This is absolute crap. Censorship is only necessary if you believe the general public is so fucking stupid that their behaviour will somehow change as a result of the censored item being generally available. As this image and many like it have been available for years without censorship without any mass decrease in public morality (or whatever it is you're so scared of), that's obviously not the case. In 20 years time our children will patronise us over this as we patronise our ancestors and others who banned Lady Chatterley's Lover / covered the legs on chairs / make women cover every inch of flesh / kicked up a national fuss over a milliseconds display of a nipple / [any other totally pointless, embarrassing, puerile example of prudery].

From a legal perspective, this may be accurate. I am not a lawyer.

The uproar, however, has mainly come from the fact that we were not told the page was being censored. Most ISPs, I beleive following the IWFs guidelines, 404'ed it. This leads to one question: How many of the 404s we get while surfing are real, and how many are blocked content? What are they censoring? We have no idea, because they will not tell us.

Some other issues involved are:

* This 'voluntary' scheme was forced on the ISPs

* The IWF are not accountable to anyone, and are basically self-appointed moral guardians.

* I beleive I read that artwork is treated differrently by law. This is artwork and, in no way, sexual.

* The IWF filter is VERY easy to bypass, so it is not stop kiddie porn, just forcing paedos to use different methods, which are harder to trace.

I think this article misses the main points brought up over this debacle, and so has wikimedia.

An image file on the net is a URL link just like any other, so if the image is offensive then blacklist the address of the image not the page. How could you swallow the line that one URL is easier to blacklist than another, you must be a total moron to believe that line. If I can blacklist banner addresses which are on The Reg pages and still read the text then why cant the idiotic IWF do the same. Yet another idiotic ever so ill researched and politically comprimised anti-wikipedia article in the El' Reg, I've been reading The Reg since 2002 and to be fair things have gotten worse, you should of stuck to the IT Angle.

Wikipedia – an encyclopedia, run by a charitable organization, which has been repeatedly gauged as equivalent in quality to conventional encyclopedias

You've got to be fscking kidding right?

What absolute rot!

Wikipedia has a blacklist of editors because they are vandals, whose work is against the aim and cause of the project.

I am a proud Wikipedian, who wants the best for the Wikipedia project. It is not hyprocisy to call this censorship. It IS censorship. Wikipedia is not censored (see WP:NOT).

The IWF have not blocked the corresponding virgin killers page on answers.com, I notice, suggesting they are drawing attention (oddly enough) to their unelected, unaccountable body.

amazon should block the image too? should they prevent someone from buying the album should they so wish? should we determine who has bought the album until now and go to their houses and place little stickers over the bit whoever it is finds so offensive?? or perhaps some of you could develop some common sense?

Reporter is a fucking idiot!

As he/she/it states The Protection of Children Act 1978 bans indecent images of children. As we can all see with our own eyes (well, depending on our ISP), the blocked image can in no way be considered indecent (Reminder: nudity != porn - yes *even* children).

And frankly, this is the real problem here. If said image was actually and example of kiddie porn, I'd have no problem with it being blocked. The problem is that the IWF, as demonstrated by this incident, is apparently now a fully signed up member of the media fueled overreaction is more important than using our common sense brigade.

"The sleeve was banned in many countries when the album was released."

But not the UK - how can a physical copy of the album be totally acceptable to sell in shops, but not to view on a website?

Despite the title of this article, it seems to be nothing more than an attack on Wikipedia and a defence of censorship in general. I'd disagree that anything should be censored in an ideal world, but given the impossibility of getting material removed from servers across the world, I can see why this is the method chosen. However, if we are going to have censorship, shouldn't we have transparent censorship with a right to appeal? Instead of displaying the potentially offensive content, display a message reading "we believe this content is illegal in the UK. If you think this is incorrect, please contact the webmaster of this site and advise them to contact us at the following email address"

Wikimedia may well be hypocritical, but so is the IWF. Why has Amazon, HMW et al not been blocked as well? Why have record shops selling this album not been raided? Why have the band, the cover artist, their record label and their distributors not been charged?

It is either child porn or it isn't. I wish the IWF and the police would make their bloody minds up.

I also wish someone at El Reg would investigate these questions, rather than simply re-hash what we already know.

"Without such an intermediary, the UK would have a less effective means of controlling images of child abuse on the internet. Yes, that is a form of censorship; but not all censorship is evil. Wikimedia should know that."

If we "must" have censorship in the UK then I want it done by the government. Not that I have any faith in them but at least at that point it's subject to some form of democratic review. Censorship by stealth from self-appointed moral arbiters (puritans and busybodies, it seems) is not my idea of freedom.

I didn't sign up to have my internet filtered by these morons.

And yes, they are to blame for the inability of almost the entire UK population to edit wikipedia. The scheme used passes any request for a page from a recognised "bad" IP address through the IWF proxies.

If the IWF had implemented the proxy scheme correctly (IE used the header to give the originators IP address) this mess wouldn't have happened. Do your damned research properly.

They were also stupid enough to block the article but not the image. Not only are the IWF a bunch of PC morons, they're clearly also technically inept.

Me, I'm getting sick of all this moral panic. Sure, we want to prevent child abuse, but need we be so scared of any form of nudity?

I'd like to laugh heartily about them being equivalent in quality to regular encyclopedias.

Saying that, I use it quite a bit and it's really very useful and accurate for the stuff I use it for. Pretty much the only unreliable bits are all religion, pop-culture and a load of other dross anyway. So for the bits that a regular encyclopedia would cover, they're probably not far off.

"Amazon should get rid of it too, or, at the very least, block the image from UK visitors. (I don't know how US laws would interpret the Scorpions' image.)"

If it is beholden on the IWF to censor/restrict Wikipedia, then it is beholden on them to do exactly the same thing to ALL SITES hosting the same image or linking to it. END OF DISCUSSION. To Amazon should get blocked, as of now.

Why is it up to Amazon to remove the image, but Wikipedia to be censored? I have no great love of the Wiki, but I detect a whiff of anti-wikiness in this article rather than any attempt at journalism.

In fact, I think I will find that image on Amazon and report it now. If the IWF do not block it, I guess the police will have to get involved.

So Struan, should the sickening kiddie porn at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevermind be blocked too?

If this is an indecent image, why is no-one facing gaol for it? Either it's child abuse and the perpetrators should be on trial, or it's a slightly tasteless rock band image and should be ignored. This spotty, wishy-washy, banned-on-Wikipedia-but-not-on-Amazon (because they'll sue us) approach is just pandering to the easily outraged and wasting valuable time that could be spent on things that actually cause harm.

Personally, I'm more worried about the people who are complaining here; if the first thing they think of when they see a picture of a naked child is "SEX!!!", then surely the problem is with them, not with the picture?

You've chosen to pick on one of the people who commented on Rory Cellan-Jones' article but have ignored the other comments. Have you read the comments on The Register?

There are currently 245 comments on that page. I do think you should read comments 1, 7, 12, 25, 32, 37,38, 89, 92, 102, 105, 121, 140, 145, 160, 167, 170, 177, 178, 184, 186, 188, 195, 205, 210, 222 and 236. Then respond individually to each comment.

Then you should read and respond to the comments on The Register which ask valid questions.

There needs to be an open discussion about the IWF, its methodology, its transparency and accountability. Its aims may be noble but what actual status does the IWF have in law? Please explain this to us so we can understand whether or not it is a self-appointed group lacking in transparency and accountability.

Anything self-appointed needs to be regulated and subject to proper public methodologies, transparency and a challenge procedure.

Is any of the above true of the IWF?

Simply because the image is not indecent. It'd been airbrushed and edited to not show the genetalia or nipples, and if a huge amount of skin makes something indecent then never go to a beach.

In the 30 years since the album was released it's recieved a huge amount of controversy, but tellingly it's never been banned. It's been voluntarily withdrawn and reissued as the band realised they made a mistake, but never banned. Surely if the content of the coverart was illegal it'd have been banned from sale a long time ago?

Who are the IWF to arbitually decide with no form of recourse (you can only appeal to the IWF, and then they state their appeal decision is final) what is and isn't illegal. I'm willing to bet their staff have never so much as stepped foot in a law school, yet alone studied in one, so who are they to decide what is illegal in cases such as this? We have an entire legal system to deal with that.

Sure they do a good job most the time, when cases are clear cut, but they seem to be erring on the side of caution with a "well it might be illegal, so lets block it" when it should be "well it might be legal, lets leave it until we know for sure", this is unacceptable for an unelected and unanswerable body, they have to be sure that when they block something they are 100% correct, in this case they can't be.

As for not having the facility to just block images, I suggest they go back to the drawing board and redo their system as it is a trivial matter, the very fact that they can't just block images when their remit is soley based on images speaks wonders of the inadequacies of the body. Censorship, where required, should always be the minimum amount possible, not a "well, lets just block it all to make sure we get the tiny bit we actually want to block", I doubt the IWF are even acting legally by arbitually blocking entire pages like this.

Mines the one with the books being burnt.

Entirely. Apart from anything else, Wikipedia have fallen into the same trap as many spanked spammers: blaming the list maintainer rather than the admin using the list. The same counter-argument applies: it's my network and I'll run it how the hell I like. If I want to use a blacklist then I will. If I want to use an upstream who uses a blacklist then I will. If I don't then I won't.

...in getting the image viewed by as many people as possible. I for one (of many millions no doubt) was on google image search as soon as the news appeared to see what the fuss was about. Frankly the answer is, the fuss is about nothing. The main potentially "indecent" area has been carefully censored by a broken glass effect, and I'm certain there are many much more "explicit" holiday snaps of people's kids on the beach.

Admittedly, the pose could be perceived as provocative, but the interesting thing there, is that the provocation is in the eye of the beholder. The image is presumably intentionally unsettling for that very reason. If we ban this, we close off quite a large avenue of art. Naturally, I'm anti child-porn, as should be any normal member of society. This is not child porn. Keep an eye on the wedge people... this could be the thin end.

AC because I'm basically admitting to having a potentially illegal image in my internet cache...

No, it's not hypocrisy. It is an eensy-weensy bit ironic at most.

Wikipedia complains about the IWF for filtering the information we see. But quite obviously Wikipedia does the same thing. It has editors, after all, and their purpose is to filter what we see.

That's not exactly earth-shattering news, though, is it?

The IWF's move is a lot more serious than that. I can choose whether to use Wikipedia, having regard for its likely editorial bias. However, if my ISP starts filtering pages on the basis of a nod and a wink from the IWF, then that's blanket censorship. How do I know what else they might be blocking, of a political nature maybe? Once they've shown that their judgement is flawed, we have to start worrying. And the fact that nowhere else in the world has any concerns about this image which has been freely available for years means that their judgement is flawed, in my opinion.

And the Reg legal argument doesn't hold a drop of water either. If the image is illegal, the web site is breaking the law whether or not the IWF blocks it. So are lots of other web sites.

And then there's the fact that the IWF is blocking the text and not the image. So how exactly does that fit with the law? Is the text surrounding an image also illegal by association now?

Get your act together Register. You're talking gonads.

The main criticism is the hamfisted way in which the IWF went about banning this image. Relatively few people had heard about the group or the album, never mind the cover - now everybody has. They've brought it to the attention of every pervert who might be aroused by it. They've caused the image to be replicated worldwide.

The IWF claims to "work in partnership with the online industry, law enforcement, government, the education sector, charities, international partners and the public to minimise the availability of this content, specifically, child sexual abuse ...". They seem to have done precisely the reverse - in spades!

Isn't this going to blow most 'downloaded kiddie porn' convictions out of the water ?

The IWF banning this picture indicates they are able to ban any illegal webpage. They have assumed responsiblity for what images I can and cannot see on the internet. Therefore any image I can still see on the internet is IWF approved, and the IWF, and perhaps the website owner, should be prosecuted instead of me.

If I walk into a newsagent and buy a pornographic magazine and then am prosecuted for that magazine carrying an illegal image, surely the newsagent, publisher and regulator are to blame more than I am ?

Anyone can become a wikipedian and as a result contribute to decisions about what should and should not be on wikipedia.

Discussion of what should be considered an indecent image has proved to be controversial. Anyone can say that all photographs of women not wearing burqas are indecent without fear of being locked up. Arguing that the current laws are excessive is more risky.

People are confident that even if we do change the people in government, the next lot will be just as bad. As a result, the IWF and the companies that fund it out of our broadband fees are a target for people's irritation. If the IWF want to change that and still profit from censoring the web then they should lobby for laws that protect children instead of giving a monopoly on naughty pictures to criminals.

and i want my five pounds!

Personally I have very little interest in what the IWF thinks might be illegal, because it is not a body competent to judge such things under UK law. That said, I am sure there is a benefit to them making their best estimate and making available a list of URLs which it thinks might house potentially illegal content. That way, those who are concerned can consult such a list and take action accordingly. Some might even choose to empower a third party to monitor such a list and take pre-emptive action on their behalf. I wouldn't, but I can imagine that some might.

It is a huge leap from that to a situation in which an ISP takes this non-legal opinion, and implements a transparent proxy of the "offending" site which alters their users' interaction with that site making pages appear missing, AND FAILS TO INFORM THEIR USERS THEY ARE DOING SO.

It is a direct analogue of the Phorm situation - users pay for connection to the internet, not a connection to a version of the internet amended for the benefit of a third party. Users have every right to be angry and feel let down about this. ISPs simply should not be transforming content.

As for the other mealy mouthed points in this opinion piece, they are dubious at best. The Wikipedia page in question housed a thoughtful and rounded discussion of the album art, putting it into context and exploring the criticism it had received. It is simply not good enough to say that this textual content was censored for simplicity's sake. It is no harder to add a .jpg URL to a watchlist as it is to add a .html URL.

Witness the difference between Demon Internet's action, which was the show the page in its entirety and then simply *warn* users that clicking through to the full size image might be illegal, and Virgin Media's, which was to transparently proxy the page in question and pretend it simply didn't exist.

The bottom line is this: I didn't sign up for a censorship service. I don't want a censorship service. If I want to read stuff that someone else thinks I shouldn't it's down to me to decide. And if I want to view an image that someone else thinks I shouldn't, even if they think I'd be committing an offence if I did, it is still MY DECISION to commit that offence if I want to.

I don't care how righteous the IWF thinks it's being, nor how indignant Wikipedia is. I care that my internet connection delivers me what is actually on the internet, not some nannied version of it.

That's why there was and continues to be an outcry over this.

The Author misses the key point - Wikipedia was not notified and told to take down an unlawful image by a public authority with the vares to do so. ISPs started blocking a page which had a massive impact on legitimate users.

Surely an organisaton would have the ability to contact Wikipedia and ask them to implement a takedown and if this was refused, to proceed with the notification fo the URL?

Or did the IWF fancy cashing in on the Wiki glamour?

Wikipedia complaining about censorship? That's good. The organisation that revitalised the idea of the non-person has a moan when someone blocks their child-porn stash. Of course it is but a minor hiccup on their road to the complete corporate ownership of all knowledge.

...is too vague a reason for blocking the image or whatever part of Wikipedia is necessary in order to enforce the block.

Assuming that the author of the article is a lawyer, he should know that precise definitions are a necessary part of that profession. So either the image is illegal under current UK law, or it is not. If it is, then a block is within the IWF's remit and can be blocked, and the police should investigate anyone hosting or accessing the image - this includes any online retailer with this item in stock and any physical shop, as well as Wikipedia. If it is not illegal, then the IWF should dismiss the complaint and remove the block.

Icon, because someone's arbitrary opinion should not be a good enough reason for censorship.

Everything is *potentially* illegal. See SCO's "Methods and concepts" idea (meaning copying the ideas would be illegal, since it is argued in court, it must be potentially illegal) and the later "negative know-how" which likewise, since it was not repudiated by the court as a malicious and obvious misapplication of law, must therefore be considered *potentially* illegal to use "well, when he did it this way, it didn't work, so I'll do it a different way".

Is the image illegal?

Yes?

Block it.

No?

Don't block it.

Not "is the image possibly illegal?". That is just fooking retarded. Find out if it IS illegal (see also a recent El Reg topic on the subject) and if it is, persue it as illegal and block it in the meantime so you aren't colluding in an illegal (not potentially illegal) act.

I mean, by selling me a CD, amazon are potentially helping me to copy the CD in breech of the copyright act and therefore potentially, by selling me a CD an illegal act is done. Aiding and abetting a potentially illegal act?

Again, the icon for obvious reasons.

This argument hinges upon the fact that edits cannot be made by people using the "censoring" ISPs. I don't think this is true though. I am an O2 customer, I cannot view the page in question and I cannot *anonymously* edit any article. However, once I log in, I can. What's the big deal?

Another one of these personal viewpoints transposed to every other person. Like how easily offended people take offence on behalf of Andrew Sachs, even when he says he's not offended...

IMHO it says more about the censors feelings towards images of children than the majority view.

To quote the censor:

It's also worth noting that the law covers only photographs and 'pseudo photographs' – so the IWF will not censor, as one contributor to a BBC blog fears, Michelangelo's David

No, they wouldn't even think of doing that would they?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/28/government_outlaws_pictures/

banning a page is as simple as banning an image... ie. both requiring URLs....

So now Virgin (funny name that for a bunch of f**kers) Media have taken to censoring my connection. I must therefore infer that everything I can see over my connection is approved by them?

"The IWF says that its system cannot ban individual JPEG files, though."

So if we're to believe the article (and hence the IWF) as written then that means the IWF wrote a system to block indecent images of children (a very worthy goal, don't get me wrong) that cannot block the actual images and thus renders the entire system somewhat pointless?

However, that said, given I get a 404 response from Wikipedia when attempting to access the blocked page I would suspect that they have a blocked list of URLs and if the proxy servers encounter any requests for that URL they issue a 404 or whatever. This would mean that the content type of the URL has no bearing on whether it's blockable and therefore they could infact block images.

Infact the wikipedia article on Cleanfeed (google it) and indeed the references within it state that it is possible to block individual images with this technology.

What am I missing?

Anon? Just because.

All very well, but this image has been around in print on the album itself and (apparently) in books for thirty-odd years. And now it magically becomes illegal because it's on the web? Talk about shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted...

What credibility the IWF may have had has just been shot to pieces by this stupidity.

This is as daft as the rumpus over that Mapplethorpe book the police in Birmingham tried to claim was obscene 12 years after publication, which naturally got thrown out the minute it was put before a real judge.

And this still doesn't address why a group of self-appointed wannabe Whitehouses with no electoral remit think they have the right to act as judge, jury and executioner over this stuff in any case.

By the way, the image is also on Amazon UK on the version of the album that comes as part of a two-album boxed set, though it's very small and on one of the alternative views. Still no word of an IWF ban on that then? Stupid *and* inconsistent...

Don't know about you, but my forbears fought two world wars to keep us safe from the kinds of morons who think that burning books is a good idea: why internet censorship should be seen as somehow more OK beats me.

Consider and dissect the following assumptions:

1) People generally agree that exploitation of children is wrong. This applies to sexual, emotional and physical abuse.

2) People generally agree that not all content is appropriate. For example, people generally agree that books or websites that directly incite (for example) murder should be banned.

3) People generally believe that the reason we need to ban "bad" content is because it will encourage others to mimic the behavior.

4) Some people believe that those guilty of producing said content (or indeed guilty of the behavior without the added factor of recording it in some way) should be treated as being ill and should be offered treatment. Other people believe that they are criminals who make their decisions while in full control of their faculties - they should therefore be treated as such. Finally, some people believe that each case should be treated on an individual basis - for example, calling for a violent revolution against a (perceived) oppressive regime does not fall in the same category as distributing snuff films; similarly, distributing snuff films cannot be held in the same regard as producing horror movies with a sexual element.

All that being said, what made me angry was the process of censorship. The act of banning, without warning or explanation, of any content is the real danger. The BBFC (a body with as few legal powers as the IWF, but with as much commercial 'pull') at least provides an explanation of its decisions (e.g. what particular law was in danger of being breached). While it is arguably just as difficult to challenge those decisions, what is important is that the process is _somewhat_ more open (although it's very, very far from perfect). It would be trivial for ISPs to provide an information page every time a user hits a banned page. My fear is that without this information people will simply assume that the content doesn't exist - and that's when we get into the realm of the more extreme censorship that people have been SHOUTING about. It's not impossible to perceive how over time the lack of content will mean that knowledge of said content will pass completely out of our shared knowledge. Now that _is_ scary.

Wikimedia general counsel Mike Godwin said: "...

Who cares what that Nazi has to say?

(sorry.)

The idea behind the IWF is fine (in theory) but the trouble is in the implementation. This album cover can be viewed on many sites - should every single URL be blocked ? If the IWF were to apply their criteria properly then yes.

This would mean blocking Google, Yahoo, Amazon and most search engines that display images - as well as blocking specific pages from other sites (eg a certain site that has this album as #1 worst cover of all time !).

Blocking the Wiki page has had VERY unintended side effects - inability for UK editors to amend pages - what might happen if Google / Yahoo pages were blocked ?

Also we have the issue of only some ISPs being blocked as others appear not to be signed up to the IWF's list.

The attempt to ban the image from the UK , while fine in principle, has not worked. Nor can it work without banning the sites mentioned above by all ISPs. Without too much effort I could probably find 100 unique pages with the album cover on it - there are probably many hundreds - ban them all ?

The idea of "ban a page if it might possibly be dodgy" is ill thought out. Don't get me wrong - the basic idea of the IWF seems fine - but in this case it seems it cannot possibly ban all pages that contain this image. Therefore it should ban none.

Did I go and have a look at the image ? Yes.

Does this make me a criminal now ? I really don't know - that might depend on which site I saw it on, which ISP I happened to use, whether I use a proxy server etc. It seems woefully messed up.

What did I think of the image ? Pretty tasteless - even for heavy rock 30 years ago in Germany !

... of crap. "Don't have the means to block individual jpeg images" - What a load of crap. Presumably they are filtering it based on the URL used to access it (as evidenced by some people being able to use alternate URLs to view the content) - a jpeg image has a URL just the same as a page on wikipedia/any site does. They could quite easily have just blocked the images - which would have been more effective, rather than just the pages.

So if IWF are in the right here, why did they block the entire page, and not just the objectionable content?

That is what everybody is up in arms about. Blocking child porn images, fair enough, I won't complain about my ISP doing that. Blocking articles on an encyclopedia (regardless of whether El Reg likes it), no thank you.

"So it bans pages on which images appear, not the images themselves."

So the IWF bans the legal text and not the illegal picture? How is that in any way sensible?

Surely it would be best to ban the picture not the text?

an incredibly simplistic and biased view! Wikipedias policy for editing is up to wikipedia and is not in any way comparable to the IWFs blocking of certain pages on the internet based on some highly suspect persons view of indecency. The IWF and some ISPs are clearly closely linked so Wikipedia have a valid point (albeit one edged with unfounded argument for wikipedia openness), and I'm no fanboy for the "online encyclopedia of public opinion accountable to beer[sic] review".

Blocking the text of an article which includes a discussion as to the validity of the picture itself is probably the wrong way to go about this - but that's not the main thing that has caused the uproar.

A much bigger part of the problem is the way that this list is managed - the ISPs are effectively being forced to use the whole list without any form of "oversight" being possible, and there's no public scrutiny as to whether the pages that are being blocked are "reasonable".

There has also been a block placed on the very wikipedia page that includes a discussion as to the IWF ban: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer_Controversy

If any other country did this (blocked 'A', and then blocked access to a discussion of the blocking of 'A') then there would be screams from all over the land about how the regime was as bad as communist China.

"...Wikipedia – an encyclopedia, run by a charitable organization, which has been repeatedly gauged as equivalent in quality to conventional encyclopedias"

Really? By whom? Among almost everyone I know and much that I read, Wikipedia is considered a risky source of misinformation because of its lack of professional editing, lack of attribution and general openness to manipulation by anyone who declares himself or herself an expert, despite there being a few really useful and informative pages. "Oh no, not Wikipedia!" is the usual response to those who quote it. They can not even spell Encylopaedia!

I checked out the Scorpion Image (thanks IWF - you must have increased its viewership a thousandfold). Err you don't need to trouble Wikipedia/Amazon or your ISP's transparent proxy if you have an ounce of searching skill.

I'm a bit of a prude - like being surprised anyone on R2 would broadcast Brandt/Ross episode - but I would not have dreamt of censoring this image if it appeared on one of my forums. Obviously I was wrong and to protect myself, my members, the nations morals and every pubescent girl - I should have removed it forthwith. Which begs the question of recognising the difference between a tasteful nude photo and 'extreme porn' (as in the other story about the woman in polythene).

No time to consult lawyers, ask my friendly local plod et al. So it looks like nudity has to be off limits per se. That's the only safe understandable easy rule one can have when providing a community forum. Glad I'm not running flickr.

I was a child of the era that published Lady Chatterley's Lover and got rid of the Lord Chamberlain. Looks like we have already gone back to the puritanical fifties and still travelling.

Mind you, if anyone has a photo nude 15 year Wacki Jacqui - I think I might be tempted to publish and enjoy my penal servitude.

"It's worth noting that the image is currently visible on Amazon, where the album can be freely purchased by UK residents." "

As can counterfeit goods, CS gas and pepper spray (yes I saw watchdog). So is it ok to sell these and use the defence "Well Amazon sell them".

I'm sorry but calling wikimedia a hypocrite and trying to compare wikimedia user access control to censorship is a weak argument at best. The author is simply trying to bulk out his argument here like any good lawyer would in my opinion.

As for arguing the legality of the image. Yes it may very well be illegal here. But the law is actually unclear.. If we receive a take down notice as an ISP we would be considered to be "on notice". If we then do not acknowledge and remove it whilst it is in dispute (whatever it is) and it is proved to be illegal it is possible we can be taken to court for 3rd party copyright infringement for example in the case of copyright infringement. But actually it is still up to our client to prove the contents legality. If we notify them of a the take down request and we keep the disputed item up whilst he defends his content. As per our terms & conditions if we are sued we can then pass the legal & judgment cost onto the client however he may not be able to pay by this point unless he was a business with the means. End result the ISP is likely to lose out financially. This is why most ISP's don't question take down notices.

In the UK at least can be tracked to the "Demon Internet vs Godfrey" case where a user complained to Demon asking them to take down a defamatory remark made against his name on a usenet group. Demon did nothing, usenet is then replicated all over the world so it could no longer effectively be taken down. Demon was successfully sued in the high court for 3rd party libel (Something like that, I can't remember the exact charge). Since it was a high court judgment it set a UK precedent, whether you agree with it or not. As you can see this whole legal area is a bit of a mess. There's no way your average member of public can fight this unless they really want to spend a lot of money in court.

The real issue which has angered the internet community is that content can and will be increasingly censored in the UK without any notice or any details of what is being filtered by ISP's. There is no transparency and no mandate for them to do so even if the ISP's are acting in good faith in this case.

My personal problem with this situation is with Virginmedia. We happen to get transit with them. Over a week ago we noticed that traffic directed down virgin to en.wikipedia .org was hitting a blank page. Further investigation showed they had started broadcasting wikipedias english prefix (their ip) as on their own AS. This means essentially that virgin are now claiming to be controllers of wikipedias server. This as far as I'm concerned is impersonation. Since BGP is a protocol based on "trust" we trust them to provide us with correct routes to other areas of the internet. Also since they claim to own the ip address it appears to only be 1 hop away from us which is therefore automatically higher priority than any of the routes sent to us by our other providers who give the true number of hops to the servers (About 5-10 or so over to America). Unless we filter their route we our traffic will continue to hit this invalid server. This fundamentally breaks BGP. I believe RIPE frown heavily on this kind of practice.

Finally the other problem is of course censorship is utterly useless. Content is replicated so many times all over the place it is impossible to suppress. Your only really suppressing it from the law abiding majority. The people your trying to really hinder can easily circumvent these inconveniences.

how come there are so many negative ratings for this piece?

i know that no one likes the idea of censorship, but surely we can agree there is a time and a place when it is right and that is at least child pornography?

or are you all sick-twisted-pro-kiddieporn-tards?

It's been pointed out on Wikipedia that if you use their secure server the ban is ineffective. I feel it is no more than my duty as a responsible citizen to report that HTTPS link to the IWF as well ;)

"All traffic from affected ISPs now looks to Wikipedia like it comes from the same IP address. That causes a problem for Wikipedia. It doesn't mind who looks at its pages – but it wants to control who can change them. It has its own blacklist, a list of people from certain IP addresses who are forbidden from changing Wikipedia's pages. Wikimedia does this because it does not like what they write. So its criticism of the IWF is hypocritical."

Wikimedia and/or the hivemind may censor stuff (I recall something along those lines to do with "naked" short-selling and another case involving a shady Indian guru) but merely recording and controlling who does what, where does not constitute proof that they practice censorship in any meaningful way. Preventing vandalism, spam, etc. != censorship, as the nice mod person for this comments page should know, and an IP address is necessary for such actions.

I say this as someone who hates wiki-wankers as much as you do, probably more.

I would agree with the author that the ISPs and the IWF should not have to wait for the government to decide if an image is decent... and in this case they did not have to. The image is an album cover from the 70s. It caused a media storm at the time and yet was not censored by the UK government, nor was it censored 2 years later when the The Protection of Children Act came into effect. If it is an illegal image then it has been illegal for the last 30 years and every high street and online music store is pedalling paedophilia. If it is not illegal then the IWF has censored a legal image. I suspect the latter is most likely the truth, in which case this is a clear instance of negligence and poor research by the IWF.

I think what has most peoples backs up isn't so the much the particular image, which is TBH pretty dodgy, but the fact that someone is deciding what we're allowed to look at. If a religious fruitcake managed to get a job there would we all be banned from looking at any site with pro-evolution comments

***"It (Wikipedia) has its own blacklist, a list of people from certain IP addresses who are forbidden from changing Wikipedia's pages. Wikimedia does this because it does not like what they write. So its criticism of the IWF is hypocritical."***

Erm, no. Not hypocritical at all. This blacklist is about *preventing* censorship. Anyone can edit a Wikipedia article. Some people edit articles to actively *censor* content they dislike (as in the case of the Phorm Entry being edited by Phorm). If someone repeatedly *censors* an article then it is very reasonable that they should be blocked.

IF the picture was obviously illegal, your points might carry more weight. The police advised only that it MIGHT be, and given the hardly secretive presence of the cover on the likes of Wikipedia and Amazon over a period of years with no prosecution having occurred, I hazard a guess that the courts are not likely to be quite so reactionary in their opinion. You say Amazon should be banning the image as well, I would ask if that also means you consider possession of the album should constitute a criminal offense that should put you on the register of sexual offenders?

The problem is the the IWF seem to have overreacted here. The image was not child porn, there was nothing sexual about it, and it contained nothing that could be considered abusive. To declare it as child porn is to reveal the system as problematically broken. I had respect for the IWF before, but this leads me to question whether they are any more effective as a moral guardian than a pack of rabid Daily Mail readers would be.

I have two concerns.

1. The IWF lacks transparency. There is no way to find out what they are blocking, and it is worrying to know they can make arbitrary decisions about artwork that could mean linking to images of the Sistine Chapel would be an offense. If this story had not broken, would we have known how crazy their decisions could be?

2. They lack accountability. Their web site makes it easy to complain about a web site, there is nothing on there to allow you to complain about the IWF or to challenge decisions.

The IWF is a self-appointed body, and it is disturbing in the extreme that it has the power to ban web pages with no apparent checks and balances being in place.

The IWF need to stick to what they should be doing, keeping illegal material blocked. They were completely wrong to cross the line into second guessing morality on what is clearly very far from being a clear cut case.

As a note, I own a copy of 'Nevermind'. Should I go and burn the cover of that album before the Stazi^H^H^H^H^Hpolice come breaking down my door?

Yes this image is a degrading, exploitative and possibly illegal image.

No IMHO it should not appear on an album cover (indeed an alternative cover was produced at the time for the countries in which the original was banned).

But what was the purpose and effect of the IWFs action on this matter?

Firstly, if you take a look at the statement about this on the IWF's website, you will notice three lengthy paragraphs. The first two paragraphs explain what the IWF is and how it operates. Only in the third and final paragraph does it deal with the issue at hand. This is unusual for news statements, even for the IWF. This is just grandstanding by the IWF: "Look at us - we've blocked a page on Wikipedia!"

Or am I just being cynical? Surely the purpose of the IWF in this respect is to:

(i) prevent the exploitation and abuse of children in the production of these materials;

(ii) prevent casual or accidental access to such materials on the basis that they have a damaging effect on the viewer;

(iii) assist the prosecution of those producing and paying for such materials.

Has the IWF's action in this case promoted any of these three aims? Clearly not (i) - the materials were produced a long time ago. As for (ii) this image has probably become one of the more viewed images of the week via the net in the UK as the block was only to a Wikipedia site and even that could easily be circumvented. And finally (iii): well theoretically anyone with this image now in their browser cache could possibly be prosecuted for possesion of child pornography but are these the people that we would expect the IWF and the police to go after?

This leads me to the conclusion that the IWF were engaging in a bit of cynical self-publicity here. As a predictable and direct result of their actions no children have been protected, more people have viewed an image that could be judged to be illegal and no-one abusing or exploiting children will be prosecuted.

The ISPs have followed like poodles because "child porn is bad" (and yes it is) without stopping to think what was going on here or taking real responsibility for the service that they provide. And, again predictably, the Wikipedia/net neutrality/anti-censorship fundamentalists have thrown their toys out of the pram and had a hissy fit providing all the furore the the IWF wanted.

Sad, sad, sad.

When the IWF starts, for example, nabbing the criminals that traffick, enslave and exploit women (and it goes on in most of the major towns and cities in Britain) I will have some more respect for what they do.

On Radio 4 news yesterday morning they had someone from the IWF and someone from Wikipedia being interviewed, the IWF person made the point that the image was examined in conjunction with the police before it was considered to be illigal also that the reason that the image on Amazon has not been banned is because noone has complained about it.

While I have never looked at this album cover, I wonder how sexually explicit it really is. If it merely has a picture of a naked child how does this differ from half the content of the National Gallery with it's cherubs.

Presumably Wikipedia is not carrying the picture to be salacious, it is carrying the picture as an accurate historic record.

Q. What was the cover of this album?

A. It was this picture

Not "here's some grubby photo to practice your left handed to surfing too."

So it's perfectly OK to censor the internet "for the good of the people" if you disagree with the content? What difference is there between this, and the Great Firewall of China, except scale?

"Web hosts must not wait for an image to be declared unlawful by a court when they receive a complaint, albeit only a court can declare an image unlawful." that may be true except the webhosts are not the ones who have removed the image, the ISPs have.

It is not the job of the ISP to determine what is appropriate and what is not. It is not their job to determine what is legal and what is not. That is up to the courts. If there is a problem with the content of Wikipedia, then that has to be resolved by Wikipedia, even if that means taking them to court.

The IWF is also criticised for blocking the whole page, not just the image. The IWF says that its system cannot ban individual JPEG files, though. It says that its system is designed to be simple, because that is what the ISPs want.

This is just stupid, because of this if you know the images url you can just look directly at the image which is the potentially illegal item, they are instead blocking the text which is perfectly legal to view. And indeed if you look at the Google cache of the page you will see the image clearly which would otherwise be blocked if they blocked the JPEG file. Are the IWF implying that their block is on a directory (in which case block the image directory) or only .htm files, sounds wrong to me.

Dear Struan Robertson,

You couldn't miss the point by a wider margin even if you tried. This is not a question of whether or not the album cover might be illegal. This is a question of whether or not the right and the responsibility to publish an image of that cover lies with Wikimedia; or are third parties allowed to censor Wikipedia because, according to these parties, not a court of law, the image might be illegal. This sort of censorship flies straight into the face of centuries of judicial tradition that holds that a person has a right to defend himself against any accusations and is held innocent until proven guilty.

The author of this article seems to miss several key points.

There is a fundamental difference between Wikipedia preventing editing access to Wikipedia, and a third-party preventing access to part of Wikipedia. Wikipedia naturally has the right to control access to their own service. A third-party does not.

It is simply not hypocritical to object to a third-party censoring your service, while still wishing to control access yourself.

Essentially, the author is attributing a position of "all censorship is bad" to Wikipedia, then attacking them on it. But they don't hold that position, even if you regard editorial control as the same as censorship. This is a third-party declaring an image illegal and thus preventing access to it universally (presumably they should, as the author says, block Amazon too...). It is simply not the same as a site preventing editing of their own site - those blocked are still free to state their views elsewhere, or start their own site if they wish. Presumably no-one in the UK is allowed to access this image anywhere, now it has been declared - unofficially - illegal.

Which brings us to the heart of the matter. The author seems to have no objection to a third-party, with no real authority, declaring material illegal resulting it in being censored by ISPs for fear of having to go to court. Can the writer of this article really not see the problem with that?

It seems to me as if much renaissance art until now generally considered suitable for all including children will either have to be banned or an extremely inconsistent stance is being taken. I searched for "renaissance cupid" on google images using strictsafe search option on:

http://images.google.co.uk/images?gbv=2&&hl=en&safe=active&q=renaissance+cupid&&sa=N&start=36&ndsp=18

What indeed is an oil on canvas painting if it is not a "virtual photograph" ?

The images I saw as a consequence were on very much the same level of provocation and indecency as the image from the Wikipedia Scorpions, article the text of which I was not allowed to read on account of Virgin Media following the IWF blacklist and wrongly telling me the web page in question was empty. This censorship was clearly not effective in denying access to the image in question which I had seen years ago in Germany displayed for sale in a shop then open to children. I was able to find the same image within a couple of minutes elsewhere, but the censorship did prevent me from reading the rest of the Wikipedia Scorpions article.

This is totally crazy. What right do the self-styled "Virgin Media" have to ban the Scorpion's Virgin Killers German edition cover any more than e.g. the "Venus and Cupid", oil on canvas painting by Battista Dossi, ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battista_Dossi ) and then claim to be "Virgin Media" as opposed to the Whore of Babylon Media themselves ? Time for Richard Branson to consider a name change for his company.

"Wikimedia general counsel Mike Godwin said: "We have no reason to believe the article, or the image contained in the article, has been held to be illegal in any jurisdiction anywhere in the world." But Godwin's argument misses the point.

Web hosts must not wait for an image to be declared unlawful by a court when they receive a complaint, albeit only a court can declare an image unlawful. If they wait, there is every chance that the declaration will come at their own trial."

No, it's you that's missed the point. They've never received any such request to take it down, and they're based in the US, so IWF doesn't count as an authority, being a UK-based organisation. And the FBI already came to their own conclusions earlier in the year on this image, therefore, unless none other than the FBI changes their tune, (even less likely than IWF admitting they were wrong), or the image makes it to US courts in a separate case, the image stays.

Besides every reference you made to an image being removed/blocked is also largely wrong; they blocked an encyclopedia page (EU human rights law, article 10, freedom of expression) , NOT the image, which is stored at a different URL on wikipedia's uploads pages. (And about 100 times on google images, a few times on amazon, and so forth...)

Last the whole of the UK being unable to edit wikipedia is a UK ISP issue with what their proxy servers are doing whenever you try to access ALL of the rest of the site. (also a freedom of expression issue)

I am not a lawyer, and find it hard to believe the author of this article is either, except in the fact that he seems capable of arguing both sides of a case at once!

I think the first piece that was written about this was about right, in saying that EVERYONE comes out of this badly:

The IWF announced a ban on a page, not an image.

The ISP's implemented the ban poorly - both in the technical measures they used, and by failing to block any of the alternative paths.

Amazon comes out of it badly for continuing to sell the album.

Skorpions come out of it badly for having poor taste.

The Police come out of it badly for not being able to make a reliable decision when called upon.

The law comes out of it badly, overall.

Wikipedia ALWAYS looks stupid - only a lawyer could possibly make an excuse for them.

are there any other instances of other album covers syuffering the same fate, or is this simply a case of Scorpions bashing.

i posted this story along with the extreme porn law story on a forum i frequently used, within moments there were pictures added of other album covers showing very similar images as the Scorpions cover.

The IWF is not protecting anyone here - pedos have proven themselves to be technically quite adept at getting around simple filtering like this and have set up sophisticated (and much more threatening) networks dealing in imagery which one assumes gives them much greater gratification than the one in question.

The question of how the IWF makes it's decisions has not been answered. They are not publicly accountable and seem to be self appointed arbiters of what is art and what is pron.

While there is no doubt that we should censor indecent images of children the IWF had taken the first step on a slipery slope. Until a few days ago I doubt that many people had heard of them and I'm sure that virtually nobody would have called what they do in to question. Now they appear to be just another overzealous back room censorship organisation without public scrutiny. They have not done themselves (nor the people they are 'protecting') any favours here.

Two questions here - firstly, it's only an illegal image if/when a court rules on it given the grey area this is in. However, it might be considered to be prudent to not make such an image available if only for self interest reasons. There is, incidentally, a difference between a website which has a policy over how it manages and controls its own content (which is what Wikipedia does) and censorship in the control of what people can and cannot see elsewhere. There's a considerable difference between the two. Wikipedia is as a joint community venture, it is not anarchy or complete free-for-all and never has been. The author of this piece ought to be able to tell the difference.

However, the second issue is El Reg's provision of a direct link to the offending Wikipedia page. that surely is inviting readers to go and look at such an image (and maybe making them liable to legal sanction).

["though. The former is within the control of the IWF, the latter is not. "]

Ah.... I see... so what you are saying is that it's not the poor IWF's fault the WP editors were blocked, as it was just an unfortunate side effect.

Right... so when the judges dish out the punishment - they shouldn't be held accountable for the consequences of their chosen enforcement - intentional or otherwise?

["The law has always recognised the need for some censorship. Our freedom of speech is qualified by laws that control defamation and copyright infringement, for example."]

Our freedom of speech most certainly isn't curtailed or qualified by these laws.

1) NOWHERE does the law say you can't do this - it says if you behave in this manner there are legal consequences. The IWF forcibly restricted public domain information, thus did infringe on a fundamental right to choose.

2) The above laws themselves protect individual liberties along the basis of self-ownership. You own your own thoughts ideas and expressions, and equally own the benefits of them. (Taking things you don't own is called theft).

"Not all censorship is evil"

Hmmm.....a statement so intellectually lazy it's almost not worth bothering with except....

So... a self-appointed minority of individuals are forcibly restricting [legal] access to public domain content - and you see this as a "not evil" thing? I hear Iran is nice this time of year.

I think you've thrown the baby out and kept the bath water mate.

So you are saying that the IWF are right and Wikipedia are wrong? Wikipedia is using a different kind of censorship. It may hold a blacklist of IP's that have been known to be disruptive to the website in handing out false information in order to try and corrupt the database on their site. Whilst it's true that anyone can edit the pages it's also true that there are a lot of people trying to spread false information for their own personal agendas. Whilst I cannot speak for the Wikipedia foundation and it's members on what their right to censor others views are I can clearly state that it is totally unlike the methodology being used by the IWF.

Wiki's blacklist is entirely different to the IWF's in that it is selective of singular IP's to a singular person or set of people.

The IWF's blacklist however is a blanket ban.

Wiki's blacklist is about preventing dispersion of false information from a single source (An IP address) whilst the IWF's aim is to prevent EVERYONE from accessing certain images or information deemed 'potentially illegal'.

The IWF are an independently elected body that appears to be unnacountable to nobody but themselves and performing censorship of the masses without the masses request or even any knowledge that they are doing so (Until now).

This is thought control of the worst kind. Because it denies you the freedom of choice. Good or bad. It also has unintended consequences like the censoring of an entire page on Wikipedia.

You also go on about images being potentially illegal should be blocked NOW rather than subject to scrutiny by a proper legal body. So you are now acting as the judge and juror of what constitutes an illegality with no authority whatsoever? Get bent!

I am appalled at this opinion El Reg.

"Web hosts must not wait for an image to be declared unlawful by a court when they receive a complaint, albeit only a court can declare an image unlawful. If they wait, there is every chance that the declaration will come at their own trial."

There lies the crux of the problem, there exists no means for a prompt and legally binding decision from a court about the legality of an image combined with the complete absence of any definite rules to allow a hosting company to decide if an image is unlawful or not.

This means web hosts will err far too far on the side of caution and pull any content you complain about that isnt pictures of fluffy cats, and they will probably pull those if you invoke the magic words copyright violation.

I dont doubt the need for censorship but if you are going to impliment censorship it needs to be done properly, openly, legally and to the same standards as other media, not in the half assed way its being done now.

The IWF have no legal basis for there existence and much as their intentions are good they are basically vigilantes, society doesnt tolerate people taking the law into their own hands in other matters, why should it in this case?

The IWF should probably be brought under state control as a part of the legal system with proper accountability so that a ruling can be made on the legality of an image before it is banned and that ruling can be applied to all media so you dont end up in the odd situation where an image as part of a photography book or an actual album cover is ok but the same picture on a computer is unlawful which seems to be the direction this case is heading in, and if their remit is only to censor images then their blocking system should do just that, block images, not pages containing images. If you are going to censor at least do it well.

And the thing that truly annoyed me, Once a decision has been made to block a page/image/site the ISP's should do as demon does and substitute a page/image/site notifiying the user of the censorship and why, not fake a 404.

If the critera for censorship are well defined and understood by everybody there is no need to hide the fact something is being censored as people will in general understand and accept it.

Unlike the current system of ill defined or non existant criteria and secretive blocking where it can all become a media circus in a matter of days.

This state of affairs is only going to get worse with the introduction of the extreme porn ban and the complete absence of any rules about what is and isnt allowed.

the author of this wasn't paid!

This is possibly one of the most trivial articles on the subject I've read. It leaves so many questions unanswered. I haven't seen the offending image but as others have said mere nudity isn't wrong. Of course we may wish to consider what kind of consent the subject could have given, if the subject is recognisable and so on.

I don't particularly care for Wiki wallies but they have got a point that the IWF is not a judge and all that has happened is that one person, Wiki has said the image is OK and another, IWF has said not. The IWF is not somehow more qualified to make a decision and there seems to be a real danger that whilst embroiled in the political struggle for the moral high ground a lot of harmless things will get banned because there's an outside chance they might perhaps maybe offend someone.

If "It's worth noting that the image is currently visible on Amazon, where the album can be freely purchased by UK residents" then the image on the cover is surely legal (or it would have been banned from sale long ago) and therefore should not be censored at all?

(I bet the IWF have a couple of black helicopters in a hanger somewhere...)

So they've managed to block anonymous editing to Wikipedia, and prevent you from viewing the Virgin Killers album cover on their website...

So why can I see it on this article then: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IWF_censorship_of_Wikipedia

Thanks Wikipedia for being able to work around the stupid IWF rules!

"It's also worth noting that the law covers only photographs and 'pseudo photographs' – so the IWF will not censor, as one contributor to a BBC blog fears, Michelangelo's David."

Aren't you jumping to conclusions here?

That depends on what they define as a pseudo photo, and given that Australia has just punished someone for possession of a Simpsons picture, don't expect common sense to always apply - this is the law after all.

Eh???

Surely if the image is illegal, then purchasing it or viewing it in any medium should be banned.

If it's available in the shops and elsewhere online, then it must follow that the image is not illegal, in which case why has my ISP seen fit to censor it?

I'd be grateful if anyone could link to the piece of legislation allowing the IWF to act as judge, jury and executioner of what I am allowed to view on the internet.

I'm as much against child porn as the next man, naturally, but this image is not child porn. Kneejerk Daily-Mail-esque reactions will not help anyone, least of all genuine victims of abuse.

Better go and burn my copies of Houses of the Holy and Blind Faith before the SWAT team kicks my door in then....

Black helicopter, because 2008 has become 1984.

PS: Struan = FAIL.

...that the Reg has included a url of the child pornography in question, but hasn't offered a url for the IWF. If anybody else thinks that child pornography is a Bad Thing, and that Wikipedia need a kick up the arse, then they can report Wikipedia's publication of child pornography at http://www.iwf.org.uk/reporting.htm

The article confuses (possibly deliberately) censorship and editorial control.

Wikipedia doesn't demand that I don't publish something, but it may accept or reject my contribution to _its_ publication. Whether it does that through the wisdom of the crowd or the whim of the founder, it is still editorial control, not censorship. A third party decreeing that wikipedia _may not_ publish my content submission whether they would like to or not, is censorship.

The BBC isn't currently accepting submissions from Russel Brand, but that is their editorial discretion. No government agency has decreed that they may not publish his content, and nor are they removing it from transmission. What the IWF are doing is (rather than tell the BBC not to use Brand) intercepting all UK comedy content sent to the BBC and relabelling it as "from some bloke in the UK", with the result the the BBC can't use any UK content because they don't know if it is from Brand or not.

Regardless of whether or not the IWF was right to censor (in this case or generally) they have a duty to consider the balance of the right to freedom of expression and the proportionality of the actions they are taking. Effectively making wikipedia read-only (and some parts of it not readable at all) from the UK is a disproportionate response to a single complaint of offensive content.

>> An over-reaction would be banning all pages on Wikipedia when it could ban just one of its pages.

Or blocking editing of all pages on Wikipedia (where editing is a raison d'etre) by deliberately messing up the communication protocols ?

The IWF may claim they did not know about this effect of their actions, however that does not absolve them. The problems that intecepting proxies (as appear to be used here) cause to websites are well known and well documented.

If the IWF (and ISPs) did not know that their action would have this effect on wikipedia then they are not competent to censor using the tools that they have.

>> Web hosts must not wait for an image to be declared unlawful by a court when they receive a complaint, albeit only a court can declare an image unlawful.

Then what must they do ? Take down any image subject to complaint ? For how long - until it is detemined illegal by a court, or indefinitely ? Is there a DMCA-style counter-notification procedure ?

Or are you really stating that web hosts "must" remove, permanently _any_ image that _anyone_ _thinks_ is illegal at the first complaint ? How many _legal_ images would it be acceptable to remove that way ?

>> It's also worth noting that the law covers only photographs and 'pseudo photographs' – so the IWF will not censor, as one contributor to a BBC blog fears, Michelangelo's David

It might be worth noting that the way the internet actually works, you cannot actually publish Michelangelo's David, only a (digitised) photograph of it. So, no, the IWF will not censor the statue but that is of little relevance.

"i know that no one likes the idea of censorship, but surely we can agree there is a time and a place when it is right and that is at least child pornography?

or are you all sick-twisted-pro-kiddieporn-tards?"

Sure, fight kiddie pr0n with the law. Great.

The objections here are that:

1. We don't believe this is child pr0n

2. We don't like that this is done in secret by an unelected and unaccountable organisation with no democratic exposure or debate, no information or legal guidelines on what they block and no choice to opt out (except by switching ISP, which is hard when ISPs don't advertise their use of IWF).

Also the article we're responding to is disingenuous tosh.

There may be so many negative ratings because the arguments they use are crap. Utterly terrible. Very poor. Bad. Whatever.

By the same reasoning, we must stop buying clothes in case an item of clothing was made by abusively child labour. And we must stop purchasing alcohol because it may result in drink-related crime. And all cigarettes must be banned because it is known that a significant number of under 18s WILL die from smoking-related diseases.

Indecent does not imply sexually provocative. Anyone wearing tight-fitting jeans might fall into that category, as could any kid experimenting with make-up. Looking sexy is not abuse.

Making innocent adults and kids feel guilty of an abuse that never happened is the abuse.

we have forgotten history, and we are on the path to repeat it again.

Puritanism will force the paedo to behave more cunning, and more dangerous, to seek to be on the position that the will have the power to do their desire and at the same time looks like beacon of purity (double faces).

if the only way to "enjoy"( puag) CP legally is as a member of IWF, how can someone dont prove that they are pedophile element on it?

pedophilia is a mental tendency. that you think and force other to think that a photograph of a prepubecent girl is "sexual" is more than enough to think that YOU are the peadophile.

Wellcome to the new dark age mentality.

>"Wikimedia does this because it does not like what they write. So its criticism of the IWF is hypocritical."

Utter crap. Wikimedia are denying access to *THEIR* systems to certain *SPECIFIC INDIVIDUALS*. Being *THEIR* systems, which they own, and have property rights over, they are entirely within their rights. What IWF and the ISPs are colluding to do is entirely different: they are denying *EVERYBODY* access to *SOMEONE ELSE'S* systems. The comparison is a blatant false analogy and you accusation of hypocrisy is utterly groundless and invalid.

Note also that IPs banned from editing by Wikimedia can still *READ* wikipedia too, they just can't edit it. Your argument is the same mistake made by spammers: "Oh, not letting me use YOUR systems to publish MY speech is suppression of free speech". No more so than the local paper is censoring if it doesn't want to publish every single "letter to the editor" it ever receives. The right to free speech is not a guarantee of publication in whatever journal you desire!

None of the arguments exposed in this piece is actually relevant to the case. The image is not of the kind that justify censorship. It should never have been censored in the first place. Period. The origin is totally irrelevant. The IWF is a dumb failure of a regulatory body. Its self-serving knee-jerk decisions should be scrutinized, and, in this case, lead to judiciary action. AGAINST the IWF and/or the ISP which followed its recommendation. Dumb redneck flashmob justice should not be encouraged, even on the Intartubes.

This has been roundly criticized already, so I'll just focus on the two most disturbing assertions.

"Web hosts must not wait for an image to be declared unlawful by a court when they receive a complaint, albeit only a court can declare an image unlawful."

Following this line of thinking exponentially expands the variety of material that is, in effect, prohibited. Especially given the given the vague nature of these laws.

"Amazon should get rid of it too, or, at the very least, block the image from UK visitors. (I don't know how US laws would interpret the Scorpions' image.)"

This seems to indicate that web sites should be responsible for enforcing the laws of other countries. That's ridiculous, and combined with the other assertion means they would have to censor anything that MIGHT be illegal in any country. I'd wager that's just about everything.

Okay I lied, one more point. Given that the legality of the image hinges on its (in)decency, based on "recognised standards of propriety", is not the fact that it has been sold commercially for 30 years somewhat relevant after all?

>"The IWF is also criticised for blocking the whole page, not just the image. The IWF says that its system cannot ban individual JPEG files, though. It says that its system is designed to be simple, because that is what the ISPs want. So it bans pages on which images appear, not the images themselves. That is not an over-reaction, in my view. An over-reaction would be banning all pages on Wikipedia when it could ban just one of its pages."

But the IWF is lying, or at any rate, I don't believe them for one second. It's not remotely plausible that a system that filters HTTP requests based on URLs can add URLs ending in ".html" to the list couldn't process identically a URL that is exactly the same but ends in ".jpg". If the IWF's claim is true (or if it is to be taken at face value, as meaning what it actually says), it would still be possible to access the image by its URL directly. Even if clean-feed is based on a simple prefix or substring match, they just need to specify the precise URL in the block list.

According to reports on the wikipedia talk pages discussing the issue, both the HTML page *and* the JPG image are blocked. (I must apologise. I usually verify claims like this before restating them in a comment, but this time I'm not going to personally check the facts, for obvious reasons.) So their claim cannot be literally true in the words that they present it; they're fudging the description of what they are actually doing, and the only reason I can infer for that is because they have indeed overblocked and are embarrassed being caught at it.

comparing some random websites use of censorship with that of an unaccountable quango's censorship of a good proportion of an entire country is pretty weak.

BTW, what might 'pseudo photographs' be? Given that cartoons (FFS) can now get you thrown in jail, I would have thought a decent oil painting would be completely beyond the pale, but IANAL.

I thought we lived in a country where the system of law was "that which is not prohibited is allowed" as opposed to the Napoleonic system, where "that which is not allowed explicitly is illegal."

When did we change over?

Seems like another turn of the ratchet toward despotism, here in one half-way decent Blighty.

I'm going to complain to the IWF about every copy of the image I can find on BIG company sites - amazon, etc.. Then we'll see what happens. :D

Plain and simple.

Why?

Because there is no peer review of the issues, nor there is a "blocked content" alert, nor there is a way to lift a existing ban or to review the case of an existing ban.

I'm from a country where the liberty to free expression was curtailed for more then 50 years... So yes, i can't accept ANY kind of censorship without a court order stamped on the case.

Which this doesn't provide.

"The IWF says that its system cannot ban individual JPEG files, though."

Since the IWF's whole reason for existing is to block objectionable images, that seems a tad surprising...

Its done by airbrush.

This album came out 33 years ago and regardless of what you think about The Scorpions or their choice of album cover art, it IS art.

Are we to ban renaissance art because that too is full of nubile young women (and men)?

We live in a world where even Chris Morris couldn't lampoon this shit.

Everyone knows Wikipedia is made up of mostly left-leaning articles. They claim obamas birthplace is HI yet theres no proof of that, I guess the Wikipedia knows something we don't. I did see that FactCheck.org verified the document, I guess that's pretty good considering Obama and a terrorist sat on the board of the foundation that runs FactCheck. This isn't about obama though, it's about how the WikiPedia clearly censors how articles are written and who can write to them.

While the IWF might not be a member of law enforcement, neither is the wikipedia and if you want to go down the 'foundation' road give me a break. Hasn't enough come out about who runs Wikipedia by now showing how they use the site to threaten, harass, and initimiate people they don't like?

This Thumbs up is for the IWF.

Dear Mr. Robertson:

Unfortunately, what you write is so utterly ludicrous that there's really no other way to put this: You are a fucking idiot. If you'd like to censor things which are obscene, you might want to start with your own witless prose.

Perhaps Struan would like to comment on the IWF's humiliating climbdown. Pity it took a backlash to get the IWF to see some sense on this.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/dec/09/wikipedia-iwf-ban-lifted

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7774102.stm

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/science_technology/iwf+lifts+wikipedia+ban/2878257

Questions remain to be answered, a full discussion on the IWF, its methodology, transparency and accountability needs to happen.

Okay, so the ISPs are to blame for the IP address problem rather than the IWF. But that doesn't change the point that something has gone wrong here.

Comparing Wikipedia's blocking of people editing Wikipedia to this censorship is laughable. There's a difference between controlling who can access *your own site*, and trying to censor other sites!

"Web hosts must not wait for an image to be declared unlawful by a court when they receive a complaint, albeit only a court can declare an image unlawful. If they wait, there is every chance that the declaration will come at their own trial."

And that is Wikimedia's choice to make. And since they are in the US, it is up to the US authorities to notify them.

"Yet that is no defence. Amazon should get rid of it too, or, at the very least, block the image from UK visitors."

That's not the point. The question is, is the IWF going to block them too?

"The IWF says that its system cannot ban individual JPEG files, though. It says that its system is designed to be simple, because that is what the ISPs want. So it bans pages on which images appear, not the images themselves. That is not an over-reaction, in my view."

Censoring *text* is an over-reaction, in my view, the paying customer. If the IWF's system can't handle blocking images, then that's rather mad considering that the system was supposedly designed for blocking images! This system also means that the image is still available, if you know the URL of the image directly. So on the one hand it blocks legal text, yet it turns out it's no good at blocking child porn images anyway!

"Yes, that is a form of censorship; but not all censorship is evil. Wikimedia should know that."

A straw man argument - no one is claiming that censoring actual child porn images is wrong. Wikimedia do know that.

As for the idea that ISPs can choose to block what they like - well sure, but (a) their customers damn well have a right to complain and raise awareness about such actions, and (b) you can damn well be sure that any site which is blocked will also complain, and consider legal action.

There is also the wider issue of fears that ISPs have signed up to the blacklist, out of fears that the Government will force them to do so if they do not.

Whoever is to blame - the ISPs, the IWF or the Government - both individuals and Wikimedia are right to kick up a fuss about it.

Mr Robertson has been thoroughly lambasted for an ill considered and incomplete article based on his perverse view of a twisted world. I don't suppose we'll see a humiliating retraction like that of the IWF.

Maybe El Reg might reconsider syndicating such utter crap in the future!

Can I please write an article for El Reg? I also support Ban This Sick Filth campaigns for the purpose of trolling

as in Faranheit 451. if the item is censored the it is not a "404 file not found error" it is a "file has been censored error". That way the user learns that they are seeking censored material - that results in educating the user. They can then appeal the block if necessary.

The biggest issue here is an unrepresentative organisation, is using it own moral judgements to generate a block list. I would expect they should at least get the authority to blacklist the item from a classification board that has legal authority.

BTW. The Great firewall of Australia is expected to use the IWF list as well. so these moral gaurdians may have the power to censor more than the UK.

icon - goggles. My approved censorship method is the whited out goggles. cheaper and more effective for those sensitive sods who argue they dont want to view stuff but they seem more concerned about stopping you from viewing it.

Of course, El Reg would never stoop to censorship, particularly of anything involving criticism of El Reg itself. Although curiously, whenever I try to post a comment critical of El Reg's stance on climate change, it never gets published. I get plenty of comments published about other things, just not on climate change. Odd that.

Actually the BBFC was appointed by the government and it's illegal to sell anything that hasn't been classified by them (though this is limited to video products only). Thus their decisions have the law behind them in a way.

"Since when were the comment pages of any internet publication an unfettered forum for free speech?"

But that is what the article uses to justify the censorship of Wikimedia: that they didn't allow an unfettered forum for free speech in wikimedia.

Ergo showing that if this were what El Reg thought, they are guilty of censorship too. And therefore, since this is the reason why they say Wikimedia cannot complain about IWF's censorship, El Reg can't complain about censorship either.

Which would kill off about 1/3 of the public sector and security topics on El Reg...

Sir, you are an ARSE.

It is correct that the viewing of 'unacceptable' images should be made an offence.

However, the problem arises when the definition of what is 'unacceptable' is made by some arbitrary, self-serving, self interested, answerable-to-no-one (or at least not to 'the people') body. Which, for reasons that seem, on the surface at least, has the power to advise it's subscribers to censor access to an image which, AFAIK, has never actually been declared to fall into the category of 'child pornography' in a court of law. (If it has, then I will happily retract my statement). Until that point, the image is merely open to subjective interpretation as to it's 'unacceptability', as what may appear so to one person, may not be the case to another. The approach of the IWF in this instance, I believe, does more harm than good to any attempts to stamp out the scourge of child abuse / pornography. To act as it did, apparently on the basis of, AFAIK, one complaint is the typically knee-jerk reaction of the 'PC' Brigade who think that "they know best".

Instead of all the frothing at the mouth that we have seen here so far.

Ideas about what is illegal or not do change. In the UK a few years ago the age at which girls could pose naked in mens magazines (definitely for sexual arousal purposes) was raised from 16 to 18.

Much of Europe allowed naked pictures of girls down to well below this (Rodox, IIRC is a good example), however this too was changed to modernise laws.

So a similar argument to the "the picture has been around for 30 years so must be OK" is suspect on two main levels, firstly in that what was OK then is not necessarily OK now and secondly because there is a tandem argument that if I can show a naked picture of a child that was taken 30 years ago then why is it wrong to take one today and post it?

I don't believe that the picture is kiddie porn under normal, rational definitions of said genre, however it is not my decision to make -- that is why we have a legal system.

As for censorship I think many knees have jerked very far on this. Not just the initial blocking of the page either. The IWF are doing what they do. They receive complaints - investigate the complaint and then add various sites to their "naughty list".

It is the ISPs that then use the list for site blocking. Although this is certainly censorship it is the ISP that is censoring, not the IWF. ISPs are perfectly within their rights to control traffic that passes through their systems. It would be nice if they were a little more honest about what they do and how they do it, but ultimately if you don't like your ISP then change ISP.

Censorship is not necessarily evil. I fail to see where the vitriol about this comes from. Especially the poster who claimed there is a huge difference between the IWF censoring bits of the interweb and Wikipaedia censoring articles. Surely if censorship is bad then Wikipaedia are just as bad for censoring, and if there are acceptable degrees of censorship then the author's statement that not all censorship is evil is proven valid.

"And since when did criticism of article A, appended as a comment to article B, become on-topic?"

Er - when I can't get any comments on Article A actually published, unlike the legions of climate skeptics who get every bone-headed, drool-filled, knee-jerk, thought-free remark published immediately.

If you actually let my comments get published, perhaps they wouldn't be so critical...

Nobody has an inherent right to edit Wikipedia. The fact that they protect the resource they are the custodians of through moderation and blocklists does not trample on anyone's rights. It's their prerogative and their job, as it is the job of a newspaper editor to reject a poor article. It's not censorship.

The IWF has effectively told every UK news agent to tear out a specific page from every Time magazine. Would they comply?

"And since when did criticism of article A, appended as a comment to article B, become on-topic?"

since the topic of article B was cencorship and his comments or article A where (in his opinion) cencored

Maybe they just don't like the band. Prefering some early Clapton. The 1969 Blind Faith Album cover was pretty controversial and would certainly be banned today. Having heard it they would be better off banning the contents :0)

Paris: for obvious reasons...

"The IWF has effectively told every UK news agent to tear out a specific page from every Time magazine. Would they comply?"

or to put it anpther way if a trade assoation had advided it members that selling this weeks "daily blah" might put them at risk of jail time cos of a possibley illagle aritcle in it then most of them would pull it of the stands

silly anoligoes work both ways

I'm wondering how this works? If it was the Good Old US of A then the outcries of "Freedom of Speech" would be the overwhelming noise only to be dismissed as "we'll stop the terrorists before they attack us" sounded out by the masterful Bushy Dubbya.

If it was Australia then the situation would be "ho hum, who cares & who uses it?" but it's not. This is the British Gov't supplanting its secular containment upon the public that trust their Gov't implicitly (roars of laughter echo across Commons & Beth's house as well). Gordy exclaims to a heralding chorus of belligerence, "They're wrong & we're going to stop them. Utter, utter ....." fading within the chorus of belligerence from none other than the opposing team or did it come from behind (some fart jokes please).

Mind you this online encyclopedia of socially poisonous unacceptability & just not British behaviour is quite the useful menagerie of quite funny fart noises & other hilarious stuff straight out of the Goodies or was it Monty Python. Oh damn, there's that funny walk & pay-for-arguments that aren't arguments, oh chortle, chortle, chortle...

I can hear Libby guffawing into a sherry now, "Dear God, please blame Fergie & I don't mean the singer, I mean that fat bitch!".

Does anyone pay this 'out-law.com' and the iwp in direct proportion for degree of inanity?

But since ANYTHING is *possibly* illegal, that would mean that nothing gets printed.

Fine for me, buy the newspaper owners won't get very far with no content.

Problem is that they are illegal. Not "potentially illegal". And if the tabloids printed a girl of 16 nude or topless they would get into trouble.

They don't get into rouble for a young looking woman pictured because it "could be" illegal.

Laws change, but then that means you prosecute for illegal acts that weren't illegal. But you don't ban stuff because it MAY be illegal. Or could BECOME illegal. After all, we could be taken over as an islamic state and all of the Sun pictures would be rude. As would almost all the clothes available in the shops. And all the breweries. But we don't ban them.

Oh, and have a look at how "grandfather clause" works.