Wikipedia has been blacklisted by a British online child pornography watchdog, causing almost every internet user in Britain to be blocked from contributing to the site anonymously.
The British Government-backed Internet Watch Foundation blacklisted Wikipedia over an article on the 1976 album Virgin Killer by German heavy metal band Scorpions.
At issue was a screen shot of the album cover, published with the article, that featured a naked, young girl with her genitals obscured by a simulated tear in the photograph.
After hearing of the blacklisting, Britain’s six main internet service providers blocked their users from accessing the article.
But the method they used means users of each provider now access Wikipedia as a whole through the same IP address.
Usually all internet users have a unique IP address, allowing Wikipedia to block users who vandalise the site or otherwise break its rules.
Wikipedia dubs itself the “free encyclopedia anyone can edit”.
As a result, Wikipedia, which contains 2.6 million articles all written by its users, has instituted a blanket ban on anonymous edits from the six ISPs, which account for 95 per cent of British residential internet users.
Sarah Robertson, spokeswoman for the Internet Watch Foundation, told the Associated Press that the picture was flagged by an internet user late last week. The foundation concluded, after consulting British police, that the picture could break child abuse laws.
Wikipedia administrators have refused to remove the album cover on the site, saying they do not censor articles.
This from http://www.smh.com.au
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