

UK ISPs censoring Wikipedia - ig1
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16569

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petercooper
Make sure to scroll right down to the bottom. For most of the page it feels
like it's just some transparent proxying - which sucks but is fair enough..
but at the bottom an actual example of censorship is shown - specifically for
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer> (probably because someone
complained about the non-pornographic but contentious image on that page)

~~~
llimllib
Is there a more coherent definition of "pornographic" in UK law than there is
in US law, or is it approximately the same "I know it when I see it" as we
have?

~~~
petercooper
In the UK the term "indecent" is used instead of pornographic.

The Protection of Children Act 1978 (
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_of_Children_Act_1978> ) says:

    
    
      The Act defines an indecent photograph broadly without defining the term "indecent"
    

It is possible for pornography to be considered indecent and _not_ indecent in
multiple cases - just because of the opinion of the judge and/or jury (where
relevant).

On a _personal_ level, I would consider "pornographic" to be something that's
intended or designed to arouse sexually (in either a normal or perverted
individual). Regarding the Virgin Killer cover, it appears to be a simple nude
- no worse than paintings or sculptures of cherubs, though certainly
contentious in our panic-driven culture.

~~~
kwamenum86
not much different than communication law in the United States really

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axod
HTTP Proxies are evil, and stupid. Good thing there are thousands of ISPs to
choose from in the UK.

Shame <https://www.wikipedia.org> doesn't work.

~~~
JoeSmith
No, but <https://secure.wikimedia.org/> does.

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cgranade
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has openly admitted adding a URL from the
Wikipedia domain to their blacklist
[<http://www.iwf.org.uk/media/news.249.htm>]. From the IWF news release:

"The specific URL (individual webpage) was then added to the list provided to
ISPs and other companies in the online sector to protect their customers from
inadvertent exposure to a potentially illegal indecent image of a child."

Sounds like censorship to me, especially since the linked Wikimedia bug report
lists instances of fake 404 pages being served in response to requests for
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer>.

------
parenthesis
The BBC have picked up this story:

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7770456.stm>

------
sh1mmer
It seems like nothing is actually getting censored. Wikipedia was flagged as a
possible source of child porn, probably because of the Virgin Killer's LP.

I would suspect the proxy the ISPs are routing the site through is to monitor
the use and log the IPs of the individuals using it. That's pretty funny for
wikipedia given the scale of use and it's search rankings.

I wonder what % of the UK broadband connections have been tracked now.

~~~
lyesit
\------ Comment #16 From Gurch 2008-12-06 17:08:01 UTC -------

The transparent proxies have been put in place in order to allow the ISPs to
selectively censor Wikipedia pages.

Currently the pages [[Virgin Killer]] and [[Image:Virgin Killer.jpg]] are
censored for myself and users of the other UK ISPs mentioned. The technical
details vary; in my case, I get a fake 404 page.

~~~
jacquesm
It's great that you have people that watch over you in case you would consume
the 'wrong' information... Now let's hope their definition of 'wrong' matches
yours.

Is there anybody in the UK challenging this stuff ?

~~~
ig1
<http://www.openrightsgroup.org/>

