Sceptre

A few months ago, I made a blog post about external censorship of material present in Wikipedia. It’s only fitting I post about internal censorship. While it arguably exists in Wikipedia, I’m going to talk about one current case in particular: Goatse.

Goatse, if you haven’t heard of it, is one of the internet’s most famous shock images. Put simply, it’s a naked guy holding his ass wide open. It’s not a nice sight, but if you want to see a stylised version of it, go to its old address of http://www.goatse.cx. So, of course, people don’t particularly like to see it. But as it is verifiably one of the internet’s most notable shock images (having countless parodies), you’d expect to see it in a Wikipedia article about it. It’s not the case, though.

One of the major problems with the image is that, being a shock image, it’s often used by trolls to troll Wikipedia. Which kind of ruins it for anyone who wants to use it in good faith. So, when it was uploaded three days ago, I decided to see what would happen if a user in (relatively) good standing tried to use it in good faith. I spotted the upload almost immediately, and made sure that it would not be deleted for being vandalism, or for not passing Wikipedia’s requirements for fair use.

Not surprisingly, it was almost immediately removed. These removals were more due to a reaction to the image than any reason pertaining to encyclopedic treatment of the image. I pointed out that Wikipedia is “not censored”. It was taken to Files for Deletion while it wasn’t in the article, where I posted a diatribe why it should be kept. My reasons pertained to the fact that Wikipedia houses offensive material anyway – some free, some copyrighted – and that not allowing an encyclopedic of this image while an encyclopedic use of another image (say, the Jyllands-Posten cartoons of Muhammad) is censorship because such a ban would be based on taste rather than editorial consideration. Which is why the “not censored” policy exists: to prevent peoples’ offense from compromising an encyclopedic mission. Which proved to be controversial during the Jyllands-Posten controversy.

It was deleted about seventeen hours later regardless, for not being used in any article. This, however, was out of process. The policy dictating speedy deletion, rather than deletion after the five days of FFD, says that images must be orphaned for seven (presumably continuous) days before being deleted, presumably so that people wouldn’t edit an image out of an article then get it deleted. I immediately put the deletion on Deletion Review, arguing this exact fact. The review seems to be split at the minute, with some people arguing for the image, and some arguing against it. It’ll be interesting to see how it pans out.

Edit: the deletion was endorsed. Not surprising, really. Proves the double standard present on Wikipedia and about how people are so squeamish about body parts.

With Joss Whedon’s new television series Dollhouse airing tonight (in fact, as I write this post, it’s already airing), I decided to finally get off my ass and watch his critically acclaimed series Firefly, and its 2005 follow-up film Serenity. I’ve had the full fourteen-episode and one-movie series on my computer for about a year now, but I never got around to watching it.

I already knew what to expect. Firefly was infamously screwed over by FOX. The episodes were aired way out of order (most notably, the intended pilot episode was broadcast as the finale), and was, like Futurama, always pre-empted for sports events. I intended to watch them in their production order: “Serenity” (the pilot), “The Train Job”, “Bushwhacked”, “Shindig”, “Safe”, “Our Mrs. Reynolds”, “Jaynestown”, “Out of Gas”, “Ariel”, “War Stories”, “Trash”, “The Message”, “Heart of Gold”, “Objects in Space”, Serenity (the film). I also intended to watch three episodes per day, from Monday to Friday, in time for the Dollhouse premiere, and I also planned to blog each night.

Suffice it to say, it didn’t go as planned. I got delayed on some days. I intended to watch the film on Friday afternoon, but ended up watching nearer midnight; I didn’t get to the finish until 1:20am on Valentine’s Day (which says something about me). The other major problem was that, because I accidentally had the episodes not in order, I ended up watching “Our Mrs Reynolds” in the place of “Shindig”. Thankfully, I caught on to that fact and watched the rest in order.

So, first, the show in general. I like the show. It was well thought out, and was up to Whedon’s famous standard of entertainment. I’m ashamed I didn’t watch it sooner. I could also imagine the show going on for at least three, maybe four seasons, if it had all gone to plan. The movie? Not so much. I reckon that Joss didn’t write it as well as he could of, given that this was his magnum opus and was vastly underappreciated. I especially didn’t like Book and Wash dying, or River changing from a psychotic teenager to ass-kicking kickboxer. Still, it’s good entertainment. On a scale of 0 to 10, I would give this at least a nine.

Now, the characters. Were I to rank them in order of preference, I would say: Mal, Book, River, Kaylee, Jayne, Simon, Zoe, Wash, Inara. Mal and Book were always my favourite characters, and they had me at “hello”. I also appreciated the mystery surrounding Bo0k, in particular. Then River and Kaylee, who are widely regarded as being cute/hot. I liked River simply because her character was interesting. And she was nice on the eye. The backstory regarding River at the hands of the Alliance was one of the better parts. Kaylee was also a good character, because she got half of the funny lines. The other half went to Jayne, but I couldn’t put him higher up. I originally didn’t like him because he was a douche. Around “Jaynestown”, I started to like him. Then during “Ariel”, I didn’t. Then after “Ariel”, I did. It averages out to a nice fifth. The final four are ranked lower because they just weren’t as good. Inara is last because I thought she was a waste of space. The concept of the “space whore” seemed tacked on by the network. Not part of the main cast, but deserving of a mention, is Badger, played by Mark Sheppard (who I remember from Battlestar Galactica). The loveable Cockney mobster, I wanted him to be in a few more episodes, because he was humourous. And who knows? Maybe, if the show lasted longer, he would’ve been around a bit more.

So, in summary, Firefly was entertaining, and above my usual fare of shows. I’m disappointed it was cancelled and screwed around by FOX, and that I didn’t watch it sooner. As for what I’m going to do, I’ve got a favourable enough opinion of Whedon to watch Dollhouse. Hopefully, it’ll be entertaining, but I doubt it’ll last long; FOX are screwing it around in the same way, even putting it in the same timeslot (Friday, 9/8c). Maybe, in the summer, I’ll watch Buffy and Angel. But as for Firefly, I’m impressed.

I’m rather disgusted at the Internet Watch Foundation’s block of Wikipedia. Partially because the offending content – the album cover for the Scorpions album Virgin Killer (a naked, pre-pubescent girl) is more-than-likely legal. Why? Because the cover was designed by an RCA employee. The cover would’ve had to be vetted by the record label. And even now, with stringent child pornography laws, the album is still able to be bought with its original cover. At least from online stores. And, as it should be pointed out, nudity isn’t strictly speaking, pornography.

Of course, that isn’t to say it isn’t offensive – it probably is. But there is no reason for mandatory censorship of legal-but-offensive material. People have differing standards. For example, pornography may not offend one person, but an image of Muhammad may offend another. Once we start blocking things based on moral viewpoints, I actually do think there will be a slippery slope into blocking unoffensive material, and then criticism of your ISP. And, in the context of Wikipedia, the image probably isn’t obscene; it discusses the album cover’s controversy with the cover. The current block will probably give an ironic, Streisand-like justification for its use now.

As a liberal-minded person, I strongly oppose censorship of anything legal. That includes, for the meanwhile, the BNP’s soapboxing. It really disappoints me to see liberal people wanting to censor the BNP. Yes, they’re racist. So are most newspapers in the UK. And as far as criminality goes… Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP, was acquitted of incitement to racial hatred. Twice.

Of course, I should point out that I am not advocating child pornography. I agree that illegal content such as child porn should be blocked at the ISP level. But Virgin Killer is a grey area, and isn’t child pornography until it’s ruled otherwise by the courts.

Probably the worst-case scenario is that the newspapers will put out some spin that Wikipedia is a child porn service. Then most people will have forgotten it within a few weeks. The police won’t prosecute everyone who visits the Virgin Killer article – even outside the UK, the article’s hitcount has trebled – and the ISPs won’t disconnect. Hopefully, this mess will be all sorted out soon. Or maybe I’m too much of an idealist.

So, how to bypass it? I’ve had a look on the forums for Be Unlimited (my ISP). There are two options I can think of right now: change your DNS servers, or use a VPN tunnel:

• For DNS servers: currently, OpenDNS doesn’t work. However, DNS Advantage does, and the article is accessible. Follow the instructions there.
• VPN tunnelling: find a paid service, or install the free, ad-supported, Hotspot Shield.

You perform this at your own risk; I claim no liability for any events that may happen as a result, e.g. legal trouble (unlikely), router damage, or loss of internet service.

Edit: you can also get onto it using some URL magic or the secure server, but they’re more temporary measures (and the former method is a bit annoying).

This is my first post. Basically, it’s just me editing the default first post. Odds are, I’ll get sick of this blog and delete it after a few weeks.