
Shakeup at Wikipedia in Wake of Porn Purge - gibsonf1
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/05/14/exclusive-shake-wikipedia-porn-pressure/?test=latestnews
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hugh3
I'm confused. Exactly which images are at issue here?

It appears that the images originally complained about were the drawings of
"child pornography" which were supposedly on Wikimedia Commons.But does it
extend to the more encyclopaedically justifiable (though still occasionally
somewhat gratuitous) photos which illustrate relevant articles on wikipedia?

Incidentally, I think wikipedia deserves credit for being one of the few
places proudly exhibiting pictures of Muhammad.

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Osiris
I'm not sure I understand why the admins got so upset about it. If, in fact,
Wikimedia Commons was hosting illegal images, why shouldn't the foundation
take actions to ensure they were removed?

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barrkel
Why do you make an assumption that these images are illegal? Photographs of
genitalia are not necessarily pornography, much less illegal or obscene. The
hysteria that Fox seems to be trying to whip up is that children in school
might learn about sex.

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Alex63
Osiris didn't say the images were illegal - Osiris asked whether the
foundation had a right/obligation to remove the images _"if, in fact,"_ they
were illegal. Seems like no one can say, at this point, whether the images
were or were not illegal, since that question has not been decided by a court.

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ErrantX
To clear this up (and as I mentioned on the original article):

No, these images are not illegal.

IANAL - but I am one better, someone who grades such images for court.

[on the issue raised; clearly the foundation _does_ have a right/obligation to
remove illegal images. Indeed even if they _suspect_ them to be illegal.
However any expert they could have found would have told them they are fine. I
think the uprising is more against the impression that the foundation has
bowed to their sponsors rather than take a realist/rational approach]

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cmelbye
Perfect example of how ridiculous the power structure is on Wikipedia.
Administrators of the site seem to think that they must be consulted before
the Wikimedia board can do anything. The Wikipedia community has some serious
problems.

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jarek
It's an interesting topic, but could we find a better source than Fox News?

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hga
To the extent Fox New coverage of this has been driving any of it it's an
important source. That's been reported and I think their contacting sponsors
is a matter of record.

The article also seems to be accurate and exhaustive, maybe even fair and
balanced ^_^.

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jarek
To say that "[t]hose images have been the subject of heated discussion within
the community since their existence was revealed exclusively by FoxNews.com on
April 27" is disingenuous considering Larry Sanger has been ringing this bell
for quite a while now.

To say "... the images, which legal analysts say may violate pornography and
obscenity laws" is border-line FUDish. Even something like "there is no
agreement among legal analysts whether or not some of the images violate
pornography and obscenity laws" would be better. It would be nice if they
would get some experts to go on record and explain their reasoning, but I'm
truly not expecting that much.

To say "images ... that could be considered child pornography" is a smear. If
they want to call it CP, or get an expert to go on record as calling it CP, go
for it -- but don't hide behind the "could" while invoking a moral panic.

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hugh3
They undoubtedly violate the child pornography laws in some jurisdictions and
are perfectly legal in some others. The US may be one of the borderline cases.

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ErrantX
> They undoubtedly violate the child pornography laws in some jurisdictions

Not in any particularly relevant to this situation.

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not_the_same
Looks like Fox has played the Drama Monger card. Good move.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DramaMongerTCGproposal.png>

