Be Excellent To Each Other

Try this link...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer

It's about a mid-1970s album with a kid on the front cover.

Unless you're on Virgin Media, Be Unlimited/O2/Telefonica, EasyNet/UK Online, PlusNet, Demon or Opal in which case it's a 404 - Not found message. These ISPs have decided to pro actively block that part of Wikipedia because they say it's child porn.

This is completely unacceptable. Not only have ISPs just managed to shoot their common carrier status in the foot, neatly making them legally responsible for anything they carry (since their argument was always that it wasn't possible to monitor, apparently it is) but the message is a lie. The file IS there, but you're being blocked from seeing it.

There is nothing illegal about the page at all, they've just decided to make a moral decision on your behalf, what next? O2 blocking Vodafone's homepage? Demon blocking santanic nomenclature?

Worse, the ISPs have done it by routing their every user through a tiny number of proxies. The upshot of this is Wikipedia is only seeing 1 or 2 ip addresses for all of us and has thus been forced to ban all editing from those ISPs because it'd be impossible to identify and ban abusers without banning the entire ISP anyway. In short, because of one self-appointed moral guardian somewhere getting their panties in a twist over a 30 year old album, you can't edit Wikipedia.

I will of course be complaining to my ISP (Be), anyone who'll listen and anyone just stupid enough to stand still for 30 seconds. I hope everyone will do the same. My ISP is not my mum, I already have one of those and it wouldn't surprised me if she'd bought that album...

Be users can find a forum thread, with bonus bringing up of an official denial they'd ever do this at - https://www.bethere.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23689

No I can see it, not blocked by my ISP....

Although I don't want to look at it...

I get a 403 on my phone (O2).

Working here: Demon

Yeah I've seen a couple of Demon people say that, the fact that it's not everyone is hardly the point though.

Strangely missing on Virgin Media.

Page loads fine on Zen

Getting an 'Object not found' not even a proper 404.

Yes, sorry should have made that clear, Virgin is stamping on it completely, Be is false-404ing it.



ISP not in list of companies doing something not doing something shock.

Which ISP are you?

I'm on Virgin Media and I get a blank page... how annoying!!

I can see it-didn't really want to mind....that sort of thing shouldn't be on album covers

It's virgin on the ridiculous...

Orange.

Perhaps Virgin think it will kill their Servers

(Can see it on BT)

The point though is not the (perfectly legal) image in question but that ISPs are now censoring purely on their own distaste, which opens it up rather nastily.

It's the start of the internet not being quite so free and unlimited. Naturally it works fine here with Adsl24. I just wish the speeds were a bit faster with this isp. This is a rather worrying development though.

That is pretty appalling - and a daft move on behalf of the ISPs really, because now they've said "we are willing to censor, it's just a matter of levels".

I get a blank page if I browse the page directly, but it's still in Google's cache and Virgin Media don't seem to be together enough to block that too:

http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:wp_ ... cd=1&gl=uk

Don't see what all the fuss is about myself, it's a picture of a child with its groin obfuscated. Oh no! Man, I hate censorship. It makes my already hot blood boil.



What kind of Heavy Metal band are you? LAME.

No they are not, none of them are specifically blocking this page. The ISPs you name are using a blocklist service, the Internet Watch Foundation, which has added to its list of blacklisted sites the Wikipedia page in question under the "child pornography" section. It's all automated at the ISPs end and as this news only broke late on Friday I doubt the ISPs in question have had chance to react to the news yet. You might see some of these ISPs drop the IWF blacklist from their service on Monday.

I don't, as a matter of principle, object to ISPs blacklisting child porn in the same way as I don't object to them running open relay blacklists to stop spam. I also accept that there are going to be occasional accidents when you run an automated blacklist like that; responding to the accidents in a timely and appropriate manner is important. I really feel you are getting far too affronted a little early here, Duds. It's not like anyone in those ISPs is specifically targetting this page, and nothing in their actions so far brings their carrier neutrality into question either.

Now as for the question of whether or not the album cover in question should be classed as child porn or not, I don't really know. It's unarguably controversial, sufficiently so that it was withdrawn on the album's second pressing.

Except that, of course, the IWF doesn't exist to block access to child pornography, it exists to block access to 'illegal online content'. Which as of January will include the ludicrously worded extreme pornography sections of the Criminal Justice Bill. It's also only one small step from becoming a copyright infringement enforcement group.

I hope so.



It's worth adding to this that Be officially denied they used transparent proxies.

Granted, so the best thing for us is if they have a high profile fuckup that suddenly and dramatically inconveniences their client's customers.

But in the public eye, taking the position that they should not censor a picture of a naked 12 year old is pretty much indefensible.

Indeed, I hope none of you nonce bastards own a copy of Nevermind.

We're saying 'nounce' now.

How did you find this out, Dudders?

Also: Seeing as the tip offs to the IWF are "anonymous", I might just spam them loads and hope they block a completely innocent site, like 10downingstreet.gov.uk or something...

Fine on Plusnet.

Not working on Virgin Media, drafting a letter in my brain.

'Go, Tiscali!', I guess.

Fine with me on plusnet, but I've never had a problem with Plusnet so I dunno why there would be a problem with plusnet.

Originally on The Register.

I agree with Dudley in this case.. it is not a 'vile' picture, and the way we are with a nation to over protect kids is odd..


For example, I can't walk in the town park with out a child, without being questioned by security guards.

We have gone too far the other way for protecting children and their images... we are making it unhealthy to even take pics of children including your own.

And recently in London they discovered the police were being ordered to question all single males in parks, "just in case" and if they didn't have "A good reason for being there" to "escort" them out.

So tell them to "fuck off" and "walk back in again" when they throw you out. What are they going to do? Arrest you?

We as a nation have gone too protective

If you swear at the Police yes... you can be nicked

So..."Excuse me Mr.Officer-Man, I am quite happy here and causing no disturbance of the peace, please leave me alone." Then "walk back in again".

Personnaly I would not leave

Closely followed by them barring your way and a resisting arrest or assulting a policeman charge if you try to get past. I would also imagine the parks are covered by the police bylaws allowing them to ask you to move on, Walpole park in Ealing is certainly in one of those areas, can't remember what they're called.

We're a little off topic here though.

Edit : Just checked, it was Telford not london, here's one of the original stories.

http://www.shropshirestar.com/2008/09/0 ... iz-adults/

Yup Telford, it is a shame, as in summer we used to go for ice-creams in the park when at work

Yes, the police no doubt do have the power to move you on, but they shouldn't be able to if their only reason to is suspected potential nonceing.

I agree that we are too protective now. We surely have no more paedophiles percentage wise of the nation than we did twenty years ago, and yet I wouldn't be allowed to walk to school as a six year old child on my own, like I did in those "care-free" days.

Indeed, I remember a quoted statistic that actual and attempted child abductions (not pretend ones!) are no higher than they were 20 years ago, and I refuse to believe that's as a result of parents now seeming unable to let kids out of their sight.

Remember - it's better for your child to have diabetes by the age of 15 and have a complete inability to form any kind of interpersonal relationship than to be fiddled by a nonce.

Someone attempted to abduct me when I was a kid, but I refused to go and hold the pedal down on his car while he pushed it.

Bollocks.

This is the sort of reasoning that results in people who run photo developing companies reporting parents for having photos of their kids in the bath.

Pictures of naked under 16s are *not* illegal. Indecent photos of under 16s (well, under 18s now, oddly enough) are illegal. "Indecent" is not terribly well defined in law, but it needs something more than just "naked" - it has to involve, basically, an inappropriate context or sexualisation of the child concerned. Otherwise every owner of "Nevermind" and most parents would be going to jail.

You're right but none of that contradicts Craster's statement.

Well, it does if you take what I thought was a fairly obvious and not-needed-to-be-stated next step in the reasoning, which is that it's not indefensible to defend their right to publish an uncensored photo of a naked 12 year old given that it's not illegal, and public eye bedamned. If it's not illegal, we should be able to do it. Like, say, joining the BNP.

The important part of the statement was "in the public eye", meaning that the public will not stand behind this as an issue. Not morally indefensible, publically indefensible - as in, if you try and argue to the public at large that the ISPs should stop people seeing pictures of naked 12 year old girls, you'll be dismissed as a dirty paedo.

Now, if they'd perhaps censored that famous picture of the naked kids fleeing an atomic blast, you could probably make a case for arguing it.