Many have probably heard of the Internet Watch Foundation…

Most probably heard of it for the first time when the new story broke that they effectively blocked Wikipedia in almost all of the UK. Now, the Wikipedia has had it’s share of criticism — but endorsing child porn is not one of them.  However, the Internet Watch Foundation thought otherwise.

The Internet Watch Foundation, having missed it’s true calling to protest the Scorpion’s 1976 release of their Virgin Killer record, decided to wage an Internet crusade against Wikipedia for displaying the album art cover (which featured a nude girl with a glass crack obscuring her genitals). This is despite the album (with it’s associated cover art) being available for sale at amazon.co.uk, as well as in stores in England.

All this media attention has made the image more popular than ever before. Quite the opposite of what they wanted, no?

So how does the Internet Watch Foundation work?

The IWF maintains a blacklist to which the UK ISPs can voluntarily subscribe… “voluntary” being the key term, as ISPs feel a good deal of public pressure to subscribe to the list. No one wants to have the stigma of allowing “hardcore child porn” on their ISP. In addition, this “voluntary” compliance helped to stave off burdensome government regulation of the internet industry that may have been even more onerous.

However, as critics of the great Aussie firewall are quick to point out, ISP filtering can easily be bypassed with the simplest of proxies. In short, it simply doesn’t work. Everyday consumers and surfers are inconvenienced and pirates and child pornographers are unimpeded.

One can only wonder what we will face in the US if RIAA and it’s allies succeed in their objective of getting US service providers of filtering internet content on a widespread basis.

The truth of the matter is that the Internet Watch Foundation has overstretched it’s bounds. And while they may have wisely reversed their decision on the Wikipedia blacklist, their folley has caused even their champions to question their operations.