Citizen Complaints About Pornographic Citizen Expertise on Wikipedia
Posted at 10:14 PM May 07, 2008
Without restrictions, many websites that rely heavily on user generated content get a little nutty (some might even say littered) with adult content. Some of this adult content is essentially created to harass other site members - most people with feminine-seeming screen names have been the recipient of an unsolicited dick pic at some point in their internet careers. But much of the adult and explicit content on sites like the user-generated encyclopedia Wikipedia is contextual or meant to be informative instead of purely titillating.
World Net Daily, a conservative news reporting website, is making a fuss about the presence of adult content on Wikipedia. Their objection is that the content can be viewed by minors. Though it might not be absolutely necessary for Wikipedia to have pictures of fully nude people in some of their articles, explicit information isn't necessarily pornographic. This, of course, is lost on the folks at World Net Daily. In part, their article reports that:
Matt Barber, a constitutional law attorney who serves as Concerned Women for America's policy director for cultural issues, expressed outrage at Wikipedia's decision to allow sexually explicit images....
"Unfortunately, by allowing this type of material, Wikipedia has really sullied its name," Barber said. "If it wants to be viewed as being in the business of pornography, it is certainly doing a good job of labeling itself as a bunch of hard-core pornographers."
Though it's legally problematic for pornography to be accessible to minors (the jury is still out on whether actual harm is caused by kids being exposed to porn), this is pushing it a bit too far. Wikipedia is no hub of the porn industry. And contextually explicit information about sex is not inherently pornographic.
Also, you gotta love the fact that there's a man serving as Concerned Women for America's "policy director for cultural issues." Women may be the symbolic gate keepers of morality, but men are the ones who buckle down and do the dirty work.
--Audacia Ray
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