Censorship & access restrictions considered harmless

[mirrorshard]

This BBC article talks about content restriction based on user profiling, in order to make an archive more accessible.

The Warumungu community were interested in repatriating a lot of historical data about their people, but they have restrictions on who can view what - "[F]or example, men cannot view women's rituals, and people from one community cannot view material from another without first seeking permission. Meanwhile images of the deceased cannot be viewed by their families."

So this kind of soft restriction, based on user-reported profiling, is actually quite harmless... it's almost like, oh, what's the word, a thing that will let some data past but not others, based on a predefined pattern. If only we had those everywhere. Not sure why they're reporting it as a new kind of DRM, really.

Comments

[lilitharises.livejournal.com]

It's quite usual now for the ABC (the Australian equivalent of the BBC) and SBS (the multicultural broadcaster) to warn if a news story or programme has images of dead people from a particular tribe because of the taboos you mentioned. Haven't noticed the commercial channels doing it though. And when a friend of ours did her internship at an Alice Springs hosptial she was very careful to learn the restrictions, respect them and practice them despite that sometimes presenting other complications to her job. (She quickly learnt and made work arounds, gaining the confidence of the locals was important to her)