Britain's "Great Firewall" set to restrict access to Wikipedia

By Cory Doctorow at 12:23 am Sunday, Dec 7

Seth Finkelstein sez, "Wikinews has learned that six of the United Kingdom's main Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have implemented monitoring and filtering mechanisms that are causing major problems for UK contributors of the popular online encyclopedia, Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation sites. The filters appear to stem from accusations that Wikimedia sites are hosting what some would call child pornography. UK people might be interested in joining the article's discussion - this is a golden opportunity to reverse-engineer how the Great Firewall Of Britain works in practice."

This is the "voluntary" child-porn filter that we hear very little about. The process by which pages are added to the repository of child porn sites is secret, the list of child porn sites is secret, and the process for correcting errors is secret. At issue are images such as a Scorpions cover that shows the naked chest of a little girl, and a still from a 1938 documentary on the struggle to end child marriages.

British ISPs restrict access to Wikipedia amid child pornography allegations (Thanks, Seth

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