Re: [Bug-gne]the problem of illegal content vs. freedom

[Jean-Daniel Fekete]

Voting system is not going to be blocked by one party.  This is very US
centric (I don't know were you are from though).
I don't care about instructions given by US democrats or republicans
here in France.  You don't care about french socialists in the US, and
they won't ever ask for any vote on GNE anyway.
People are free to vote and you should believe in democracy -- I mean
real democracy, direct democracy.

Talking about the foreign politics of US, I think Noam Chomsky has been
writing a lot on this issue and, if he is willing to contribute to GNU,
I think nobody would object -- even if his writings are controversial.
If somebody else wants to write his view on foreign politics in the US
and he is knowledgeable, he'll get a "yes".

Articles on revisionism are more a problem.  Revisionists have
developped techniques to reference books and articles from their closed
world.  Analysing their writings, they always write the same and
reference the same books.  You could challenge them, but it would take a
serious historian a lot of time, just because their internal litterature
is hard to find and accurate sources are hard to consult.  On this
issue, you need to rely on a voting system and hope for a rejection.

I think it would make sense to allow for re-consideration of articles.
Some may pass at first and contain too many errors to be kept.  Probably
each article could be asked for re-consideration once a year.

As for issue 7 "full acceptance of local/national laws where GNE is", I
don't agree.
You wouldn't be allowed to talk about the extermination of Armenians in
Turkey, not allowed to talk about early versions of the Coran in most
Islamic countries, etc.
I would be in favor of net democracy to decide.

Tom Chance wrote:

> In your (clear!) explanation, yeah Level I we have
> decided we will need, that's good.
> Level II is one we'll have to think about quite
> carefully, it'd be good if we could get in contact
> with somebody who knows international laws well to
> help us out there.
> Level III is a damn tricky one. Because pictures of
> child rape, or stories about it, aren't in the least
> bit informative and you really can't learn from them
> at all, unless you're sick in the head. I would say we
> do need to do something about blocking those.
> Level IV, as you said, we cannot do. Let Nupedia do
> it, and let them do it well, but we shouldn't impose
> our political ideas (no matter how (in)sensitive they
> be.
>
> To get around this, I propose we don't have a voting
> system, but more of a one-way voting system. If we
> allow "no" votes, then if there are enough people of
> one political stance on at one time, they could start
> blocking stuff, and that is bad. What if every article
> just needed a couple of yes votes to get in. The
> people who could vote would be us (the list) and
> people who have submitted a couple of articles (to
> ensure they will be fairly committed to the project).
>
> Tom Chance
>
> --- Bob Dodd <address@hidden> wrote: > I
> think what we need to face is that even GNE
> > requires a philosophy of
> > right and wrong, however we define that.
> >
> > The lowest common denominator would seem to be
> > 1) content format
> > 2) spam control
> > 3) external links
> > 4) submission routes into GNE
> > 5) supported written languages
> >
> > and we can probably get some basic agreement on what
> > is acceptable in
> > those areas. In doing that we _already_ have
> > established some form of
> > censorship/editorial contol.
> >
> > If we call everything above "Level I", then I guess
> > "Level II" goes
> > something like:
> >
> > 6) full acceptance of local/national laws where GNE
> > is physically
> > running. E.g. no storing of hate propoganda on
> > German mirrors...
> >
> > 7) full acceptance of local/national laws where GNE
> > is
> > developed/maintained from. E.g. no active
> > development/maintenance of
> > GNE in contries where distribution of GNE content
> > would be illegal.
> >
> > Level II is because we're law-abiding folks, not
> > because we necessarily
> > agree with those laws.
> >
> > Level III is where it gets (even) more ethical.
> > Having applied our
> > basic rules, and by a mixture of design and policy,
> > have also complied
> > will all local/national laws, we still need to be
> > very sure in our own
> > minds what is acceptable for us to publish on our
> > servers.
> >
> > The only way I can see to deal with level III is to
> > look at extremes...
> > The most extreme thing I can think of would be child
> > pornography, and
> > there was a case of people being jailed in the UK
> > this week for
> > disributing over the internet pictures of the rape
> > of a 3 month old
> > baby. Would we accept those pictures if they were
> > accompanied by a
> > reasoned article on the horrors of pornography? Even
> > if we could find a
> > country where distribution of such pictures was
> > legal, I shudder at the
> > thought of holding it on any part of the GNE
> > network, or having GNE's
> > (and hence though guilt-by-association my) name
> > associated with it. So,
> > level III must include:
> >
> > 8) rules on picture content, wherever we set the
> > limits...
> >
> > Of course child pornography comes in many forms.
> > Would we hold a
> > detailed textual description of the rape of that
> > baby? Or fantasies
> > based upon it? If we are to be consistent, then we
> > have to say that we
> > need:
> >
> > 9) rules on explicit/graphic textual content,
> > wherever we set the
> > limits...
> >
> > I don't say it's easy to choose these limits e.g.
> > when does a child
> > become an adult? All we can do is to apply our very
> > western ethics/bias
> > and choose something that most of us can live with.
> > But we first have
> > to cross the philosophical bridge of admiting there
> > _is_ right and
> > wrong, and just because we can find a legal loophole
> > in some country
> > somewhere, that doesn't mean we should use it to
> > store highly
> > objectionable content.
> >
> > So, in summary
> >
> > ## Level I is about making the repository function
> > ## Level II is about keeping Hector (and the rest of
> > us) out of jail
> > ## Level III is about dealing with (at least)
> > extreme ethical points
> >
> > We need all 3 levels. How we police and enforce them
> > is something else,
> > but it's important not to confuse the need for the
> > levels with those
> > enforcement issues.
> >
> > I can also see a Level IV which would cover rules on
> > promotion of
> > political ideas, philosophies, and theologies which
> > would cover some of
> > the ground that jimbo is concerned with.
> > Unfortunately I can see so
> > many practical problems, and dangers of overbearing
> > censorship and
> > interference, that I feel this area is best left to
> > the classifiers to
> > handle. I don't particularly want to give a platform
> > to nazis, but at
> > least by the end of level III editing control, we
> > will have removed the
> > most offensive images and text, and the classifiers
> > will ensure that
> > the rest of the material is presented in context, if
> > at all.
> >
> > /Bob Dodd
> >
> > --- Jimmy Wales <address@hidden> wrote:
> > > Mike Warren wrote:
> > > > Why would you have personal guilt because of
> > someone else's essay?
> > >
> > > Mike,
> > >
> > > I think that the point you are missing is that
> > there is a big
> > > difference
> > > between _censoring something_ and _refusing to
> > support it_.
> > >
> > > I support -- strongly -- the right of anyone to
> > espouse their
> > > political theories or historical theories or
> > anything else.  But I do
> > > not choose to support their doing it, not with my
> > time, my hard work,
> > > my money, my machines.  I think that many people
> > feel this way, and
> > > quite justifiably so.
> > >
> > > I think it would be a terrible mistake for GNU to
> > lend immediate and
> > > direct support to evil ideas.  This is not about
> > censorship.  If
> > > holocaust deniers wish to espouse their theories,
> > we will do nothing
> > > to stop them -- they can do it on their own time,
> > with their own hard
> > > work, using their own money, on their own
> > machines.
> > >
> > > But GNU should not serve articles advocating
> > racism from GNU
> > > machines.
> > >
> > > I think that the naive dogma that editorial
> > oversight is censorship
> > > really misses the point.
> > >
> > > --Jimbo
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > *************************************************
> > > *            http://www.nupedia.com/            *
> > > *      The Ever Expanding Free Encyclopedia     *
> > > *************************************************
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
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> >
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--
  Jean-Daniel Fekete
  Ecole des Mines de Nantes, 4 rue Alfred Kastler, La Chantrerie,
  BP 20722, 44307 Nantes Cedex 03, France
  Voice: +33-2-51-85-82-08  | Fax: +33-2-51-85-82-49
  address@hidden | http://www.emn.fr/fekete/