•Wikipedia'may challenge' IWF ban
Channel 4 News, UK -6 minutes ago
The founder of Wikipedia has told Channel4 News that the he is considering challenging in court the decision to block access to part of Wikipedia in Britain ...

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Jimbo postures that he wants to take the IWF to court, but can't because of their legal standing.

Jimbo bemoans someone overstepping their authority, repeats the Gerard blocking text mumblings and generally blames everybody else.

Oddly there is nothing about the chaotic irresponsibility and lack of restraint of his own organisation.

The joy is that there are people foolish enough who thinks that going to court would be a good idea without realising that it would mean standing up in a British court and admitting that: there is no means of presenting information appropriate to an age range; though publishing in Britain they refused to be bound by British standards and wish to impose their own legal and moral framework on the public; that if they went to court that David Gerard would think it would be good idea if he represented Wikipedia; that the Wikipedia servers contain obscene material; that the Wikipedia for Schools project specifically states that it recommends children to go to the main Wikipedia.

I really hope Jimbo takes on the British courts on this.

I'll be there if he does, placard at the ready for the media shots outside the courtroom.



Jimbo says



Jimbo is wrong. The IWF didn't do anything of the sort. They merely added the image to the blacklist and advised the ISPs that the image may be illegal. The IPSs blocked the page with their software, software which apparently is unable to block just a jpg.

When an uncommon word like "remit" creeps into a canned talking point it becomes a useful "tag" that shows lack of independent thinking and dependence upon the the received script. I have learned this from living through the last eight years of Bush in the US. The word has appeared several times in discussion here on this matter. I haven't followed much discussion on WP, except as presented here, but I would guess it frequently appears there too.

You go Mr. Wales. Fight them there so we don't have to fight them here. Mission accomplished.

I think part of that is that if you look on the IWF website, they're very clear about what they are covering and say that child porn is very clear cut in law. They seem to say or imply they have a remit. That is, there are only certain things they will deal with. So (perhaps unfortunately) I don't think they would deal with broader pornography issues.

No, but the media certainly would.

It's just a shame this hasn't happened during the UK Parliamentary summer recess, when stories run and run. If it had, it would be incredibly easy to get the self-made money shots mentioned, etc, but as things stand, there is too much "real" news going on.

Edit: Although is it not a crime in the UK to show a child pornography? I believe it is. So that would be an interesting twist, too. Wikipedia is allowing children access to porn, not good.

The wiki could say it's not porn, but educational though. Didn't that work for The Joy of Sex?

Something could perhaps be made of the age of the models not being specifiied/ensured or something.

I'm pretty sure that it was the IWF's blacklist that contained the page rather than the image, and that nobody (except you) was saying anything different.