecent", then yes the fault would lie with that ruling, and not the censorship. But until then, the censorship is not justified.
It's both really - that the law is vaguely worded, but also that things are censored merely because they are "potentially" illegal.
David Hamilton's The Age of Innocence would agree with you.
Nudity != Sex
Naked Pictures != Porn
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
Wikipedia is not the publisher. If I'd a dollar for every time someone suggested suing them, or out-and-out tried to, I'd be rich enough to afford a username.
If anyone is to be prosecuted, they'd have to dig up details of who originally uploaded the image.
Well, get a new ISP then! Or maybe a new sarcasm detector?
This is not for sexual pleasure and it is not depicting any sort of sexual act. Therefore, I personally have no problem with it. That all said, if the child and the parents both consented, I have no problem with it. This is more art than some of this shit (literal feces) the NEA funds here in the U.S. Bollocks to the law, for it knows not common judgment.
I thank all the gods for the Slashdot link location notifier.
May the Maths Be with you!
It works fine, well I had to check to see what the fuss was about, expecting to be blocked but it appears Privoxy / Tor bypasses it. I'd never know I was blocked unless I was told so beforehand.
Ya gotta love the censoring of parts of the internet, it works perfect 100% of the time....or so the Aussie govt would like us to believe. LOLOL.
The legislation is written loosely because it is intended to be interpreted on a case-by-case basis in a court of law. Nudity is not pornography and no well balanced jury is going to rule otherwise.
>Under UK law, an image of a naked child is usually considered child pornography; context is irrelevant.
I would suggest otherwise and so would Sir Elton John, Nan Goldin and the CPS, who were all involved with an image that was seized by police, who considered it obscene, but which was later returned, despite showing a young naked girl doing the splits in front of the camera:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/oct/26/artnews.art
If that wasn't obscene, then it raises the question of what criteria the IWF are using to censor the internet.
Their own, arbitrary one, perhaps?
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
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?
I have a burka fetish. Take that, Saudi Arabia!
Unfortunately, the omission of XFF headers is probably entirely deliberate. The system is designed to conceal the fact that content is being filtered as much as possible - it's one of the stated goals. I'm pretty sure they omit the "Via" header from the response too. (In fact, the actual blocking is generally done with messages like fake 404s designed to conceal why the page is inaccessible; the only exception seems to be Demon Internet, and I expect they'll be forced to change this.)
"If I photograph a cherub in the UK, say from a painting or a sculpture, would that also qualify me?"
Probably not, unless the original painting was deemed to have the appearance of a photograph, in which case you would have made a reference to a pseudo-photograph. It is possible, however, that such a photograph could be considered to be an indecent photograph of a (non-existant) child and therefore you would have "taken an indecent photograph of a child". I don't know of any case where the latter has been tested in court.
The government is considering legislation to criminalise any visual representation of "child sexual abuse", which includes any representation (cartoon, scuplture, etc) with "an excessive focus on a child's genitalia".
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free" ~ Nineteen Eighty-Four
Surely the same logic would censor the album cover Nevermind by Nirvana?
What's provocative about it? She's just posing nude. Is all 'posing' whilst nude to be deemed provocative?
Amazon has the same image, and will even sell you the record: http://www.amazon.com/Virgin-Killer-Scorpions/dp/B0000073NL/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1228665999&sr=8-2
Are they now CP distributers?
U+F8FF
FALSE. In the United States there are tons of books for sale, and nudist sites online, which contain naked images of children. The SCOTUS does not considered porn until there is sex, and simple nudity is protected by the First Amendment.
Sorry, but the 1970s called, and want their talking points back.
If you think rulings on the publication or distribution of German nudist magazines and David Hamilton books ended the discussion, I'd suggest you're oblivious to the hysteria that's been going on since the early days of the Intarwebs and accelerates with each passing day.
There are websites being shut down, content being edited, access filtered or blocked wholesale, and people going to jail on a regular and continuing basis for material that contains no nudity whatsoever. Surprised? You should be, and more.
I don't expect the Myths of Child Pornography to end anytime soon, but I would expect some facts and common sense to enter the discussion at some point. In the meantime, groups that include the FBI, the Internet Watch Foundation and just about everyone else with a vested interest will hammer home the idea that images of anyone under 18, that may or may not appeal to prurient interests, is child pornography.
It's basically standard practice to use fake 404 errors or similar methods of concealing the fact that the page is in fact being censored, yes. I suspect that Demon Internet really shouldn't be displaying such an informative messages, and can see them getting into trouble with the IWF or the government for it.
"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.....
From what I found on the net, that's not from "Mein Kampf" - except for the first sentence, but that was used in an entirely different (racist) context.
I would be interested if someone knows the origin of that quote to be sure that it's real (looks useful against "think of the children" propaganda).
So far Google found someone random giving "Hitler, 1943" as a source, but that's pretty weak..
So a picture of me standing naked on a table with my baby fat all over would be classified as child porn?
Yeah, if you squint your eyes and tilt your head sideways and ignore that it's necessary factual information pertaining to the album, it does look just like child porn.
Report all cherubs images here
Now I know why all those priest turned child abusers. It was not the sexual repression, it was because they were exposed to these filthy child porn images.
Join me in my campaign make the internet clean.
Report all cherubs images here
OK, that does it!!!
Seriously, I think the web has to become an all SSL backbone. Its fast enough through the wire, and computers are fast enough to codec that this nonsense has to stop.
ISPs should not be interfering with content. Period. This will also prevent airports and cafes from inserting their own frames around user content as well.
"Nudity is not pornography and no well balanced jury is going to rule otherwise."
The test of illegality is one of indecency, not pornography. An image is considered to be "indecent" if it "offends against the recognised standards of propriety", even if it is not pornographic.
People have been convicted of making, taking, or possessing indecent images of children ("child pornography") for images depicting mere nudity. See http://newgon.com/wiki/Indecent_images_of_children#Indecency
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free" ~ Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nonetheless, if the child is in a sexually provocative pose then the image does qualify as 'child pornography' and it would be illegal to copy or distribute it in the UK.
Disclaimer: I'm in the UK, and I haven't viewed the image, and I have no intent of even trying. An image the Internet Watch Foundation has designated as Child Pornography would be unfeasibly incredibly fantastically stupid for me to try and view as it would leave me vulnerable to losing my computers, my livelihood and quite possibly my freedom. Whether I agree that this is an appropriate response to viewing an album cover online is not relevant to the real world impacts of attempting to do so.
I guess they better block 'Nevermind' too while they're at it >_>
Quite possibly. Write to the Internet Watch Foundation and demand that they treat that image in an identical manner to the one on Wikipedia.
Does the Amazon UK site also have that album with that cover? (I wont check myself; see my other post for why)
Pornography is explicit material designed to arouse. Nudity isn't porn even if in your opinion that image portrays a "provocative pose". I find that image about as provocative as a moldy pizza slice. Somebody, somewhere probably has a thing for congealed cheese but I don't.
Don't worry, our would-be censors will have no problem cynically employing the abuse of children in order to realise their agenda.
If you want to see it, go down to your local record shop. The image is a CD cover, and is openly on sale.
Same image can be found on Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Trance-Virgin-Killer-Deluxe-Collectors/dp/B000N3AWGQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1228666270&sr=8-2 (Click on "See larger image and other views").
Very tricky situation, as the image is clearly illegal by your law (and possibly by ours too).
U+F8FF
"I would suggest otherwise and so would Sir Elton John, Nan Goldin and the CPS, who were all involved with an image that was seized by police, who considered it obscene, but which was later returned, despite showing a young naked girl doing the splits in front of the camera"
Cases which become "high-profile" are generally not prosecuted if the images depict only nudity, for the simple reason that a prosecution or conviction would cause outrage amongst some members of the public. I also suspect that the authorities didn't want some of the UK's best lawyers challenging their laws against "child pornography", hence the refusal to prosecute images owned by Elton John.
People have been convicted of making, taking, or possessing indecent images of children ("child pornography") for images depicting mere nudity. See http://newgon.com/wiki/Indecent_images_of_children#Indecency
"If that wasn't obscene, then it raises the question of what criteria the IWF are using to censor the internet."
They should "apply the recognised standards of propriety". For what it's worth, a jury of several members of the IWF would be considered to be as representative of the population as a typical jury.
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free" ~ Nineteen Eighty-Four
For the blocked pages, XFF and via are moot as the request will not be sent to the hosting site. The problem is with other requests which are also being passed through the proxy. The proxy should either make itself completely invisible to both requester and target site or obey the accepted "rules" for the behaviour of a proxy. I would say that, at least in this case, the system has failed miserably to conceal the fact that content is being filtered.
That's the way the blocking system works. It's ingeniously designed to allow blocking individual URLs without requiring every network packet to be inspected. Google "cleanfeed" for the details. A less fine-grained system that (for example) blocked whole IP ranges would have been noticed by Joe Public, and caused outrage; a system that inspeced every packet, like the Great Firewall of Chine, would have been expensive. This system has the advantage (for the censors) that it is cheap and almost unnoticeable - until now, that is.
Remember the MP who criticised the Brass Eye pedophile special and was later forced to admit they hadn't seen it? A censorship regime relies on cowards like you to be successful.
Go and look at the image on Amazon or Ebay where they haven't tagged it. Nobody is going to be prosecuted for viewing the cover of an album that has been on sale to the public for 30 years! The image doesn't contain full nudity, has close to zero artistic merit and warrants no discussion -- it's not porn.
Makes me wonder if these "transparent" proxies can be abused as anonymizing proxies...
It's not illegal, and the grandfather was trolling.
The pendulum is, I think, too far towards 'all nudity is porn' but that statement is clearly untrue even today.
...not the site posting it. The article is perfectly legal
I'm happy to decry and support attempts to remove the wrongful censorship. I haven't stated that the image is or should be designated child pornography, merely highlighted that it may be deemed as such under the law.
The law is excessive and frankly stupid, but that's typical of many UK laws in the past few years. I'm personally more interested in overturning the anti-terror laws first as they limit civil liberties infinitely more than the child pornography ones.
"If I was directing the CPS in the UK I'd prosecute the publishers (Wikipedia)"
Why? Because it would make the world safer?
I don't get people some times. Well, mostly. And I think you're a typical example of what's wrong with the world. No offense.
Thanks for the link, but I wont go there :) I will however report that link to the IWF and see if I can get Amazon banned - that at least will force major media to take notice, which is far more helpful to getting sensible laws in place.
"I thank all the gods for the Slashdot link location notifier."
It's just academic text, not child pornography.
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free" ~ Nineteen Eighty-Four
Yep I understand very well why you don't want to visit the site, I'm really interested to see whether anything happens because of your report.
U+F8FF
Entered into the IWF website, in the description field of the link above:
I have not visited this link myself, as it allegedly contains an image that the IWF has already flagged as indecent and censored (through UK ISPs). Someone else posted this link on an online discussion forum where the original image was being debated. On that same forum it was highlighted that this image is also available on Google's image cache, on the Amazon.com website and on many other music and shopping sites across the world.
Can you please treat all instances of this image identically. If it is truly indecent (I don't know, because I haven't viewed it) then ban it everywhere. If it has been banned by mistake (or stupidity) then obviously unban it from the source currently banned (i.e. Wikipedia).
The IWF is vulnerable to public opinion, and this instance is likely to cause poor publicity. Please act promptly and with absolute certainty as to the correct legal interpretation of this image.
If you do decide it isn't indecent after all, do let me know - I'm curious to know what all the fuss is about. It's clearly either an edge case, or something's gone wrong with your internal controls, and as a user of the Internet in the UK I'm keen to find out that it's the former.
"The term is "indecent". Why has possession of this image never been prosecuted in 30 years of child porn being illegal?"
The nature of indeceny has changed over that 30 year period. An image is indecent if it "offends the recognised standards or propriety", therefore the legal status of an image can change if peoples' "standards" change. It's a law based on cultural perceptions of indecency, not a specific definition.
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free" ~ Nineteen Eighty-Four
...so people don't burn themselves. Mindless idiocy.
I can't help but wonder what blocking the image is supposed to accomplish.
Will it protect citizens? No, only from their own stupid laws.
Will it protect children? No, seeing the image does no harm to anyone.
Will it change paedophiles' sexuality to a normal orientation? No, it will have no effect.
Will it prevent children from being abused by child molestors? No, they'll continue to do it anyway.
No good can come of this. As an analogy, rapists don't stop raping people because it's illegal. Censoring rape imagary will never stop rape from occuring. It accomplishes nothing but a restriction of freedom for the innocent.
Mod this up. This is very important for people to read.
Wikinews is the one who broke the story. The Register quoted them. Please correct this http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/British_ISPs_restrict_access_to_Wikipedia_amid_child_pornography_allegations
Yes - I never claimed otherwise - but whether or not standards change, that has nothing to do with the claim that nude images of children are usually illegal.
There is also no evidence that standards have changed such that this image would now be illegal. That should be up to the courts to decide - hence, the problem is still with the censoring.
It's a law based on cultural perceptions of indecency, not a specific definition.
Which is exactly why you can't make claims about whether this image is illegal simply because it's nude! It's based on the perception of indency, not a specific definition. You are contradicting your own argument, here.
Well, wait for 5-10 more years, and we shall see, shall we?
Sorry, I'm just a pessimist as far as this thing goes. Never underestimate the power of a crazy mob in a democracy.
That's seriously good news, and probably the first I've heard on this whole paedophilia witch-hunt in a long while.
How cute; I've got downrated (with "Overrated") without having a single positive mod.
By the way, for those jerks who treat the moderation system as a way to say "I disagree cuz you're a moron" - how about reading the replies to that comment of mine, and then my own replies to those replies? I'm not saying that there's anything good about the picture been censored, for Christ sake! I'm only saying that it is very likely that the censorship is lawful. As in, there are laws which mandate it. Which sucks much worse than a single unconnected case of such stupidity would.
That said, it looks that I was too pessimistic, and this actually stands a chance to be reversed in the court.
Why? Afraid the police will come around to pick you up a few minutes after you click on that link, with the page being in the cache of your browser enough evidence to convict you of commiting a thoughtcrime of reading about a taboo subject?
I realy wonder what some people read in your post to mod it up.
This is an image of a seemingly nude minor in an innocent pose, these two together or on their own, do not at all make it pornography.
If just because of the age of the publication, I mean the record plus cover, it has all merits of having become art.
Do you go into Roman Catholic churches and start condemning the angels painted on the ceilings?
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Under UK law, an image of a naked child is usually considered child pornography;
Surely a naked child in the context of a picture of the Virgin And Child wouldn't be illegal? These rules don't apply to churches, surely?
The image can still be seen on Amazon, who do profit from it, so the profit justification is entirely irrelevant.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
You should just read the text at the link GP posted. It's some really scary stuff, and if all the citations there are correct, he is right. It's up to the jury to decide, individually in every particular case, whether a given image is indecent:
"The decency of an image is an objective test; that is, it is decided by the jury. Indecency is considered to be a question of fact"
"In 2003, the Sentencing Advisory Panel provided guidance for Judges considering sentences for people convicted of an offence under the Protection of Children Act. The lowest level of indecency was described as "images depicting erotic posing with no sexual activity", which would suggest that naturist images without posing are not indecent. Despite this, a number of people have been convicted of an offence for making and possessing naturist images. In 2003, Tom O'Carroll was convicted of "evading the prohibition on the importation of indecent material", for importing photographs of "young naked children engaging in normal outdoor activity such as playing on a beach". One should never assume that an image must be pornographic for it to be indecent."
"The levels of indecency are as follows:
Level 1 - Images depicting erotic posing with no sexual activity ..."
"Images which are below the threshhold for Level 1 - but which are judged to be indecent by a jury - will be treated as Level 1 images during sentencing; therefore a naturist image with no erotic posing will be treated as a Level 1 indecent image of a child, if judged to be indecent."
I don't agree it's a non-sexual pose, but let's set that aside for now...
I think the problem is that whilst that album cover may indeed be innocuous sitting in the racks of a vinyl obsessive along with another 5000 LPs, things are rather different if it's found, say, along with the Blind Faith cover and 4998 child porn images on Gary Glitter's computer. Suppose Gary Glitter had 4998 other images like the album covers? Is that legal? Should it be legal? It's a complicated issue, and running around screaming OMFG The Brits are censoring the Internet!!! is a really dumb response. Unless you think all child porn images should be freely available? Is that what you think? If not, you're arguing about an implementation detail.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Can we not now go and arrest everyone who has ever bought, sold or possesed this album in the UK?
I think this is one of the best arguments to limit Wikipedia edits to registered users ONLY.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I wonder if Lewis Carroll's nude photographs of Beatrice Hatch (age 7) are also banned in the UK.
http://photographyoflewiscarroll.googlepages.com/
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Don't bother with link to the other site, either. "newgon.com" sounds innocent enough, but it still appears to be a pro-paederasty wiki.
And half the people in here are actually discussing if this lousy photo is in fact child pornography or not.
Freedom may have gotten bad press recently, but do we seriously need to filter the whole freakin' internet because of indecent pictures?
As both seem to be conflicting goals at the bottom of the problem, what do we do about it?
Is protection of children really, truly, positively more important than free dissemination of information?
Internet filtering is a digital issue and as such only works on an all-or-nothing basis - either we filter ALL of the internet or NOTHING. There is no middle ground, because the first established filter is capable of filtering any and all information AND immediately alarming law enforcement when someone hits the filter rules.
ONE (1) filter set up to protect the dearest, most innocent child can be subverted to a general tool of oppression - with just one additional line in the filtering rule.
So, ultimately, we have to ask ourselves:
Do we want our children
- free access to all information, including anti-government activism AND perverted erotic material
- or to never see any objectional material AND never see any blog or news site critic of the government?
Which choice is worse? Which type of state (or "regime" in some cases) has caused more suffering and death to children?
What, if we could only allow or disallow the government to imprison dissenters AND perverts? Will we sacrifice our childrens freedom for our childrens chastity?
...I went to edit an article for my favorite british dish, Jellied Eels, and found it was "down".
My US friend said this is an example where censorship benefits mankind.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
You're far too reasonable to be British. Please leave. When you get there, let me know where you went so I can come too.
Stick Men
There's a thread at Reddit that's listing some unfiltered ISPs.
Could I reccomend you guys having problems switch to my ISP - Andrews & Arnold. It's customer support is fantastic - all tech support people are sys admins. They give you static IP's and they don't filter anything. They support linux too.
Look, *anything* at all will be looked at as porn by someone somewhere! Are we letting our society be restrained by what some weird people think?
"Wikipedia relies on your donations: please give today."
Wikipedia will make a big deal of this, it's great publicity during its funding appeal.
As the report says, it's easy to circumvent, but they'll squeal about censorship as loudly as they can.
I have a burka fetish. Take that, Saudi Arabia!
I'd love to be there to see the look on your face when you take Fatima home for some hot passion, as she removed her burka revealing that she is, in fact, Faizal, before shouting, "God is great!" Then detonating.
Stick Men
Yes
Probably because they would have to prove in court that it is CP. That pesky "beyond reasonable doubt" stuff. Why bother, if you can use some shadowy organization to just put it on the blacklist?
The moon is not fully subjugated. I demand a second assault wave preceded by a massive nuclear bombardment.
From their newsgroup virginmedia.support.broadband.cable (on news.virginmedia.com):
"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."
Why? You won't find any child porn there. The article isn't all that detailed or informative (it would be better with more data), but you won't find anything illegal or offensive there.
Watching or possessing childporn should be allowed. The ban on childporn is censorship. And when they take your finger they will eventually take your whole hand (Dutch phrase).
Marthijn Uittenbogaard
Yes, it makes it so much easier to judge a book by it's cover and avoid being exposed to points of view you might not agree with. You don't want to learn about witch hunts and unjust prosecution because hey, think of the children. It doesn't matter that the courts, the legislature, and the police are slowly broadening the definition of 'child pornography; because its just kiddy diddlers - right? They'll never come for you after all.
Seriously, just block those proxies. If that means the UK has no access to wikipedia, perhaps that may spark some reforms.
So why aren't the UK record stores being prosecuted for selling this "child pornography"?
KeS
A child's consent is unimportant (they're kids!), and parents have consented to their children sleeping with known paedophiles. So clearly the law needs to protect children above what their parents deem okay.
This is not for sexual pleasure and it is not depicting any sort of sexual act. Therefore, I personally have no problem with it
It is a sexual pose, and therefore I have a problem with it.
Nudity isn't porn
And yet do you think if a 24 year old woman had been in that same pose on that cover it could have been sold for 30 years without being censored?
Truly, whatever you believe, the law is fucked.
And I see
http://iwfwebfilter.thus.net/error/blocked.html
I've been kinda-sorta thinking about switching ISPs for a while. Guess it might be time to start doing something about it.
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
Here are my ideas:
Block that IP from editing, and put a big banner (for that IP only) on top of every page explaining why. Also put a link to the HTTPS Wikipedia recommending it's use as you can't (currently) be monitored or censored if you use it. Of course they could just filter THAT.
Permanently redirect that IP to the HTTPS version of any accessed page. They may not like you circumventing their filter, but what are they gonna do, block Wikipedia?
Permanently redirect that IP to Wikipedia using the server IP. Depending on how the proxying is done, this may make their current solution impossible (I assume they make wikipedia.org resolve to their proxy name, which is then dedicated to the task of grabbing pages from wikipedia.org).
Your choice of course, but I'd say views of that image have just gone skybound after this ban hit the news. You have a legitimate reason to look at it and judge for yourself the basis or not of the IFW's actions. It is, after all, a matter that could have great import for you as a UK citizen one day, if the IFW continues to censor whatever it likes without recourse to the law. For your information, there's nothing worse in that picture than countless bronze statues in countless parks and fountains. It's a girl, she shows nothing particularly sexual (to normal tastes). The model herself is reported to have no problem with it (either then or fifteen years later). Were this actual child pornography, the correct response would be for the police to approach Wikipedia. The addition of this image to the IFW's ban list in no way makes this image illegal or wrong for you to look at. You of course should do as you wish, but I personally feel that you should bite the bullet and look at it. It's the only way you're going to be able to make an informed decision about it. Otherwise you are abdicating responsibility for deciding what you should and should not see to an unelected and legally unenforced body.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
TALK about diaper rash and how to wipe you child's but after defecation or urination.
This will result in a rise of infections as e-coli get into urethrae (wipe front to back people, [but the average IQ is only 100 and the whole concept of cleanliness has to be taught with pictures and circles and arrows on the back of each one explaining the lot.]) and that is a form of state enforced child abuse.
Censoring pictures of exploitation leads to its "unthinking innocent" repetition.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I didn't say they did a good job of it, just that they seemed to be trying. Concealing the fact that the data is going through a proxy totally is quite hard, though. Even just getting the IP address correct requires (a) modifying the routing of incoming traffic based on source address (which is expensive and hard to get right) and (b) specific operating system and proxy support that isn't generally available. Then there's stuff like traceroute and the hops-to-live field, which also gives the game away...
they should ban the Pulitzer winning image of that young girl from Vietnam running naked, screaming after being burnt by a napalm attack as well. I mean, she was NAKED! How horrible that people are allowed to view something like that. It's sick!
the head with a Kalashnikov in a blood soaked old football pitch, right through her chador.
Funny but I would have no problem taking pictures of that.
The religious nuts have stood the world on its head.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Sadly no, I do not have a legitimate interest to look at child pornography. Although I don't know whether this image qualifies as such the IWF have designated it to be and they have police guidance on this matter.
Even if I eventually win in court I'll have lost pretty much everything up to that.
Instead I've written to the IWF and told them to re-evaluate their decision. That's an appropriate and measured response, and one that does not expose me to significant personal risk.
The land-o-lakes butter packaging is pornography? Plenty of people in worse times have squeezed one off to her.
Not to mention foot fetishists and shoe catalogs
Now that part is scary. You seriously find an album art with a naked girl who looks to be about 7 sexually stimulating? Whatever gets you off, I guess, just don't babysit my kids.
As for my distinction: There is none. It's like music vs noise. You might hear static and distortion, I hear digital hardcore industrial. We really don't need a distinction either, just smarter laws based on actual damage done rather than blanket laws
Dear Be /07/brit_isps_censor_wikipedia/
I've confirmed that I am unable to access the wiki page in question from my Be connection. Now, there's arguments all over the place about whether this album cover represents pornography or is an artistic statement and I'm not going to get into that here. Regardless of the content of the page it is not the place of an ISP to take a subjective stance on moral decency let alone deny service to portions of the internet based on that stance and I'm sure the majority of Be members would feel the same way as I do.
I recently read the following article at The Register http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12
I'm frankly appalled that a respectable European company is acting like some kind of censoring agency in some tinpot dictatorship and thus it is with some regret that I must pose to you an ultimatum: either restore full access to all parts of the internet to all customers or I will terminate my contract and encourage others to do the same. This sort of behaviour has no place in a civilised country let alone on the internet, which after all, is built on the principle of freedom of information for all.
regards
Snooty I know but sod em, I've been getting crap pings recently anyway
It is pretty humorous seeing all the edits trying to remove it.
And lol @ MrTeroo for being permabanned.
"wahhh, you're hurting the children! remove this filth! waahh"
Oh how i love crybabies.
I'm truly baffled. Myself and my wife see nothing at all sexual in that image. We even have a somewhat similar image of our four year old taken last christmas, siting on her feet nearly naked after changing clothes over and over again, leaning back on her arms in front of the tree it's very cute.
I don't think it was a good idea as an album cover, it's somewhat tasteless for that purpose, and obviously intended to cause controversy (and thus record sales)... but child porn? Please. This image is only childporn to pedophiles.
If the 4998 other images do not involve penetration with a penis, dildo, fingers, or other object, there is NO sex and there is NO victim of childhood rape. The little 10 year old girl (now a 40 year old women) was not harmed by this photograph, just as Brooke Shields was not harmed when she was filmed naked at age 10-11.
Nudity is not a crime. Nudity is our natural state.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
I'm on a Sky connection which is part of Easynet -
# 212.134.155.210 (talk contribs deleted contribs logs block user block log) - ISP = Easynet/UK Online/Sky Broadband
I don't see anything censored.
To be honest though, if the UK government wants to censor that image and stop me from stumbling upon it while reading up on old bands / albums, I'd be more than happy for them to, in fact I'd like them to. I, like most people (I would hope) find severe disgust in that graphic, what the hell is wrong with German people?
- Dan
NonethelessThat is the problem. Concessions to authoritarian governments will only strengthen their resolve.
There's a statement on the IWVF website now:
http://www.iwf.org.uk/media/news.249.htm
IWF statement regarding Wikipedia URL
IWF is the UKâ(TM)s internet âHotlineâ(TM) for the public and IT professionals to report potentially illegal online content within our remit. We work in partnership with the online industry, law enforcement, government, the education sector, charities, international partners and the public to minimise the availability of this content, specifically, child sexual abuse content hosted anywhere in the world and criminally obscene and incitement to racial hatred content hosted in the UK. We are an independent self-regulatory body, funded by the EU and the wider online industry, including internet service providers, mobile operators and manufacturers, content service providers, filtering companies, search providers, trade associations and the financial sector as well as other organisations that support us for corporate social responsibility reasons.
We help internet service providers and hosting companies to combat abuse of their networks through our national ânotice and take-downâ(TM) service which alerts them to potentially illegal content within our remit on their systems and we provide unique data to law enforcement partners in the UK and abroad to assist investigations into the distributers of potentially illegal online content. As sexually abusive images of children are primarily hosted abroad, we facilitate the industry-led initiative to protect users from inadvertent exposure to this content by blocking access to it through our provision of a dynamic list of child sexual abuse URLs.
A Wikipedia web page, was reported through the IWFâ(TM)s online reporting mechanism in December 2008. As with all child sexual abuse reports received by our Hotline analysts, the image was assessed according to the UK Sentencing Guidelines Council (page 109). The content was considered to be a potentially illegal indecent image of a child under the age of 18, but hosted outside the UK. The IWF does not issue takedown notices to ISPs or hosting companies outside the UK, but we did advise one of our partner Hotlines abroad and our law enforcement partner agency of our assessment. The specific URL (individual webpage) was then added to the list provided to ISPs and other companies in the online sector to protect their customers from inadvertent exposure to a potentially illegal indecent image of a child.
Why did they censor "Money" or "Who are you"? That makes no sense at all. What argument, however stupid, is there to censor those two songs (I don't know the others)?
Because each has a 'bad' word in them (come back Lenny B. & George C., we need you).
Curiously, the majority of people find 'bush' hideously profane yet the word appears uncensored all over the place. Then again, it probably means 'pubic hair' or 'field' in those instances.
It is a sexual pose, and therefore I have a problem with it.
Your biases an (im)morality are becoming more clear the more I read your comments. You are obviously more interested in moral punditry than discussion.
Uh, hope you've got prefetch turned off, otherwise the contents of any of these links may be in the your cache :(
Thanks for the link, but I wont go there :) I will however report that link to the IWF and see if I can get Amazon banned - that at least will force major media to take notice, which is far more helpful to getting sensible laws in place.
I think your actions will likely have the opposite effects than what you may think. The non-Slashdot community is far more illogical and uneducated than you may like to believe.
Is it that the pelvis is tilted up, and is closer to the camera than the rest of the body
Er, I think that the knees are much closer to the camera than the pelvis - therefore it MUST be pornography!
I'm having a hard time saying what, in concrete terms, makes this pose sexualizing.
I think that the phrase you are trying to say is 'Nothing'. Other than the title of the album it is simply a picture of a naked individual. If anyone finds it sexually arousing then perhaps there it is something wrong with them and not with the cover?
So does all this add up to porn? I don't know. It's borderline.
No, it isn't. This is more symptomatic of society's problem that it cannot accept that, although we are all born naked, we mustn't ever be seen that way again. If you go to many beaches in Europe (and I suspect elsewhere) you will see people of all ages completely naked and continuing with all the things that normal people do at the beach. Sunbathing, playing games, reading, eating, drinking, swimming. It doesn't signify the end of the world as we know it, nor is it something that attracts anything more than routine interest by almost everyone else. OK, you get the odd giggling schoolboy but that is probably more of a reflection of his upbringing than of anything else. We mocked the Victorians for their prudish views and now someone in the UK seems to think that we should regress back to such times. We will be draping tables with cloths soon so that sensitive ladies cannot view naked table legs!
As several others have already commented, we all take pictures of our children in various states of dress and undress - sometimes young girls play at dressing up and perhaps their parents let them try makeup. Not as a matter of routine but simply for the enjoyment of a moments play. It doesn't make the child any more sexually provocative then she was a few moments before but there are some who believe differently. I cannot agree with them, and they should seek help.
If it wasn't for the album's title it would have been a non-event. When it was released it caused the desired scandal but was still available in the shops. Why on earth it should be deemed to be even more scandalous today is beyond me.
Have a look at soylentnews.org for a different view
Do you go into Roman Catholic churches and start condemning the angels painted on the ceilings?
That reminds me; where I live the Catholic school board wanted to ban kilts because they were part of the Catholic school girl uniform. Apparently priests know better than the rest of us about perversion and sexuality.
But then that could be used as evidence against him as well. After all, he went to the record store to view an image of a naked child. While the act was innocent, the intent was criminal, a thought crime. A non-paedophile wouldn't be guilty of anything looking at the album cover, but a paedophile would, just like a paedophile passing a park would clearly be there to peek on kids instead of just passing by, and a paedophile living near a school would only do so to have easy access to kids rather than because residential areas usually have schools built next to them. Oh, and any use of cryptography, such as Tor, is because he is trying to hide he's looking at child porn.
It kinda reminds me of a trial in a movie version of Ivanhoe I once saw. A woman was accused of witchcraft, and her accuser told the court how she had killed a dog and eaten pieces of it raw. The judge then asked if the accuser meant the entirely healthy dog which was sniffing around in the courtroom, to which the accuser answered that the witch had healed it with her magic powers, thus further proving that she was a witch.
If someone accuses you of being a paedophile, everything you do can be used as evidence of not only that but also of your intent to molest kids. It's just a modern-day witch hunt. Give it a few decades and the howling mob will go after the next target, just like they switched from hunting witches to communists to paedophiles. Not that it'll do any good to their victims, of course; but such is life, and a howling mob of self-righteous vigilantes on a witch hunt is really not all that different from child molesters: they take their enjoyment from whom they will, and the victim can go to hell for all they care.
It is depressing that we haven't gotten any better since the Dark Ages, but that too is life, I guess.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
So you're sending a letter which may or may not actually represent your views, stating that the picture in question may or may not be appropriate, and their decision may or may not be correct, so they should take a second look(or not)?
Way to stick it to the man with decisive action.
It's been a long time.
Houses of the Holy, Blind Faith, and also Nirvana's Nevermind (1991), and ironically for this discussion when Kurt Cobain (Nirvana frontman) found out they wanted to censor the naked baby on the front, his only alternative was to be a sticker covering the baby's penis saying, "If you're offended by this, you must be a closet pedophile".
And what the hell did they censor from "Jet Airliner" and "Who are you"? God the censors must be getting desper#$%*&![NO CARRIER]
I'm curious, do you have kids? How about brothers and sisters?
I ask because when I was a step-father for a short time(Dated a girl with kids, we were going to get married but it didn't work out), I saw things more suggestive than this on a weekly basis or so simply in the pursuit of duties as a parent. I've also seen my (at the time underage) sister naked a few times, just as a natural consequence of living with a young girl.
I've always done my best to avoid it, but if there are kids in the house, you'll see naked kids, sometimes in situations that someone might consider suggestive.
With your attitude, we see things like parents being arrested for family photos. I'm worried about the way things are heading now, where there's this insane double standard emerging between what actually happens around kids and what lawmakers pretend happens around kids.
It's been a long time.
Whew, well, I may not be able to own any fine art books any more, but at least tentacle rape hentai will be safe. (That always has the genitalia mosaiced out.)
Is that legal? Should it be legal? It's a complicated issue, and running around screaming OMFG The Brits are censoring the Internet!!! is a really dumb response.
Clearly censorship is bad and should not be allowed. The extreme Right Wing obviously want to introduce as much FUD into the issue as possible to create more and stricter censorship.
People need to get over themselves and stop imposing their (im)morals on other people.
Sorry, you'd recommend precisely what instead?
Yes! Actually, if you look here, I happen to own 8 of the albums in the nudity category. The record shops I used (back when I bought new/sh vinyl) didn't censor any of these album covers. I can probably think of a few more, the slits first album, the pixie's surfer rosa...
Somewhere above, you wrote:
Sorry mate, if you think that's a sexual pose you have a problem -- period. There's nothing indecent about that image. I was disturbed by the apparent content of those child modelling sites that were in the news a few years back. The handful of images I was unfortunate enough to see featured no nudity but they absolutely were attempting to sexualise prepubesents. Disgusting!
I've just sent a note to Be referencing this story. There is just so much to be concerned about here, the sheer fact that this article has been arbitrarily censored is bad enough, but the crude blocking method and lack of any communications with members just adds insult to injury.
Apparently, you can Be anywhere, just don't BeThere.
I have an amputation fetish, you insensitive clod!
If the 4998 other images do not involve penetration with a penis, dildo, fingers, or other object, there is NO sex and there is NO victim of childhood rape.
Agreed. However this is not the rationale behind the filtering. The idea is not "we must prevent representations of people breaking the law"; otherwise the multiplexes would be full of Tarkovsky movies :) The implicit assumptions are (a) the use of child porn increases the risk that someone who has paedophilic masturbatory fantasies will act out and actually harm a child, and (b) the use of child porn is regarded as so uniquely abhorrent as to make it's possession a crime in the eyes of society as a whole. Personally I could care less about what someone's thinking of when they get the Jester's Toes, but (whilst I don't claim to be an expert) I think (a) is sufficiently plausible to merit making possession a crime.
The other issue is that if being able to say "But officer, this image is not of a REAL child rape, it is merely a depiction by actors" were sufficient to make an image non-infringeing, obviously all the perps would be doing it. Complicated, isn't it?
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:NirvanaNevermindalbumcover.jpg
If looking at an image designated by your state as contraband subjects you to losing your freedoms, you were never free in the first place.
Learn about Photography Basics.
I think it's quite obvious by now that Johnny English will bend over quietly whenever told to. Only a terrorist child molester wouldn't.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Wasn't that why the puritans came to America in the first place?
You're from the US. Post on an internet forum that you'd like to kill the President of the US.
Get ready for your visit from the treasury department.
How free are you? Is complying with the law a restriction on freedom or a social contract? If the law states that disseminating child pornography is illegal due to the very real impacts on the children involved then is it so wrong that the law also includes sanctions for doing so?
Am I free? Not as free as I'd like. Probably more free than most people on the planet.
Emphasis mine.
One wonders whether the jury on a child porn case is likely to be as objective as for, say, fraud or burglary. A lot of people do seem to abandon all semblance of rational thought when they hear the magic words "think of the children".
Then, even if the jury does decide to acquit, there's the next problem: anyone who's been accused on child porn related charges has probably already been fired, divorce proceedings are probably under way... it doesn't really matter whether they were convicted or not; in today's society, the mere accusation is enough to ruin a life. That's why the legislation needs clarifying, so that cases aren't brought unless absolutely necessary.
Honestly, if you defined child porn as e.g. "photographs depicting the sexual abuse of a child", even if that turned out to exclude some pictures that people might want to be included, how many dangerous paedophiles would have collections that didn't include any qualifying images? You only need enough rope to hang them. Make the net broad enough to catch every single last image, and you'll catch a lot of innocent stuff as well, and that simply isn't desirable.
This was the complaint that I have just sent to Virgin Media. Let's see what their response is.
"I am writing to complain about your blocking of content on Wikipedia and of your censorship of the internet in general.
I specifically refer to the page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer
I have three complaints about this.
1. I object to you censoring the internet at all. You are not legally obliged to do so. (I understand that you were instructed to voluntarily filter or have laws made, but you should not take the law in to your own hands even if instructed to by MPs.) I resent that you do not provide access to the whole of the internet as I have paid you for. You should allow me to make the choice about legality and consequences of viewing. In my opinion you have not fulfilled your contract to provide internet access and I may consider canceling my service on this basis.
2. I object to the way that you block the page. If I attempt to access the link I simply receive a blank page. If you are going to block something I demand that you display a message to tell me exactly what you have blocked and why. Anything else is an outright lie to the customer.
3. Your technical method of blocking in this case has caused all access to wikipedia to come from one single IP address which has caused huge technical problems and inconvenience for thousands of your customers. You should not redirect traffic in this way.
I hope that you will resolve this issue by removing the blocking or at least being honest with your customers about what you are doing. If not I will be moving to another internet provider."
A latent existence
After all he is the the weird pro-child pornography worker at Wikipedia - http://valleywag.com/387735/wikipedia-leader-erik-mller-children-are-pornography
"During My Service In The United States Congress, I Took The Initiative In Creating The Internet." -Al Gore
When a connection comes from an IP address known to be doing involuntary proxying of users, and they are on HTTP, then what Wikipedia should do is redirect these HTTP requests to the HTTPS URL. Then all the proxy can do with that is either pass the connection as is, or block it entirely. Then it would be the choice of the ISP to completely break Wikipedia access for their customers, or not. They would not have the ability to see what page the user is accessing, or make decisions based on it.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Either be a man and make a decision about whether the material is appropriate or not and send a letter telling of your decision, or don't do anything.
Sending a letter to say "There may be an issue but I don't know either way" is a waste of time and effort.
It's been a long time.
It's not very surprising to note that Virgin Killer is now the second most viewed page on the English wikipedia in the last hour:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Popular_pages#Articles
As a kid I used to try to get a peek in National Geographic. (Do kids still do that these days or has the internet made National Geographic obsolete?)
Anyway, by your definition, National Geographic is now Porn! Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue is now Porn! Hell... for some Sports Illustrated is now Porn! Medical Journals are now Porn!
Hell, this is just listing human anatomy... You've also made LOLCATZ Porn! I certainly didn't see that coming!
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
Quick! Someone warn Anne Geddes!
Sorry, you're saying that I should intentionally seek out something that has been designated child pornography? And that would make me a man?
I'd rather get back into nappies than be exposed to your concept of manhood.
Sending a letter stating that there categorically is an issue is not a waste of time, and is exactly what I have done.
What I haven't done is stated my view on whether the image contravenes various UK laws or not - not least because my views have no legal standing and viewing the image may be illegal (due to an admittedly fucked up law that describes the creation of an image in computer memory or on the hard disk as creating new and original images).
I haven't needed to view the image to be able to express my concerns, and request the organisations involved to review their procedures and decisions, which is as much as I can hope for.
I could also seek a change in the law, but for that I would write to my MP, not to an unelected non-governmental organisation.
Now, where can I find some adult sized nappies..
I would have suggested just killing everyone, but that would have excited the necrophiliacs.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
The other issue is that if being able to say "But officer, this image is not of a REAL child rape, it is merely a depiction by actors" were sufficient to make an image non-infringeing, obviously all the perps would be doing it. Complicated, isn't it?
Well, in the UK the laws state that pornography must only show consenting adults (of 18 years or older), so in my view as long as that's true then there's no problem: sure dress up as a schoolgirl/schoolboy and act like you're getting raped, as long as it stays within the realm of fantasy.
Another issue arises from the fact that "children" are sexual well before 18, at 13 I was looking at porn and desiring sex with my girlfriend, and I dare say we took some photos of each other nude, IMO this only becomes a problem (e.g. the child is at risk or is being abused) when exploitation is involved, say for example by somebody considerably older.
Our laws however try to make this a black & white contrast between legal and illegal, and are repeatedly interpreted conservatively and side with illegality for some things entirely innocent.
Personally I'd rather interpret the laws as "If the person viewing the images were to have produced them, would it be considered exploitation or abuse", otherwise more and more innocent seeming images will be marked as obscene simply because they have naked children in.
All censorship is wrong. And it's good to know that UK ISP's are censoring. However, Wikipedia admins are the last people on Earth who should be bleating about it.
Wikipedia is censored by:
1. Wikipedia Admins.
2. Jimbo Wales personally.
3. Cabals.
4. The marketing dept of any, and virtually all, corporations and large businesses.
Why should UK ISP's not get a piece of the action too?
Wikipedia admins need to remember that people in glass houses should not throw stones. Get your own house in order before you whine about others.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"For what it's worth, a jury of several members of the IWF would be considered to be as representative of the population as a typical jury."
I disagree. A typical jury isn't self-selecting, the IWF presumably is, and no doubt they all share a similar agenda.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
That cover is not pornographic. It is not sick or disgusting. It is an image of something beautiful- the naked human body. It is art.
Art should never be censored. Ever. Period. Censhorship is inherintly wrong and goes against the very concepts of freedom and democoracy.
Nobody was in any way harmed by the creation of that image. The girl in question most likely went on to live a perfectly ordinary life with no mental issues as a result. (In contrast- If you told her an image of her body was sick and disguesting, this would be far more likely to cause emotional issues).
Sure, there may be people out there that are sexually attracted to it. They are going to get there jollies from all sorts of publically available images, I see no reason for society to censor itself because a fraction of a percent of the population has THOUGHT CRIME over something.
Furthermore, the internet routes around censorship. More specifically, trying to censor an image results in the Streisand effect, effectively making it more visible to people. (Hell, I just googled it and found about 15,000 copies of the image on GIS).
This is not a child pornography: it does not qualify as such by EU directive or by United Nations guidelines. By EU directive, child pornography is: Point (b) covers pornographic material depicting a child engaged in sexually explicit conduct. As specifically regards sexually explicit conduct involving a child, it should be understood to include at least: a) sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital or oral-anal intercourse; b) bestiality; c) masturbation; d) sadistic or masochistic abuse; or e) lascivious exhibition of the genitals or the pubic area. United Kingdom had taken their laws too far. By their definition actually every minor pictured is an example of child pornography even if girls in swimwear on the beach take pictures of themselves in a provocative manner. By UK laws they would lock up half of continental Europe, as kids can be seen naked on all beaches, and whatever that kid does at least one of his "poses" will be sexual to someone. I think UK should change their laws according to EU directive or UN guidelines.
>>>the use of child porn
Stop mislabeling this image as "porn". Standing around without clothing is NOT porn. Sex is porn; this is just simple nudity. OH. And in the U.S. "simulated child porn" is 100% legal because there are no children involved. I don't know if the same is true in the UK, but if it isn't the laws should be rewritten. Adults dressed as children, or CGI simulations of children, is not child anything. To coin a phrase: "No children were harmed during the filming"
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
The technical description of the way filtering works in the UK http://nocky100.wordpress.com/2008/12/08/great-firewall-of-britain/
Honestly, if you defined child porn as e.g. "photographs depicting the sexual abuse of a child", even if that turned out to exclude some pictures that people might want to be included, how many dangerous paedophiles would have collections that didn't include any qualifying images? You only need enough rope to hang them
You believe that anyone in possession of child porn is a dangerous paedophile. This is rational as long as you believe that every adult in possession of any form of porn is a rapist.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
You're from the US. Post on an internet forum that you'd like to kill the President of the US.
Get ready for your visit from the treasury department.
How free are you? Is complying with the law a restriction on freedom or a social contract? If the law states that disseminating child pornography is illegal due to the very real impacts on the children involved then is it so wrong that the law also includes sanctions for doing so?
Am I free? Not as free as I'd like. Probably more free than most people on the planet.
On the other hand, I can view your post containing material regarding killing the President of the US, and could even if you were serious about it. No one would come arrest me simply for the act of viewing.
There should never be a thought crime. By all means lock up those who actually abuse children, that's about as low as it gets. But there should never be a law against viewing, seeing, or knowing something. That way lies the worst type of madness, and as shown by your posts above, makes innocent citizens scared to even investigate the issue.
We can protect children from real, actual harm without thought crime laws, by focusing on those who actually perpetrate abusive acts rather than on those who have "evil thoughts". If we arrested someone for (even in passing) simply thinking about activity that might be criminal, we'd all be in jail.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
This reminds me of the problems Wikipedia had with Qatar and its small pool of IP addresses a few (perhaps many by now) months back...
``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.''
And here I thought that Wikipedia would be knowledgeable enough to know that authentication based on IP does not work. This has been known for...over a decade, I think. Authenticate users by...authenticating the _user_, and you might actually create a system that doesn't suffer from problems like the above.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Jet Airliner: "...funky shit going down in the city..."
Who Are You: (kinda buried in the music) "Who the fuck are you?" (twice in the song)
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I just reported this picture. It's child porn! You can even see his penis!
http://flickr.com/photos/tednmiki/2573243755/
The British government su
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
It's more important than anything. Far more important than any freedom you might think you deserve. Dude - little children are dying while you whine about freedom.
Well, ok, they're not dying. It just sounds better than "little children are being naked."
Well, actually - they are dying, all over the world, from starvation, and disease, and neglect, and lots of other stuff. But nobody cares about that. Because there's no perverts involved in that.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
It's somewhat disconcerting to know that we should be scared of nothing more than accidentally clicking on the wrong web page.
Wikipedia child image censored
A decision by a number of UK internet providers to block a Wikipedia page showing an image of a naked girl has angered users of the popular site.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7770456.stm
thegodmovie.com - watch it
This is totally f'ed up, but the first thing that occurred to me after reading the summary was "what a great way to get alleged 'kiddie porn' into a bunch of people's browser caches through social engineering!"
They put GPS tracker bracelets on you *for life* if you're caught with that stuff in my state of the U.S.
Not as traumatic as a burning at the stake, mind you, but its the same process.
I choose to believe that there is no intolerable evil. To paraphrase Hawthorne, "The Ultimate Sin is to try and find and/or determine the Ultimate Sin." As soon as we turn our brains off, and assume something is "too dangerous" for temperance or tolerance, we lose sight of justice, and take leave of our senses, as has this organization.
There can be no justice without restraint and redemption. If it's truly irredeemable, the ethical action would be to execute the person. Everything other crime is, to at least some small degree, *tolerable*.
That said, this organization's actions seem not as foolish, bloody or expensive as a Crusade against the Saracen, but it's the same process. They just aren't ethical enough, or lack the clarity of purpose, to kill their "irredeemable" enemies.
What a bunch of thugs and hypocrites.
AC
Yes, it makes it so much easier to judge a book by it's cover and avoid being exposed to points of view you might not agree with. You don't want to learn about witch hunts and unjust prosecution because hey, think of the children. It doesn't matter that the courts, the legislature, and the police are slowly broadening the definition of 'child pornography; because its just kiddy diddlers - right? They'll never come for you after all.
Yes, that. Or he was at work.
Porn or not, Wikipedia's dependency on relative IP uniqueness has provided unexpected insight into the implementation.
I'd expect they're using DNS assisted URL filtering, as in, a "suspicious domains" list is provided to the ISP, and requests for resources on those domains are redirected to the "transparent proxies". In normal operation, the client connects to the ISPs DNS to get the IP of the destination machine. Then the client connects to that IP address.
If the domain is in the "suspicious" list, the request is redirected over to the proxy which masquerades as the actual web site (which is why SSL may work, but regular HTTP doesn't), provided the specific URL isn't the problem URL.
If the URL is in fact the problem URL, then the call to the actual web server doesn't happen - and the client gets the generated warning message.
This means that the ISP needn't maintain a list of all the URLs that are "bad", just a list of domains that may have "bad" content. It also means that the whole domain needn't be blocked if "bad" content has been found on it. However, it does mean that the web server sees only a small set of IPs.
This wouldn't affect someone like Google so much, but, because of their dependency on IPs, is much more noticeable for Wikipedia. I provided similar text (plus pictures!) over there.
Whether or not that image should be considered child porn should be up to the courts to decide.
I'll probably get modded "flamebait", but. . .
Are you people fucking blind? This is a prepubescent girl pictured in the nude, for Christ sake!! How much more "consideration" do you need? Stop defending this sick shit for the sake of "art"! It's child porn, plain and simple, and the art director should have been arrested for photographing that little girl, not to mention her parents. You don't need a court to decide what your eyes should already tell you.
"If your parents never had children, chances are you wonât either." -Dick Cavett
No perverts involved in the bad stuff happening to children around the world? There's all kinds of fucked up things happened to children in Africa. Not only are they starving to death, but they're getting married at the age of 13. I recently heard of a teenage girl who was raped, and because she was married she was sentenced to death. She was taken to a public arena, and stoned to death. It's very biblical, and both her husband and her rapist are perverts.
You've written to them regarding the issue which is more than 99% of the posters here have done. I commend you. It will be interesting to see their response to that as you've essentially embodied the central issue - is it legitimate for you to look at the image or not. The IWF have not pursued legal action in this matter (which they could do by reporting any of the UK-based sources of this image, e.g. Amazon.co.uk, HMV, Google cache and numerous others, I'm sure), so you're basically asking them to actually make a judgement in response to you. I suspect they'll dodge the issue and just say "it may be illegal" or you'll get a form letter.
But whilst I'll hopefully put the point in far more constructive terms than the other poster, I don't think you have anything to be concerned about in looking at this image. It's now in the browser cache of hundreds of thousands of your fellow citizens and you'll see similar material in your local library, art gallery, European beach or anywhere else, really. If you want to be untraceable in looking at it, nip into HMV and look at the album - Scorpions: The Virgin Killer. If you self-censor yourself from checking it out this way, they really have got to you!
Regards,
H.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Some will agree with you. Some won't.
Probably you will agree too with those who think that a woman's face is sexually provocative (nothing is more attracting than the beauty of a face) and must be covered whenever they go out in public.
Oh! That's not a grey area, it's indecent and point blank illegal to go out without their burkas. It must be punished. Or at least, it's so in some countries.
Who is an hypocrite?
Sorry, I know it was a plain troll, but could not help it.
Are you people fucking blind? This is a prepubescent girl pictured in the nude, for Christ sake!! How much more "consideration" do you need? Stop defending this sick shit for the sake of "art"! It's child porn, plain and simple, and the art director should have been arrested for photographing that little girl, not to mention her parents. You don't need a court to decide what your eyes should already tell you.
So you think a child should never, ever be photographed nude? How about paintings? What do you have to say to 1200 years of art history? How about my naked baby picture? The little girl was harmed not at all, grew up, and has no regrets. Do you still feel the same way? Do tell how this photograph changed from "art" to "sick shit" when nudity was involved...
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Almost two years ago, Wikipedia banned users from the State of Qatar from editing anonymously, and from signing up for accounts. At the time, it was dismissed as a storm in a tea-cup by Jim Wales. Many people decided it wasn't a problem because of the small size of the country.
Well, now the rest of the world is catching up with the Middle East in the use of transparent proxies, maybe Wikipedia will try to find some solution to the problem. In Qatar, for the last two years, we have continued to be blocked for months at a time from editing.
Playboy pretends all their models are 18 or older because in the current cultural atmosphere they haven't the guts to fess up to the truth about many of their underage Playmates that they keep reprinting, like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Baker, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia_Myers, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patti_Reynolds. Most of their youngest models' pictures don't violate U.S. laws but Penny Baker is arguably an exception. The only one they admit was underage is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Ann_Roberts, and even with her they still reprint her centerfold every couple of years.
Just like the girl on the Virgin Killer album cover has no problem with her image still existing, neither do Penny Baker and Cynthia Myers, who've signed their old pictures for their fans at events like Glamourcon. It's time for laws against simple nudity in photography to be eliminated because they are subjectively written, discriminatorily enforced, and take attention away from really important targets like images of actual child abuse.
Image is here personally i really do not care about this whole censorship issue as in my opinion the whole world/society is doomed and is going to come crashing down pretty soon. Good luck with creating a better world/society, but i think your all doomed to failure and we will soon be forced into just worrying about survival nothing else as you roam the waste lands. Good luck
Puritans of the world can always disconnect from the Internet or build their own.
Mandating something drastic for $religious-group other than your own is what caused religious wars in the past or an exodus of said groups if free space was available.
I will certainly not be held to Puritan or Shiite or Sunnite or Hindu moral standards. I tolerate general Christianity, but only until they reinstate the Inquisition. Which always comes unexpected, I know.
Well, my irony detector wasn't suggesting anything so I try to take you serious.
First serious question: do people (including children) die in greater numbers in totalitarian or in libertarian societies?
In my view, totalitarian societies tend to cause the death of hundreds of thousands of people including children while libertarian societies do not.
I prefer the society with the least risk of children dying. If this model has its drawbacks or is imperfect, well, that's the price. But risking torture, imprisonment, re-education camps for adults and kids to save kids from perverts is a laughable trade-off without taking pervert dictators themselves into account.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/dec/08/wikipedia-censorship
Firstly - I am in the UK and can access both the image and the page (and could before it was edited). But then, my ISP is controlled by a university (Cambridge) and so goes through Janet.
Secondly, the BBC has now picked up on the story - they seem to be keeping fairly neutral as expected, (and helpfully have a picture showing us what a mouse and keyboard look like).
Having viewed the image (posting ac partly because that statement places me in the position of potentially being locked up) I can see why it may be against UK law and hence could be blocked here - that said, just redirecting to a 404 seems... rather unpleasant - if it was to be done, the only reasonable way would be to replace it with something saying "this has been removed due to potentially being indecent - to view the image anyway click here".
I guess the IWF feels under a lot of pressure lately, given that the UK supposedly has one of the highest underage pregnancy figures and there are various high-profile stories (just this week, one about a gang of 13-17 year-old boys raping a 14-year old schoolgirl for "insulting one of their girlfriends").
Finally, I would like to point out that this *isn't* the UK government - this is a watchdog and a group of ISPs... (we all know how incompetent the government is) and the so called "police involvement" could be as little as an email from an officer saying "yes, this is probably illegal".
The website you mention actually bans images. May I ask what you find so intimidating about the site mentioned?
She was fucking fine with the image, if you had read the damn article.
Also, nobody is going to listen to you because you are exactly the sort of idiots who populate IWF.
"THINK OF THE CHILDRENS! OH HOLY GOD"
You people make me sick. You should be locked up.
HUMANITY WAS BORN NAKED, AND FOREVER IT SHALL BE.
I'm doing the same, not to get Amazon banned but to draw attention to this ridiculous situation. They'll probably just remove it though. Money > ...I was going to say Art, but anything actually.
I'm with Be too, and getting the 404 message. I don't understand why ISPs are allowing themselves to get dragged into this kind of thing (which, having seen the image on Amazon, *is* an edge case and not as unprovocative as some people here would like to claim).
ISPs should be seen as common carriers. If someone mails child porn, does the Royal Mail get sued? Do we expect them to open all packages in case they contain something illegal? Why do it with ISPs?
Yes, it's a naked, under-age girl, but there is nothing sexual about the pose and no sexual activity is going on. It also doesn't look like the girl was abused in the process of taking the picture and as the article says: 'Even the girl, when we met her fifteen years later, had no problem with the cover.' I have no reason to doubt that, since otherwise the girl would have sued by now. Be reminded that abuse and consent problems are the main reason child porn is banned. The only thing that may be taken as slightly suggestive is the broken glass effect centred on her genitals. But in the same process, the effect obscures them, and from the context in which the image was used, it is clear that the meaning isn't sexual, as you can easily verify for yourself. So no, this obviously is not child porn.
Now, the nasty thing is this: I want child porn banned. But then a censor would be needed to decide what is and isn't child porn. Can we objectively define child porn? Who will write the definition? With people like you around, we can be absolutely certain that works will be banned that aren't child porn. Which opens the door to e.g. banning works officially because of child porn, but actually because something else in the work didn't sit well with someone. So in the interest of freedom of expression, taking into account that people like you exist, I think child porn shouldn't be banned. Of course, there can still be laws regarding child abuse, consent, and proceeds of crime, so child porn can still be fought without sacrificing our essential civil liberties. But child porn as such shouldn't be banned.
Exactly. Some should ask the IWF exactly how this girl is being "abused".
Of course, they won't have an answer for that, because it's quite clear to me that this is just a cover-up for the real reason, that they don't want people editing Wikipedia from the UK.
The fact that you're already so afraid of big brother watching over your shoulder that you won't click on a link, not because of its content but because it might contain something that is criminally taboo in society is telling volumes about the current state of society. This is exactly why privacy isn't something optional and we should be fighting tooth and nail to get it back.
Karma? What's that again?
I'm sure many people do. Cover something up and increase its mystique.
Can we just skip the wait and censor all advertising now?
Me too. And for the first time in my life, I thought to myself, that I would be safer visiting a site from work than from my own home. At work I'm somewhat more anonymous. This is getting ridiculous!
Oliver ormwell did just that
I had to scan the whole page before I found that button, which of course is starting you in the face in the middle of the page. I just thought it was a logo.
Hadrian's Firewall is the United Kingdoms equivalent of the Great Firewall of China.
http://hadriansfirewall.com/
The URL, of course.
And the chance of it being logged in his company's firewall / proxy or whatever. The implied meaning of the main part of the URL is enough to trigger alarms - especially for those without the capacity to think, review the site and come to a rational conclusion about its purpose.
These days, a string is enough to get you fired, if you work at the wrong place.
Scary, isn't it?
remember, these days, we (the society) convict children for producing and distributing child porn when they make and share nude pictures of themselves!
And for that extra dash of irony, get trialed as adults!
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
As a kid I used to try to get a peek in National Geographic.
Which means you were using NG as pornography, does it not? Or was your arousal a by-product of your anthropology.
Sports illustrated, from what I've heard on teh internetz, _is_ porn - or at least it's used as porn by a large proportion of young North American males.
NB I made no value judgement about porn, only an attempt to categorise it.
Well that's settled then - apparently we don't need the courts, we can just ask some guy on Slashdot to tell us if someone's guilty or not.
and the art director should have been arrested for photographing that little girl, not to mention her parents
Well that's just it - why aren't they being prosecuted, if that little girl (who must now be in her 40s, btw, we could always ask her what she thinks) was really abused in the production of the image?
Through the magic of https (which prevents this kind of man-in-the-middle attack), the page can be viewed. They would have to block all https connections to the secure wikimedia server to block the page.
Regular: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer
Secure: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Virgin_Killer
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
That's a poorly worded choice, as I personally don't want my children having free access to "perverted erotic material" at all, but that's the job of parents, schools or wherever they access the net, not ISPs.
If you're talking about children rather than adults, you won't get much support for them having unrestricted access to objectional material full stop.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
A spike in album sales and a spike in torrent traffic are always correlated. There's never a spike in one without a spike in the other. Never.
I just got off the phone after a long conversation with Virgin Media in response to my complaint. I originally complained about 3 points.
1. They were being dishonest with customers by dropping the connection or returning a page not found error when blocking, and that they should inform the customer when they block something. Surprisingly, Virgin assured me that they were making changes to do so!
2. That by redirecting the whole of Wikipedia through a transparent proxy and not passing the "X-Forwarded-From" header they were breaking Wikipedia and preventing all of their customers from editing Wikipedia anonymously. On this point the customer services rep claimed that I was the first person who had complained about this, but if 5 people reported it as a technical problem then it would be investigated. So if you are a Virgin Media customers, please call Virgin and complain that you can't edit Wikipedia anonymously due to a Virgin technical problem!
3. That Virgin Media had broken their contract to me by blocking some content and not providing access to the whole of the internet. They claimed that their terms and conditions allowed them to do this, although they insisted on sending me a highlighted copy by post(!) to tell me which part applied.
A latent existence
So wait, are we not being shown pictures of naked starving African pictures because it's child porn or because we don't the media to remind us of the constant suffering of the world?
I'm so confused. Please give me less information.
P.S. Hmm, those pictures I took of Amazonian natives in Peru should probably be burned... before I am.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
*African children
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Cover it up too much and it's overlooked...
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
BT give the 404 thing as well.
Me too. And for the first time in my life, I thought to myself, that I would be safer visiting a site from work than from my own home. At work I'm somewhat more anonymous. This is getting ridiculous!
Yeah, but do you think your employers would hesitate to dive into the logs and see who pulled up that URL, if the police asked?
Not that I think that scenario is terribly likely - I'm just saying, I don't expect that "somewhat anonymous" by virtue of connecting through your employer's net connection gets you much...
Bow-ties are cool.
Similarly I can view discussion on child pornography, and even written descriptions of sex with children without breaking the law.
I can also view indecent images of children, legally.
I can not create indecent images of children without breaking the law. The current interpretation of the law is that rendering an image in RAM to display on a screen creates that image. People have been successfully prosecuted on this exact basis for creating indecent images of children.
Technically that isn't thought crime. It's the creation of indecent images, which the law deems to encourage the future abuse of children even if no abuse occurred in the creation of the image. By targeting the consumers of abusive imagary your theoretically reduce the demand and thus supply drops, leading to a reduction in occurrences of abuse.
You can point out all the flaws in those arguments and I'll probably agree. It's a fucking stupid law in many regards, but it's not thought crime.
You're allowed to think about abusing children all you like.
I don't think the law in the US is actually all that different. In fact, in the US you can be prosecuted for creating images of people shitting themselves. Apparently it contravenes obscenity laws if there's any sexual motive involved, even if they're fully dressed.
It's a wonderful world.
You're right, it was poorly worded. Actually, I meant "our children" as our descendants, as adults in the future.
I would not allow my children unfiltered access to the Internet as long as they are underage, but with a filter of my choice with machines I myself am able to control and that can be properly deactivated for whatever reasons I see fit.
But after my children turn 18, they are adults and should have all options available to adults, especially unfiltered access to the Internet, media and news. This will mean that they will at some point see their first Goatse and midget porn, but they will also be able to educate themselves about the government's actions, their rights and freedom in general.
I will not trade any of my rights for protection from Goatse and a lousy Scorpions album cover. Whoever thinks differently has been thoroughly cheated.
Just in case anyone's interested, if you're not using their DNS servers, there seems to be no block.
Demon's DNS server is currently resolving en.wikipedia.org to 193.195.3.33 (RDNS iwfwebfilter.thus.net). Using OpenDNS I get the real Wikipedia IP and the page is not blocked.
Maybe I'm lucky, but we don't do any logging of that sort at my workplace.
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.
I agree. If you actually read the US laws on child porn, you will find that the person doesn't even have to be underage. If the person is being portrayed as underage it also counts.
Which means there are a huge number of popular movies that make millions a year which technically count as having child porn in them.
In many cases it doesn't even have to be a person, it can be a drawing or a cartoon and still qualify.
It's a case of selective enforcement, but it basically leads to the censors being able to restrict any content they don't like while allowing content which they are ok with, and to hell with logic or fairness.
I also am in the UK, and would suffer a life-altering event should I be pulled up for 'kiddieporn' (tm). But I still viewed it. At some point you just have to be in control of your own mind.
As later posters say - view it on Amazon where the IWF has not banned it if you think it's safer. But I think it's pretty safe - Channel 4 showed the image on this evenings news!
Don't send a letter to the IWF. As far as I can see, they are just doing a correct job - the image can be argued to break the law. The problem is not with the IWF (though they are a load of slimey purient ex-fuzz who would be improved by being dropped in a swamp). The problem is with the law. So write a letter to your MP, and copy it to the Home Secretary...
No. The poster is reasonable enough to be British.
To be fully British, he should also apologise for having sent the letter, and, indeed, existing...
The letter you wrote is literally meaningless. There is no meaning within it. You don't have concerns with the law, because you don't know what the effects of the law are. "Dear Sirs: I read an article that says I should be scared. I don't know whether I should or not. please be aware of my acknowledgement that there may or may not be an issue. Signed, Cederic"
Decisiveness is a masculine trait, that's where I'm saying "Act like a man". Refusing to form an opinion because you don't want to get in trouble, but writing a letter as if you do, it's the ultimate in indecisiveness. "I don't have an opinion, and I'm going to make sure my non-opinion is heard by the powers that be! I'll write a letter stating my concern that something I might have a concern about may going on! Maybe an entire ARMY of people will write in about the things that they haven't decided whether they're bothered by or not, and we can get the entire ADMINISTRATION acting on our show of solidarity, our message strong and pure, one that our grandchildren will be proud of: 'We may or may not be troubled!', the roaring call from which our flags are hoisted and our battle lines drawn! Or not! We haven't decided!"
It's been a long time.
If you want to find out if you are blocked, try Special:Mytalk. This page will redirect to the talk page for whatever IP address you appear to be connecting from. If that page happens to have a message like this one on it, then you are being transparently routed by your ISP, and they are probably not sending X-Forwarded-For like they should.
Do you think the scorpions intended the image to be this close to the border line of illegal / legal? did they really mastermind all of this? I think people are missing the main point of the article, or maybe I did...but I think it's more about the potential for future censoring, as interpreted by the IWF...basically if they're controlling what 95% of UK viewers can see, there's not much room for anything to slip by. I think someone mentioned this above, what happens if you miss something important because they want you to?
It shows "Image not available" for me.
Has the image been taken down? I am in Australia, and not sure if my ISP is participating in the trial for the Great Firewall of Australia trial , but if it was I doubt I would see the Image not available message.
Yes the image seems to be taken down now. I'd be interested in hearing what happened.
U+F8FF
The irony of course, is that the reason UK users can no longer edit pages is because Wikipedia implements censorship of its edits: Wikipedia blocks edits from problematic IPs - censoring them - and now that UK traffic comes from one IP, they are censoring everyone.
Its wikipedia that is doing the blocking of edits, NOT ISPs.
True story: I would have never seen this naked pre-pubescent girl, had the people oh-so-anxious to hide it from all eyes not made a huge deal and gotten noticed on Slashdot. Now, they have guaranteed that millions of people will see the image, who would never have known of its existence otherwise. Lesson: if you don't want people to know about something, don't talk about it at all.
On the other hand, the letter I wrote has resulted in Amazon, HMV and other retailers removing that image from their website.
Pretty significant impact for a couple of minutes of typing.
Meanwhile, I haven't viewed the image. Forgive me for not seeking out child pornography. I made the conscious decision not to; lucky my decision to write a letter has had decisive results.
Maybe it wasn't as meaningless as you thought.
So you changed something.
You don't know whether it was reasonable or not. You don't know whether it was a good thing to take the images down or not. You don't know anything. For all you know, you just caused an inhuman and unjust act of censorship of a work of meaningful art.
Your actions are completely meaningless, because they are completely devoid of any actual decision.
You're like Jack Thompson writing letters condemning Mass Effect as a porno because it features 30 seconds of bare ass despite never having played the game, because he read an article.
Congratulations on jumping on a bandwagon without gathering enough facts to form an opinion of your own. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
It's been a long time.
After seeing what happened in Australia about "representations" of minors (who aren't real anyway), I must be a little concerned.
See my journal, I write things there
I should add that unlike Jack Thompson, you don't even land firmly on the side of "I'm upset about this". You land in some even worse camp of "I may have possibly been upset about this if I had bothered to take a look".
Shit, it's a picture of the Venus de Milo with an under age drivers license pinned to her forehead. Now don't you feel like a tool, considering it was banned thanks to your letter?
It's been a long time.
It's not necessary for a victim of child pornography to claim they have a problem with it.
The main problem is that they don't have the power to make that claim in the first place, and there are probably many who still wouldn't even 15 years later.
Here we have a case that can be seen as either artistic expression or sexual exploitation of a minor for the purpose of selling records, but the issue as always is who gets to decide.
because it sucks. Slashdot saves me the trouble of reading sucky posts. They should raise the quality threshold on Wikipedia so the Scorpions collapse and grey out of existence.
"Because there's no perverts involved in that."
ITYM there are no white children involved in that.
How is the image in question any "worse" than the cover art for Blind Faith?
You completely missed the point. If a bunch of experts look at an image and say "this counts as child porn as defined by the UK law", then it is. If not, not. *shrug* who cares? that's just a detail, not a matter of principle.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
The issue is what happens when material that might be innocuous in some contexts is found on e.g. a website along with a ton of images of straightforward child rape. Obviously you or I won't regard that image as porn because (presumably) we are not sexually aroused by pics of naked children. THAT'S BECAUSE WE'RE NOT PAEDOPHILES. Duh.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
The implication of your statement is the publication and possession of child porn should be legal. Is that really what you think?
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
The implication of your statement is the publication and possession of child porn should be legal.
There is no implications in my statement.
As to whether child pornography should be legal; yes it should be. Any normal non-fanatical, non-right wing person would agree.
Somehow i don't find naked child pictures arousing. Either they are cute, like in a family photo, or if abused, disgusting.
This IS child pornography by my sense. It is just done by a 'socially accepted group'.
The same picture would have burned out the fuses if not published by the Scorpions/Wikipedia but found on some porn ring's HD.
Though i agree, this girl was probably not molested while doing that pic, so its effects are probably less than a clear cut child porn case.
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