Britain's child porn watchdog, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), has blacklisted a Wikipedia site Saturday, on the grounds that a user reported child sexual abuse. Its hotline analysts determined that a picture of a nude girl on the album cover, included in the article, was a "potentially illegal indecent image of a child" under 18.

The article is about an album by the German rock group, the Scorpions; and the picture appeared on the Scorpions' album, Virgin Killer, released 32 years ago. IWF listed on the page on its watchlist, to which most of the ISPs in UK subscribe, with the result that the page is largely unavailable in Britain.

Wikimedia Foundation's general counsel, Mike Godwin, said in a statement released on Monday: "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."

It is also being argued that no US government could ban this album cover; but a business collective - such as IWF - need only coordinate ISP efforts to reconstitute the 'tyranny of decency', being on the lookout for any child nudity of any form, no matter the context.

The Wikimedia Foundation has urged the IWF to remove Wikipedia from its blacklist. It noted that external studies have ranked Wikipedia equal to, or even better, in quality, than conventional encyclopedias, adding that its editors monitor the site for fairness and independence.