[Foundation-l] and what if...

Sun Dec 14 11:20:10 UTC 2008

Judson Dunn wrote:

> Make no mistake, the free dissemination of all human knowledge to
> every person on the planet is a fight. The forces that would spread
> ignorance as a means of control, and separation are always fighting
> back. The idea that we should acquiesce in that fight, and censor our
> own information from people that are searching for that knowledge is
> disgusting, and would cause a substantial backlash against the
> Foundation.

The very mission of the WMF is illegal as hell in a huge number of
countries including some that are considered democratic, Western and
what ever. Censorship is so deeply engraved into legal systems that is
isn't even recognized as such in many cases. It can fall under
protection "from illegal content" including "from hate crimes", "of
personal honor", "of privacy", "of dignity of the king", "of the nation
and its culture as such" and what ever more reasons there are to limit
free speech.

Even in areas where most probably all of us will agree that some content
should not be publicly available, such as child pornography, there are
huge issues about the scope and the method of the ban. Not even the
European Union can agree on what is a child or what is pornographic, so
how could we establish global guidelines on acceptable content?

Ciao Henning