Wales Supports Purging Porn From Wikipedia

Larry Sanger writes "Jimmy Wales recently took a bold position against pornography on Wikimedia Commons: 'Wikimedia Commons admins who wish to remove from the project all images that are of little or no educational value but which appeal solely to prurient interests have my full support.' Wales also restarted the "Commons:Sexual content" policy page. His basic complaint is that Wikimedia Commons hosts too much unnecessary porn, and he wants to get rid of it. He underscored his seriousness this way, stating that we can expect 'a strong statement' from the WMF soon: 'If the Wikimedia Foundation wants to declare that it is OK for Commons to be a porn host, they can do that, and I'll not be able to continue. That isn't going to happen, though, and in fact you should expect a strong statement from the Board and/or Sue in the next few days.'" (More, below.) Sanger continues: "This comes about a month after I originally posted my report about depictions of child sexual molestation on Wikimedia Foundation servers to the FBI, which Slashdot duly ripped to shreds (as only Slashdot can), and a little over a week after the FoxNews.com story. The latter coverage reported that one of my senators, and my representative to Congress, had forwarded the matter to the FBI's Assistant Director of Congressional Affairs. I'm happy to be able to congratulate Jimmy Wales for his good judgment on this, and I look forward to the larger Wikimedia community approaching these issues with a little more sanity."

Comments

does Wales still have any authority?

[Trepidity]

I would've thought after the embezzling-expenses scandal, the Canadian-right-wing-talk-show-host scandal, the conflict of interest between his for-profit business at Wikia and the non-profit charity Wikipedia, and who knows how many others, that he would've been put out to pasture by now.

Re:does Wales still have any authority?

[Moryath]

I personally think he should be forced to read this several times in a sitting.

And then yeah. He needs to be put out to pasture. And so do most of his patsies and corrupt hangers-on that make up the majority of Wikipedia's "administrator" clique while we're at it. Wikipedia has gotten to the point where so many article spaces are completely worthless because they're controlled not by sensible people wanting to write a real encyclopedia, but by organized game-players who rig the system.

Re:does Wales still have any authority?

[the phantom]

Neither Wales, nor Wikia, nor Wikipedia are the US government, hence the first amendment applies to them only insofar as the government cannot limit their speech. They have no obligation to protect anyone else's speech. They can censor whatever they want, whenever they want, for any reason that they want.

Re:does Wales still have any authority?

[ArsonSmith]

No.

Re:does Wales still have any authority?

[geekoid]

Yes.

traditional, things like 'Censorship' were defined as being done by a government because that was they large body. IN fact, they were the government because the controlled everything.

It's been different since the East Indies trading company.

Simple look at how it behaves makes it very clear that yes, they need to have the constitution applied to them as well. The point of the constitution is to limit the controlling power, i.e. the feds and states.*

In fact, the power exerted by English corporation is why several of our founders wanted the constitution to ban them outright, Along with copyright. Both are tools for creating powerful controlling entities outside the frame work of government. Yiou can talk free market all you want, but the demonstrated fact is that large corporation have controlling effects that mean no market can actually be free because the consumer doesn't get all the information they need to make a good** decision.
Since they can become more controlling then a government they need limitations and regulations.

*Yes, it's more complex, but that;s it in a very small nutshell.

**good for them, not good as in higher principles.

Re:does Wales still have any authority?

[Wog]

Until a company can come to my house with guns and take away my freedom for choosing to not do business with them, the Bill of Rights should continue to apply only to the government.

Re:does Wales still have any authority?

[rilian4]

No corporation, regardless of size, has remotely close to the power of the federal government. Go look up the money available to a given company and then look at how much the federal budget is. The difference is staggering.

The 1st amendment is sufficient as written to control the federal government in the area of free speech and freedom of religion. That was the intent of the Constitution in general...limiting the power of government over free people. The constitution was NEVER designed to limit or otherwise interfere with private business of any kind within the borders of the US. (The fed was given the power to tax imports from private businesses outside the borders...this is called a tariff. The fed was also given the ability to regulate interstate commerce...it has been abused by congress mightily).

As was said by a previous poster, the 1st amendment only guarantees that congress can't make a law that infringes on your right to free speech, your right to the "free exercise of religion", freedom of the press or preventing you from petitioning the government "for a redress of grievances". This amendment also prevents congress from passing a law "...respecting an establishment of religion".

This amendment says nothing about what a private company can or cannot tell its employees to do or say.

Re:does Wales still have any authority?

[Arthur Grumbine]

Corporations are owned by people. To force certain "standards of behavior" on a corporation is to say to the owners of that corporation, "You do not have the same rights to do what you want with this particular property as you have with your other property. Instead you must accept limitations of use not according to infringements of other people's fundamental rights (as is the case for all other private property), but according to the property's value to the public." Unless of course, you believe that people have a fundamental right to use other people's private property with the same freedom that they use public property.

How valuable/powerful should a corporation be before it's controlled by the government "for the common good"? Is it the right (maybe you believe "duty") of government to punish those who have been successful enough to build a large corporation, by slowly removing the owner's property rights?

Re:does Wales still have any authority?

[lawpoop]

Go look up the money available to a given company and then look at how much the federal budget is. The difference is staggering.

I think the figure we should look at is the amount of money that companies control in aggregate compared to the government.

Joseph Campbell said if you want to see who's in control in society, look at who has the biggest building. In ancient societies, it was a pyramid or ziggurat, controlled by a God/King/Priest. In Europe in the middle ages, the biggest buildings were cathedrals, run by the church. After the enlightenment, it was government buildings, and public buildings like railway stations. In today's world, it's office buildings run by corporations.

Of course...

[TheRaven64]

If Wikipedia has porn, it competes with Wales' other web site, he wouldn't want that...

Re:"too much unnecessary porn"

[Spazztastic]

What does that even mean? So you host porn. And you admit some of it is unnecessary. And the ratio of unnecessary porn to necessary porn is too high? WTF?! Just stop hosting porn, or STFU.

This does raise a good question: What is a necessary amount of porn?

Start with this then...

[Capt James McCarthy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_de_Milo

Censorship is a slippery slop.

Re:Start with this then...

[cyp43r]

You thought the VENUS DE MILO would be clothed?

Re:Start with this then...

[Ephemeriis]

That's not pornography (though I object to this image, of course, for many reasons).

It may not be something that you would consider pornography... But that doesn't mean nobody out there does.

It's a topless woman. Sure, she's a statue... And missing arms... But she's still topless. There are plenty of websites out there displaying plenty of images awfully similar to this.

And there are plenty of people out there who's been offended by statues just like this. We've had politicians covering up topless statues before they give press conferences... And editing their state seals because it's got boobs on it...

The fact that 3 idiot mods upvoted you does not even surprise me anymore.

Why shouldn't it be upvoted? It's relevant to the discussion.

There are folks out there who've screamed about David's penis over the years... They're of the firm opinion that it constitutes porn... And they'd love to get it taken out of every art-history book out there.

So, who gets to choose? Is it porn or not? Where do we draw the line?

If we start taking out anything and everything that could be considered pornographic by somebody on the planet we aren't going to have a whole lot left.

I can't explain what pr0n is...

[Airdorn]

...but I know it when I see it.

Let him go.

[hellop2]

Somebody wants information about human sexuality removed from an encyclopedia or he's going to walk? I say, let him and his puritanical beliefs walk.

I have been using wikipedia for since it's inception and never once do I recall being subjected to "pornography". However, if I needed to do a research paper for school on the subject, I would appreciate the maintained links that wikipedia provides. Censorship. Give me a break. Then you need a whole team of censors to debate over what is acceptable or not, which is unnecessary and ridiculous. IT'S AN ENCYCLOPEDIA. All information is acceptable. Because, it's informative.

As a Slashdotter to Mr. Sanger

[eldavojohn]

This comes about a month after I originally posted my report about depictions-of-child-sexual-molestation on Wikimedia Foundation servers to the FBI, which Slashdot duly ripped to shreds (as only Slashdot can)

Well, I read a lot of those comments and while they were for the most part overly negative toward you, I think they had some good advice.

A number of them let you know that if you want to champion this message that Wikipedia hosts child porn then you should probably drop the "and also I run a clean competing product called Citizendia." I'm not accusing you of this but on the surface it may seem that you are blowing this whole thing out of proportion in some sort of free-cyclopedia-war. I think the Slashdot comments sent you a very valuable message to keep both of these messages separate to avoid that possibility.

Another thing that comments focused on was your Libertarianism conflicting with your moralism. The comments explored possibilities in which "child porn" becomes used inadvertently without an actual production or desire for it to be used as such. What about when someone draws or makes computer simulations of said things? If it neither picks your pocket nor breaks your leg, shouldn't a Libertarian allow that? It seems your morals and ethics do come into conflict with a pure Libertarian stance. Slashdot has a large Libertarian readership so you should be prepared for this.

I was in a museum in New York City and saw an exhibit of with pictures of mentally challenged children playing outside in the grass, mostly undressed. Everyone else there was treating it as "art." I'd like to Google and find the artist for you but I'm not interested in that being saved in my Google searches. Which reveals to you that I'm not a big fan of what you speak of either (if it's any consolation) but I think the images on Wikimedia are community regulated and you're going to find an argument somewhere no matter what stance you take. For instance, I will defend [WARNING! Nudity] this image as an image of war, a reminder of Vietnam, a historical photograph and I am prepared to argue with you that that image has some merit and should remain on Wikipedia. But if I understand your stance that image needs to be removed?

You shouldn't take these comments as "ripped to shreds." Slashdot likes to avoid the obvious discussion and no one's interested in "I agree." comments as they don't add much to the conversation. When your ideas are on Slashdot, you're being flayed open for anyone to take any amount of time to poke at your soft underbelly and do what they want with it. Expect the full spectrum of responses and it seems that no matter how much I disagree with a stance, if you can form it into cogent and at least semi-logical defenses then you should be modded up.

You're a valuable member of the Slashdot community. I don't think you should take the highly rated, negative comments to heart and I hope you continue to contribute to Slashdot like NewYorkCountryLawyer.

Re:"too much unnecessary porn"

[jedidiah]

The necessary amount of porn is mainly related to how bogus the definition of porn is.

Of course this is a big fat social red herring with the biggest problem being the nailing down of exactly what porn is.

Porn is a scary sounding word that's easy to use to quickly defame someone.

WP:CENSOR?

[tverbeek]

As long as it focuses on applying actual existing Wikipedia policy - removing stuff that's just plain porn, but leaving material that's sexually explicit but informative or educational - this sounds like a good thing. There's plenty of other places on the web for gratuitous beaver shots. But if it turns into an attempt to censor Wikipedia into a PG13 (or even R) "family-friendly" encyclopedia, or serves as the justification for a witch-hunt against "adult" subjects in general in the guise of a "protect the children" campaign, that'll be bad for Wikipedia and a really bad precedent.

Re:May 2010

[discord5]

This is a real warning people get for uploading too much cock onto Commons.

Hahaha... oh wow... For some reason, having a template letter for when people upload too much genitalia seems like a whole new level of bureaucracy. Please don't mistake this for a troll or flamebait, but as an outsider to the whole editing wikipedia thing, it's hilarious in a very immature way.

You see, for this template to exist, it must mean that on a regular basis there's gigabytes of penis.jpg being uploaded. It also means, that there's several editors constantly removing aforementioned penis.jpg, and when the uploader wishes to discuss the removal of their upload, someone is bound to discuss why it needs to be removed.

Thanks for this. For some immature and juvenile reason, this just made my day.