Slashdot Mirror
Wikipedia May Censor Images
KiloByte joins the ranks of accepted submitters, writing
"To appease 'morality' watchdogs, Wikipedia is contemplating the introduction of a censorship feature, where images would be flagged for containing sexual references, nudity, 'mass graves,' and so on. At least in the initial implementation, it is supposed to be 'opt-in.' However, with such precedents as the UK censoring artistic nudity, Turkey censoring references to the Armenian genocide or China's stance on information about the Tiananmen massacre (note that any sensitive photos, like the Tank Man, are already absent!), I find it quite hard to believe this feature won't be mandatory for some groups of readers — whether it's thanks to an oppressive government, an ISP or a school."
Today it is, anyway.
Hey, anyone remember when banning users was solely an ISP decision, not a government mandate? Boy, those were the days.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The way I understand the problem is that some articles show explicit pictures, which may offend some people. Honestly it has happened to me sometimes to see pictures of illnesses or war crimes which did upset me (granted, I have a very low threshold for these things).
I don't see how it would be bad to hide these pictures by default, with a little button "view" next to the caption.
Of course, if the goal is to delete these pictures altogether, then I'm all against it.
Letting people opt-in to censor images in Category:All non-free media has been discussed for a while, if I remember correctly.
Censorship is teh evil!!!
But it's better to get SOME content than NO content...
But censorship, it's evil!
We go through this with Google and China every so often. What I worry about isn't having stuff blocked, with a nice big notice that something was removed, but about having content replaced, so that when you go look at stuff about Chinese unrest from the USA it says "chinese know all about this stuff" and when you look it up from China it says "everything is wonderful".
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
the referendum was not about "should we add a filter" but "how should a filter implemented".
the resolution "controversial content" was approved 10:0 in May 2010
We ask the Executive Director, in consultation with the community, to develop and implement a personal image hiding feature that will enable readers to easily hide images hosted on the projects that they do not wish to view
The foundation wants a filter, the community has no way to stop such a feature.
I got the email for the referendum. Let's not say "OMG slippery slope!" quite yet, ok? If this continues to be voluntary, I have absolutely no problem with it. I won't personally turn it on because very little offends me, but if someone else doesn't want to view pictures of genetalia on their respective articles, I can understand that.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Just thought I should point out it's not China that's responsible for the Tank Man photo being missing from the Tienamen Square massacre article. It's good old western copyright law. The Tank Man photo is copyrighted and not freely licensed so Wikipedia can only include it as fair use. Fair use on Wikipedia is held to very strict standards; fair use images can only be used on articles where the image is otherwise indispensible. So you can find it over at Tank Man, which is specifically about the photo.
Wikipedia definitely needs a NSFW or Not Safe for School feature at least, unless it's hidden somewhere. Certain articles like defecation go a little over the top.
Censorship needs a foundation of classification and identification.
Censorship cannot work without differentiation.
Traditionally, governments have employed armies of censors to root out unapproved media and identify it for further control, whether that be by name, URL, or another identifier.
Wikipedia's tagging of potentially offensive media is like a crowdsourced censorship bureau.
Imagine if all images had EXIM fields of "controversial" and "pornographic." Totalitarian regimes would block all image requests so flagged.
We do not want to crowdsource the work of the censors.
Here here is Adam on his own
It may end the "Endless (human anus) image contention" dispute.
Damn, this was the most entertaining section of wikipedia.
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Human_anus#Endless_image_contention )
This isn't "censorship" or "blocking" of images. If you read the text and look at the mockup, this is an opt-in feature to keep a person from accidentally viewing controversial content when simply clicking around on Wikipedia. There's a "show content" button right where the photo would normally be! Nothing is being kept from anybody. Say you're on break at work and you run across a word you don't know. If you type that word into Wikipedia and it ends up being some sort of genital mutilation or something, you could have a disgusting, inappropriate, NSFW image splayed across your screen. The controversy has been overplayed, and the Slashdot story is borderline inaccurate.
I took several minutes to read this 2 days ago when I first saw the news (2 days... slashdot, what's happened to you?) and it actually looked damned uncontroversial and careful.
First, I'd say calling this censorship is a red herring.
Censorship = removal of information without recourse or alternative.
Opt-in filtering = giving parents and the squeamish a way to preemptively hide images, with user-controlled overrides.
The categories sought for filtering is also intended to be peer-managed within wikipedia, which should prevent this from becoming a tool for governmental / corporate / ISP censorship. IOW, if users guide the categorization of data (tagging images as sexually explicit, violent, etc) then a gov/corp/ISP can't 'sneak in' the censorship of an article on Turkey, Israel, Net Neutrality, Codomo, China-vs-Taiwan, China-vs-Tibet, Egyptian unrest or whatever.
The call for comments generated by Wiki* also discussed their desire to make whatever they do overridable.
(disclaimer: I think I've edited wiki* a few dozen times, but doubt it was anything censor-worthy).
I'm thinking this should be sort of like the spoiler text used on many image boards, where initially all you see is black, but if you scroll over it you can see what it actually is. I think this would work perfectly for Wikipedia; if you didn't want to see it, you didn't have to. This way it means it would be censored for anyone who didn't want to see it, and anyone who does want to see it would just have to hover over it with their mouse and it would become visible.
Censorship is always more offensive than the material being censored.
Those who can understand this are holders of a higher ethic, and it is no bad thing to force this standards on those who have yet to be elevated.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
I don't want to see hi-res photos of Wikipedia editors' genitalia or nasty skin diseases at the top of an article (when an illustration would suffice) for the same reason I don't want to Wikipedia to change over to magenta text on a lime-green background. There's an issue of aesthetics and readability here.
I hate to sound like a think of the children type of person.
But Wikipedia is a great tool to start your research with, and really good for education. However I can expect kids using Wikipedia in schools to view imagery that they are not allowed, and inappropriate for a school.
It isn't as much they are forced to view the data, but kids being both curious and wanting to show to there peers that they are cool, will use such imagery to cause trouble and get cool points because they can gather a bunch of curious kids with him to look at the forbidden data. Thus distracting the kids from doing real work in school
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Cut it out with the reactionary rhetoric already. It's an opt-in filter that allows people who so choose to read about "controversial" subjects without being confronted with graphic images of hardcore blood, gore, pornography, etc. - and there will be categories of filters, so it may even allow Muslims to read about their prophet without having to see depictions of him, without depriving others of access to those images. This seems like a good thing.
Quite right. We should also ban adblock and such things, because how dare someone decides what they do and do not want to see.
This is not bad, because the system, as proposed, is basically going to be just an improved and integrated reimplementation of an already existing feature.
You may have heard of it. It's called "AdBlock Plus".
That's essentially what the Wikipedia community has been telling people to use. Offended by pictures of prophets? Ask your local friendly religious WikiProject if they have a handy ABP list or user CSS file for you to use. Offended by sexual content? Yeah, it's a lot of blocking, but it can be done.
All this is going to do is that it will be integrated to the software. It will also allow better collaborative tagging of pictures. And, of course, it has transparency. You can't do a lot of evil censorship if you've got to be transparent about it.
It's your responsibility to avoid what you don't want to see.
The other way round makes no sense because they world is full of pussies, each with unique sets of "crap they don't want to see".
The sum of all those sets is EVERYTHING that exists.
Of course, what gets censored is decided on your behalf by some corrupt authority or other, which is why censorship is always evil.
Furthermore the Wikipedia is completely biased towards the United States.
Are you talking about Wikipedia in general, or the English Wikipedia specifically? Wikipedia acknowledges its systemic bias as a problem. The bias you speak of is caused by the tendency of people to contribute to the Wikipedia for their native language and to cite sources written in their native language. And by far, the biggest concentration of English speakers on the Internet is in the United States, and sources written in English tend to cover the views of people in anglophone countries more than others.
When you have an article on a 19 century parlor song from France the wikipedia article will concentrate on the American entertainer which covered it in the 40ths.
That's because contributors are more familiar with English-language reliable sources that discuss the 1940s cover than non-English sources that discuss the original.
It's like requesting the Louvre Museum to cover up the Venus de Milo statue during my visit because I find female anatomy "offensive" or "immoral".
please excuse my apathy
Oh fuck off. Why is your right to see whatever crap you want any more important than my right not to see it?
He being allowed to see it does not preclude you from not seeing it. Censorship prevents everyone from seeing it.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
About 10 years ago. Good riddance to them and their power mad administrators.
This is Wikipedia, not a national policy.
Unless a nation requires that all people on its soil opt in to the "self-censored" Wikipedia.
If pictures of the topic offended them, why were they on the topic in the first place? If you don't want to see pictures of vaginas, maybe you shouldn't look up vaginas?
Wikipedia's image filter would just hide images per default, you're still able to see them with just one click, at any time.
This in no way helps oppressive governments. It is about a client-side cookie and that way the client can control everything at all times. (There's not even a way for a school to hide all images, since you can always override your filter settings by clicking on the image placeholder)
If an evil government tried to filter images, they'd have to prevent pictures from actually being sent over the Internet.
You do realize those kids can already do that now with a book encyclopedia, right? This does nothing to stop that.
Be really blunt about it to chase off the sensitive fucks who start this shit in the first place. The way to react to PC bullshit is with scorn and open hatred because courtesy is wasted on such people.
"This site may offend you. If it is possible to offend you then go the fuck away and never come back because no one here needs you as a viewer."
There really ARE valid reasons for harsh netiquette.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
This depends on your location - but his right to see it is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, and the laws and regulations of many other countries. Your right to not see it isn't even in the Bible.
You have every right not to go there in the first fucking place, thereby exercising YOUR right to opt-out.
No one is giving you the Clockwork Orange eyelid clamp treatment. You have to navigate TO a site to view it. Please don't breed.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Yes, but why are you talking about censorship on a thread about an opt-in feature?
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schools to view imagery that they are not allowed, and inappropriate for a school.
It isn't as much they are forced to view the data, but kids being both curious and wanting to show to there peers that they are cool, will use such imagery to cause trouble and get cool points because they can gather a bunch of curious kids with him to look at the forbidden data. Thus distracting the kids from doing real work in school
I think this what is wrong with education, children learning that instead of controlling their emotions they have to control their environment, namely images and other people. Ultimately, it's the parents who are to blame for this situation, just like in case of the evolution and contraception "debates".
Because I was speaking directly to the AC and not commenting on the situation in the article. Nowhere did I call what Wikipedia is doing censorship.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Over the past 27 months, two magical and revolutionary concepts have changed the way we interact. The first is the Cloud; the second is the Personalized Web.
We all know what the cloud means, but the personalized web means that when I search Google, it no longer returns results based on the words I was searching for. It returns the results it knows I wanted to see, based on a personal profile built up from information about my geolocation, the version number of my browser's rendering engine, and my degrees of seperation from Kevin Bacon.
Imagine this personalization concept carried through to Wikipedia. Rether than viewing a bland article entirely made of compromise and negotiation, I'd be able to read words and see pictures tailored to my point of view--based on my profile, previous reading habits and the kinds of edits I've made. I believe that the proposed changes are just the start of this kind of advanced personalized functionality.
Remember--choice is not censorship, people. And if the choices can be chosen for you in advance, so much the better!
The Tank Man is still there on the wiki page linked in the summary. A simple click through would have revealed that. While I think this would be awful, and make wikipedia even less desirable a destination, it is rather in line with their "notability" censorship. That said, no need to inflame the issue by claiming the article on the Tiananmen massacre has already had the Tank Man picture removed.
While I think Wikipedia has strayed greatly from its original goals and principles, I thought one of the most important ones was maintaining a "neutral" point-of-view in articles. How is marking certain images as "offensive" showing neutrality? If an image is illustrative to the content of an article and it is legal to be used, then whether or not some people find it offensive ought to have no bearing on its inclusion. I think that the inevitable debates over whether or not an image is offensive will serve no constructive encyclopedic purpose. I am certain that there are already similar debates about the inclusion of "offensive" images to begin with, but in these cases there is a fairly objective standard (usefulness, relevance, legality) rather than a fairly subjective one (offensiveness). It may seem like a mostly moot point if the system is opt-in, but it is a very short leap from opt-in to opt-out once the mechanism is in place. If an image helps to illustrate an article, regardless of its political, religious, or moral insensitivity, then it should be shown; to hide it is to impose a point-of-view.
Actually wikipedia won't be censoring anything.If the idea passes in the vote wikipedia will just supply code so that individuals who visit the site can censor things for themselves via settings.
Pretty much. Wikipedia is just a more convenient version of National Geographic and your mom's medical self-help book.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
they are giving you the option to censor images. I think that's a fairly large distinction.
Especially the children of Gene Talia.
I object to using Wikimedia Foundation funds to develop and implement what should be a commercial operation. Sure, no one would object to choice, but also no one should feel entitled to be handed the entire Web nicely categorized into "naughty" and "nice" without compensation. Please feel free to host abridged or censored mirrors of Wikipedia - as long as you don't demand Wikimedia Foundation to fund it.
How about not show the image until someone clicks on something that makes it visible? This way, if someone goes to the page on "ejaculation", they don't, by default, see an animated gif of some dude ejaculating. But if they REALLY WANT TO, they can click to view it. Either way, they still have access to the text that describes the biology.
But maybe I'm missing the point.
They should have a "notability filter": instead of deleting so-called "non-notable" articles, they get added to the filter so that deletionists can see the nice, clean, austere Wikipedia they've always dreamed of, while the rest of us get the real thing.