Some elements of the Wikimedia Foundation have recently proposed a "personal image filter" extension for Wikipedia. (For background and links, see German Wikipedia continues image filter protest, Signpost, 31 October 2011.) The system would allow readers to filter out images they deem offensive; when these users browse Wikipedia, they would only see links to the offensive images and would have to click on these links to view the images themselves. Users could choose on an individual level which categories of images to suppress, for instance violence-and-gore or nudity or offensive-to-Muslims.
I agree with the sentiment behind this proposal: give users maximal choice; don't force them to view material they don't wish to view. It clearly doesn't qualify as censorship if used as described above.
Nevertheless, I am strongly opposed to the image filter proposal, because it would have the unintended consequence of dramatically increasing true censorship:
- For the image filter to work, all potentially offensive images would need to be categorized; there would be one category about violence-and-gore, one about nudity, one about offensive-to-Muslims, etc. These categories would be maintained by Wikipedians and would be visible to everyone.
- Once Wikipedia switches on the image filter extension, pretty much all news media of the world would report on it, most likely with links to these categories to inform their readers about the kinds of images that can be suppressed.
- Readers would of course click on these links and would be horrified by all sorts of images they deem offensive. How would they react? Would they proceed to go to Wikipedia and earnestly track down the option that allows them to filter out these images for their personal use? I sincerely doubt it. Instead, they would call their school boards and their libraries and their censorware vendors, and demand that these images be blocked permanently for everyone and without possibility of circumvention.
- Lacking a good counter argument, said school boards, libraries and censorware vendors would comply; technically it would be trivial, since the hard work of image classification had already been done by Wikipedia volunteers.
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