Really, how British of them

InformationWeek has a story by KC Jones about a censorship action in the UK:

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said he has considered taking legal action against the group that blacklisted Wikipedia in the United Kingdom because of a nude photo on an album cover featured in one of its articles. Wales told Britain's Channel 4 that he thought of taking the group Internet Watch Foundation to court but learned that, since IWF is not a governing body, it may not be possible.
Over the weekend, the IWF put Wikipedia on a list of sites containing potentially illegal material because a user pointed out that an image of an underage nude girl on an article about the album Virgin Killer appeared to be child sexual abuse. The German rock band, the Scorpions, released the album in 1976. Using some local vernacular during the Channel 4 interview, Wales said the photo is "dodgy" but added that it was an artistic protest. "But my concern isn't so much about the image--it's the ambiguous way that they are behaving," he added. "It's not clear if they are over-reaching their authority."
The Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that runs Wikipedia, said that 90% of ISPs in the United Kingdom block Web sites on IWF's list. Although IWF said it did not intend to block all access to Wikipedia, U.K. volunteers have been unable to edit articles for the online encyclopedia and users have reported problems accessing the entire site.
"The Internet Watch Foundation were clearly over reaching their remit when they blocked the text page on Wikipedia --there's nothing illegal about the description of the album," Wales told Channel 4 News technology correspondent Benjamin Cohen. "I'd also question their wisdom about trying to block the image itself."
Wales pointed to the fact that millions of people have viewed the image since the IWF blacklisted Wikipedia over it. "What are they going to do? Are they going to block all of the Web if it continues to be spread?" Wales asked.
Cohen pointed out that online retailers publish the image and asked Wales if he thought it was fair to target Wikipedia. "It's clearly unfair and reprehensible for them to go after some Web sites and not others," Wales said. "People are so up in arms now." He added that the blacklist is not as bad as censorship in China but noted that 25% of Wikipedia's content comes from the United Kingdom.

From the IT Examiner, this on the subject:

Who voted for the IWF?
Who are the IWF?
Who pays for the IWF?
The answers to these questions are pretty straightforward. No one voted for the IWF. It is what is known as a Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisation, or Quango. The UK is blessed with a huge number of these unelected, single-issue pressure groups which are answerable to no one. The issues these Quangoes get all in a lather about range from installing speed cameras to cut road deaths by 2,000 per cent; making sure pet dogs are not allowed to eat chocolate (no, really); through to being the moral guardians of Internet content.

Who the members of the IWF are is more mysterious. While a handful of 'top' executives are listed on the organisation's Web site, the names of the 'police trained operators' responsible for checking claims of child abuse remain shrouded in mystery.
And the IWF is really only interested in child sexual abuse. On its site it warns journalists not to refer to child porn, but to child sexual abuse, which are, apparently not the same thing at all:

"Please note that "child pornography", "child porn", and "kiddie porn" are not acceptable terms. The use of such language acts to legitimise images which are not pornography, rather, they are permanent records of children being sexually abused and as such should be referred to as child sexual abuse images."

To this reporter, anyone who studies a subject so closely that they feel it necessary to split hairs to this degree has a rather unhealthy fixation with the subject, and is really not the sort of person I want to have telling me what is right and what is wrong. Rather, they are the kind of person any normal citizen would cross the road to avoid.

Who pays for the IWF is more interesting. The bulk of its funding, €450,000, comes from the European Union, although the IWF has no authority outside the UK. So what UK surfers can and cannot see is actually controlled from Brussels. The remainder of the IWF's cash comes from UK based ISPs who pay £20,000 each a year to become members.
Exactly why they do this remains a mystery. Earlier today, we asked a selection of these organisations including the BBC, BT, and Vodafone to tell us why they thought paying £20,000 to sign up voluntarily to an organisation that has no legal authority was a good idea. At press time, none had bothered to reply.
Membership of the IWF entitles companies to use its logo on their Website, which no doubt gives them a nice warm feeling. Should any member transgress what the IWF deems to be good taste, the full weight of, err, suspension from the organisation swings into action and they have to remove the logo. I'm sure we can all sleep easier in our beds knowing that.
It's quite easy to see why the members asked failed to reply to our questions - there is absolutely no point in anyone being a member of this unelected net nanny. Hopefully the economic downturn will mean that expenditure on such pointless things will rapidly dry up and the IWF will crawl back into the hole it slimed out of.

Rico says that's what they're upset about? Geez, get a life, people...