Internet Watch Foundation vs. Wikipedia

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On 5 December 2008, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), a British watchdog group, added the URL of the English version of the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia's article Virgin Killer to a blacklist, as it deemed it to contain "potentially illegal" content as defined by the Protection of Children Act 1978. This was due to the presence of the controversial cover art for the Scorpions' 1976 album of the same name, of which the original cover depicts a young girl posing nude, with a faux glass shatter obscuring her genitalia. The image page's URL, which depicts the cover art, was also blacklisted; however thumbnails and the image itself remained accessible. The album art was deemed controversial at the time of its release,[1] and was replaced in some markets with an alternate cover image featuring a photo of the band members. Wikipedia's policies state that it does not censor content "that some readers consider objectionable or offensive, even exceedingly so," and as such only remove inappropriate content that is blatant vandalism, or illegal under the laws of the U.S. State of Florida, where the site's servers are located.[2][3]

The IWF described the image as "a potentially illegal indecent image of a child under the age of 18".[4] Users of major UK ISPs, including BT, Vodafone, Virgin Media/Tesco.net, Be/O2, EasyNet/UK Online/Sky Broadband, Orange, Demon, and TalkTalk (Opal Telecom), were unable to access the content, despite the album cover being available unfiltered on other major sites including Amazon.co.uk[4] (from which it was later removed), and available for sale in the UK.[5]

As well as the direct consequence of censoring the article and image for UK based readers of the English Wikipedia through the affected ISPs (a censoring that could be circumvented[6]), the action also had some indirect effects on Wikipedia, namely temporarily preventing all editors using said ISPs in the UK from contributing to any page of the encyclopaedia.[7] and preventing anonymous edits from these ISPs while the URL remained on the blacklist. This was described by the IWF as unintended "collateral damage".[8] This was due to the proxies used to access Wikipedia, as Wikipedia implements a blocking policy whereby contributors can be blocked if they vandalise the encyclopaedia. Therefore all vandalism coming from one ISP would be directed through one proxy—hence one IP—and all of the ISP's customers using that proxy would be barred from editing.

After invoking its appeals procedure and reviewing the situation, the IWF reversed their blacklisting of the page on 9 December 2008,[9][10] and announced that they would not blacklist other copies of the image hosted outside the UK.[11]

Contents

Background

Before 2007, access to illegal content (such as child pornography) was strictly self-regulated by individual UK internet service providers. This began when BT Group launched Cleanfeed, a server-side filtering system which uses data obtained from the Internet Watch Foundation. The IWF is a non-profit organisation that operates a website where users can report web pages containing illegal or dubious content to be added to their blacklists.[12] This was implemented in order to prevent users from accessing this material, since it is illegal to take, make, distribute, show or possess an indecent image of a child under the age of 18 per the Protection of Children Act.[13] British ISPs were later obligated by the government to implement a Cleanfeed-style system by the beginning of 2007.[14][15]

Addition to IWF blacklist

On 5 December 2008 the Internet Watch Foundation added the Wikipedia URLs for the Virgin Killer article and the description page of the image to its blacklist.[16] Sarah Robertson, director of communications for the IWF, said that the image was rated "1 on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is the least offensive". She described the picture as "erotic posing with no sexual activity".[16] While the image itself has not been flagged as "illegal", IWF determined it to be a "potentially illegal indecent image of a child under the age of 18."[17] The image features a young girl fully nude with a "smashed glass" effect covering her genitalia.[5]

The IWF said they were first notified of the Wikipedia URL on Thursday, 4 December 2008. This followed the May 2008 reporting of the cover image on Wikipedia by US-based social conservative site WorldNetDaily to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. An officer of the Concerned Women for America, a conservative Christian advocacy group, commented, "By allowing that image to remain posted, Wikipedia is helping to further facilitate perversion and pedophilia."[18][17] EContent magazine subsequently reported that the discussion page associated with the article declared "Prior discussion has determined by broad consensus that the Virgin Killer cover will not be removed", and asserted that Wikipedia contributors "favour inclusion in all but the most extreme cases".[19] However, according to The Guardian because "the IWF doesn't talk to people outside of the UK they weren't able to appreciate what was going on." Internet security expert Richard Clayton explained that "We see this borderline stuff all the time; it's a no-win," before adding that the decision seems to have been based on taking the image out of context, particularly "given that you can go into HMV and buy a copy on the high street".[20] On 9 December 2008 the IWF reversed its blacklist of the Wikipedia pages on the basis of the "contextual issues involved in this specific case and, in light of the length of time the image has existed and its wide availability".[11]

Effects on Wikipedia

See also: Cleanfeed (content blocking system)
Users attempting to access the Virgin Killer article or image were met with pseudo-404 errors or other messages.

Usually most Internet users have a unique IP address visible to websites. However, as a result of ISPs using the IWF blacklist implemented through Cleanfeed technology, traffic to Wikipedia via those affected ISPs was then routed through a small number of proxy servers.[21] This caused problems for users of the site. Since Wikipedia allows users to anonymously edit its encyclopedia articles, these individuals are identified only through their IP addresses, which are used to selectively block users who vandalise the site or otherwise break its rules. The proxy filtering makes it impossible to uniquely distinguish users, and to prevent vandalism Wikipedia "instituted a blanket ban on anonymous edits from the six ISPs, which account for 95 per cent of British residential internet users".[22] This had the immediate effect of requiring nearly all registered users in the UK to request the lifting of IP Autoblocks on their accounts before they could edit again, and the de-facto permanent effect of barring any contribution from people without Wikipedia user accounts (who contribute merely under an IP address and not a user name).

As a possible solution, the MediaWiki software that Wikipedia runs on can interpret X-Forwarded-For (XFF) headers, allowing Wikipedia to identify the real IP address rather than the proxy IP address, said Wikimedia Foundation communications committee member Mathias Schindler. This requires the ISPs to implement the X-Forwarded-For header when forwarding page requests through the proxies. This would again allow site administrators to block clients individually, while avoiding the need to block the whole proxy due to the actions of a single vandal.[21] XFF headers can be forged, and MediaWiki maintains a list of trusted XFF proxies.

When the ISPs subscribing to this system do not pass X-Forwarded-For information to Wikipedia, this has the impact of reversing the normal method of identification and blocking on Wikipedia.[23] IP addresses assumed to be assigned to an individual person or organisation are assigned instead to millions of people and thousands of registered editors.[24] Wikipedia servers see them all as the IP of the proxy rather than each as the IP of their own machine.

Due to erroneous use of BGP and other routing technology to redirect the connections to the filtering proxies, users of some networks were temporarily prevented from accessing or editing any content hosted by Wikimedia, a problem reminiscent of Pakistan's accidental blocking of YouTube for much of the world instead of only their own citizens.

Response by the Wikimedia Foundation

On 7 December, the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organisation which supports the English Wikipedia, issued a press release about the blacklisting of their sites by the IWF stating that they had "no reason to believe the article, or the image contained in the article, has been held to be illegal in any jurisdiction anywhere in the world", and noting that not just the image but the article itself had been blocked.[25]

On 9 December, Jimmy Wales, who holds the board-appointed "community founder" seat on the Wikimedia Board of Trustees, told the UK's Channel 4 News that he had briefly considered legal action.[26][27][28] After the block had been removed, Mike Godwin, general counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation, stated "there is still plenty to be troubled by in the operations of the Internet Watch Foundation and its blacklist".[29]

Retraction of content block

On 9 December 2008, the IWF rescinded the block,[30][31][32][33][34] issuing the following statement:[11]

[...] the image in question is potentially in breach of the Protection of Children Act 1978. However, the IWF Board has today (9 December 2008) considered these findings and the contextual issues involved in this specific case and, in light of the length of time the image has existed and its wide availability, the decision has been taken to remove this webpage from our list.

Aftermath

This incident has also had an effect on Australian Internet censoring plans. Electronic Frontiers Australia vice-chairman Colin Jacobs said that "[the] incident in Britain, in which virtually the entire country was unable to edit Wikipedia because the country's Internet Watch Foundation had blacklisted a single image on the site, illustrated the pitfalls of mandatory ISP filtering".[35][36] The Sydney Morning Herald has commented that "Ironically, the banning of the image has only made it visible to more people as news sites publicise the issue and the image spreads across sites other than Wikipedia."[22] This is known as the Streisand effect. At the time of the incident Amazon US were also displaying the image on their site and the IWF stated that it "might yet add Amazon US to its list of 'blocked' sites for hosting the picture";[16] however, in response to this Amazon took the decision to remove the image from their site, to avoid the risk of being blocked.[37]

The Electronic Frontier Foundation criticised the reasoning:[38]

We agree with their decision [to reverse the ban], but they have the wrong reasoning [for the reversal]: they had no business censoring that article in the first place — the community of Wikipedia editors is if anything the more legitimate, reliable and grown-up adjudicator of which images are appropriate subject matter for an encyclopedia.

References

  1. ^ Berelian, Essi (2003). Buckley, Peter & Buckley, Jonathan (eds.). ed. The Rough Guide to Rock. London: Rough Guides. p. 909. ISBN 1843531054. 
  2. ^ Schliebs, Mark (2008-09-09). "Wikipedia users divided over sexual material". news.com.au. http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,25642,24318423-5014239,00.html. 
  3. ^ "Wikipedia is not censored". English Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Archived from the original.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_censored. Retrieved on 2008-04-30. 
  4. ^ a b Schofield, Jack (8 December 2008). "Wikipedia page censored in the UK for 'child pornography'". The Guardian (Guardian Media Group). http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2008/dec/08/internet. Retrieved on 9 December 2008. 
  5. ^ a b Johnson, Bobbie (8 December 2008). "Wikipedia falls foul of British censors". The Guardian (Guardian Media Group). http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/dec/08/wikipedia-censorship. Retrieved on 9 December 2008. 
  6. ^ Investigation by several UK based Wikipedians revealed that the page/image was still available using direct addressing URL parameters, or by using the Wikipedia secure server, as detailed in the discussion of the issue at the Administrator's Noticeboard at the time
  7. ^ "UK Agency Blocks Wikipedia Image, Editing of Site". Yahoo News. 8 December 2008 4:48 pm ET. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20081208/bs_nf/63458. "On its Web site, Wikipedia said several large ISPs that cooperate with the IWF subsequently blocked the image, affecting an estimated 95 percent of residential Internet users in the UK … ". Due to the way the block was created (via transparent proxies), users from the affected ISPs now share a small number of IP addresses. This means that a user committing vandalism cannot be distinguished from all the other people on the same ISP," Wikipedia said … ". Unfortunately, the effect of this is that all users from the affected ISPs are temporarily blocked from editing Wikipedia. Simply viewing the site is not affected, aside from the blocked article and image."" 
  8. ^ Raphael G. Satter (8 December 2008). "Wikipedia article blocked in UK over child photo". Associated Press. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iLhtaFheXFcickVqO0crbKo1IiawD94U4D6O1. Retrieved on 9 December 2008. ""It appears that there's a large number of editors — I can't say all — who appear to have access issues," [Jay Walsh, Wikimedia Foundation] said. [Sarah Robertson, Internet Watch Foundation] said she could not explain reports that other parts of the site were difficult to navigate as a result of the block. "There shouldn't have been any collateral damage," she said." 
  9. ^ "Internet Watch Foundation reconsiders Wikipedia censorship". guardian.co.uk. 9 December 2008. Archived from the original.. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/dec/09/wikipedia-censorship-iwf-reconsiders. Retrieved on 10 December 2008. 
  10. ^ "U.K. Wikipedia Blacklisting Dropped". CIO. 9 December 2008. Archived from the original.. http://www.cio.com/article/470014/U.K._Wikipedia_Blacklisting_Dropped. Retrieved on 10 December 2008. 
  11. ^ a b c "IWF statement regarding Wikipedia webpage". Internet Watch Foundation. 9 December 2008. Archived from the original.. http://www.iwf.org.uk/media/news.251.htm. Retrieved on 10 December 2008. 
  12. ^ "BT puts block on child porn sites". The Observer. Archived from the original.. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1232422,00.html. Retrieved on 10 December 2008. 
  13. ^ Internet Watch Foundation - R v Bowden http://www.iwf.org.uk/police/page.99.209.htm
  14. ^ "Government sets deadline for universal network-level content blocking", LINX, 29 May 2006. Retrieved 29 May 2006.
  15. ^ "Govt sets target for blocking child porn sites", The Register, 18 May 2006. Retrieved 29 May 2006.
  16. ^ a b c Arthur, Charles (8 December 2008). "Internet watchdog considers censoring Amazon US over Scorpions image". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Archived from the original.. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/dec/08/amazon-internet-censorship-iwf. Retrieved on 8 December 2008. 
  17. ^ a b Raphael, JR (8 December 2008). "Wikipedia Censorship Sparks Free Speech Debate". PC World (PC World). http://www.pcworld.com/article/155156/wikipedia_censorship_sparks_free_speech_debate.html. Retrieved on 17 December 2008. 
  18. ^ Schilling, Chelsea (7 May 2008). "FBI investigates 'Wikipedophilia'". WorldNetDaily. Archived from the original.. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/?pageId=63722. Retrieved on 9 December 2008. 
  19. ^ Dye, Jessica (1 July 2008). "Wikipedia Weighs Information Against Indecency". EContent. Archived from the original.. http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/News/News-Feature/Wikipedia-Weighs-Information-Against-Indecency-49659.htm. Retrieved on 9 December 2008. 
  20. ^ Johnson, Bobbie (9 December 2008). "Wikipedia censor mess 'a no-win'". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Archived from the original.. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2008/dec/09/wikipedia-censorship. Retrieved on 9 December 2008. 
  21. ^ a b Kirk, Jeremy (8 December 2008). "Wikipedia Article Censored in UK for the First Time". PC World. IDG. Archived from the original.. http://www.pcworld.com/article/155112/wikipedia_article_censored_in_uk_for_the_first_time.html. Retrieved on 8 December 2008. 
  22. ^ a b Moses, Asher (8 December 2008). "Wikipedia added to child pornography blacklist". The Sydney Morning Herald. Fairfax Media. Archived from the original.. http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/web/wikipedia-added-to-child-pornography-blacklist/2008/12/08/1228584723764.html. Retrieved on 8 December 2008. 
  23. ^ Kirk, Jeremy. "Wikipedia Article Censored in UK for the First Time". PC World (IDG News Service). http://www.pcworld.com/article/155112/wikipedia_article_censored_in_uk_for_the_first_time.html. Retrieved on 10 December 2008. 
  24. ^ Hogge, Becky. "IWF censors Wikipedia, chaos ensues". Open Rights Group. Archived from the original.. http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2008/12/08/iwf-censors-wikipedia-chaos-ensues/. Retrieved on 10 December 2008. 
  25. ^ Press release (7 December 2008). "Censorship of WP in the UK Dec 2008". San Francisco, California: Wikimedia Foundation. Archived from the original.. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Censorship_of_WP_in_the_UK_Dec_2008. Retrieved on 8 December 2008. 
  26. ^ Cohen, Benjamin (9 December 2008). "Wikipedia 'may challenge' IWF ban". London, UK: Channel 4 News. Archived from the original.. http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/science_technology/wikipedia%20may%20challenge%20iwf%20ban/2877057. Retrieved on 9 December 2008. 
  27. ^ Moss, Alex (9 December 2008). "Wikipedia 'may challenge' IWF ban". Manchester, UK: Sentry Parental Controls. Archived from the original.. http://www.sentryparentalcontrols.co.uk/news/wikipedia-may-challenge-iwf-ban.aspx. Retrieved on 9 December 2008. 
  28. ^ Martin, Nicole (9 December 2008). "Wikipedia founder considers legal action over ban on 'pornographic' album cover". London, UK: The Telegraph. Archived from the original.. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/3689527/Wikipedia-founder-considers-legal-action-over-ban-on-pornographic-album-cover.html. Retrieved on 10 December 2008. 
  29. ^ "Why IWF's Wikipedia Reversal Is Not Enough". Archived from the original.. http://www.webmink.net/2008/12/why-iwfs-wikipedia-reversal-is-not.htm. Retrieved on 14 December 2008. 
  30. ^ "IWF Backtracks On Wikipedia Controversial Image Ban". ITProPortal.com. 10 December 2008. pp. 2. Archived from the original.. http://security.itproportal.com/articles/2008/12/10/iwf-backtracks-wikipedia-controversial-image-ban/. Retrieved on 10 December 2008. 
  31. ^ Ferguson, Andrew (10 December 2008). "IWF appeals procedure reverses Wikipedia block". thinkbroadband. Archived from the original.. http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3819-iwf-appeals-procedure-reverses-wikipedia-block.html. Retrieved on 10 December 2008. 
  32. ^ "IWF lifts Wikipedia ban". Channel 4 News. Channel 4 News. 9 December 2008. Archived from the original.. http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/science_technology/iwf+lifts+wikipedia+ban/2878257. Retrieved on 10 December 2008. 
  33. ^ "IWF removes Wikipedia website from watch list". Telecompaper. 10 December 2008. Archived from the original.. http://www.telecompaper.com/news/article.aspx?cid=649377. Retrieved on 10 December 2008. 
  34. ^ "Wikipedia-ban ongedaan gemaakt" (in Dutch). De Telegraaf. 10 December 2008. Archived from the original.. http://www.telegraaf.nl/digitaal/2764909/__Wikipedia-ban_ongedaan_gemaakt__.html. Retrieved on 10 December 2008. 
  35. ^ Moses, Asher (9 December 2008). "Labor plan to censor internet in shreds". The Sydney Morning Herald. Fairfax Media. Archived from the original.. http://www.smh.com.au/news/home/technology/labor-plan-to-censor-internet-in-shreds/2008/12/09/1228584820006.html?page=2. Retrieved on 9 December 2008. 
  36. ^ Moses, Asher (10 December 2008). "Aussie plan to censor Web in shreds". stuff.co.nz. Archived from the original.. http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4788463a28.html. Retrieved on 10 December 2008. 
  37. ^ Arthur, Charles (9 December 2008). "Internet Watch Foundation reconsiders Wikipedia censorship". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Archived from the original.. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/dec/09/wikipedia-censorship-iwf-reconsiders. Retrieved on 10 December 2008. 
  38. ^ Internet Censors Must Be Accountable For The Things They Break,, Peter Eckersley, 2008-12-09
This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Internet Watch Foundation and Wikipedia.
The list of authors can be seen in the page history. The text of this Wikinfo article is available under the GNU Free Documentation License and the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license.

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Critical views of Wikipedia

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