News Wiki Censorship

[rynnor]

BBC NEWS | UK | Wikipedia child image censored

Crazy stuff - its an album cover lol - surely this opens the door to censoring all that medieval artwork that had those little naked cherubs etc. etc.

I'm a parent so obviously I'm concerned about images of children on the net but this surely goes too far?

 

[old.Tohtori]

Oh yes, i know of this elderly lady who gathers those cherubs. Surely i must call the police and report this pedo granny at once! :lol:

 

[Billargh]

Wikipedia is definately the one needing to be censored, not xx13yearoldgirls.co.ru* or other shady sides. You're going to have to get rid of a hell of a lot to completely stop the risk of kids coming across the most offensive thing ever created, the human body.

*may or may not exist.

 

[Sparx]

To be fair the pic is a little rude, just google the scorpians and saw it

 

[old.Tohtori]

Sparx it only became rude when the PC mad world took over.

I seriously doubt there's been an increase in pedos, just the amount of people being worried about pedos.

I'm afraid to go to the shops and buy a kinder egg for easter 'cause i'm thinking i'll get arrested for kiddie trapping

"So what ya in for?"
"Bought a f*cking choccie egg."

*writes it down*

 

[Sparx]

Have you seen the image? i dont think its rude because someone else says so

heavy metal band Scorpions virgin - Google Image Search

how is that not rude?

 

[Tom]

The link, Virgin Killer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia is blocked by my ISP, Virgin (how ironic). However I can view the article through Proxify® anonymous proxy - surf the Web privately and securely without any problems.

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/2008 IWF action - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Its pathetic really. Wikipedia is all about the unbiased spread of information. It isn't in the business of re-writing history to suit current dogma. Personally I find the image offensive, and don't really want to see it, but if the sale of that album with that image was allowed around the world (and it was) then I don't think anybody has any business trying to censor it.

There's a similar issue currently with the Mohammed article. Various groups want the images of their prophet removed, but Wikipedia steadfastly refuses to do so, and rightly so.

I'm hardly an unbiased party anyway, I have several 'good articles' to my name and one recently featured on the front page. I think Wikipedia is an excellent resource when used correctly.

 

[old.Tohtori]

how is that not rude?

It's "not rude" as it's "not been" rude before. Banning it from wikipedia ain't gonna change the fact that it's out there now is it?

Ofcourse it's questionable use of imagiry, but it's been questionable before and 5 years ago noone gave a f*ck.

 

[Sparx]

i didnt know about it then, and i'm sure i would have found it rather rude back then

 

[throdgrain]

I remember this from back in the day. It was incongrous then to say the least.

I remember the band too, they were shit, I went to see them too, well for the support band to be honest. Frankly it would be best if they banned that picture, and any reference to the Scorpions as well to be on the safe side.

 

[mank!]

I'm hardly an unbiased party anyway, I have several 'good articles' to my name and one recently featured on the front page. I think Wikipedia is an excellent resource when used correctly.

really? you've never mentioned it.


i've seen the cover before and it's dodgy to say the least. worth banning? perhaps not but it's hardly worth arguing that it's not very much on the borderline of acceptable.

they probably only got away with it cos they're shit.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Ah, my wording was a bit off in my first post sparx. Didn't mean it became rude, meant that it became a problem with the rise of PC correctness.

It's been questionable(extremely) all the time, just that it seems moe and more stuff is "baby proofed" in the world.

We should take a step back and let kids eat nuts and fall from trees honestly.

 

[Dark Orb Choir]

YouTube - Scorpions "Wind of Change" music video













ps (im back)

 

[rynnor]

Ah, my wording was a bit off in my first post sparx. Didn't mean it became rude, meant that it became a problem with the rise of PC correctness.

It's been questionable(extremely) all the time, just that it seems moe and more stuff is "baby proofed" in the world.

We should take a step back and let kids eat nuts and fall from trees honestly.

Aye - you cant judge history in the same way. Our family album has pics of me in the paddling pool about 2 years old in the nude - all completely innocuous back then in the 70s but now a dire crime - are my parents now criminals?

 

[Raven]

Won't anyone think of the children though?!?!?

 

[00dave]

on the plus side that girl would be in her 30s now :saythat:

 

[Furr]

This also means 95% of the UK net pop is unable to edit wikipedia anymore...

 

[Shagrat]

The fact that the picture has been removed is nothing to do with whether it is rude or not, someone notified the Internet Watch Foundation about it, they investigated (with their 7 man team) and decided to add it to their list of banned images that represent potential child abuse.

This whole issue raises a load of questions for me:

1 - Who the hell are the Internet Watch Foundation, I didnt vote for them to be my internet guardians.

2 - What the hell is my ISP doing blocking access to a particular website contrary to my T&A, but only putting up a 404 message for that page, not a message reporting what theyve actually done.

3 - If they are blocking a 35 year old album cover as child abuse, who decided this, and why arent they blocking Amazon (which still sells it), the Scorpions webpage etc

If this album image is bannable, what about Nirvana's Nevermind album cover? I could go to prison for my album collection, or the photo albums I have of my own children by these criteria.


Ironically, you can still access it in China. Says alot about our democratic society.

Bizarre, and a little scary.

 

[nath]

If this album image is bannable, what about Nirvana's Nevermind album cover? I could go to prison for my album collection, or the photo albums I have of my own children by these criteria.

I agree with basically all your points apart from this one. I don't think it helps to compare the two images as they're clearly *very* different.

 

[Shagrat]

I agree with basically all your points apart from this one. I don't think it helps to compare the two images as they're clearly *very* different.

Thats the whole point though isnt it, looking at this case, I could theoretically ring up the IWF, say that the image is offensive, and if this Mary Whitehouse committee agree with me, bang, its on the ban list and noone in the UK can see it. There's a fair few album covers from the 70's and 80's that had fairly risque covers, there's a Led Zeppelin one thats got a couple of naked young girls on as well if I remember right. Why the Scorpion one and not these?

you cant just randomly ban things without looking at the wider picture or looking at it in the context of where/when its from.

This picture should be used to start a wider debate on this subject within government etc, not as a token censorship gesture just to justify the grants these pillocks are probably gettting.

 

[nath]

All good points but as I said, comparing it to the Nevermind baby just clouds the issue. The Scorpions image is fairly dodgy so at least I can understand what has happened, despite not entirely agreeing with it. The Nevermind baby is completely inoffensive.

 

[rynnor]

Personally I'd prefer the police to decide if images are offensive - they have a specially trained unit, a legal remit and are accountable - the IWF are a shadowy quango.

According to their description this image is outside of the IWF's remit as they dont cover 'kiddie porn' but only images of child sex abuse which presumably this is not.

Just to add to the confusion the album cover isnt banned outside of this one internet site - weird eh?

 

[Wazzerphuk]

Total non-story IMO.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Total non-story IMO.

Good point, why the f*ck is this news

Kind of worrying when one begins to see the BBC website as a tabloid.

 

[Tom]

Its news because a collection of BERKS has taken it upon themselves to effectively censor an image that the law doesn't hold to be illegal.

 

[lecter]

Well..... they are a bunch of ill-informed puritanical wankers that are currently being incapacitated by the nearest script kiddy. Yep you guessed it someone has already written a bot to flood their reporting page.

 

[rynnor]

Due to the half assed way this one wiki page has been blocked it has badly screwed the UK's ability to edit wiki pages - surely wiki have some legal recourse against this?

 

[GReaper]

Total non-story IMO.

So you don't mind every Wikipedia page you visit being intercepted just to ensure you aren't doing anything wrong?

What happens if this goes a step further to ensure you aren't doing anything illegal? Keyword searching any pages to ensure you're not visiting sites you shouldn't be could be the next step towards the great firewall of Great Britain.

One thing I value is privacy - our rights seem to be eroded on a regular basis in the name of safety and security to fight terrorism or to stop the paedophiles. Why should innocent people have their rights persistently invaded just because of the minority of users?

This fucking filter doesn't make me feel any safer - infact it does the complete opposite. It makes me fear the next step of what they'll try to do. If the police officially considers this image to be illegal (some consider it borderline) - what would happen if they decided to pull the logs from every ISPs filtering server? Remember - just viewing such an image is illegal and it'll be stored in the cache of your hard disk.

Just remember how quick many people (including our own Government) are eager to criticise countries like China for heavily filtering Internet access - yet nearly every ISP in our country is prepared to filter every request from the 8th most popular site in the world all because of one questionable image.

 

[SawTooTH]

I seem to remember an album by Blind Faith was controversial at the time. A pre-pubescent girl holding a phallic aeroplane.

A a lot of things still to ban until we are left with a sterile uninteresting, unchallengeable world

 

[Wazzerphuk]

So you don't mind every Wikipedia page you visit being intercepted just to ensure you aren't doing anything wrong?

What happens if this goes a step further to ensure you aren't doing anything illegal? Keyword searching any pages to ensure you're not visiting sites you shouldn't be could be the next step towards the great firewall of Great Britain.

One thing I value is privacy - our rights seem to be eroded on a regular basis in the name of safety and security to fight terrorism or to stop the paedophiles. Why should innocent people have their rights persistently invaded just because of the minority of users?

This fucking filter doesn't make me feel any safer - infact it does the complete opposite. It makes me fear the next step of what they'll try to do. If the police officially considers this image to be illegal (some consider it borderline) - what would happen if they decided to pull the logs from every ISPs filtering server? Remember - just viewing such an image is illegal and it'll be stored in the cache of your hard disk.

Just remember how quick many people (including our own Government) are eager to criticise countries like China for heavily filtering Internet access - yet nearly every ISP in our country is prepared to filter every request from the 8th most popular site in the world all because of one questionable image.

No, of course I don't mind it being intercepted. Why would I? It's not like Wikipedia is a basic human right is it? It's not like my life is going to be negatively impacted on by this is it? People need to grow up, chill out and realise the internet and information on it is NOT a basic human right.