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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."
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
Congratulations on trying to shape Internet access. Just imagine if something actually IMPORTANT came along the UK didn't want you to see!
To the administrators of Wikipedia:
Play hardball. Block those 6 IPs from any access whatsoever, explain why, stick to your guns.
The worst thing that will happen is, people in the UK will become stupider, while those who are not participating in this censorship will be advantaged, so your enemies will diminish themselves by their own hand and your friends will become more powerful allies by virtue of the gift you have given them.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
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.
Totally agree. I'm on one of these ISPs, and I'm appalled by this censorship. I'd like to take it a step further though. Organise a DNSRBL along the lines of SpamHaus that contains a list of IPs on ISPs that perform censorship. Redirect any port 80 requests from people in that IP range to a page explaining that, their ISP is only allowing them access to some arbitrary subest of the Internet, rather than the whole Internet, they are now allowed to view your page. Make it easy for other organisations to use. When you have a choice between Virgin Media at £25/month for a small subset of the Internet, or a small ISP at £30/month but with access to Wikipedia and all of the other sites that value freedom then it's not such an easy choice as when price is the only issue.
Profit making sites probably can't afford to join in (unless they have a left-leaning demographic and use 'we oppose censorship' as a marketing gimmick), but there are lots of non-commercial sites on the 'net that would.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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 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.
I predicted it! Just yesterday I said it's only a matter of time until wikipedia get filtered by the Australian. Well I was off by about 10,000 miles but I was right that SOME government would eventually filter wikipedia & suppress freedom of knowledge.
And I agree with the parent poster. If the UK Government is going to stupidly censor the internet, then block the whole damn country until the UK citizens rise-up and demand "freedom" and "liberty" from their Parliamentarian Oligarchs.
BTW here's the picture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Virgin_Killer.jpg
Wow. It's a naked girl. Contrary to being insulted, I think it's beautiful. The naked human body is a testament to the Creator's majesty and perfection, not a sin, and I see no reason why we should cover-up a naked human anymore than we cover-up a naked deer or naked bear or naked seal. There is *nothing* shameful here. "Because God created it, the human body can remain nude and uncovered and preserve intact its splendor and its beauty." - Pope John Paul II.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
The naked human body is a testament to the Creator's majesty and perfection, not a sin, and I see no reason why we should cover-up a naked human anymore than we cover-up a naked deer or naked bear or naked seal.
You forgot naked beaver.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Well, are pictures of kids in non-sexual settings child porn? Plenty of parents still take pics of their kids in the tub...etc.
Now...granted...this album cover, well, could be taken as a bit more suggestive that those type of pics, but, she is not in any sexual situation, so is it child porn? Or, these days, does any nude picture of someone under (age in you area) constitute child porn?
At any rate..I'm guessing they will have a problem with:
Houses of the Holywith the kids climbing up the rocks
And Blind Faith's album.
Sigh...are we going backwards or what? These albums have been out forever, and are classic....why are people having such a fit now?
Then again....on the classic rock station the other day...I was shocked to hear them censor Pink Floyd's "Money", The Who's "Who Are You", Steve Miller Band "Jet Airliner"....and a couple of others. These songs have been played since I was a kid....why are they censoring them NOW?!?!?
OH well...time for juice and coffee....and You kids get off my lawn!!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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
Indeed, if I saw that cover without the tag "child pornography" as input in my mind I would have not thought of anything to do with child pornography in the first place, rather some deeper meaning, maybe what could have been the actual intention of the band. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer)
Well done UK, you screwed our heads now!
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!
Look buddy. You either start screaming during the Two Minutes Hate, or people are going to start asking questions. OK?
May the Maths Be with you!
So why aren't the UK record stores being prosecuted for selling this "child pornography"?
KeS
I agree. It is child porn. This cover is disgusting.
I have very mixed feelings about this. I was expecting a cut-and-dry case of unwarranted censorship as overcompensation by prudish government officials for their hidden pedophilic tendencies. But it's not that simple, and, as you note, the cover is not entirely innocent.
But I say that my feelings are "mixed" because going so far as to call it "child porn" somehow seems excessive. Society has decided that the production of child pornography is among the worst, most despicable crimes. Yet somehow this album cover does not seem to fit this characterization. It's borderline to be sure, but would it be appropriate to put, say, the band members or their photographer on a sex offender registry? I don't think so. Somehow, despite the fact that there is some sexualization of the girl in the image, the intent does not seem entirely pornographic.
As for the image itself:
On the one hand, the cover does have the girl in a pose that implies, through a degree or two of association, sex. It's not explicitly sexual; she's not engaging in or pantomiming any sex-act. But the image is also not of a girl who "just happens" to be nude. This brings me to my first question: What about the girl's pose evokes sex? Is it that the pelvis is tilted up, and is closer to the camera than the rest of the body? Is it that she is posed to provide an entirely unoccluded view of the (beginnings of) breasts, and to place them in the center of the image? I'm having a hard time saying what, in concrete terms, makes this pose sexualizing. Part of the reason I ask is that classical and Renaissance art adopted a number of stylized poses which, if we're honest, were partially erotic in intent. But this pose is slightly different. So I'm wondering what the important distinction is -- or if there is one.
More problematically, the broken glass effect radiates out from between the legs. This is obviously intended to emphasize the (occluded) vagina; I don't think there's any denying this.
So does all this add up to porn? I don't know. It's borderline. But then, that itself is part of the purpose of art; in fact, I sense that it may have become art's primary purpose: to explore boundaries, to shock, to offend sensibilities.
All of which makes it very hard for me to make a judgment here. But this, I suspect, is itself a reason not to censor: I think it's probably reasonable to say that censorship, if it is ever appropriate, is only so when there isn't any doubt; i.e., the benefit of the doubt should go to free speech.
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.