British ISPs restrict access to Wikipedia amid child pornography allegations
Sunday, December 7, 2008 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. Wikinews has also learned that some ISPs have blocked customers from accessing some Wikimedia websites including the free, online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, altogether. The filters appear to be applied because Wikimedia sites are hosting a Scorpions album cover which some call child pornography. 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. < - > http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/UK_ISPs_erect_%27Great_Firewall_of_Britain%27_to_censor_Wikipedia _______________________________________________ Infowarrior mailing list [email protected] https://attrition.org/mailman/listinfo/infowarrior
