cleanfeed and wikipedia

[Nicholas Bohm]

Roland Perry wrote:
> In article <493E505C.6080805@iosis.co.uk>, Peter Tomlinson
> <pwt@iosis.co.uk> writes
>>> The central problem is that the word "indecent" has no useful meaning.
>> Do I think that the picture is indecent? Yes, to me it is. And I
>> suspect that quite a lot of the experts that IWF use think the same
>> (no sniggers, please - let's assume IWF is a bunch of good people).
> 
> Many people seem to think the IWF is operating in a vacuum, but I expect
> they get to see the evidence, and attune themselves to the results of, a
> large number of cases going through the courts. I expect that all they
> ever claim to do is highlight pictures that (based on this experience)
> might trigger a successful prosecution. Or is there some other way to
> define "potentially illegal"?

Can anyone say whether the IWF really gets the material to train
themselves in this way?  It sounds surprising to me.

And the problem, I suspect, is that many, perhaps even all, prosecutions
will be of people who have images which are reasonably serious in their
indecency, with milder ones amongst them.  Do they in practice take to
the jury the question whether the milder ones cross the threshhold?  I
have my doubts whether it is easy to deduce where the line lies.

The basic problem is to base illegality on "indecency", because it is
incapable of useful definition and views about what is indecent vary widely.

Nicholas
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