On 12/8/08, DESLIPPE, MICHAEL CIV DCMA CIV DFAS
<MICHAEL.DESLIPPE(a)dfas.mil> wrote:
So, certain laws apply without regard to things not in
control of the victim.
In this case, a minor child was exploited for money. Someone should
have protected the child from such a consequence as this.
And arguably someone should have required Daniel Radcliffe to keep his
pants on, advised Brooke Shields not to pursue an acting career, and
refused to even consider buying Miley Cyrus a cell phone.
You can call it "bad parenting" for sure, but painting any of it as
"child porn" would only cheapen the term and hurl a belittling insult
at actual victims exploited for actual child porn.
The first amendment of the U.S. constitution guarantees freedom of
speech and of the press, and exceptions are not made on a whim. Yes,
certain forms of pornography are prohibited, but the underlying moral
basis for this isn't that you and I and most other people find them
offensive/distasteful, rather because they are presumed to be
exploiting the victim of a sex crime.
Surely filming the rape of an adult or the murder of any person would
be illegal for similar reasons if done for personal gain (as opposed
to catching it on a security camera or an 8-mm Zoomatic[1]) Of course
there will always exist really weird people who are turned on by
things like that (or for any other thing you can think of) but any
attempt to legislate that would border on thought-crime, a territory
where the potential for creep[2] is infinitely greater than
speech-crime.
In this case, in the country under scrutiny, there are
laws about what
is and isn't decent. There are mechanisms for making the laws, defining
them and prosecuting them. Whatever, you, me or anyone else thinks,
in the country of interest, this either is or isn't against the law. If it's
against the law, it shouldn't be there. If is isn't against the law be allowed
without question. If it is one of those things and someone thinks it ought
to be the other, then they should take it through the process used by that
country to change their laws.
(In countries which have such a process, that is, but yes...)
I agree, all laws should be tested (to the extent that this can be
done without causing actual harm to another human being) and amended
or repealed when demonstrated to make no sense. Maybe some court will
decide that the image is illegal under U.K. law, or maybe they won't,
but it doesn't really matter as Wikipedia need not and should not be
manipulated by foreign censorship.
If the cover art instead contained a naked swastika obscured by broken
glass the album would have been banned in its country of origin[3],
but acceptable in most other places. If the cover art depicted
Mohammed in any state of dress obscured by broken glass it would
probably be banned in predominantly Islamic countries. If it contained
a masturbating nun obscured by broken glass it would (assuming she is
an adult) be acceptable in the U.S., the U.K. and Germany but banned
in New Zealand[4]. In the PRC the album art could be banned for having
one or more colours in common with the flag of Tibet (or for having
the same aspect ratio when distributed as a cassette, or for any other
cock-and-bull reason, or none at all, seriously).
Some will argue that the English Wikipedia should bend more willingly
for the benefit of contributors in English-speaking countries. Frankly
I'm not going to buy that because having English an official language
is not a guarantor (or prerequisite) of reasonable human rights or
censorship laws. Just look at Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Singapore, or
the Sudan.
I can almost guarantee that any complaints from these regimes would be
file-13'd without a second thought. Is Britain so special? India and
Nigeria have more English speakers than Britain. I realise they have a
bit more credibility than the other countries I mentioned but would
anyone take them seriously if they find some enwiki content to declare
illegal? Probably not.
—C.W.
[1] Unless positioned on the grassy knoll, which would suggest conspiracy.
[2] As in "instruction creep" not "being creepy", no pun intended.
[3] But it would be okay for Germans to view it on the English
Wikipedia as it is displayed for the scholarly purpose of informing
readers about the album, not to promote Nazism or the album. Still
wouldn't appear on the German Wikipedia due to their unrelated
rejection of "fair use".
[4] Cradle of Filth, 1997.