[WikiEN-l] UK censorship: I'm on BBC Radio 4 Today show tomorrow 8:20am

[Tim Starling]

Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> It would be super-fantastic if someone could confirm that you can just
> walk into a record store in the UK and buy it. There are stores here
> that have it, I'm tempted to go get a picture of myself holding... and
> start a campaign of other folks doing that.

I'm not sure that would send the right message.

On the radio interview: I thought David sounded unfair, espousing some
unlikely conspiracy theories suggesting that the IWF chose Wikipedia for
any other reason than the fact that some disgruntled Wikipedian submitted
it to their tip box a few days ago.

On the wider issue: I'm sure the IWF would not mind at all if the police
started raiding music stores. And there are elements of the wider
community that would support them in that.

Australians are in the privileged position of having seen this all before,
in the form of the Bill Henson controversy six months ago. An art gallery
was raided by police and explicit photographs were seized. Journalist
David Marr gave us an incisive analysis of the motivations of the prudes,
both at the time, and at length in a book published in October.

Why is it that this cover image has been around for 30 years, but only now
do we see moves for censorship? Marr was asked a similar question
in a TV interview regarding the Bill Henson case, and he said "It's the
Internet".

"The Internet has changed the way we view photography. There is a sense in
which no photograph can actually be corralled anymore. Everything is
potentially available to anybody anywhere in the world, once it gets on
the Internet. We still have to deal with that, that apprehension of the
Internet, because it's changing the way we consider art, photography, all
sorts of things. Part of the purpose of my book is to look at the history
of that fear of the Internet, and try to work out whether in fact we need
to be so afraid. I don't think we do."

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2383376.htm

-- Tim Starling