Posts by Duncan Power

Why the IWF was wrong to ban a Wikipedia page

I would agree with the author that the ISPs and the IWF should not have to wait for the government to decide if an image is decent... and in this case they did not have to. The image is an album cover from the 70s. It caused a media storm at the time and yet was not censored by the UK government, nor was it censored 2 years later when the The Protection of Children Act came into effect. If it is an illegal image then it has been illegal for the last 30 years and every high street and online music store is pedalling paedophilia. If it is not illegal then the IWF has censored a legal image. I suspect the latter is most likely the truth, in which case this is a clear instance of negligence and poor research by the IWF.

Should Ataturk himself be censored?

If the purpose of the ban is not to censor criticism but "hatred" of Turkish people then perhaps Ataturk himself should be censored within Turkey, given that a great many Turks are also Muslim:

"Through the abusive interpretation of ignorant and filthy priests ... Islam, this absurd theology of an immoral Bedouin, is a rotting corpse which poisons our lives."

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mustafa_Kemal_Atat%C3%BCrk