'I personally find it distasteful,' he said. I asked him why he was so angry when most people would probably support any body which is trying to stamp out child abuse images on the web.įirst of all, he stressed that he was not saying that he found the image in question acceptable. He acts as a spokesman for Wikipedia volunteers in the UK - though he is not employed by the Wikimedia Foundation, the online encyclopaedia's governing body (which has issued a press release). I caught up with one of them, David Gerard.

The result is that those internet service providers which are members of IWF have blocked their users from accessing that page.Ī host of Wikipedians is on the warpath, suggesting that this is censorship by a self-appointed body which has no right to decide what we can look at on the web. Now the Internet Watch Foundation - which has been Britain's leading online child abuse watchdog for the past 12 years - has put that Wikipedia page on its banned list. That cover shows a naked child, and even back in the 70s it proved too distasteful for many, and was withdrawn in a number of countries.

The page that they cannot view is about a relatively obscure 70s heavy metal band, Scorpions, and it has been blocked because it includes an image of a controversial album cover. And it's not just any website - it's Wikipedia. Is the internet censored in the UK? Well, no, most of us would say - you can get to any site you want, as long as it isn't breaking the law - and even then, the authorities are unlikely to intervene.īut now customers of several big internet service providers are finding that they cannot access one page of a website.

Nirvana nevermind cover censored