[Foundation-l] Image filter

[Andrew Gray]

On 9 March 2012 14:17, Thomas Morton <morton.thomas at googlemail.com> wrote:

> We also work quite well as a filter of information. And it is improving
> this that we are currently discussing.
>
> Improving the filtering of information is a critical facet of making it
> accessible to as many people as possible. If a Muslim refuses to go to
> Wikipedia because of our image policy - which we (realistically) impose on
> him - then we have failed in our core objective.

I had sworn off commenting on these discussions some time back, but I
want to chime in to support this point - the way in which our
community handles controversial content is itself a viewpoint
position, and potentially a flawed one.

Opposing changes to the way we handle and display this content isn't
as simple as defending "neutrality"; it's arguing for retaining the
status quo, and thus enforcing our communities' current systemic
biases and perspectives on what is acceptable, what is normal, what is
appropriate.

Those perspectives may be "better" than the alternatives - sometimes I
think so, sometimes I don't - but by not doing anything, we're in real
danger of privileging the editing community's belief that people
should be exposed to things over a reader's desire not to be exposed
to them.

The image filter may not be a good solution, but too much of the
response involves saying "we're fine, we're neutral, we don't need to
do anything" and leaving it there; this isn't the case, and we do need
to think seriously about these issues without yelling "censorship!"
any time someone tries to discuss the problem.

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk