British ISPs have blocked access to Wikipedia after accusations that the site was carrying what some consider to be potentially illegal images of child pornography on an old Scorpion's album cover.
The Wikipedia article was placed on a blacklist by the Internet Watch Foundation, with ISPs Virgin Media, Be and others already blocking access to the page.
The Scorpions' 1976 album Virgin Killers, featured a picture of a young naked girl. More innocent times perhaps? Or just a particularly bad period in the recent history of popular music?
Either way, even on its original release, the cover was quickly replaced in the UK and United States with the bog standard shot of the band.
Potentially illegal imagery
The IWF has said the image is "potentially illegal" and that "as with all child abuse reports received by our Hotline analysts, the image was assessed according to the UK Sentencing Guidelines Council," the organisation said on its website.
"The content was considered to be a potentially illegal indecent image of a child under the age of 18… and the specific URL was then added to the list."
The IWF's blacklist, dubbed 'Cleanfeed', came under fire back in 2005 when University of Cambridge researchers claimed it could easily be reverse-engineered to reveal a full list of sites containing illegal content. Researcher Richard Clayton told The Guardian at the time that it was "an oracle to efficiently locate illegal websites".
