<nettime> Extent & mechanisms of censorship

[James Wallbank <james@lowtech.org>]

Hello Nettimers,

There is (or at least there was, until recently) a particular photograph 
on the internet. Black and white, cropped to an approximately square 
format. It appears to have been taken with a flash, or supplementary 
lighting, in a dark interior. The upper right quarter of the image shows 
an area of dark background and a circular table with a white tablecloth.

A central figure, in the foreground, faces left. His face, visible in 
profile, is that of a young man, his expression unreadable. His right 
hand is raised. He appears to be seated, and is wearing some kind of 
military or psuedo-military dress uniform, perhaps like the ringmaster 
of a circus.

The upper left quarter of the picture contains the most detail. In the 
upper centre left is a young man in a dark dress suit, who appears to be 
playing a supporting role. Two hands, from a figure standing behind him, 
reach over his shoulders, perhaps to tie or untie his bow tie, or to 
restrain him. The upper body of the owner of the hands is invisible, as 
the upper edge of the picture crops it off.

The upper left and centre left of the picture shows a young man, naked 
except for a bow tie. His face is clearly visible, and his expression is 
apprehensive. From the angle that the photograph was taken, his genitals 
are concealed by an object on the lap of the seated figure in the 
foreground.

The perspective of the photograph is quite unusual. The (presumably 
horizontal) back of the chair of the figure in the foreground, and the 
angle of the circular tabletop in the background (again, likely to be 
horizontal) suggest that the picture was taken from a height of 
approximately 1.5m. The eclipsing of the naked figure's genitals by the 
thing on the lap of the seated ringmaster suggests something else: that 
the naked figure and his dark suited companion are both kneeling, and 
that the incident depicted is some kind of ritual.

The naked figure is entirely recognisable as a major British public 
figure. The object in the foreground is the head of a pig.

What exercises me about this image is not the incident depicted, nor 
whether or not it is a fake.

What concerns me is the sequence of events immediately following the 
publication of a book that revealed the incident that this photograph 
appears to document.

As you may be aware, that book's publication precipitated amusement, 
scandal and argumentation online, the volume of which is hard to 
overstate. The sheer scale of the sudden outpouring of emotion in the UK 
was a newsworthy item in itself, and has been notably under-reported by 
British media.

A hashtag associated with the incident trended as number one in the UK 
for 24 hours or so, but disappeared from top trend tracks surprisingly 
quickly.

Searches using a popular search engine revealed this picture on the 
first page of search results in the day following the breaking of the 
scandal, but it quickly became invisible. Searches using other search 
engines over the following period have revealed the image less and less 
prominently. I have noted a US website which appears to have removed 
content quickly and untidily (404 not found) while cached search results 
showed that the image had been published.

Tweets including the image, that were visible in the immediate period 
following, the scandal, have been deleted. Facebook postings that 
include this image have been removed.

There appears to have been a massive, alarmingly successful attempt to 
prevent the transmission and dissemination of this image. I should note 
that the suppression of the image is some of the best evidence that it 
may indeed be genuine.

The mechanisms by which this image has been erased from the internet are 
of intense interest. They are likely to leave traces vulnerable to 
forensic investigation. That the effort to suppress this image has thus 
far itself remained invisible, suggests that deep, structural 
vulnerabilities in digital networks have been exploited. This is 
possibly the most chilling aspect of the event.

I welcome:

* Vigorous dissemination of the image in question.
* Merciless ridicule of its principal subject.
* Investigation into the mechanisms by which this image has been suppressed.
* Information about the extent of such suppression: is it limited to the UK?
* The publication of discoveries regarding what must surely be an 
extensive and coordinated campaign of internet censorship.

Best Regards,

James
=====


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