Wikipedia Article Censored in UK For The First Time
U.K. ISPs have censored a Wikipedia article for the first time that includes an album cover image of a naked and possibly underage girl
By Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service (London Bureau)
December 08, 2008 — IDG News Service —
For the first time, U.K. Internet Service Providers have censored a Wikipedia article, one that includes an album cover image of a naked and possibly underage girl.
An unintended side effect of the block left U.K. users of the online encyclopedia unable to edit other articles, Wikimedia said.
The article concerns the album "Virgin Killer" by German band The Scorpions. The record has generated controversy due to its cover photo ever since it was released in 1976.
The URL (uniform resource locator) of the article was added to a blacklist published by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), a nonprofit group that works with law enforcement to block and remove child pornography from Web sites.
Some 95 percent of U.K. ISPs use IWF's blacklist, although non-residential Internet connections are not affected, according to the Wikimedia Foundation.
Adding the article to the blacklist caused the ISPs to route Wikipedia traffic through a proxy server, resulting in Wikipedia being unable to distinguish U.K. users from one another by their IP address. That triggered Wikipedia's anti-abuse mechanism, blocking all non-registered U.K. users from editing articles, according to the foundation.
A statement issued by IWF on Sunday said the album cover was flagged earlier this month and judged to be a "potentially illegal indecent image of a child under 18."
The Wikipedia image is hosted outside the U.K. The Wikimedia Foundation said online retailer Amazon.com also hosts an image of the original album cover, which is on many other Web sites accessed by U.K. citizens.
"We have no reason to believe the image has been held to be illegal in any jurisdiction anywhere in the world," a Wikimedia Foundation statement said.
A look at the history of edits to the Wikipedia story indicates a robust debate about the album cover has been going on since earlier this year.
A notice on the "discussion" section for the article read that the album cover will not be removed and advised that users who are offended should configure their browser to block it.
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