Cover art blocked on Wikipedia by EU and UK governments
Dec 08, 2008 - By Morelli
Wikipedia administrators noticed a sudden surge in edits on December 4th from content filters of at least 6 major UK Internet Services. As of Sunday morning, British web surfers were unable to view the encyclopedia’s article on the mid-1970’s Scorpions album Virgin Killer. The album’s cover art was flagged as ‘child pornography’ by the Internet Watch Foundation, which is funded by the EU and the UK government, and has the support of many ISPs and online institutions in the UK.
Administrators have refused to remove the image on grounds that ‘Wikipedia doesn’t censor,’ even though the cover was banned in many countries and replaced by another when the album made its 1976 debut.
The cover art is now on a blacklist compiled by the IWF, and the censoring has resulted in Wikipedia administrators banning large areas of the United Kingdom from editing the free encyclopedia. It turns out that British Wikipedia editors are being routed, by the six ISPs, through a small number of IP addresses, so this has the potential to affect thousands of well intentioned users who will suddenly find themselves unable to edit the ‘free encyclopedia anyone can edit’.
Sources: The Register, Slashdot