Brit ISPs censor Wikipedia over 'child porn' album cover

Brit ISPs censor Wikipedia over 'child porn' album cover

www.theregister.co.uk

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."

(visit the link for the full news article)

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.

Very frightening how easily ISP's can censor access to the Internet. I understand the reasoning this occasion but I think we have to start asking where this is going to lead? How long before Internet access is severely limited or before we start being redirected to government censored versions of websites?

I remember life before the Net. We can live without it but wont it be a shame to lose access to what is effectively free knowledge provided by day-to-day, educated, uneducated, and differently educated people from all around our world? I hope we're not near to only being able to access information from approved thinkers and talkers. Far fetched, I know, but it seems possible.

www.theregister.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

There's another post about this same article at here. This thread should probably be locked (and censored by ISP's!!!)

That is a rather "Iffy" album cover, but I do not think it warrented censorship. At the very most a text link to the image.

reply to post by Rapacity


Did you follow the link in the article to the actual wiki page they are talking about?

While i don't agree with the government censoring anything i can see why they did in this instance. Child porn is illegal in most countries and the virgin killer album cover that is on that wiki page is child porn!

The same album cover has been banned in many countries and was replaced so the album could be released.

So why doesn't wiki just remove the child porn cover from that page?

I posted in the other thread on the same story:

I know the album cover from my youth; whilst I've never been a fan of the Scorpions myself, I knew people that did like them and had that album. We used to laugh at the fact that we found it weird, as young kids ourselevs, that adults were putting naked kids on record sleeves whereas if kids were creating record sleeves it would be naked adults.

The cover itself is hard to defend to be honest. It's a very young girl completely naked with a 'cracked glass' effect placed over her vagina. It's not even 'weird' or 'arty' like the Blind Faith eponymous cover with the topless young girl and the weird silver spaceship or even a naked baby like Nirvana's second album. It's just a very blunt image with a fairly blunt album title to go with it: Virgin Killer. Maybe a small case could be made if it wasn't called Virgin Killer, I don't know.

Wiki censorship and ISP filtering is a concern in general though. I think it will only get worse.

Storm in a teacup. This is a single internet page not an entire website. This page has generated more hits from being in the news than it ever would have otherwise.

I'm of course totally against internet censorship, but the ISPs must cover their asses on this one to protect their reputations. Remember it's just one page with what some people might consider objectionable content, and the image of public reponsiblity must be maintained by these ISPs.

I think this case shows several problems.

First, there isn't any global definition of what is child (or even not child related) pornography, so what is illegal in one country may not be in a different country.

Second, should the authorities censor a public medium such as a site or should they left it as it is, even knowing that it has illegal (for that country) material?

Third, how can anyone control what is published on the Internet? In this case, Wikipedia accepts the cover as it was published originally, even if it is against the law in some countries, and if they are following the rules of their country then they are correct, but if they were not, should they be forced to take it down?

Edit: the people on Wikipedia had a strong discussion about this photo in May, with some people trying to bend Wikipedia's rule just to avoid putting the image in its proper place (the original cover place).

Funny enough, as someone said on Wikipedia, that image is available for anyone to see on the back of the In Trance/Virgin Killer: Deluxe Collectors Edition box set that is available at the shops or through on-line stores like Amazon, unless they blocked it also, something I can not confirm.

[edit on 7/12/2008 by ArMaP]

I was about to jump on the 'damn censorship' bandwagon and slam this decision, then I took a look at the wikipedia entry and the photo.

Whilst I don't believe in censorship per se, (what you resist persists and making something taboo only makes it more desirable etc), I do have a comment on the pic....

WTF were the parents of this young pre-pubescent girl thinking? This is soft porn. What kind of mum and dad would want a naked and sexually suggestive photo of their pre-teen presented to the entire world, with the words 'virgin killer' splashed across it?

I guess they were fans of the band. No doubt as mindless as the music or they just lost a lot of brain cells at the concerts /provocation

Wikipedia says:

The image represents a version of a controversial and notable album cover which is essential to illustrate the nature of the controversy.


???

Nah, it's just an excuse to post a pic of kiddy porn. Even if it's not, that's the way it will be used by some. Euuugh. Do a google image search and it looks like some idiots have even taken the photo and enlarged it - wonder why they would do that.

If that were my daughter, I'd be taking a good hard long look in the mirror and asking myself how I f'd up so badly.

/rant /prude