Climbdown in Wikipedia censorship brouhaha

Welcome to a special IT Blogwatch EXTRA: as Richi Jennings watches the UK child-porn watchdog apologize for blocking Wikipedia. Not to mention why you shouldn't trust phone surveys...

[Previously on IT Blogwatch: UK ISPs censor Wikipedia: somebody think of the children!]

JR Raphael enjoys seasoned fries:

A U.K. Internet watchdog group today reversed its decision to ban a Wikipedia page over an image its members considered indecent.

The Internet Watch Foundation placed the Wikipedia page for the Scorpions' 1976 album "Virgin Killer" onto its blacklist Friday ... The foundation received a complaint over the album's original cover image, shown clearly on the Wikipedia page. The image features a photo of a young girl completely nude, with a cracked glass effect obscuring her genital area.

The IWF's blacklist is used by the majority of U.K. Internet service providers, so its decision to censor the page had a wide-reaching impact ... The IWF now says it has reconsidered ... [and] will not ban any other sites featuring the "Virgin Killer" cover image.

Mike Masnick sees the irony:

After being subject to widespread ridicule for forcing Wikipedia in the UK to block a page for an album cover graphic from 32 years ago, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has withdrawn its block on the page and said it's fine.

Apparently "given the age and availability of the image," the group no longer thinks it's appropriate to be on the list. Of course, the age and availability of the image was true before. Though, if anything, this attempt at blocking the image only made the image more available.

Jack Schofield something-something pipe: [At least that's better than last time -Ed.]

The ban attracted widespread derision after it was publicised this weekend, and the strength of feeling is evident ... The IWF also admits the extremely obvious: that in this case, it scored an own goal ... The decision to try to ban one Wikipedia page was either ignorant or stupid.
...
The more immediate problem is that millions of people now know that the IWF has been, in effect, censoring the public's internet without the general public's knowledge, supervision or consent -- though no doubt this has been well intentioned.
...
The question now is whether the IWF can expect to receive more scrutiny in future, or whether the whole furore will quickly be forgotten.

First they came for Josh Catone:

Some might argue that the protection of children is paramount, and if it comes at the expense of a few “perverts” not being able to ogle drawings of little girls, or (subjectivity warning) artistic nude photos, then so be it. These cases aren’t, after all, cases of journalists or bloggers being censored because they’re speaking out against a government, but rather this is censorship of decidedly “icky” content.

However, sometimes standing up against censorship might mean standing up for speech you don’t agree with, or even find downright reprehensible. The slippery slope argument is definitely applicable here.

As Neil Gaiman reminded on his blog last week in a post that is a must-read for anyone concerned with why freedom of speech is an important right to fight for, “If you don’t stand up for the stuff you don’t like, when they come for the stuff you do like, you’ve already lost.”

Jacqui Cheng worries for the future:

Just because the IWF has backed down over the Virgin Killer album cover (and only internationally-hosted versions of it) doesn't rule out similar occurences in the future. What happens if people start reporting every instance of another controversial image and the ISPs react similarly each time?

With concerns over potential Internet censorship already looming in the UK, this latest Wikipedia incident is going to have reverberations, despite the fact that access is already being restored.

Karl Bode looks further afield:

The decision highlights the inevitable problems created by Internet filters, which more often than not don't work properly and cast too wide a net in a quest to eliminate disgusting content like child porn; content which is often more successfully targeted at the source by law enforcement. While in this instance the IWF corrected their error, it makes you wonder what would have happened if the site in question didn't have the influence of Wikipedia.

The IWF scuff up comes just as Australia begins testing one of the largest and most complicated Internet filtering systems ever devised. As it stands, the filtration of child porn is being used as a global rallying cry by entertainment industry lobbyists and execs (and folks like NY AG Andrew Cuomo), who'd like to see ISPs saddled with the expensive and potentially futile responsibility of playing Internet content nannies.

Your humble Blogwatcher's personal take:

While I applaud IWF's climbdown and its expression of "regret," there's something important missing from its statement.

What's your take? Add a comment below...

And finally...

• Dilbert on why you shouldn't trust results from phone surveys

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Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/adviser/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and spam. A 23 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. You can follow him on Twitter, pretend to be Richi's friend on Facebook, or just use boring old email: blogwatch@richi.co.uk.

Previously in IT Blogwatch:

• TWENTY-THREE critical bugs patched this month. Wow.
• New 'fox performance is on fire
• UK ISPs censor Wikipedia: somebody think of the children!