NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Brits' Failed Heavy Metal Censorship Attempt Disrupts Wikipedia Edits
Brits' Failed Heavy Metal Censorship Attempt Disrupts Wikipedia Edits
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000478.html
Greetings. Today we're handed yet another in a veritable cornucopia
of examples showing why attempts to censor the Internet may disrupt
and hassle, but can't really effectively block anything, and
frequently have exactly the opposite of the intended effect.
In this case, we learn how a British watchdog group flagged a
Wikipedia article about a heavy metal album -- Scorpions' "Virgin
Killer" -- which features a naked prepubescent girl on the cover
(partially obscured by a "broken glass" effect).
Six British ISPs, who seem to slavishly follow the edicts of the group
in question, blocked all access to the associated Wikipedia page by
running Wikipedia through filtering proxies, which had the side effect
of breaking some forms of Wikipedia editing, apparently due to the
proxies showing all users as coming from single IP addresses
( http://tinyurl.com/wikipedia-censorship-uk ).
And of course, this action has now generated far more interest in that
album cover than would ever have likely otherwise been the case, and
naturally that image can be located trivially and virtually instantly
as a multitude of copies at any number of image search sites. It took
me less than 15 seconds to find it at a non-Wikipedia source just now.
Anyone in Britain can easily do the same thing.
Whether or not the image in question is viewed as offensive, the utter
stupidity and futility of attempting to block such materials on the
Internet has been demonstrated again and again -- and the collateral
damage that can be caused by such attempts is made ever more clear.
These are technological realities that cannot be effectively changed
by political posturing or "magic" filters, regardless of how upsetting
we may individually find any particular Internet content to be. The
sooner that we accept this fact, and understand that the traditional
mechanisms of top-down content control are no longer relevant in
today's world of global communications, the sooner we can move on to
dealing with society's real problems in manners that are truly
effective, rather than just useless "feel good" flotsam and jetsam.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com or lauren@pfir.org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
- People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad
- Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com