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Internet Watch Foundation and Wikipedia
On 5 December 2008, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), a British watchdog group, blacklisted content on the English Wikipedia related to Scorpions' 1976 studio album Virgin Killer, due to the presence of its controversial cover artwork, depicting a ten year-old girl posing nude, with a faux shattered-glass effect obscuring her genitalia. The image was deemed to be "potentially illegal content" under English law which forbids the possession or creation of indecent photographs of children. The IWF's blacklist is used in web filtering systems such as Cleanfeed.
The URL to the image's description page, which depicts the cover art, was also blacklisted; however thumbnails and the image itself remained accessible. The album cover had been deemed controversial at the time of its release, and was replaced in some markets with an alternate cover image featuring a photo of the band members. The IWF described the image as "a potentially illegal indecent image of a child under the age of 18". Wikipedia's policies state that it does not censor content "that some readers consider objectionable or offensive, even exceedingly so", although it does remove content that is "obviously inappropriate", violates other Wikipedia policies, or is illegal in the United States.
As well as the direct consequence of censoring the article and image for UK-based readers of the English Wikipedia through the affected ISPs (a censoring that could be circumvented), and that the album cover was being made available unfiltered on other major sites including Amazon.co.uk (from which it was later removed), and available for sale in the UK, the action also had some indirect effects on Wikipedia, namely temporarily preventing all editors using said ISPs in the UK from contributing to any page of the encyclopedia, and preventing anonymous edits from these ISPs while the URL remained on the blacklist. This was described by the IWF as unintended "collateral damage". This was due to the proxies used to access Wikipedia, as Wikipedia implements a blocking policy whereby contributors can be blocked if they vandalise the encyclopedia. Therefore, all vandalism coming from one ISP would be directed through one proxy—hence one IP—and all of the ISP's customers using that proxy would be barred from editing.
After invoking its appeals procedure and reviewing the situation, the IWF reversed their blacklisting of the page on 9 December 2008, and announced that they would not blacklist other copies of the image hosted outside the UK.
The album art of the Scorpions' album Virgin Killer, featuring a young girl fully nude with a "smashed glass" effect covering her genitalia, was deemed controversial at the time of its release. The cover was replaced in some markets with an alternate cover image featuring a photo of the band members. RCA Records refused to sell the controversial album cover in the United States. The cover was not the only Scorpions' cover which caused controversy however, as the covers for Taken by Force and Lovedrive have also caused controversy with their content.
In the United Kingdom, access to illegal content (such as child pornography) was strictly self-regulated by individual internet service providers. This began when BT Group introduced Cleanfeed, a server-side filtering system which uses data obtained from the Internet Watch Foundation. The IWF is a quango organisation that operates a website where users can report web pages containing illegal or dubious content to be added to their blacklists. This was implemented in order to prevent users from accessing this material, since it is illegal to possess an indecent image of a child under the age of 18 per the Protection of Children Act. British ISPs were later obligated by the government to implement filters for illegal content by the beginning of 2007.
On 5 December 2008 the Internet Watch Foundation added the Wikipedia URLs for the Virgin Killer article and the description page of the image to its blacklist. After the blacklisting, users of major UK ISPs, including BT, Vodafone, Virgin Media/Tesco.net, Be/O2, EasyNet/UK Online/Sky Broadband, Orange, Demon, and TalkTalk (Opal Telecom), were unable to access the content.
Sarah Robertson, director of communications for the IWF, said that the image was rated "1 on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is the least offensive". She described the picture as "erotic posing with no sexual activity". While the image itself has not been flagged as "illegal", IWF determined it to be a "potentially illegal indecent image of a child under the age of 18".
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Internet Watch Foundation and Wikipedia
On 5 December 2008, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), a British watchdog group, blacklisted content on the English Wikipedia related to Scorpions' 1976 studio album Virgin Killer, due to the presence of its controversial cover artwork, depicting a ten year-old girl posing nude, with a faux shattered-glass effect obscuring her genitalia. The image was deemed to be "potentially illegal content" under English law which forbids the possession or creation of indecent photographs of children. The IWF's blacklist is used in web filtering systems such as Cleanfeed.
The URL to the image's description page, which depicts the cover art, was also blacklisted; however thumbnails and the image itself remained accessible. The album cover had been deemed controversial at the time of its release, and was replaced in some markets with an alternate cover image featuring a photo of the band members. The IWF described the image as "a potentially illegal indecent image of a child under the age of 18". Wikipedia's policies state that it does not censor content "that some readers consider objectionable or offensive, even exceedingly so", although it does remove content that is "obviously inappropriate", violates other Wikipedia policies, or is illegal in the United States.
As well as the direct consequence of censoring the article and image for UK-based readers of the English Wikipedia through the affected ISPs (a censoring that could be circumvented), and that the album cover was being made available unfiltered on other major sites including Amazon.co.uk (from which it was later removed), and available for sale in the UK, the action also had some indirect effects on Wikipedia, namely temporarily preventing all editors using said ISPs in the UK from contributing to any page of the encyclopedia, and preventing anonymous edits from these ISPs while the URL remained on the blacklist. This was described by the IWF as unintended "collateral damage". This was due to the proxies used to access Wikipedia, as Wikipedia implements a blocking policy whereby contributors can be blocked if they vandalise the encyclopedia. Therefore, all vandalism coming from one ISP would be directed through one proxy—hence one IP—and all of the ISP's customers using that proxy would be barred from editing.
After invoking its appeals procedure and reviewing the situation, the IWF reversed their blacklisting of the page on 9 December 2008, and announced that they would not blacklist other copies of the image hosted outside the UK.
The album art of the Scorpions' album Virgin Killer, featuring a young girl fully nude with a "smashed glass" effect covering her genitalia, was deemed controversial at the time of its release. The cover was replaced in some markets with an alternate cover image featuring a photo of the band members. RCA Records refused to sell the controversial album cover in the United States. The cover was not the only Scorpions' cover which caused controversy however, as the covers for Taken by Force and Lovedrive have also caused controversy with their content.
In the United Kingdom, access to illegal content (such as child pornography) was strictly self-regulated by individual internet service providers. This began when BT Group introduced Cleanfeed, a server-side filtering system which uses data obtained from the Internet Watch Foundation. The IWF is a quango organisation that operates a website where users can report web pages containing illegal or dubious content to be added to their blacklists. This was implemented in order to prevent users from accessing this material, since it is illegal to possess an indecent image of a child under the age of 18 per the Protection of Children Act. British ISPs were later obligated by the government to implement filters for illegal content by the beginning of 2007.
On 5 December 2008 the Internet Watch Foundation added the Wikipedia URLs for the Virgin Killer article and the description page of the image to its blacklist. After the blacklisting, users of major UK ISPs, including BT, Vodafone, Virgin Media/Tesco.net, Be/O2, EasyNet/UK Online/Sky Broadband, Orange, Demon, and TalkTalk (Opal Telecom), were unable to access the content.
Sarah Robertson, director of communications for the IWF, said that the image was rated "1 on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is the least offensive". She described the picture as "erotic posing with no sexual activity". While the image itself has not been flagged as "illegal", IWF determined it to be a "potentially illegal indecent image of a child under the age of 18".