[Foundation-l] Minors and sexual explicit stuff

[Anthony]

On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 7:58 AM, Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> If the
> ultimate source of the content is elsewhere, regardless of what
> editorial or publishing decisions are made in the middle, it's
> Section-230-protected under _Batzel_. Of course, _Batzel_ might be wrong
> and overturned in the future, which is the risk of relying too much on
> law in this as-yet-unsettled area...

All of which is irrelevant to my point.  The Wikimedia Foundation is a
publisher - just like Batzel was a publisher, just like AOL is a
publisher, just like Craigslist is a publisher, just like
roommates.com is a publisher, just like eBay is a publisher.  Given
the mission of the foundation, being a publisher is inescapable.

Using "we can't be a publisher" as an excuse for knowingly and
intentionally providing children with access to hard-core pornography
without so much as even checking with their parents to see how they
feel about the issue, is just pathetic.  People have gone to jail for
less.

And frankly, whether or not the WMF can do anything about the issue is
also irrelevant.  The WMF isn't the only body that makes the rules of
the Wikimedia websites.  We do.

This isn't necessarily directed at you, Mark, as you don't seem to
have declared your position on the matter.  But all these strawmen
about cultural relevance and homophobia and publisher vs. ISP and
parental responsibility are just hiding the real issue.  Do we want to
be a place where children can come to view pictures of "cock and ball
torture", or don't we?

Don't try to tell me we can ban by-permission-only images which aren't
released under a free license but we can ban images of "cock and ball
torture".  We can, if we want to.  Stop hiding behind irrelevant
issues and defend providing access to these images, on its own merits,
if that's what you suggest we ought to do.  I don't see the argument
for it.  I certainly won't be knowingly and intentionally providing my
children with access to these images.  Some people do really stupid
things - they don't need these images to teach them that.