Yesterday’s brouhaha over the album cover for The Scorpions’ 1976 album Virgin Killer moves towards resolution with the IWF calling for an end to the UK ban on Wikipedia.
In a statement posted to their website, the IWF backtracks on their original outcry based on efforts to actually look at the issues. “The IWF board has today considered [its previous] findings and the contextual issues involved in this specific case, and – in the light of the length of time the image has existed and its wide availability – the decision has been taken to remove this web page from our list,” the statement said.
The watchdog group’s statement continues with a little moral polish for the recent PR tarnish. “IWF’s overriding objective is to minimise the availability of indecent images of children on the internet, however, on this occasion our efforts have had the opposite effect,” it reads. “We regret the unintended consequences for Wikipedia and its users.”
Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation that oversees Wikipedia was grateful in a public counter-statement. “We are grateful to the IWF for making this swift decision, and to thousands of internet users from around the world for their outpouring of support,” she said.
Now that this pointless flash drama is done with, we now return to our regularly scheduled internet.
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