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Duff: Wikipedia struggles with free speech in porn fight

Posted: May 21, 2010 - 2:25am
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You may not know Wikipedia by name, but you’ve probably used it.
It’s the first result for any general search engine query, the go-to source for school reports, trivia disputes and general knowledge on the Web.

Wikipedia founders Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales have created a nonprofit juggernaut that has replaced traditional encyclopedias and turned the Internet into a legitimate reference tool.

But the loose, crowdsourced nature of Wikipedia is under attack this month as founders and editors struggle with the issue of pornographic content.

BBC News reports that administrators of Wikimedia Commons, a media file store widely used for Wikipedia articles, have deleted hundreds of questionable images. Some images, deemed to have educational value, were quickly restored by the community.

The Wikimedia Foundation routinely removes copyrighted or libelous images, but now the community is trying to determine the difference between education and pornography, trying to draw a line between protecting children and protecting free speech.

This quick and apparently arbitrary deletion of content has angered the Wikipedia community and focused attention on Jimmy Wales, who is accused of exercising dictatorial powers, removing controversial content without regard for the community.

In response, Wales has voluntarily relinquished a host of editing powers and special privileges, ostensibly “in the interest of encouraging this discussion to be about real philosophical/content issues, rather than be about me and how quickly I acted.”

This conflict exposes the fundamental contradiction of Wikipedia, and the fundamental conflict between Internet culture and mainstream culture.

The Internet is a fundamentally libertarian medium, founded on the principles of free speech and free information. This culture ruled unchallenged for a decade, because the arbiters of decency and copyright law either didn’t understand the net or didn’t think it was big enough to bother with.

But now the Internet is a one-stop shop for school reports and free pornography. Any child with a net connection can Google a name and write a report about Columbus, or type in the name of a bizarre sex practice and view annotated photos showing how it’s done.

Wikipedia editors are caught between free speech and community responsibility, and most of the work is done by volunteers. Many editors have already quit the project over this and the battle isn’t over yet.

This is a clash of cultures — a battle between hypersensitive parents and digital libertines. Do graphic photos belong on an encyclopedia site? Are they genuinely educational or merely an excuse to fight about free speech? Do parents have the right to demand a child-safe Web?

Is there a technical solution that could tag the explicit entries and make it easy for parents to block them?

Is Wikipedia limited by the same editorial standards that govern traditional encyclopedias? If so, who has to enforce them? Will the foundation step in and enforce obscenity guidelines, or can the community police itself?

Wikipedia is up against the fundamental contrariness of the Internet here. As soon as they make a rule, 10,000 rebels will rush in to break it. As soon as they define a boundary, 10,000 armchair lawyers will push against it.

Arguments will keep the forums buzzing for months; defections will change the nature of the project; and the emergent champions of community editing will have to compromise their principles or be censored by law.

Beyond the immediate conflict with Wikipedia, there should be a technical solution for this. Instead of trying to turn the Internet into a kid-friendly sandbox, why can’t we create a tagging protocol that will mark individual pages as kid safe or adults only?

Legitimate porn publishers don’t want kids on their sites any more than parents do. Individual blog publishers could establish minimum ages for their content, and Wikipedia could seal off provocative entries without jeopardizing the whole project.

Digital publishers have a choice. Establish a voluntary system now or wait until legislators force the issue.

THE PAGE STOPS but the blog goes on. Talk back to Michael at michaelduff.net.

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