cleanfeed and wikipedia

[Nicholas Bohm]

Roland Perry wrote:
> In article <493E8F88.10406@ernest.net>, Nicholas Bohm <nbohm@ernest.net>
> writes
> 
>>> 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.
> 
> You are going for the "vacuum" theory, which I believe to be unsustainable.

No, I'm not going for a theory, I'm asking for facts.

>> 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 sentencing guidelines are there precisely to allow totting up of the
> degree of offence, which is not exclusively at the higher end. It would
> be absurd if there wasn't something approaching a "reference library" to
> calibrate the exercise against.

I think you are probably right, it would be absurd.  But as many absurd
things happen, not least in the legal system, I'm hoping for some facts.

>> The basic problem is to base illegality on "indecency", because it is
>> incapable of useful definition and views about what is indecent vary
>> widely.
> 
> I've just come back from a week in India and one of the cultural
> differences I noticed was that their news media are quite happy to show
> pictures of dead bodies in a pool of blood (in a hotel lobby, railway
> station or wherever), which is not something we are accustomed to here.

Nicholas
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