Arts Technica: How Wikipedia manages Porn Images and the FBI

by Susan Marie Kovalinsky | May 21, 2010 at 09:03 am

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Matthew Lasar of Arts Technica does some investigative reporting on Wikipedia and Porn:

Since Fox News first reported that founder Jimmy Wales has relinquished a part of his control over the site's material, many have questioned just who is in charge, and what the new protocol entails.

The Fox news report had claimed that Wales had tried to delete a slew of pornographic images from the site, after which he was subsequently denied the right "to delete files, remove administrators, assign projects or edit any content.".

Wales allegedly started doing this following a Wikipedia cofounder's letter to the Federal Bureau of Investigation claiming that Wikimedia Commons "may be knowingly distributing child pornography."

The response of the Wikimedia Foundation was official and swift, in April of 2010:"The Wikimedia Foundation obeys the law. In the weeks since Sanger's published allegations, the Wikimedia Foundation has not been contacted by the FBI or any other law-enforcement agency with regard to allegedly illegal content on any Wikimedia projects. Our community of volunteer editors takes action to remove illegal material when such material is brought to its attention."

Indeed, Wikipedia must take into account the Child Obscenity and Protection Enforcement Act, as well as its own pornographic policies, adding to the oft repeated charges of "wiki-nazis".

And it does have its own pornography policy.

Even so, there is much debate about what pictures of a sexual nature belong in Wikipedia commons, and it is reported that there is even a warning, depicting two stick figures in the act, with a red circle and line signifying "don't".

Perhaps the most intriguing find was a traffic sign style image of two stick figures engaged in the act, a red DON'T circle surrounding the graphic. The summary of the picture read as follows:

"Symbol which might potentially have a number of meanings in various contexts, but which in the current context mainly means 'We don't need any more gratuitous photographs of sexual activities, especially intercourse, uploaded to Wikimedia Commons'!"

So clearly Wikimedia and Wikipedia editors and administrators have their limits when it comes to this sort of fare. You get a sense of how that works from the Existing Policy of Wikipedia's pornography policy page. "Wikipedia is not censored," the service insists. But "despite this," the sections adds, "several images have been proposed for deletion on the grounds of being 'unencyclopedic,' because those proposing deletion feel either that they add nothing to the article in question or that they damage Wikipedia's reputation as a credible encyclopedia."

Source: arstechnica.com

Apparently, these included images which were deleted by Wales. One, reports Lasar, was an "autofellatio" image which Wales had designated as "completely unacceptable," and there was a photograph depicting a sexual which Wales believed might require that Wikipedia obtain official documents proving legal age of consent as set forth in the Child Obscenity and Protection Act.