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Collateral Damage as UK Censors Internet Archive
An anonymous reader noted the latest developments in the controversial censoring of the internet by UK ISPs. Apparently since some content of the Wayback Machine is bad, the whole thing needs to be blacklisted.
The fact that the IWF are blocking access to indecent images in the Internet Archive proves that they are a moralistic organisation rather than one which wishes to protect children. The dubious claim made by organisations such as the IWF is that simply viewing indecent images "creates a demand". While this claim is already flawed due to the fact that most producers take illegal images for profit/trade, the claim is undoubtedly wrong in the case of images on an archive which is almost certainly not operated by people who create indecent images. Just how would a producer be aware of the "increased demand" when he doesn't even know that the images are being viewed?
"To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free" ~ Nineteen Eighty-Four
Being in the USA myself, and hearing how bad the USA has become, I wonder how people justify such remarks in contrast to Australia and the UK?
Perhaps some folk would care to compare what is available in the UK and Australia and what is not, list those links on a website to show the world exactly how much is being censored. When the world can see how much is being withheld from the citizenry, it's probable that the UN and other countries will disagree with such censorship. I'm reasonably certain that you'll find instances of political censorship, and that would not look good.
Even wiki entry editing is a form of censorship and we've seen how that is not viewed as a good thing.
I wonder if anyone has any idea how much Australia and the UK are spending to censor the Internet.
I wonder how much (kiddy)porn is actually being censored. Is Al Jezzera on the black list? How about bloggers from Isreal?
Since there is probably already a way around the censoring mechanisms, does anyone know what it/they is/are?
The whole 'Virgin Killer' thing is stupendously idiotic. A picture which has been in the public view for decades gets banned? WTF? If Brits are getting any American television at all, there are far worse things to be seen there, every day. period. Not sure if anyone has seen Little Britain, but what I've seen of it outpaces the Virgin Killer album by miles. I fail to see how they justify that censorship, or any for that matter. Thought police!
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While I agree that the picture you paint is truly terrifying I think it is important that one point is reiterated: the fact that the government now routinely threaten groups of people with legislation. The problem with this, as far as I can see it, is that we now have a whole raft of pseudo laws (nuLaws maybe) which we have no redress against. Worse still, very few (if any) of these nuLaws are debated in anyway that could be considered open and there is no standardized way to have them reviewed once they are in place. If the government ever want to increase the scope of these nuLaws they just have to put pressure on the nuLaw enforcers who have a vested interest in doing exactly what the government tell them as their existence depends on it. If the people cry foul the government can simply point the finger and say it wasn't us.
If all of that wasn't bad enough I believe the sort of people that gravitate to this type of organization tend to be conservative and more pro-censorship. It's like the age old joke that you don't want anyone serving as a police officer that wants to be a police officer.
I want off this rock!
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Not that free.
The IWF was created to appease the police who were otherwise going to prosecute ISPs and the ISPs were also due to face government legislation back in the 90s otherwise.
Accept the watch list, or face criminal action and legislation. That doesn't particularly sound like free choice to implement it or not to me. I'm not even sure what ISPs don't implement it, I doubt the list is particularly very big. Certainly the list of ISPs that do implement it on the IWF website is pretty comprehensive. Besides even if the free market did come in to play and the ISPs that didn't implement it started growing in size how much choice do you think they'd have to continue not to implement it?