Brit ISPs censor Wikipedia over 'child porn' album cover

[NineBerry]

Brit ISPs censor Wikipedia over 'child porn' album cover

Virgin Killer births mass edit ban

Six British ISPs are filtering access to Wikipedia after the site was added to an Internet Watch Foundation child-pornography blacklist, according to Wikipedia administrators.

As of Sunday morning UK time, certain British web surfers were unable to view at least one Wikipedia article tagged with ostensible child porn. And, in a roundabout way, the filtering has resulted in Wikipedia admins banning large swaths of the United Kingdom from editing the "free encyclopedia anyone can edit."

On Friday, Wikipedia administrators noticed that Virgin Media, Be Unlimited/O2/Telefonica, EasyNet/UK Online, PlusNet, Demon, and Opal were routing Wikipedia traffic through a small number of transparent proxy servers as a way of blocking access to the encyclopedia's article on Virgin Killer, a mid-1970s record album from German heavy band Scorpions.

At it stands, the article includes an image of the album's original cover, which depicts a naked prepubescent girl. The cover was banned in many countries and replaced by another when the album made its 1976 debut. And apparently, the image is now on a blacklist compiled by the Internet Watch Foundation, a government-backed organization charged with fighting online child pornography in the UK and Europe.

According to posts on Wikipedia and Wikinews, users of those six ISPs receive blank pages, "404 errors," or something similar if they attempt to view the Virgin Killer article. But that's half the issue.

Because the six ISPs are routing Wikipedia traffic through transparent proxies, huge numbers of would-be Wikipedia editors appear to be coming from the same IP range. A single IP, for instance, may identify all Virgin Media users. This means that if Wikipedia admins ban one Virgin Media customer for "abusing" the site with inappropriate edits, they ban every Virgin Media customer.

According to ZDNet, many UK users receive this message if they attempt to edit the site:

Wikipedia has been added to a Internet Watch Foundation UK website blacklist, and your Internet service provider has decided to block part of your access. Unfortunately, this also makes it impossible for us to differentiate between different users, and block those abusing the site without blocking other innocent people as well.

In Wikiland, this creates an epic user-generated conundrum. Wikipedia fancies itself as a kind of Web 2.0 wonderland where anyone on earth can contribute. So it doesn't like banning edits from enormous chunks of the UK. But administrators have refused to remove the naked prepubescent on the grounds that "Wikipedia doesn't censor."

According to admins, the issue is now in the hands of the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that oversees Wikipedia. But as of Sunday morning, the Foundation had not spoken.

Whether it removes the naked prepubescent or not, the Foundation will receive an uncensored Web 2.0 tongue lashing. Wikipedia isn't a user-generated utopia. It's a cultish self-contradiction that can't help but undermine its own ideals.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/07 ... wikipedia/

Blocked Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer
Wikinews article: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/British_ISP ... llegations

[besleybean]

Yes, taseteless album cover.

[Matt H.]

As much as I love Wikipedia, I think this decision is absolutely right.

[NineBerry]

Why?

[Matt H.]

Because child pornography is sick.

Wikipedia is meant to be a public resource, not a porn site for paedophiles.

[NineBerry]

But that's not pornography

[Goshzilla]

How can we even talk about what is and isn't porn without examples? I find it more disturbing when something is banned, but there is no litmus on what is or isn't acceptable. I won't try to discuss it anymore than that because I know the more in depth we try to discuss it, a few people will just get into knee-jerk mode and start blathering from a pure emotive response.

[Notfor Prophet]

Wikipedia isn't a user-generated utopia. It's a cultish self-contradiction that can't help but undermine its own ideals.

Anyone else think that was a rather out-of-place and unnecessary barb with which to end an article?

[besleybean]

Don't know and not too bothered. I am just a tad surprised that nobody else thinks the album cover was a tad sick.

[Matt H.]

Don't know and not too bothered. I am just a tad surprised that nobody else thinks the album cover was a tad sick.

Yep, feel free to ignore me.