This post is on the BDSM Activism web board.
| Wed 10 Dec 08, 2:30 AM Tanos  UK(M), 14 yrs    |
One of the issues that has come up with the new Extreme Pornography law is getting straight answers about the legality of specific images depicting consenting adults doing BDSM that might be covered. During the recent controversy about the IWF blocking a page on Wikipedia it was spelt out that in practice the IWF consists of four police-trained analysts who interpret the sentencing guidelines for relevant offences, and add URLs to an automated blacklist that goes out to ISPs. UK sites are reported to the police and the ISP gets a takedown-notice. If they are still going to apply the Extreme Pornography legal tests next year (as they've said they will), then those four police-trained analysts will be the most influential group of people applying the law. Consequently, anyone worried about images being "Extreme Pornography" could just report them to the IWF. People worried about the legality of their own images, which it could be legal to possess as participants, could even upload them to sites like Flickr and then report them, and in effect get a determination about whether other people can possess them. There have been suggestions during the current controversy that people should flood the IWF with reports. On the face of it, both that idea and the idea of using the IWF to assess images might seem to take time away from their other job of dealing with images of child abuse. However, the IWF system requires that you classify your report (Child / OPA / Racial / Child-chat). So if the IWF chooses to go ahead with targetting our images of consenting adults, then presumably they will add another option or expand the OPA option. Either way, reports focusing on "Extreme" Pornography involving consenting adults will be clearly identifiable. Even if the queue of reports about images of consenting adults is clogged and prevents them from blacklisting BDSM images, that shouldn't interfere with their ability to get on with checking images of child abuse. And of course, this would all be paid for by the ISPs that are members of the IWF and are collaborating with its new programme of banning some BDSM images involving consenting adults. That's if the IWF decides to open the can of worms of enforcing the new law, despite yesterday's climb down. Regards, Tanos Edited Wed 10 Dec 08, 2:58 AM by Tanos | |
| 10 Dec 08, 3:27 AM xjames UK(SS), 5 yrs |
I like the idea. The thing to bear in mind is that they are likely to err on the side of caution. They have nothing to lose by saying something is potentially illegal when in fact a jury would probably find it to be just the right side of the law. The other thing to consider is that sites such as flickr would probably not be too shy about passing the IP address of the uploader onto the police if they asked for it. Perhaps we need friends in overseas jurisdictions to put things up on our behalf? Obligatory wanky Latin tagline: Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit | |
| 10 Dec 08, 8:20 AM ForestPines UK, 7 yrs  |
Flickr is, after all, owned by Yahoo, who have a history of "assisting the Chinese police with their enquiries". | |
| 10 Dec 08, 9:04 AM Backdooruk UK(BA), 12 yrs |
That catch in that tactic is that one would have to be very careful not to fall foul of the OPA in the process. Potentially a report to the IWF can lead to a prosecution if they realized the publisher of the image lived in the UK (or the image was hosted in the UK, or a substantial part of the crime took place in the UK). The CPS guidelines consider depiction of the following relevant activities to be worthy of prosecution under the OPA (see http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/l_to_o/obscene_publi...
- Chris
Anyone with a brain is manipulable. Only the truly unimaginative are difficult to control. Edited 10 Dec 08, 9:42 AM by Backdooruk | |
| 10 Dec 08, 9:59 AM littlenic UK(KT), 5 yrs |
But what if someone does this with a still from a kink.com site (for example) - and it gets judged to be iffy, and the whole kink.com network is added to their list and therefore made extremely difficult to get at? Won't "we" have shot ourselves in the foot? I, for one, would be extraordinarily unhappy. This approach just feels like poking an alligator to me. Fine whilst it's all lazy and ignores you, wonderful if it makes it turn and head back for the water - but if instead it decides to open its jaws and bite - ow. Edited to add: or are you just talking about people doing this with images of themselves, or images they made themselves? Don't hit my maidie! Edited 10 Dec 08, 10:01 AM by littlenic | |
| 10 Dec 08, 10:03 AM spirifer UK, 6 yrs |
This is a good point. And afterwards, protesting that a site like kink.com has been blocked is not going to get the sort of general public outcry that blocking the wikipedia page did. The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation - Pierre Trudeau | |
| 10 Dec 08, 10:20 AM Backdooruk UK(BA), 12 yrs |
However, a site like kink.com depends more on its commercial revenue and might be prepared to legally challenge the blocking (I'm not too bothered about a block, they are normally easy enough to get around using proxies). - Chris Anyone with a brain is manipulable. Only the truly unimaginative are difficult to control. | |
| 10 Dec 08, 10:32 AM littlenic UK(KT), 5 yrs |
That's not really the point though, is it? It means that stuff would be unavailable to people who don't know about proxies and stuff for whatever length of time it took for kink.com to launch a defence - *if* they did, and *if* it was successful.
I *am* bothered about sites being blocked - it doesn't really matter if they are easy enough to get around (I'm sure advice on how to do that will be forthcoming if needed Don't hit my maidie! | |
| 10 Dec 08, 10:40 AM Backdooruk UK(BA), 12 yrs |
I doubt it's really necessary for any of us to do it anyway: I'd expect the more popular sites like Kink.com to get the first reports in any case if they host anything that might fall foul of the law. It's just a matter of probabilities. - Chris
Anyone with a brain is manipulable. Only the truly unimaginative are difficult to control. | |
| 10 Dec 08, 10:59 AM Tanos UK(M), 14 yrs |
That would be a really counterproductive thing to do to BDSM sites, yes. However, asking the IWF's opinion of the legal status of content on, say, Flickr, Wikimedia Commons or Youtube seems like a perfectly reasonable thing for a concerned BDSM person to do. There are even some excerpts or stills from BBFC classified films on those sites that may be illegal to possess. The IWF seems an obvious organisation to ask for an opinion in this way. Of course, that might have collateral damage too if their blacklist started routing, say, all Youtube traffic through the ISPs' filtering proxies that were overloaded by filtering Wikipedia traffic this week. Regards, Tanos |
), sites being blocked are a BAD THING. Going to the IWF and saying, "'Ere, mister, I know you don't look for sites, so we've brought some to you to block" just seems like a slightly weird thing for those against BDSM censorship to be doing, really.