Internet Censorship
Today, informationweek reports that UK Internet users have been “censored” from a particular page on wikipedia.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/policy/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212300138&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_ALL
It makes me ask the question, is the internet a privilege or a right?
I think that this is absolutely stupid that the IWF took the task of blocking wikimedia for this page. System administrators have a hard enough time with high school students trying to keep them off sites they shouldn’t be visiting, let alone an entire country trying to look at something thats now gained a bundle of attention. So, why did they block it? Its not as if that image exists no where else on the web (Amazon.) I would like to know the reasoning behind this ordeal. It is the same sort of situation as the Lego’s that we saw last week (Terrorists and Nazi’s.) Publicity. While the situation is not socially acceptable there is no reason to bring this to more peoples attention.
So, now I’d like to find out if any one with a IWF governed ISP in England is able to circumvent these amateurish tactics. If people can break out of the great firewall of china, then this should be a snap. I bet a US based https encrypted web proxy would do the trick.
“The Wikimedia Foundation has urged the IWF to remove Wikipedia from its blacklist.”
If I were on the board of the Wikimedia Foundation I would not urge the IWF to remove them, I would demand it. If they do not comply then perhaps ask wikipedia users to take a visit over to their website and submit a complaint (Report Abuse). Or perhaps remove their right to use wikipedia at all. I do think the IWF is a good idea in theory, but this is not a good example of their work.
–UPDATE some outlaw news: http://www.out-law.com//default.aspx?page=9644
Add comment December 8th, 2008