The Great Firewall of Britain
The IWF dropped a clanger today. They broke wikipedia, and then reeling from the reaction to that, realised that to keep in line with their practices, they must do the same for Amazon, Google and many, many other sites hosting a dodgy album cover image from a 1970s album by band Scorpions.
It will be amusing to see how they get themselves out of this. For one, it has started a lot of debate about whether we should be being censored routinely anyway. According to two different sites I read, the IWF also block "racist hate speech" and "morbid images". OK, so it's one thing to block CP and expect public support for it, it's another altogether to start blocking web site text because it's "hate speech". Yes, I know, we have laws on hate speech now.... the UK isn't, and hasn't been for some time now, a free country. The morbid image one is even more disturbing than the hate speech in a way, because in theory it means they can block images related to warzones, or genocide victims. Nice one, it isn't really happening if we can't see it. Nothing to see here, move along.
But we can see it anyway, and that's the laugh. Bypassing such filters is trivial. The image the IWF blocked today is available on hundreds of other sites anyway, and the album can be bought in high street shops like HMV. In fact, the album has been around for 30 odd years!
All that said, today's news is excellent for anti-censorship advocates. By partially blocking Wikipedia they broke the ability for normal users to edit the pages as anonymous users. This has made them look like total idiots, and now that Amazon and Google are in the mix of sites that might require banning it can only get sillier. I can't possibly believe they will try it on with Amazon and Google, and millions of brits not being able to edit wikipedia articles can't go on either, so the only realistic outcome I can see for this is the IWF having to publicly back down on the issue with a very red face.
It will be amusing to see how they get themselves out of this. For one, it has started a lot of debate about whether we should be being censored routinely anyway. According to two different sites I read, the IWF also block "racist hate speech" and "morbid images". OK, so it's one thing to block CP and expect public support for it, it's another altogether to start blocking web site text because it's "hate speech". Yes, I know, we have laws on hate speech now.... the UK isn't, and hasn't been for some time now, a free country. The morbid image one is even more disturbing than the hate speech in a way, because in theory it means they can block images related to warzones, or genocide victims. Nice one, it isn't really happening if we can't see it. Nothing to see here, move along.
But we can see it anyway, and that's the laugh. Bypassing such filters is trivial. The image the IWF blocked today is available on hundreds of other sites anyway, and the album can be bought in high street shops like HMV. In fact, the album has been around for 30 odd years!
All that said, today's news is excellent for anti-censorship advocates. By partially blocking Wikipedia they broke the ability for normal users to edit the pages as anonymous users. This has made them look like total idiots, and now that Amazon and Google are in the mix of sites that might require banning it can only get sillier. I can't possibly believe they will try it on with Amazon and Google, and millions of brits not being able to edit wikipedia articles can't go on either, so the only realistic outcome I can see for this is the IWF having to publicly back down on the issue with a very red face.