Album cover from 1976 Censored causing 95% U.K ISP's blacklist

by corbinse | December 8, 2008 at 01:30 pm

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Wikipedia Article Censored in UK for the First Time

Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service

Dec 8, 2008 5:00 am

Now I don't agree with the album cover by any strech of the imagination. But come on it has been out there for 32 years..

For the first time, U.K. Internet Service Providers have censored a Wikipedia article, one that includes an album cover image of a naked and possibly underage girl. An unintended side effect of the block left U.K. users of the online encyclopedia unable to edit other articles, Wikimedia said. The article concerns the album "Virgin Killer" by German band The Scorpions. The record has generated controversy due to its cover photo ever since it was released in 1976. The URL (uniform resource locator) of the article was added to a blacklist published by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), a nonprofit group that works with law enforcement to block and remove child pornography from Web sites.

Some 95 percent of U.K. ISPs use IWF's blacklist, although non-residential Internet connections are not affected, according to the Wikimedia Foundation.