IWF News
IWF statement regarding Wikipedia URL
Created: Sun, December 7th, 2008 | Last Modified: Mon, December 8th, 2008
Internet Industry, Charities and Government Back IWF Awareness Day
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) underlined the importance of its Awareness Day on 24 October with the release of new research* which indicates that over three quarters (77%) of UK adult internet users who have stumbled across images of children being sexually abused are unsure how to report them. In addition, 71% of those surveyed ranked the availability of online child sexual abuse images as their top concern about the internet.
Created: Thu, October 23rd, 2008 | Last Modified: Thu, November 13th, 2008
Scansafe supports IWF to Combat Child Sexual Abuse Online
ScanSafe, provider of SaaS Web Security, pledges its support to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), the UK Hotline for reporting child sexual abuse content hosted anywhere in the world, on IWF Awareness Day.
Created: Tue, October 21st, 2008 | Last Modified: Thu, October 23rd, 2008
Afilias joins IWF to keep child sexual abuse content out of .INFO
The day before IWF Awareness Day, global top-level domain registry, Afilias, has announced that it has become a member of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF). This will increase Afilias ability to be proactive in eliminating child sexual abuse content from the .INFO domain.
Created: Mon, October 20th, 2008 | Last Modified: Mon, October 20th, 2008
CensorNet joins the Internet Watch Foundation
CensorNet, an internet security company, has become a member of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) to help combat child sexual abuse sites and criminally obscene content on the internet, provide mechanisms for its users to report illegal content and to provide protection against this type of content in its products.
Created: Mon, October 20th, 2008 | Last Modified: Tue, October 21st, 2008
TelecityGroup joins the Internet Watch Foundation
TelecityGroup, the pan-European provider of network independent data centres and value added services, has become a member of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF).
Created: Mon, October 20th, 2008 | Last Modified: Wed, October 22nd, 2008
Bluecube joins Internet Watch Foundation
8 October 2008: Bluecube Technology Solutions has been granted full industry membership of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF).
Created: Wed, October 8th, 2008 | Last Modified: Wed, October 8th, 2008
Giganews Boosts Funding to Internet Watch Foundation (IWF)
6 October 2008: Giganews, Inc., a leading US provider of newsgroup access services, recognises the increasing importance of its partnership with the IWF in combating child sexual abuse content and announces a substantial increase to its financial support of the organisation. Giganews joined the IWF as its 50th member in October 2004 and is proud to raise its level of support to match other well known national and international companies.
Created: Mon, October 6th, 2008 | Last Modified: Thu, November 13th, 2008
Sentry Parental Controls joins the IWF
25 September 2008: Sentry Parental Controls has become a member of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF). Sentry Parental Controls offers protection to children online, around the clock, from anywhere in the world. It allows parents to be alerted to any inappropriate online activity as it happens, as well as blocking any unsuitable websites, web chat and applications. Sentry works to monitor all online activity, controls time usage and settings, and allows parents to have access to a childs computer and personal usage logs from anywhere in the world.
Created: Thu, September 25th, 2008 | Last Modified: Mon, November 3rd, 2008
Optenet Joins Internet Watch Foundation to Combat Illegal Web Content
Optenet, a global IT security company and a provider of intelligent, integrated content security solutions, has become a member of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), joining over 80 member companies from a variety of organisations in their battle against illegal content online.
Created: Mon, September 22nd, 2008 | Last Modified: Mon, September 22nd, 2008
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On December 7, ''Wikinews'' first reported that some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the United Kingdom, were filtering access to an image and an article on the popular, free online encyclopedia ''Wikipedia'', amid allegations that they contain child pornography. The filter was brought into play by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), which issued a statement regarding the filtering shortly after ''Wikinews'' published the article. Wikimedia, the host of ''Wikinews'' and ''Wikipedia'' oppose the IWF's actions, also issuing a statement.

"A Wikipedia web page, was reported through the IWF’s online reporting mechanism in December 2008. As with all child sexual abuse reports received by our Hotline analysts, the image was assessed according to the UK Sentencing Guidelines Council (page 109). The content was considered to be a potentially illegal indecent image of a child under the age of 18, but hosted outside the UK," said the IWF in a statement posted on their website.
Users attempting to access the page on the ''Virgin Killer'' album, or the image itself, have been subjected to it not loading, 404 pages, or messages explaining the block.

The image and article in question is that of the 1976 album ''Virgin Killer'', a studio album by the Scorpions, a German rock band.  The controversy began after the image of the album's original cover, which depicted a naked prepubescent girl, was reported to the IWF in early December. ''Wikinews'' first discovered the controversial image in May 2008 after there were several attempts to delete it on ''Wikipedia''. The image had been blocked because the IWF considered it to be "potentially illegal". As a result, the IWF have contacted authorities in the United States and in the UK.

The measures applied redirect ''Wikipedia''-bound traffic from a significant portion of the UK's Internet population through a small number of servers which can log and filter the content that is available to the end user. A serious side-effect of this is the inability of administrators on Wikimedia sites to block vandals and other troublemakers without potentially impacting hundreds of thousands of innocent contributors who are working on the sites in good faith.

Contributors or individuals attempting to view an affected image or file, depending on their ISP, may get a warning saying, "we have blocked this page because, according to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), it contains indecent images of children or pointers to them; you could be breaking UK law if you viewed the page." Other ISPs provide blank pages, 404 errors, or other means of blocking the content.
1976 album cover for the Scorpions which previously appeared on Amazon.com, and many other sites. 
Wikimedia was not informed that the image would be blacklisted because the IWF "does not issue takedown notices to ISPs or hosting companies outside the UK". The servers for Wikimedia projects are located in Florida in the U.S., and according to Jay Walsh, the head of communications for Wikimedia, the Foundation "opposes" the action taken by the IWF.

"The IWF has confirmed to the Wikimedia Foundation that it has added Wikipedia to its
blacklist, which also had the unintended consequence of rendering UK-based internet users
unable to edit the encyclopedia," said Walsh.

"We did advise one of our partner Hotlines abroad and our law enforcement partner agency of our assessment. The specific URL (individual webpage) was then added to the list provided to ISPs and other companies in the online sector to protect their customers from inadvertent exposure to a potentially illegal indecent image of a child," added the statement by the IWF.

"We have 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. We believe it's worth noting that the image is currently visible on Amazon, where the album can be freely purchased by UK residents. It
is available on thousands of websites that are accessible to the UK public," said Mike Godwin, legal counsel for Wikimedia. The cover has since been removed from ''Amazon.com''.

Wikimedia projects such as ''Wikinews'' state in their policies that they are "not censored". Wikimedia will continue discussions with the IWF in hopes of resolving the issue.