British ISPs filtering Wikipedia
Internet service providers in the U.K. have begun filtering access to Wikipedia after the site was added to the Internet Watch Foundation's blacklist.
The following notice appeared on Wikipedia on Saturday when many UK users attempted to edit content:
Wikipedia has been added to a Internet Watch Foundation UK website blacklist, and your Internet service provider has decided to block part of your access. Unfortunately, this also makes it impossible for us to differentiate between different users, and block those abusing the site without blocking other innocent people as well.
According to discussions on the Wikipedia administrators noticeboard, this is because a transparent proxy has been enabled for customers of Virgin Media, Be/O2/Telefonica, EasyNet/UK Online, PlusNet, Demon and Opal. This has two effects: users cannot see content filtered by the proxies, and all user traffic passing through the proxies is given a single IP address per proxy. As Wikipedia's anti-vandalism system blocks users by IP address, one single case of vandalism by a single UK user prevents all users on that user's ISP from editing. The effect is to block all editing from anonymous UK users on that list of ISPs. Registered users can continue to edit.
The content being filtered is apparently deemed to meet the Internet Watch Foundation's criteria for child pornography--in one case, this involves a 1970s LP cover art which, although controversial, is still widely available.
Reports on the admin noticeboard say that this filtering is easy to circumvent, either by using Wikipedia's secure server or by sending a request to find the page via parameters in the URL. However, no fix has been found--nor is one expected--for the proxy address problem.
"This is the first I've come across UK wide internet censorship, and I'm shocked. I had no idea until now that like China, we too have built a great firewall--only we keep quiet about ours," user Hahnchen wrote to the noticeboard.
Rupert Goodwins of
Haven't these idiots ever head of The Streisand Effect?
I understand not being able to cite it as a source because its open for anyone to edit.. but filtering the site just seems stupid...
Thanks for the refresher, I just had an Uli Roth moment. Good to see he's getting onstage with the Scorpions again.
Exactly. That's all it did for me.
Hur, hur, did you see what I did there?
Now, we need to find out if the man with the boner and tight jeans on The Rolling Stones' "Sticky Fingers" album was above 18 when the picture was taken...
i understand that China's policies are more severe, but this is STILL a form of censorship that infringes on freedom that the West touts as a basic right, or whatever.
i expect a lot of bashing of Britain for this type of censorship.
no, wait. there won't be none, or at least, not as much. because Britain is a part of the West, which is "good." so we shouldn't get hard on them too much.
but China? oh, China... why don't we just bash until we're blue in the face.
i'm not really trying to incite any heated arguments or display a hatred of the West (i'm American, afterall).
i just felt the need to point out something i feel is ridiculous and hypocritical:
that we can bash on China for restricting freedoms. but justify our own freedom restrictions... especially over something as stupid as this. if it was a full blown child-pornography, THAT i can understand censoring. but ALL of Wikipedia?
In 2008 the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), a UK-based non-government organization, added the Wikipedia article Virgin Killer to its blacklist[15][16] due to the online encyclopedia's use of an image of the original Virgin Killer album cover. As a result, people using many major UK ISPs were blocked from viewing the entire article. A modified version of the controversial cover art was used for the "In Trance/Virgin Killer" deluxe boxed edition double album sold worldwide[17] after a 2004 release. Nevertheless, the IWF classified the image of the cover as a "potentially illegal indecent image of a child hosted outside the UK" (whereas their reporting mechanism specifies only "child sexual abuse images hosted outside the UK").[18][19] In a press release, the lawyer for the Wikimedia Foundation, the charity that runs Wikipedia, stated, "We have no reason to believe the article, or the image contained in the article, has been held to be illegal in any jurisdiction anywhere in the world."[20] Under the Cleanfeed content blocking system, the block was accomplished by ISP proxy systems impersonating Wikipedia's servers, which had the side effects of degrading performance and left site administrators with little option but to block a significant portion of the UK from editing Wikipedia or creating accounts.[21][22]
The UK block follows the May 2008 reporting of the cover image on Wikipedia by US-based social conservative site WorldNetDaily to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. An officer of the Concerned Women for America, a conservative Christian advocacy group, commented, "By allowing that image to remain posted, Wikipedia is helping to further facilitate perversion and pedophilia."[23] The May controversy prompted extensive discussion among Wikipedia contributors and was reported in the website's internal newsletter, which noted that "relevant content policies and community practices" state that "Wikipedia is not censored, and barring a legal imperative the decision to display or remove the offensive image rests with Wikipedia's users."[24] EContent magazine subsequently reported that the discussion page associated with the article declared "Prior discussion has determined by broad consensus that the Virgin Killer cover will not be removed", and asserted that Wikipedia contributors "favor inclusion in all but the most extreme cases".[25]
But... please note that this is no longer the 18th century. Sure, there's still a near-abolition on the right to own a firearm, etc... but overall, 21st-century Europe, while it still has a small bit of growth that's needed, is far, far better than the 18th century version.
/P
The whole fuss was long over the colonies being a pawn in a larger war, but that aside, the majority of the US bill of rights is British. Even the beloved rights to bear arms dates way back with the British. Was again entrenched in the British Bill of rights in 1689, which goes back to King Henry in 1181 with the assize of arms.
The Second ammendment was an enforcement of the already guranteed rights. What happened though is during the early days of the Revolution, British Solidiers begain to disarm local militia's. They did not though seek to disarm the citizens. In reality John Admas brought this up during the Boston masacre, where the rights to bear arms was confirmed to both sides.
You may find maybe something more from the 7 years war prior to the revolution. And this had more to do with debit finacing.
There is an argument over the capabilites of the local colonies milita's in dealing with Fort Louisberg, that left the British fealing the milita's where of poor quality, and requested the govener's to bring the quality of the Milita's up to speed. Instead of raising local tax's Virgina in particular went into Deficit spending to support the upgrades to the Militia. This drove the value of the curency down.
Then the British attempted to come to grips with illegal trade, bribery and corruption, this lead to the revenue act. bribery and corruption was rampant in many of the colonies.
Iin 1764 the paper currency was becoming so devaluated it became a problem for many traders, as the currency value declined so much so fast, that it became a burden on many merchants. So the Currency Act was passed to try and do away with the worthless money.
Finally in 1765 a new logger head occured. The colonies wanted protection from the natives, but they also wanted to expand into native land. The British had just defeated the french with the aid of the Natives. So British Troops where requested by the colonies to protect the colonies from the Indians. The cost of these troops was expensive, which lead to the stamp act. The act was put in place to raise money to pay for the troops stationed inthe colonies, to protect the colonies. But the stamp could only be paid for in Pound Sterling, and the citizens saw it as an afront on there paper money and the forcing of a tax they had no say in.
We could go on and on. but I don't see what any of this has to do with this current topic.
Here is the truth: there is NO SUCH THING as an abnormal sexuality, period and done with. There are only sexualities that some people don't agree with because they dislike them, or they cannot seem to understand the difference between pedosexuals and forcible child rapists.
Speaking from my experiences as a child, there is a HUGE difference.
The fact that you think "pedosexuality" is "NORMAL" indicates that you should really seek therapy, as should those who have convinced you it's "normal." (There's always a group trying to rationalize things like this, despite all logic to the contrary.)
Sorry, there really are sickos and creeps, but most don't/can't see themselves for what they are.
You've outed yourself as one of them...
Did Rupert add the tags to this story or was it someone else? Perhaps cnet should purchase spell checkers for their staff? Censorship is spelled with an 's', not a 'c'. I hate being the grammar/spelling nazi, and english isn't even my native language, but this is a little silly, you'd expect higher standards from a major news site.
The "right" to hack Wikipedia anonymously seems to be abused these days more than it's used properly - half the entries have severe PoV issues, due to fanboys/haters/PR people making widespread edits, and the other half have such bad grammar, sentences that have been added to until they're one huge paragraph-long sentence, and worse that they're practically unreadable. (Good luck with that finals-week WP plagiarism, college students!)
I think ALL WP editors should be registered.
- by tacit December 8, 2008 1:38 PM PST
- Interestingly, people in the UK can still see the exact same image at Amazon.com and on other retail sites. Apparently, the IWF will fearlessly move against things it doesn't like when they live on non-profit Web sites, but is too timid to move against large commercial sites with the exact same images on them...possibly because the large commercial Web sites can afford lawyers?
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(25 Comments)No matter how you slice it, this whole situation is ridiculous.