Forum Moderators: phranque
A decision by a number of UK internet providers to block a Wikipedia page showing an image of a naked girl has angered users of the popular site.The blocked page of the online encyclopaedia shows an album cover of 1970s heavy metal band Scorpions.
Internet providers acted after online watchdog the Internet Watch Foundation warned them its picture may be illegal.
Seems like the IWF have overstepped the mark. At the very most, the url of the image should have been blocked, not the whole page.
[iwf.org.uk...]
You would think that an organization like the IWF would understand that nudity does not necessarily imply poornography. I vaguely recalled this cover from my teenage years but had to check with Google (I guess they will be in trouble now). To my eye it's no more poornographic than an a famous picture of a naked girl running away from a fire in Vietnam. I guess there are probably quite a few news organizations (including the BBC) with that one somewhere on their websites.
Kaled.
Comparisons aside, should it really be up to webmasters and other online private or governmental organizations to decide what's appropriate for others to see? Seems to me this should be a matter best left to parents and guardians.
[edited by: GaryK at 4:57 am (utc) on Dec. 8, 2008]
Either way I think the comparison makes for a poor analogy.Granted, the backgrounds behind these images could not be more different but...
It's also worth noting that the album cover would be classed as Level 1 (Images depicting erotic posing with no sexual activity) but, if someone took issue with the Vietnam picture, that could be classed as Level 5 (Sadism).
However, the whole argument could have been avoided if the url of the image had been blocked rather than the url of the page - that was clearly a bad decision for which the IWF seems entirely unrepentant. It was also utterly pointless and counter-productive since copies of the image are still easily viewed and have now received oodles of publicity so if any perverts want a copy they can get one. This decision also opens the door to prosecute anyone with a copy of the album cover, and even a "caution" under this law can have dire consequences.
Kaled.
One was deliberately posed; I don't think this is the place to argue about definitions of #*$!ography, but while I think few would define the news pic that way, a naked preteen posing for an album called 'virgin killers' is a rather different cup of tea.
And there was a fuss thirty years ago; the cover was banned in Germany (Scorpions home country), and I think in other countries too.
Yet another case of the 'Attempted Web Police' tangling themselves in their own bureaucracy.
Seems to me that if they were serious about p***, they'd deal with p***ographers - not copy the Chinese Government.
