Censorship is very much the kind of accusation that halts any further useful talk. The arguments for or against restrictions are often a fine line with important consequences in either direction. I was asked to write about possible censorship on the fa.wikipedia but all I can do is write that I was asked. I know all to well that the Wikimedia domain is blocked while all Wikipedias are still freely available in Iran.
The worst thing that can happen to our projects is when they are blocked. This defeats utterly what we aim to achieve; providing educational content. For me it is frustrating not to know that we have a good understanding of all the cases of censorship imposed by governments. When this is what motivates the restriction of the number of sexually specific images, I find the argument compelling.
Thanks,
GerardM
5 comments:
The worst thing that can happen to the projects is that they go off track from their purpose of attempting to provide truth and reality as best as those concepts can hope to be portrayed.
It is disheartening that you find government censorship a "compelling" argument to introduce more censorship. Out of all the compelling reasons to restrict sexually-explicit imagery on Commons, I found that one of the least persuasive.
When censorship exists because of "an overload" of images of a sexual nature, there is imho nothing wrong with reducing the number of such pictures until we have sufficient high quality pictures for illustration purposes.
When it is a numbers game and, when we have a sufficient number for illustration purposes, access to the whole of Commons is what matters.
Thanks,
GerardM
The problem is that you state a very strong general principle--an easy thing to do--without doing the heavy lifting of drawing lines.
It avoids the reality that this is not just a numbers game. Greg Maxwell's arguments about this have yet to be adequately addressed by the "cut the numbers" crowd, at least not that I've seen.
The logic and reasoning, and the complexity of the issue, is clear in Maxwell's writings. Your reasoning and logic is too parsimonious--cut the images if Iran says so because why not--and does no evaluation of the real issue, which is how to arrive at reduced numbers, and why.
Everyone is in agreement that teenagers uploading cameraphone cock shots is not good and does not serve any useful purpose. But I don't feel that way because Iran might restrict Commons. The price of free information is that others always might prevent access to it, so I find that entire line of argumentation to be invalid as it relates to the goals of the project.
I have blogged repeatedly about exactly these lines. I posted a male nude, a bare breasted royal from Lombok.. I was the first to write about Iran blocking Commons.
I have had contacts with Iranians on this subject and I have been given to understand that it is very much a numbers game.
Iran and not only Iran censors projects of ours in many ways. The consequence is that many millions of students have no access to the educational content we provide.
By not acknowledging this as an issue by reducing it to "only them", you ignore what our projects are there for.
I want high quality almost clinical illustrations when we talk about sexually explicit imagery. This can be accepted as necessary and legitimate and it does not take anything away from achieving the goals of our projects.
Iran's government is the most prolific executioner of children. They still stone women and crack down on protests against an increasingly illegitimate regime.
That you think the blocking of Commons is just a numbers game proposed by some reasonable government is odd. I'm sorry that Iran is a theocracy that rigs elections, stones gay people and harasses women for how they dress.
That's the last sort of place that I want dictating to the rest of the world what it sees. Sorry, the problem isn't Commons, it's the state of Iranian liberty.
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