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."
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.
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).
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.
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
They already do, but probably not as harshly as you'd want, via the "Disclaimers" link on most pages. As an added bonus, it's the rationale for not putting those spoiler warnings in pages anymore.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.