Album Cover Image Blocked On U.K. Wikipedia Site

The Internet Watch Foundation Saturday blocked access to the Wikipedia U.K. site about the German band after it received complaints about a "potentially illegal indecent image of a child under the age of 18," the IWF said. The image of the record "Virgin Killer" is hosted outside the U.K., the IWF said.

The IWF said it does not issue "takedown" notices to ISPs or hosting companies outside the U.K., but it advised one of its partner hot lines abroad and its law enforcement partner agency of its assessment.

The specific URL was then added to the list provided to ISPs and other companies online to protect their customers from "inadvertent exposure to a potentially illegal indecent image of a child," the IWF said.

There was a subsequent outcry of censorship from an organization called the Wikimedia Foundation, which said that as far as it knows, this is the first time Wikipedia has ever been censored in the U.K.

"We are frankly baffled as to why the IWF would choose to target Wikipedia—an encyclopedia, run by a charitable organization, which has been repeatedly gauged as equivalent in quality to conventional encyclopedias—for censorship," the group said on its Web site.

The Wikimedia Foundation also said blocking access to the Scorpions entry "additionally had the unintended consequence of blocking U.K. Internet users' ability to edit Wikipedia." The IWF did not comment.

The group said that on Sunday, it contacted the IWF, which confirmed it blocked the "Virgin Killer" article, and that it intends to maintain the block.

The Wikimedia Foundation also said that it was "particularly displeased" that the IWF not only censored the image, but also the text surrounding the image that was "neutral and educational."

"We have no reason to believe the image has been held to be illegal in any jurisdiction anywhere in the world," the foundation said on its site. "We believe it's worth noting that the image is currently visible on Amazon, where the album can be freely purchased [by] and shipped to U.K. residents."

The album cover on Amazon shows the naked girl in a far-away shot and is not as explicit as the one featured on Wikipedia. Interestingly, a search for the album on Amazon.com also returns a result for a book about women survivors of child sexual abuse.