[Foundation-l] Principle and pragmatism with nudity and sexual content

[Nathan]

On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 9:18 AM, John Vandenberg <jayvdb at gmail.com> wrote:


> While creating software would be needed for a good solution, I think
> we can create a simple solution by renaming all images with nudity so
> that they begin with NSFW (not safe for work), as I mentioned here:
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Privatemusings/Let%27s_talk_about_sex&diff=prev&oldid=285007282
>
> --
> John Vandenberg
>


Isn't the issue more serious than finding a way to let people filter out
nudity? We still have these images, they are still available to be seen by
many people. But there are things we don't know about them, because we don't
ask and we don't verify. Among these are:

* Age of the image subject/model
* Model's consent to publication
* Uploaders permission to publicize

People remember, I'm sure, that Poetlister used sexualized images of women
he didn't know to represent himself in various places? And that it was only
discovered when his whole house of cards collapsed, thanks to WR  (!),
despite complaints by the subject which went ignored?

I have to suspect that even pornography websites have better model rights
management than we do. I'm not sure how we justify ignoring this issue,
analogous as it is to the now high profile problem of BLPs. It doesn't help
that discussion is reliably shot down by those who say "Not this again! ZOMG
censorship!"

The importance of BLP stewardship wasn't recognized by everyone overnight,
it still isn't in fact. So, while users on commons and en.wp are still
permitted to keep galleries of explicit images in their userspace, I think
privatemusings should continue to periodically bring this up.

Nathan