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Wikinews has learned that at least six of the United Kingdom's main Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have implemented monitoring and filtering mechanisms that are causing major problems for UK contributors on websites operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, amongst up to 1200 other websites. The filters appear to be applied because Wikimedia sites are hosting a Scorpions album cover which some call child pornography. The Scorpions are a German rock band who have used several controversial album covers and are perhaps best known for their song, "Rock You Like a Hurricane".
The measures applied redirect traffic for a significant portion of the UK's Internet population through six servers which can log and filter the content that is available to the end user. A serious side-effect of this is the inability of administrators on Wikimedia sites to block vandals and other troublemakers without potentially impacting hundreds of thousands of innocent contributors who are working on the sites in good faith.
The filtering is in response to the Internet Watch Foundation's list of websites that host or contain content that have been reported to contain inappropriate images of naked children, under the age of 18. The IWF considers those images child pornography. However, in the United States (where the websites of the Wikimedia Foundation are hosted), it is not considered obscene under the criteria of the Miller test, which requires that an obscene work lack "serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value" (as album art is used to "brand" the album, it is considered to be artistic).
Contributors or individuals attempting to view an affected image or file, depending on their ISP, may get a warning saying, "we have blocked this page because, according to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), it contains indecent images of children or pointers to them; you could be breaking UK law if you viewed the page.". Other ISPs provide blank pages, 404 errors, or other means of blocking the content.
The measures applied redirect traffic for a significant portion of the UK's Internet population through six servers which can log and filter the content that is available to the end user. A serious side-effect of this is the inability of administrators on Wikimedia sites to block vandals and other troublemakers without potentially impacting hundreds of thousands of innocent contributors who are working on the sites in good faith.
The filtering is in response to the Internet Watch Foundation's list of websites that host or contain content that have been reported to contain inappropriate images of naked children, under the age of 18. The IWF considers those images child pornography. However, in the United States (where the websites of the Wikimedia Foundation are hosted), it is not considered obscene under the criteria of the Miller test, which requires that an obscene work lack "serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value" (as album art is used to "brand" the album, it is considered to be artistic).
Contributors or individuals attempting to view an affected image or file, depending on their ISP, may get a warning saying, "we have blocked this page because, according to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), it contains indecent images of children or pointers to them; you could be breaking UK law if you viewed the page.". Other ISPs provide blank pages, 404 errors, or other means of blocking the content.
Shit ... China, Australia, Britain ... are we in the midst of something?
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