[Foundation-l] Minors and sexual explicit stuff

[private musings]

Ray,

you seem to me to be essentially discussing the 'users' perspective on
wikipedia - whilst it's my view that the foundation, and the projects could
(and should) do more to allow things like descriptive image filtering for
users (I think it would drive participation in places like schools, and
librairies) I'm also interested in discussing the perspective of
'participant' in the project.

I think there are important duty of care issues for whomever is responsible
for children's involvement in projects like wikipedia, and I don't believe
the foundation, and projects, should simply pass the buck of responsibility
upstream to the parent. Encyclopedia's are rightly exciting and interesting
to children, and I think it's just reality that large numbers of
participants are minors (wiki's fun, right! :-) - we really should at least
talk about whether or not these participants are protected / treated /
advised appropriately.

for example, it would be my advice to a minor that it's inappropriate for
them to join this (not safe for work discussion) about whether or not to
include 'hardcore photos' in the oral sex article (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Oral_sex#Hardcore_photos )

There are important ethical issues here (maybe legal ones too, I don't know)
- I've tried to reach out to Volunteering Australia (
http://www.volunteeringaustralia.org/html/s01_home/home.asp ) who I hope may
be able to offer some advice about good practice in working with volunteer
kids etc. but I think this might be able to go much further much quicker on
a foundation level.

I'd like to see some concrete progress (a report, some ideas, anything
really!) related to ensuring appropriate and adequate measures are in place
to protect child participants in foundation projects. I've copied this
message Angela, who I hope I may persuade to raise this issue with the
advisory board, and also sj who may be able to raise the issue with the
board, or perhaps join this discussion to offer any ideas about handy next
steps. Regardless, I'll hop back on this list following a meeting with
Volunteering Australia, just in case they have any useful or interesting
advice :-)

cheers,

Peter,
PM.



On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 2:05 PM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:

> Andrew Garrett wrote:
> > On 16/11/2009, at 1:04 AM, private musings wrote:
> >
> >> On Wikipedia Review, 'tarantino' pointed out that on WMF projects,
> >> self-identified minors (in this case User:Juliancolton) are involved
> >> in
> >> routine maintenance stuff around sexually explicit images reasonably
> >> describable as porn (one example is 'Masturbating Amy.jpg').
> >>
> >>
> http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=27358&st=0&p=204846&#entry204846
> >>
> >> I think this is wrong on a number of levels - and I'd like to see
> >> better
> >> governance from the foundation in this area - I really feel that we
> >> need to
> >> talk about some child protection measures in some way - they're
> >> overdue.
> >>
> >
> > I'm not sure where you get the idea that it's somehow inappropriate
> > for minors to be viewing or working on images depicting human nudity
> > and sexuality. Cultural sensibilities on this matter are inconsistent,
> > irrational and entirely lacking in substance.
> >
> > If it is truly inappropriate or harmful for children to be working on
> > such images, then those children should be supervised in their
> > internet access, or have gained the trust of their parents to use the
> > internet within whatever limits those parents (or, indeed, the minor)
> > believe is appropriate.
> >
> > It is absolutely not the job of the Wikimedia Foundation, nor the
> > Wikimedia community, to supervise a child's internet access and/or
> > usage, and certainly not to make arbitrary rules regarding said usage
> > on the basis of a single culture's sensibilities on children and
> > sexuality, especially sensibilities as baseless and harmful as this one.
> >
> >
> I agree that a common sense approach is warranted. In large measure
> applying complex controls on child viewing is totally unrealistic. We
> would begin with the problem of defining what is too young.  In an other
> topic, underage drinking, it is relatively far easier to define the
> offending act but the age at which drinking is permitted still varies
> widely from one jurisdiction to another.  So what age is appropriate for
> viewing such material? 12? 16? 18? 21? And even if we agree on an age,
> except for the few self-identified individuals how are we to know what
> someone's age really is?  Those who are too young very quickly learn
> that lying is a valuable skill founded upon necessity.
>
> Not many years ago in a bible-belt suburb there was a very loud campaign
> to block books that depicted same sex parents from a school library.
> There was no question of those parents engaging in sexual activity in
> the books, only a depiction that they could be loving and committed
> parents just as much as opposite sex parents.  The aim of the books was
> to combat the development of homophobia among children of "normal"
> parents. Yes, that is at the other extreme from the raunchy photos that
> are most often complained about, but that merely illustrates the problem
> of definition.
>
> As is often stated WMF is an ISP, and not a publisher.  The more it
> seeks to control content, the more it acquires characteristics of a
> publisher.  Indeed as an ISP it must respond to specific legal demands
> to remove certain material, but random complaints are not legal
> demands.  Perhaps at the same time those complainers should be asking
> why murder is so much more socially acceptable on TV than consensual sex.
>
> The responsibility of parents remains paramount ... even if some are
> incapable of exercising that responsibility.  It would also be
> irresponsible if parents with the means to provide internet access
> exercised control to the extent of raising internet illiterates
> incapable of functioning in a wired world.  What teachers and other
> public institutions can do has severe limitations.  The sad unavoidable
> fact is that the seamier side of life exists.  A parent does not protect
> his child by pretending to him that such things don't happen.  More is
> accomplished by directing him toward a mature attitude.
>
> Ec
>
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