Monday, December 08, 2008

Wikipedia blocked in child porn row



A row has broken out over the cover of a 1970s rock album depicting a naked girl. The album cover of Virgin Killer, by the German rock group the Scorpions, was displayed on the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia and was brought to the attention to the FBI in America by World Net Daily in May 2008. The image, which depicts a prepubescent girl with her genitals obscured by cracked glass, then found itself under the scrutiny of Concerned Women for America. A spokesperson for the Christian advocacy group is quoted as saying “By allowing that image to remain posted, Wikipedia is helping to further facilitate perversion and paedophilia”.

The issue finally came to a head when the Internet Watch Foundation, a UK based NGO, added the article Virgin_Killer to its blacklist. The result was that people using many of the UK’s major ISPs found themselves blocked from viewing the page. But Channel Four News also reported that many users found themselves blocked from editing pages on the site and in some cases from accessing any pages altogether. That is because the IWF's system adds both the URL of an image and of a page containing the image to its "blacklist" of pages to be blocked. "Illegal sites often hide images in pages," said Sarah Robertson, director of communications for the IWF.

Despite the block the image is widely available on the Internet and even appears on Amazon.com. But moves may now be made against the online retailer which could have a disastrous affect as Christmas approaches. But the IWF declined to say whether Amazon would be the next to be blocked despite acknowledging that a complaint had been received [Guardian / Sky News / BBC].

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