United Liberty

Over the weekend the United Kingdom’s internet regulatory agency, The Internet Watch Foundation, blacklisted Wikipedia over concerns of “indecent images” of minors under the age of 18. The image is of the album art for a 1976 Scorpions album titled “Virgin Killer”. Beyond the problem of a centralized authority having the fiat power to blacklist sites without court order, this particular case is quite intriguing because while the image itself is quite disgusting, according to Wikimedia Foundation-

“We have no reason to believe the article, or the image contained in the article, has been held to be illegal in any jurisdiction anywhere in the world,”

 

While I believe government should protect children from indecent photography, child sex, child abuse, etc, it should be done through existing mechanisms- most prodominently civil and/or criminal charges. Giving the government (or in this case quasi-government NGOs) the power to blacklist a website because it finds certain content offensive may provide some short term benefits as far as reducing exploitation of minors, but over the longer term this power will certainly be abused and lead to nothing but increased tyranny. Just as the Patriot Act has been used to help fight marijuana, internet regulation based upon beauracratic decree will be used to shut down politicial opponents of the ruling coalition and may even ultimately be used against Christians or others of religious faith.

UPDATE:

It appears the IWF has removed their blacklist on Wikipedia after public outcry. In their statement they said-

“IWF’s overriding objective is to minimize the availability of indecent images of children on the internet, however, on this occasion our efforts have had the opposite effect,”

 

Read more on the lifting of the ban at Wired.com.