In light of the reinvigorated discussions about questionable content on Wikimedia Commons, I want to be sure that I actually do understand the how the system works. Here is my understanding of how it would work, using some hypothetical child porn as an example so all the steps are covered.

Alice uploads an image (in this example, child porn) to Wikimedia Commons.

• There is no review by admins nor any type of automatic filtering.
• The image is immediately available for anyone to view.
• There is no review of the source of the image or terms of the license before the image is made available.
• By virtue of being on Wikimedia Commons, people may erroneously assume that the image can be freely used on their own websites, artwork, etc.

Bob, an admin on Wikimedia Commons, sees that the image is overtly offensive (and, for the sake of this discussion, illegal in the country where Wikimedia's servers reside). Bob deletes the image. The image can no longer be accessed by the general public.

• Bob may be required by the laws in his country to report the image to the authorities.
• Despite being in a position of responsibility, Bob is not required by Wikimedia policy to report the uploader of the image (Alice) to authorities.
• Bob himself may be a minor. Exposing minors to child porn (or adult porn) may be in violation of the law.
• The image still exists on Wikimedia servers.
• Any Wikimedia admin, developer, and other supernumerary (i.e., Founder) can still view the "deleted" image.
• Knowingly allowing some users access to the image may be in violation of the law.

Carol, a Wikimedia admin with "oversight rights", "oversights" the now "deleted" image.

• Carol may be required by the laws in her country to report the image to the authorities.
• The image still exists on Wikimedia servers.
• The image is no longer visible to all admins, but is visible to admins with oversight rights, developers, and possibly others.
• Knowingly allowing some users access to the image may be in violation of the law.

Is this an accurate summary? I've made some assumptions about process here which may be wrong. I'm sure the laws vary widely from country to country, but let's assume for now that my assertions are true in some country, just to avoid a long and pointless diversion. Comments?

Sounds like you've nailed it down. The only comment I have is... <sigh>

Two additional comments/clarifications,

a) there is no formal model release form. The blind assumption is that the uploader had the permission of the subjects or "models" to upload their photograph to the internet under a 'free' license.
b) there is no easy way to contact the photographer or uploader to check, as it is all done anonymously decision are being made blind and by the rabble.

Public photography is under the increasing pressure of privacy laws in some countries, e.g. France under Article 9 of the Civil Code. Details are discussed here and here.

Even in the USA, which is currently lax in this area, statutes focus on privacy expectations in private places which would certain include, e.g. bathrooms, bedrooms, photographs taken on private property.

How do we know if photographs, e.g. of ex-lovers, are not being uploaded maliciously or images taken in public are being used without permission? Especially those scraped off Flickr etc. (The whole parasitical mugging of images off Flickr is a joke).

The Wikipedia's standards should be higher than "the minimum to avoid prosecution at the third party's" as is practiced now by Mike Godwin, under the joke interpretation of Section 230, and at least equivalent to a proper publisher, e.g. all images properly commissioned and signed off.

As usual, the Wikipedia pass the buck, and expense, of cleaning up its crap onto others.

In the UK, for example, the media operates under 'The Editors Code of Practice', a foundation stone of self-regulation, similar could be enforced by the Mediawiki Foundation.

There are legal limits to the photography of children under 16 as models where a license must be granted by local government doing so without in public is a breach of the peace. Back to France where I understand, e.g., all architect-designed buildings in France are "works of art" in the right of the architect, the image of which is his property until 70 years after his death and you cannot sell photos of them.

This is a situation likely to become more complex in the future contrary to Wikipedia robber baron attitudes.

What I find amusing is that in all of the above examples Alice, Bob and Carol have all broken the law merely from viewing the kiddy porn.

The image is (has been) on their own computer courtesy of their browser's cache. This has the effect, in the UK at least, of them being indictable for having illegal pornography on their computers.

I once did some forensic PC inspections (for a local solicitor friend) of a client who had been sent an unsolicited email containing a paedo pic. A colleague saw it and reported him. He ended up fined with a suspended sentence for having paedo porn. The judge didn't give a toss that it wasn't his fault it was there, the mere fact it was there was enough.

Unlikely this is the whole story. People who make a point of flaunting conventions, or serious criminal laws, have a tendency to report that authorities are picking on their innocent self. Usually not the case.

No, of course it isn't the whole story. My report weighed in at eight A4 pages and the transcript of the trial was about 120 pages. The crux of the event is there though. That and the fact that paedo porn is so emotive (and can be capitalised on politically); and judges, by-and-large, know fuck all about computers.

The fact still remains that the mechanics of how it got there and how it was used is purely a matter of mitigation, it is not a reason to contend that the the law wasn't broken.

Or perhaps more appropriately...?

Creepy on a couple of levels.

it's a small point in this interesting and important post, but I don't think any wikimedia admin can see it at that point (deleted on commons) - only commons admins (or 'local' admins if the media is uploaded to a different project) - could be wrong about that, but that's my understanding.

Oh and to add a further point / clarification - apparently commons admin.s, oversighters, and maybe dev.s are aware of child porn having been uploaded to the project, but are unware if anyone ever reported it to any external authority.

Yes that's right. Admins on WP who are not Commons admins have (to their great annoyance) no more power or authority on Commons than anyone else does. (Sometimes less influence if they barge on and try to push people around when they're not regulars.) The Sole Founder and stewards of course do have admin powers on all sites.

As I tried to explain in this thread over a year ago, knowingly exposing minors to any porn, whether it be child porn or not, is a potentially serious legal problem. While a number of trial judges have so far been been willing to extend civil immunity to the WMF under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, they could well have a different attitude and interpretation when it comes to criminal liability.

Does anyone argue that Sec. 230 does provide federal criminal immunity? It would seem not to under the plain language of Sec. 230 (e)(1). Even the EFF seems to concede this point:



Sec. 230 (e) (3) might even hold out some hope for enforcing state criminal statutes:



Although that is a bit of a stretch.

BTW WP has this terribly misleading section in its Sec. 230 article that would give the impression that Sec 230 provides immunity for exposing children to porn. Each and every one of those case, including the "public nuisance" one is a state civil law matter.

It is useful to go back and read s230 every now and again, because what also should be emphasised is that the WMF have the clear authority to supervise porn and remove it without attracting any civil liability.




Together with the clear statement that they are not immune from criminal prosecution for hosting porn, which s230(e)1 is most explicit( ) about, you wonder why WMF have not addressed it with enthusiasm, as they would seem to be quite open to criminal proceedings given their long, long record of doing nothing much about the problem (aside from banning the likes of people who have complained about the issue).

[edit]Oh, one for the libertarians to sulk about in there - they can get rid of objectionable material even if it is constitutionally protected - so much for the Free Speech argument.

This is what I was referring to, actually. I'm not aware of a federal criminal statute on exposure of porn to minors that can be used to reach the WMF, but such exist in Florida and most other states.

Yes, basic obscenity laws and contributing to the delinquency laws are matters of state law. The law relating to keeping records of the age of models for sexually explicit material is a federal law and WP might well have some real exposure there. Also of course there are federal laws and treaty obligations relating to child porn as opposed to giving children access to porn. The only other federal laws I can think of about pornography are the "Comstock" laws which deal with obscene material sent via the USPS, but my knowledge is hardly exhustive. Maybe it is time for Congress to fashion a Comstock-like law that applies not to USPS but any entity that would otherwise be protected from state prosecution from Sec. 230 immunity?

Jimbo has taken a stand.

Good for him. Fingers crossed that it turns the tide a bit.

I never borrowed that bucket. There was already a hole in that bucket when I borrowed it. There was no hole in that bucket when I returned it.

Yes, the WMF may well have the authority to supervise porn ... but we are talking about here is using child administrators to do so.

I suspect God Jimbo is having to be seen do something now ... although in essence doing nothing ... because the heat is on.

So which avenue do we have to pursue on this one?

Imagine how it might play out.

A successful report to the FBI or public prosecutor (I do not know how your legal system works) that children are being used to administer hard core amateur porn.

An inquest is enacted.

WMF have to disclose what hidden images they host, who and how old the administrators that administer them are.

There is the nub .. they do not know because everyone is anonymous (although a few clear self-identified).

So ... how to push it to the next step where the WMF is forced to

a) do an audit of the ages and identities of their volunteer administrators.
b) put into place age limits for administrators, e.g. over 18.
c) remove admin powers from any kids.

It would not even really be possible to tinker with the software because any kids can access any bit of publicly visible hard core porn and extreme sexual politics aka written content.

I do not think I have to spell out what ramifications that would have.

I think the section 230 defence is a misapplication of law and farce. Obviously, it also explains that other evil of the WMF and their more senior minions, e.g. arbcom "not making any content decision" (which they clearly do) because if they made ANY content decision they would fall foul of the law.

So how can we pursue that and would it be possible? At this point, someone local should really start speaking to the legal counsels of child protection agencies and NPOs.

Good! The amount of utter shite that's hosted on commons is just unreal. It's hard to know where to start. I nominated a handful (if you'll pardon!) of penis pics a few weeks ago and nobody cared to even comment on the IfDs. The funny thing about the way commons is/was is that if it's properly licensed and (arguably) legal, then it gets to stay.

It's like bailing out the Titanic with a saucepan

I've never been a big fan of the "OMG JIMBO SAID" tactic, but this will definitely help to make some changes on Commons.

"Speedy deletion is an appropriate solution to a longstanding problem." - Der Jimbo.

You heard the man. Cleanup time

Seems it's already begun! [1] [2] [3]

I deleted a few earlier. When I was traversing the garbage heap sexual content area on Commons, I noticed several files that were likely from a minor.

The clean up effort is definitely needed.

With some threatening language about adminship policicies...

Lots of images that are in use are getting deleted now, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contr...CommonsDelinker

Which bypasses troublesome discussions on English wikipedia.

Boy ... Tiptoety is sure going to be have some sweet dreams over the next few days.

Let's hope it goes far enough and does not come back

Way overdue. Expect squawking from the usual suspects. What will be telling is what happens after that. A burst of activity but ultimately no long term policy change results (as with several other initiatives that could be named) would be disappointing.

I'm optimistic for now though.

Accuracy, Excellence, and Ethics


Score one point for quality uptick. But Jimbo is still labeling unwanted content as "trolling" rather than developing a more objective set of criteria for adjudging inappropriate content.


I'm sure he meant "restored" but I wonder what SB_Johnny would have to say about restoring inappropriately deleted content (as occurred recently in Wikiversity).

It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it.

Jimbo may be stuck in the early years of Wikipedia.

At that point, it was considered more important to encourage a lot of "building," and time spent on developing clear guidelines was considered wasted time. A core problem was that editor time was given little value, unless an editor became an administrator and was normally doing a lot of mop work. Then anyone who created work for the admin might be blocked.

When guidelines become clear and easy to apply, less editor time will be wasted creating content that will just be deleted or reverted. But there is a sentiment that this is "instruction creep," whereas, if IAR were actually understood, the existence of clear guidelines should not prevent ignoring them when needed. Bu then the guideline should be further clarified.

Failing to do this leads to the ridiculous situation that a guideline is clearly incorrect and will not be respected by community consensus, usually, in some particular situation. So an editor files a 16 AfDs based on a defective interpretation of the guideline, and all but one of the AfDs ends up with keep. And there was no difference with the one delete, none. So then there may be more wasted time in the future. An attempt to more accurately specify the guideline failed because it was imagined that it would open a floodgate for inappropriate application, which, again, is a misunderstanding of the purpose of guidelines. They are just guidelines, they do not bind. But there are plenty of editors and some administrators who imagine that they do.

IAR confuses the hell out of editors who just can't believe it. So they don't, and act as if IAR did not exist. IAR should actually be a protective policy, i.e., nobody should ever be sanctioned who was, apparently in good faith, following IAR, which doesn't cover repeated action after it's clear that it's against consensus. And that's a whole discussion of its own.

The biggest problem with Wikipedia is probably the unpredictability.

So who is going to take down Virgin Killer?

Deletions are fine as a stopgap solution, but what is needed is content rating.

Someone's suggested using the ICRA content rating system.

It will take a Herculean effort to cleanse the Augean Stables.


There is a curious linkage between self-defeating WP:IAR and the poorly understood dictat in Genesis, where God tells Adam and Eve not to partake of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. It's not that there is anything inherently problematic in reckoning a continuous axis stretching from Saintly Good to Demonic Evil. The problem is trying to divide that continuous axis into two distinct halves, and overlaying a judgment and a severe sanction when someone strays across the fateful dividing line.


The unpredictability arises because of the inherent drama associated with adopting and employing the above-noted practice. Augustine of Hippo called it "Original Sin" but I prefer to call it "Humankind's Original Logic Error" since overlaying a judgmental step function on the axis of human behavior is fundamentally an error in mathematical reasoning (with respect to the architecture of a functional regulatory mechanism).

Deleting the most obvious crap is a great start, but having a system which allows anyone to upload more of the same and have it instantly and automatically visible to the world seems like an obvious failing. Of course, if you have a cadre of volunteers willing to do clean-up after the fact, why bother having a sensible vetting process? Except the discussion shows that there isn't a global acceptance of Jimbo's diktat and I'm sure this will play out similarly to the unreferenced BLP deletions on en.wiki...

What is needed is flagged revisions for uploads, and a process to review (and assign content ratings to) them before they become visible... or something like that.

Its funny that that is now a radical idea. Prior to web 2.0 being aware of the content that a vehicle of distribution ("publisher" to the old school) put out would have been considered an absolute prerequisite to responsibility. Now it is a draconian burden.

Deja Revu All Over Again …

I think some people may be on the point of understanding the term “Virtual Reform” —

Then again …

Jon

I didn't say it was going to happen. Just that it was what is needed. I'd be happy to be pleasantly surprised.

When I was a Commons admin I would occasionally delete obvious pornographic crap of no legitimate use. I stopped doing this after someone or another had a shitfit over it, leading to my Commons admin rights being removed for inactivity a year or so later. It just wasn't worth the heartburn.

Jimbo's let this pot boil for so long that it's going to take more than his usual 15 seconds of attention to fix the problem. He's going to have to either take a more active role in running Commons for an extended period of time, or appoint someone to act in his stead. Otherwise as soon as his attention has turned, the WikiPorners will be back at it. It does no good to put out the fire if you don't also take the matches and gasoline away from the arsonist.

I consider that doubtful. I'll believe it when I see large numbers of porn-contributing and porn-collecting admins desysoped and banned, and not a moment before.

It's no wonder your name got reported to the Un-Wiki Activities Committee (UWAC). Thinking like that is a positive danger to the Wiki Way Of Life.

Jon

Why should it be taken down? It's not porn.

Yes, that would be a refreshing departure from a tiresome rerun of disillusionment, disappointment, frustration, cynicism, bitterness, and despair.

Not really, all he has to do is simply have all porn relabeled adult or glamour photography.
It worked before...oh wait...