Utter absurdity
UPDATE *** Internet Watch Foundation reverses its decision and comes up with an explanation that rolls back its own argument that the context of an image has no bearing on its capacity to inspire indecency***
I may not believe in many things, but I do not believe in censorship.
British internet users have been blocked from accessing an article on popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia over child pornography concerns, the country's Internet watchdog and Wikipedia said.
Judge for yourself:
Ludicrous. Parents may as well be imprisoned for washing their children with their eyes open. There are already Prontaprint lackeys calling in the police whenever a roll of film turns up a picture of a naked child on a beach.
Question - Since when did how one mythical being - the paedophile* - view an image, become the standard by which an image and all those who view it, are to be judged?
This censorship is not even being implemented by the government, but by those unaccountable heirs of Mary Whitehouse at the Internet Watch Foundation.
There's clearly a huge smokescreen operation going on in the UK as the economy crumbles, to supply the morons, sorry, citizens, with the most emotive material to focus their 2 minute hate on.
For anybody with any cognitive dissonance left over, there's this related decision from Australia:
Cartoon characters are people too, a judge has ruled in the case of a man convicted over sexually explicit cartoons based on The Simpsons.
In the Australian New South Wales Supreme Court today, Justice Michael Adams ruled that a fictional cartoon character was a "person" within the meaning of the relevant state and commonwealth laws.
Maybe Bart Simpson can be asked to pay taxes, too.
*(so beloved of tabloid editors, a creature that shifts newspapers faster than Lady Di)
December 9th, 2008 - 20:26
Legally, the image is not the issue. It’s the child victim posing for it.
I would ask of the album cover art: is it a photo or is it a painting? If it’s a painting, then there is no victim and thus no crime. Because how a paedophile *thinks* does not victimize anyone. If it’s a photo, however, I would say that a minor was vicimized by being coerced into posing sexually for the camera. If that is true, then using criminal art to sell an album is unethical … and censorship appropriate.
This bears up only if we assume that asking a child to pose nude and provocatively is a form of abuse. Is it?
December 9th, 2008 - 20:41
Legally, the image is not the issue. It’s the child victim posing for it.
>>> The syntax means I’m not sure what the second sentence here means exactly, so I’ll leave that.
I would ask of the album cover art: is it a photo or is it a painting? If it’s a painting, then there is no victim and thus no crime.
>>> You might think, but the UK law is being extended to cover examples of hentai, 3-d images of children, etc, (or, as in case of Australia, the notion that a Bart Simpson cartoon is now “a person”) ie: without a child being the source of the image. This, to me, smacks of thoughtcrime, and surpasses the usual argument that those who view an image of a real child are party to the abuse depicted.
Because how a paedophile *thinks* does not victimize anyone.
>>> See above.
If it’s a photo, however, I would say that a minor was vicimized by being coerced into posing sexually for the camera.
>>> Is the above pose sexual? And would a child need to be coerced to produce such a pose? Aren’t bodies naturally sexual? What would a non-sexual posing of the naked body look like? This fits with the notion that a child can’t decide anything for themselves until aged 16 etc.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/art-or-abuse-fury-over-image-of-naked-girl-862068.html
If that is true, then using criminal art to sell an album is unethical … and censorship appropriate.
>>> Album freely available with that cover since 1976.
This bears up only if we assume that asking a child to pose nude and provocatively is a form of abuse. Is it?
>>> Well, it may be, ie: abuse is a subset of the larger group, “images of naked children” but my point is that this notion of the naked body being obscene, in and of itself, of it no longer having an artistic context at all, that this is the overstepping and thereby the reduction of a term like “child abuse” etc, to nothing at all. If it now covers every image of a naked child up to age 16, etc, then what has changed? Has there been a big public debate? Or have the authorities simply destroyed whole categories of expression for artists and amateurs alike?
Of course, there are knots here, as we see when freely circulated materials such as this album cover are suddenly seized upon. In this instance the girl depicted is now middle-aged, maybe we can have her opinion?
December 11th, 2008 - 08:00
thought this might be of interest also
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1092513/Has-child-CAFed–How-Government-plans-record-intimate-information-child-Britain.html
December 11th, 2008 - 11:40
Who would have given a damn about the new Scorpions album?
I would have found it a largely irrelevant and tasteless album cover before all this furore. Now however this rock non-event looks all set to become an ‘ongoing saga’.
Fair-play on the scorpions I say. They’ve manged to isolate those who would never buy their material anyway- and get loads of publicity, and maybe new fans and sales, in the process.
December 11th, 2008 - 18:33
Chris, album cover above is from 1976, it appears the band had zip to do with this saga breaking.
December 11th, 2008 - 18:33
I think the melody on that tune they did, Wind of Change, was far more offensive…
December 11th, 2008 - 20:21
Your points are valid, and I do agree that our sense of right and wrong on the issue is probably loaded with social taboos that are mostly silly. What’s the big deal about a child posing nude for the camera? There is no big deal unless society makes it a big deal.
Also, my references to legal implications are based on my familiarity with US laws, not British ones. We’ve tried to legislate thought crimes many times (and we have succeeded a few times, unfortunately.) The Supreme Court tends to override these things in time.
December 11th, 2008 - 20:47
I think the Australian decision is the most ludicrous – that a cartoon character is ‘a person’. Are people going to be charged with multiple homicide for playing Quake??? Are cartoon characters going to be arrested for speeding in Grand Theft Auto???
The Australian case is a great example of ideology distorting reason, clearly they just wanted to nail this guy. We’ve surely all seen the animated GIFs in question, the idea that anybody should be considered a sex pest for possessing them is so absurd that it would be forgiven a reasonable person for never having even considered that this was somehow untoward. But that’s the thing with censorship and obscenity, you don’t have to see it at all, just some appointed official with a dirty mind and suddenly there’s an infestation…