The Great Firewall of Great Britain
December 9th, 2008by andy 
Maybe you just thought only China censored the Internet – well you’d be wrong. It’s being censored in the UK by a body known as the Internet Watch Foundation. A good thing I am sure – I for one do not want to be seen as promoting child pornography, but have they gone too far?
The photo shown above (from the Scorpions 1976 Album, Virgin Killer) has been deemed as potentially illegal and put on the IWF’s blacklist, and as a result, most major UK ISPs have blocked the image on Wikipedia. The image, nevertheless, exists all across the Internet, on Amazon, in our shops on our high streets, on this website, on Google, but not on Wikipedia. Not exactly a triumph for the IWF.
Of course, this has lead to widespread criticism of the IWF and also lead to a lot of people looking at the image that probably wouldn’t have done so before. (The Streisand Effect). Additionally, the way that the IWF block websites, means that the whole of the UK are now unable to edit Wikpedia!
The IWF are a quango organisation, answerable to nobody – which is perhaps where the problem lies. One person complains about an image and the image is immediately blocked from the Internet. That doesn’t sound right to me for some reason.
The person who reported the image as child porn is probably the person who should be investigated – they must be a right pervert to even consider this as child porn. I think it’s art.
What other stuff is being banned that our government (or indeed unregulated quangos) think is not suitable for us to see?
Here’s some thoughts from the Register.
UPDATE:
The ban has now been removed!
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