[Foundation-l] On curiosity, cats and scapegoats

David Gerard dgerard at gmail.com
Fri Sep 9 13:08:20 UTC 2011


On 9 September 2011 12:54, Kim Bruning <kim at bruning.xs4all.nl> wrote:
> After that, we get back to the side effects of regular (non-wikipedia
> kind) filters. This information is well documented all over the net.
> You'll discover that not just images, but also the pages those images
> are on will not be reachable. We've been told on this list that this
> already happens to some people today. It seems pretty obvious that
> the effect will be much multiplied once the categories are available
> to third parties.


Note that this is what the Internet Watch Foundation does to block
images. (Thus, they blocked Wikipedia article text, but not the image
itself, which was on a different server.)

Censors tend not to worry about collateral damage.

Is the WMF claiming the filter will be free of side-effects?

[ ] yes
[ ] no

If yes, then how so?

If no, then "just don't use the feature" is a nonsense.


>> And how is bias being introduced into my views by being able to go
>> to [[Cock ring]] and not seeing a picture of a penis?  I fail to
>> see how being able to opt-out of saucy sex pics actually moves us
>> in any significant way closer to a world where we live in "filter
>> bubbles".

> I just provided you with 2 steps in that direction, pretty much the
> first moves on the blue-team and red-team sides.
> On or around move 2 (6-12 months) we can start seeing people either
> deliberately or accidentally start filtering things that are nothing
> to do with sex or drugs at all, up to and including censoring of
> civic information.
> This has happened with filters in the past. I don't yet see why our
> filters wouldn't follow the same playbook. So far, there is nothing
> to differentiate our history from existing history.
> "But ours will be different" is not an argument. ;-)


Indeed. Substantive answers to these points would be welcomed. From
the board, since they've determined the filter is happening.


- d.



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