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Shock album cover sparks controversy, attracts attention of Internet Watch Foundation

Wikipedia found itself on the wrong end of a U.K. government-sponsored blacklist last week, after the Internet Watch Foundation found the cover art of a 1976 LP to fit its definition of child pornography.

The album in question, “Virgin Killer” by German metal band Scorpions, depicts a nude prepubescent girl with a glass crack blocking view of her genitals.

According to an administrative noticeboard on Wikipedia and a report on CNET, surfers attempting to visit Wikipedia from Virgin Media, BeUnlimited, Telefonica O2 UK, EasyNet, UK Online, Sky Broadband, PlusNet, Demon, BT, Eclipse Internet, Kingston Communications, and Opal, are routed through a transparent proxy set to block articles on the album and its cover art.

As a side effect, surfers routed through the proxy are unable to anonymously edit Wikipedia pages – due to the fact that traffic coming through the proxy carries the IP address of the proxy server, not the individual user.

“Due to the way the block was created (via transparent proxies), users from the affected ISPs now share a small number of IP addresses,” reads the noticeboard. “This means that a user committing vandalism cannot be distinguished from all the other people on the same ISP. Unfortunately, the effect of this is that all users from the affected ISPs are temporarily blocked from editing Wikipedia, unless logged in.”

Users having their traffic routed through the proxy are still able to view Wikipedia normally, and can post edits if they are logged.

Statements from ISPs largely acknowledged the issue but declined to offer any meaningful support.

“We are unable to offer support for this issue,” reads a posting from Virgin’s tech support newsgroup. “It is due to a decision [made] in conjunction with the IWF to block sites containing [potentially] offensive material.”

Bob Pullen from Plusnet clarified the details of how the proxy is implemented:

“Just for the record, I’d like to let it be known that our IWF proxies are definitely *not* third party,” he writes. “The kit is owned by us and resides on our network in one of our London data centers … It’s probably also worth noting that we don’t keep logs etc. of the IP addresses that go through the proxies … the only purpose of this filtering is to protect our customers from inadvertently accessing indecent images of children.”

News of the IWF’s blacklist in the U.K. follows similar, larger initiatives in Australia, whose policy has earned it the reputation as one of the most restrictive countries in the Western world. Recent policy changes saw the country maintaining two, separate blacklists: a primary list for sites deemed illegal and another secondary list for content unsuitable to children.  The primary filter is implemented into the country’s internet infrastructure and cannot be circumvented through normal means, while the secondary list is available to households who opt in.

Like Australia, the IWF’s blacklist raises free speech concerns in the UK – with some going so far as to compare the system with the China’s nationwide firewall.

“I had no idea until now that like China, we too have built a great firewall – only we keep quiet about ours,” writes user Hahnchen. “This is the first I've come across UK wide internet censorship, and I'm shocked.”

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I find censorship offensive
By Bateluer on 12/9/2008 7:51:46 AM , Rating: 5
Since I find censorship offensive, does that mean that censorship should be blocked for being offensive?

Cripes, this is just an album cover from an album that was released decades ago. If anything, its going to boost sales of that album at other outlets because people want to see what all the fuss is about.




RE: I find censorship offensive
By Aloonatic on 12/9/2008 8:10:27 AM , Rating: 5
How many people saw that album over the last 20 odd years, or however long it's been out?

Probably less than the number of people who have seen it in the last 24hours now.

OK, so perhaps that is a mild exaggeration, but you get the point.

I often wonder if the problem with on-line paedophilia has been greatly fuelled by the media?

Do you remember how, when the net was just staring to be come common in many homes in the late 90s, there was a news story almost every day saying how child pornography was freely and easily available on the internet?

What a great advertising campaign for child pornography that was.


RE: I find censorship offensive
By geddarkstorm on 12/10/2008 3:29:43 PM , Rating: 2
It's like how the media here ran a story just a few years back on how to cut and cripple house alarms from the outside, leading to a massive wave of burglaries, including of my house (and issue which has been corrected due to the advance of technology.. expensive technology..). The media sure is great.


RE: I find censorship offensive
By LRonaldHubbs on 12/9/2008 9:17:14 AM , Rating: 5
I wonder if they are also offended by the cover of Nirvana's 'Nevermind' album...


RE: I find censorship offensive
By 306maxi on 12/9/2008 10:50:06 AM , Rating: 5
or Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy.


RE: I find censorship offensive
By Aloonatic on 12/9/2008 10:57:23 AM , Rating: 3
If you guys aren't careful I'm not going to be able to post here without a proxy.


RE: I find censorship offensive
By JAB on 12/9/2008 12:47:28 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
If you guys aren't careful I'm not going to be able to post here without a proxy.


You know they are watching dont you? j/k

The sad thing is there is no shortages of people that are willing to what people will do to make sure the dont think thought or are polluted by ideas that do not mirror their own. The very word freedom is a curse on the lips of that there beliefs are the only valid ones.

It is easy to support hate and stupid wars when everyone is blocked off from another.


RE: I find censorship offensive
By CSQuake on 12/9/2008 6:32:59 PM , Rating: 2
I think we all agree that an album cover whether it be released 20 years ago or yesterday is unacceptable with the picture of the girl and the words "virgin killer". Not acceptable in todays society that is - obviously 20 years ago no one gave a toss because pedos weren't front page news.


RE: I find censorship offensive
By chmilz on 12/9/2008 11:07:19 AM , Rating: 5
quote:
I wonder if they are also offended by the cover of Nirvana's 'Nevermind' album


Oh, that depicts a boy. With a penis. Only vaginas are offensive.


RE: I find censorship offensive
By mmntech on 12/9/2008 9:23:25 AM , Rating: 2
When I first read about this story on El Reg yesterday, the first thing that came to my mind was that Nirvana album cover with the naked baby swimming after the dollar bill. I have no desire to see this particular album cover but I just find it ironic that they don't allow it, but they'll put the other on full display in the Wal-Mart electronics section.

Of course I don't condone real paedophilia because those people are sick f-s, but to block all of Wikipedia over this. Has Britain finally fully morphed into Oceania?


RE: I find censorship offensive
By Raidin on 12/9/2008 11:59:15 AM , Rating: 1
quote:
block all of Wikipedia over this


All they did was block the article, album art, and the ability to edit anything on Wikipedia anonymously.


RE: I find censorship offensive
By Runiteshark on 12/9/2008 3:21:14 PM , Rating: 2
RE: I find censorship offensive
By Aloonatic on 12/9/2008 5:21:29 PM , Rating: 2
Oceania?

We're well on our way.

In other news, shops are no longer allowed to display cigarettes as they corrupt young minds with all the bright colours. Soon to be replaced by the government approved brand of V cigarettes with it's dull grey packaging which will not inflame the senses of the nations youth.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7771210.stm

Also, in Preston the police have been given powers to arrest people for swearing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/7774...

Other words that the government deem unsavoury and damaging to the nations minds will be added to the list soon, a New Labour spokesman said that Preston hailed a new doubleplusgood era for our great nation which can only get stronger under The Party.

Finally, opposition (Tory) MP arrested in parliament for daring to point out that The Party were not running the home office properly.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7762005.stm

Jack Straw, The Party's Minister of Justice was not available to comment.


RE: I find censorship offensive
By MaulSidious on 12/9/2008 11:08:43 AM , Rating: 2
Just goes to show what a bunch of sick minded freaks are working at the iwf to think that that album cover is sexual, also how come they didnt block google or any of the 5billion other sites with that album cover on it?


By foolsgambit11 on 12/9/2008 2:11:27 PM , Rating: 2
Reminds me of Senator Tankerbell from Mr. Show. He's responsible for ensuring art is decent, and bans an Ozark mountain man from performing 'soft storying' because he's got a naked stick figure 'doing a lewd, lascivious dance in the lap of a full-grown man'.

3:45-ish in this clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8eLvKBWrI0


RE: I find censorship offensive
By BruceLeet on 12/9/2008 11:15:23 AM , Rating: 2
Im actually a fan of Uli Jon Roth (former guitarist for scorpions)

He did an interview and the interviewer asked him about that album cover and he said the Scorpions managers came up with the album cover, then he talks about his reaction was "whatever" about it back then but said he's embarrassed by it these days.


RE: I find censorship offensive
By Azzr34l on 12/9/2008 12:06:19 PM , Rating: 3
This is a prime example of authority overstepping their boundaries. While child pornography has no place in this world, revealing images of children presented in a respectful artistic form or with historical or contemporary merit has its place. With that being said, I can see a wavy line of ethical standards with respect to what is labeled art or something of value.

A prime example is the Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of Kim Phuc by Nuck Ut during the Vietnam War. That's one of the most iconic images of the Vietnam conflict and is technically a picture of a nude Vietnamese girl.


RE: I find censorship offensive
By tallcool1 on 12/9/2008 12:14:30 PM , Rating: 5
Censorship on TV also puzzles me. I do not know how our society has gotten to the point where its ok to show someone getting murdered on a TV, but is forbidden to show a womans nipple?


By PhoenixKnight on 12/9/2008 1:46:16 PM , Rating: 4
Horrific, deplorable violence is okay, so long as no one says any naughty words.


Indecent images of children
By AnnihilatorX on 12/9/2008 10:07:13 AM , Rating: 5
There should be a clear line between indecent images of children and acceptable images.

Most children pornography are made illegally during abuse of children. They are usually suggestively pornographic in nature. Those deserve blocking and filtering to both protect children and the internet user.

I don't however view that album cover as pornography. It's produced through legal methods without harm to the child and no genital features are visible. It's not suggestive either. For the top body, I mean, children are not required to wear tops in beaches by law.




RE: Indecent images of children
By DOSGuy on 12/9/2008 12:57:14 PM , Rating: 3
Exactly right.

quote:
"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that."

~ Justice Potter Stewart, 1964

Any art gallery that you go to is going to have nudes. It's hard to define pornography, but you know it when you see it, and this isn't it. Generally speaking, the difference between art and pornography is the intention. You can tell when a picture of a naked person is designed to arouse. The most classic example is Michaelangelo's David, which is clearly intended to be art and not pornography.

While we need to protect children from the abuse that they suffer in the creation of child pornography, it seems like the people who are making these judgements in the UK don't know pornography when they see it. The image doesn't show anyone engaging in a sex act, so the question is whether or not she is posing in a sexually suggestive way. I think an argument could be made in support of the latter if her genitals were actually visible, but they aren't. Have you ever heard of an image ban on a picture that doesn't even show genitalia?

If it was legal to produce this picture in 1976, and to sell it in stores for 32 years, then why did it suddenly become pornography now? By all means, protect children from exploitation and abuse, but I don't see how either of those things occurred in this picture, or how a picture can be pornography when it was intended to be art, and without any sexual activity or sex organs visible.

It seems to me that anyone desperate enough to buy this album to see an almost naked girl would just go and rent Pretty Baby (Brooke Shields), or any of the dozens of other feature films on the subject of child abuse or child prostitution. Those films are controversial, which is a good sign! It shows that people care enough to view them with a critical eye. This picture is controversial, but I have no idea how they reached a consensus that it is pornography. If that's how loosely they're defining it, I expect a whole bunch of National Geographics to disappear from British libraries in the near future. Some of those pictures of naked people even show private parts!


RE: Indecent images of children
By foolsgambit11 on 12/9/2008 2:19:46 PM , Rating: 2
While I generally agree with you, and I think this decision is way off base, I don't know that the 'designed to arouse' definition you posit works in this case. The pose the young girl is in is pretty sexual, I'd say. It's not arousing to me, but it looks like it is designed to be suggestive.

But I think it is designed to be suggestive for artistic reasons, to make us question our morals and standards. Perhaps a definition of 'solely designed to arouse' would be more accurate. But I'm pretty sure that would miss some cases of censorship that I'd disagree with, say, something that was solely designed to arouse, but which viewers then interpret with artistic worth.


RE: Indecent images of children
By DOSGuy on 12/9/2008 2:53:22 PM , Rating: 2
It comes back to "I know it when I see it". I think that the intention of the work shines through when you look at it, and that's one of the ways that we know it when we see it. What do I see when I look at this picture?

The pose is somewhat provocative, yes. If you could see private parts, it would be much harder to call this art. But let's talk about what we can see.

There's a naked girl, representing a virgin. Her genitals are covered by a "crack", which looks to me like a bullet hole. The bullet hole represents killing. Virgin killers. I get it! So I can see the artistic message of the image, but I don't see any pornography. The crucial piece of anatomy that could make it porn has been hidden behind a bullet hole, which is the part of the image that conveys the message that this is art.

As I said before, the picture is, at best, controversial. Here in Ontario, the Ontario Film Review Board banned a movie called Fat Girl (À ma sœur! in much of the world) because an adult actor portrays a teenager who has sex, though you can't see anything. The OFRB said that the film portrayed teenage sexuality, even though the actors weren't teenagers and there were no scenes of explicit sexuality.

The critic in my local newspaper wrote something like, "Who are these guys to ban this movie", or "what gives them the right?". The company that made the film was going to take them to court, but the OFRB backed down and allowed it to be played. Despite getting what they wanted, they expressed disappointment that the matter didn't go to court to allow a judge to decide how much power the OFRB deserves to have.

A ratings board has a right to make a suggestion, but I don't believe that they have the right to ban movies. Let the courts decide what is illegal and let these independent bodies make suggestions. The OFRB didn't want their role to be challenged in court because they might have lost some of their powers, or been dissolved altogether.

This is the situation that I think the IWF should be afraid of, and the reason why I think they will back down in this situation. I believe that some citizens' rights group will take them to court to challenge their right to ban content. The Internet Watch Foundation has a mandate to watch for inappropriate content. When they believe that they have found child pornography, let them have the courts make a decision. I don't believe that the IWF has (or should) have a mandate to unilaterally ban content without oversight. Let IWF make recommendations, and the let the courts decide what's illegal. If the image isn't illegal, they have no right to ban it. The IWF should be very afraid that they'll lose some of their powers, or be dissolved altogether, when they start banning controversial content. When they block material that is unambiguously and uncontroversially identified as child pornography, no one will challenge them. When they start to block content that reasonable people can have a difference of opinion on, they begin to jeopardize their own existence on the grounds that their actions are unconstitutional. Since this image is, at best, controversial, let them make a recommendation to the courts and the let courts decide. If they're not confident that the courts would declare the image illegal, what gives them the gaul to ban it?


"Protecting the net" at it's finest...
By Oralen on 12/9/2008 7:39:08 AM , Rating: 5
Ridicoulous.

It's just an album cover. Of an album who was available to everyone, in stores, thirty years ago.

And there must be two people a week in England who search that encyclopedia for a Scorpion album.

And now, because of the nature of the filter, everyone who tries to contribute to WikiPedia in the UK will be affected.

Comcast filtered BitTorrent trafic, and all of a sudden sites who distributed legal videos via P2P systems where crippled.

Journalists are promised an open Internet during the Olympics by China... And realize they're screwed.

And this is not the end.
This is not an incident.

Somehow, people got the idea that controlling and filtering the Internet properly and efficiently was a) possible and b) a good thing.

But inherently, a network is build with the core idea of enabling computers to communicate. All the hardware and software layers that constitute Internet today have been engineered just for that: "the information must pass."

Legal, illegal, good or bad... Those are things that did not come in the equation.

And you can't just add another layer to the mix, and hope everything will still work.

And there will be a lot of other "incidents" like this, until we regret what we have today.

Because the only solution will be to modify everything, with a different priority. The main word will no longer be "Communication".

It will be "Control".




By TSS on 12/9/2008 7:46:15 PM , Rating: 2
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." - Thomas Jefferson.

i fear that the latter may be comming. don't forget it was but 20 years later from germany's defeat in WW1 when WW2 started. it took not even 5 years from the end of WW2 to the "communist threat" that scared an entire generation of nuclear annihilation. it took but 10 years from the fall of the communist regime to the "war on terror".

we may have had peace on a continent for over 60 years (read that as the countrys that where constantly at war prior to the 20th century), but that doesn't mean war cannot errupt again. the first thing any tyrant would want to do is to control the flow of information. don't forget, the public image of hitler in germany prior to the war was created by goebbels's propaganda machine.

he may have been a (many foul words) nazi, but he sure knew what made people tick. in 1933, when the nazi party assumed complete control, goebbels had access and restricted all forms of communication with censorship. he laid the basis for all propaganda still in use today, whatever side may be spewing it.

however. in his time, there was no internet, nor anything to spread information the way the digital revolution has done. the internet has made it indefinitly more hard to contain information. even something the entire planet bans, child porn, cannot be stopped from beeing shared over the internet how hard that might be to accept. i'm not saying we should give up the chase, but i'm also not saying the (current) means justify the end.

i'm not trying to be a panic monger trying to claim another hitler is on the rise. i'm saying it's wise to keep a close eye on developments like this. i, for one, would not like to welcome any new overlords...


Slightly misleading
By martinrichards23 on 12/9/2008 10:15:19 AM , Rating: 1
SOME ISPs have blocked ONE page, so its not exactly the most amazing thing that's ever happened.

Censorship is wrong, but let's not get carried away.




RE: Slightly misleading
By AnnihilatorX on 12/9/2008 10:22:26 AM , Rating: 3
It's the first major content blocking ever happened in the UK. Also, it's not some ISPs, the ISPs listed there are major ISPs.


RE: Slightly misleading
By PrinceGaz on 12/9/2008 9:10:08 PM , Rating: 2
As a UK citizen using one of the ISPs that has blocked that particular page (Virgin Media, rather ironic in some ways), if you Google that same page (Virgin Killer), it is still readily accessible (including the "offending" image) unblocked from Google's cache. All hail the almighty Google, font of all knowledge! :)

Actually it has now been unblocked by Virgin Media, last night it was inaccesible directly from VM. They must have seen sense, probably because of the numbewr of people visiting the page via other ways. To put things in perspective, wikipedia have been keeping track of pageviews and the effect the censorship had was staggering...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Virgin_Killer#St...


By phxfreddy on 12/9/2008 7:20:17 AM , Rating: 5
Its endless. Once you accept one thought crime its only a matter of time before the next one is defined. Something all politicians can not be trusted on.

When will the great internet libertarian society pumpkin arrive?!




Hysterical over paedophilia
By Aloonatic on 12/9/2008 8:05:11 AM , Rating: 2
Have we really reached the stage where the image of a naked pre pubescent Girl will turn people into paedophilic monsters?

Will someone of wound morals follow all young girls around and hold towels over them whenever they are getting changed just in case someone seems them, their father or their brother perhaps and then bam, they are off abducting some child from the local park.

The UK seems to be leading the way in this madness.

Not long ago there was a story about 2 old ladies (well into their 80s) which was reported on the TV news as they were reported to the police for videoing taping an empty playground. There was a reasonable explanation too I seem to recall before you ask why.

This wiki-peado, sorry, wiki-pedia case was bought about by 1 complaint to the IWF apparently, according to a news report last night.

You can find the image on many other websites of course.

Amazon still sell the album.

Are they going to be blocked and any interaction interfered with too?

The hysteria over paedophiles is not just getting out of control, it already has.

Anyone remember the classic Brass Eye Paedophile special?

Back in the days when our TV stations were independent of government and had some balls.

What a program that was, well worth looking for if you haven't seen it.

Welcome..... To Paedogeddon!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=y7jVnrfoZD8

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=UcnQDYnGtS8

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fA07Tw4iEFw




RE: Hysterical over paedophilia
By DOSGuy on 12/9/2008 1:05:36 PM , Rating: 2
It's also worth pointing out that any product that gets banned, from feature films to assault rifles, immediately becomes a collector's item. Sales of this album are going to see a sudden increase, both in stores and on Amazon. The plan has backfired! Now ten times as many people are going to see this image as before it was blocked. "Won't somebody please think of the children?"


proxy for only one site?
By Screwballl on 12/9/2008 10:06:50 AM , Rating: 1
As I work in IT, I have never seen any ability by any company to use a proxy for only one website... either the proxy is on and covers ALL internet traffic meaning that everyone using this ISPs are covered by a proxy, or no one is using a proxy and they used a DNS server to alter the content.

A proxy has to be set on the customers computers.

A DNS entry can be set anywhere from customers computer to the ISP server.

Methinks someone got their terminology DDOS'd




RE: proxy for only one site?
By TomCorelis on 12/9/2008 10:27:50 AM , Rating: 2
No, you can force people through a transparent proxy at the ISP level, and through a little bit of deep packet inspection you can pluck the domain out of an HTTP request and route through said proxy for any website on its blacklist.

The big problem with the way *they* implemented that technique is that the proxy acts like NAT at the IP level, as users' "from" address becomes that of the proxy -- just like a regular broadband router. I find that to be rather curious -- wouldn't it just be easier to simply read a given packet's destination and send blocked traffic to /dev/null or some other web page?


Whaaa?
By jiteo on 12/9/2008 9:59:19 AM , Rating: 2
"[...] depicts a nude prepubescent girl with a glass crack blocking view of her genitals."

A glass what now?




Damn straight!
By 306maxi on 12/9/2008 10:16:43 AM , Rating: 2
While they're at it why don't they block access to House of the Holy by Led Zeppelin!!!!!

What a load of crap..... I just did a google image search and it came up and it's hardly child porn......




What, what?
By Ulfhednar on 12/9/2008 10:18:41 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Wikipedia found itself on the wrong end of a U.K. government-sponsored blacklist last week, after the Internet Watch Foundation found the cover art of a 1976 LP to fit its definition of child pornography.

Government-sponsored? I wish you people would do your homework. The Internet Watch Foundation is a self-regulated, charity-driven, independent organisation.

For once Big Brother is actually nothing to do with it.

In before tinfoil hat wearers claim they had "encouragement" from Westminster.




too many uptight control freaks
By MadMan007 on 12/9/2008 12:59:00 PM , Rating: 2
The picture is provacative but that's about it. A quick read of the Wiki page tells us what the song was about:

Guitarist Rudolf Schenker:
quote:
We didn't actually have the idea. It was the record company. The record company guys were like, 'Even if we have to go to jail, there's no question that we'll release that.' On the song 'Virgin Killer', time is the virgin killer. But then, when we had to do the interviews about it, we said 'Look, listen to the lyrics and then you'll know what we're talking about. We're using this only to get attention. That's what we do.' Even the girl, when we met her fifteen years later, had no problem with the cover. Growing up in Europe, sexuality, of course not with children, was very normal. The lyrics really say it all. Time is the virgin killer. A kid comes into the world very naive, they lose that naiveness and then go into this life losing all of this getting into trouble. That was the basic idea about all of it.


I am strongly against censoring art and music and album covers are art. While I see how people might find this image offensive they should just not look at it.




By ggordonliddy on 12/9/2008 5:30:21 PM , Rating: 2
The title of your article is "British ISPs Block Wikipedia due to Album Cover".

Yet that is a complete falsehood.

The article itself (unless you blatantly lied there as well) just says that the particular article has been blocked, not all of Wikipedia.




The New Dark Age
By wvh on 12/9/2008 6:08:32 PM , Rating: 1
I fear we're headed into a new Dark Age. Censoring is becoming rule instead of exception. Fueled by religious fundamentalism or the fear for it, issues with multi-culturalism, anti-nazism/racism, anti-pedophilia concerned parents, anti-porn female rights activists, violent game protesters, left wing filtering, right wing filtering... Everybody has a agenda these days, and everyone wants something filtered.

It is becoming very difficult to say anything important or discuss any real issues without having some group lobbying for censoring. The world needs to chill the fuck out a bit, people need to stop beating their chests and start listening to each other a bit better.

Censoring is never a good idea. Even with dangerous political ideas, you can silence people, but you will loose all oversight and things will move underground where they have the potential of doing much more harm.

I'm into black/death metal, and a lot of bands are getting banned by organisations like Ebay, whole countries, or need to defend themselves against allegations of nazism because of reasons as dumb as the font used on their CDs, or inciting hatred and intolerance because of lyrics critical of religion (censoring music in the name of intolerance?).

In Europe, certain far-left organisations are getting dangerously close to pushing for the level of censorship that would have made WO II dictators proud. It's popular to accuse people of fascism or nazism even when totally unrelated to the matter. And in the US, I suppose religious arguments fare well with certain powerful groups. This is not a political statement – I'm just trying to point out that these days a lot of people use false moral outrage in religious or political topics to justify their beliefs and discredit others.

I can only hope people start focussing more on their own lives instead of trying to dictate others how to live theirs.




UKish people are not even posh enough...
By on 12/9/08, Rating: -1
By amanojaku on 12/9/2008 7:36:40 AM , Rating: 1
Yes, they use ISP services to connect to the Internet. They even use roads to connect to the highway. Those poor, stupid Brits! You tell 'em, PLAYSTATION THREE!


RE: UKish people are not even posh enough...
By probedb on 12/9/08, Rating: 0
RE: UKish people are not even posh enough...
By Nyarlathotep on 12/9/08, Rating: -1
RE: UKish people are not even posh enough...
By Ulfhednar on 12/9/2008 10:30:32 AM , Rating: 1
quote:
How can the title virgin killer not make this cover be about fucking the child on the cover?

Call me weird, but "killer" doesn't mean rapist to me.


RE: UKish people are not even posh enough...
By Dribble on 12/9/2008 10:44:20 AM , Rating: 1
Killing virginity strongly suggests sex with a virgin to take that virginity away.

Couple that with a picture of naked pre-pubescent girl and I think you have plenty of grounds for a saying it suggests paedophilia.

If that's not right why exactly is there a picture of a naked girl on the cover? What is it meant to be suggesting?


RE: UKish people are not even posh enough...
By Ulfhednar on 12/9/2008 10:45:36 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Killing virginity

It says "virgin killer" not "virginity killer".

It must be people who can't read that get all this harmless crap banned.


RE: UKish people are not even posh enough...
By Dribble on 12/9/2008 11:07:31 AM , Rating: 1
lol, exact grammar has always been important to bands making edgy album covers then - particularly german ones I take it.

We all know exactly what it's insinuating.

You never answered my question - if this band were actually a bunch of the nicest people you could ever meet, and are now just been profoundly mis-understood by the evil censor nazi's trying to spoil everyones fun what exactly is the picture of the naked girl doing there beside the words "virgin" and "killer"?


By MaulSidious on 12/9/2008 11:14:54 AM , Rating: 3
maybe its because young pre pubescant children have hopefully not had sex yet and are hence 'virgins', by killing a virgin you would hence be a virgin killer. Thankfully my mind isnt sick enough to equate killing a virgin with raping a young child to 'kill there virginity' unlike some of the posters on here unfortunately.


By Ulfhednar on 12/9/2008 11:26:22 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
We all know exactly what it's insinuating.

Yeah, people who can read know it's insinuating the act of killing virgins. As sick as that is, killing a virgin doesn't have to include raping one.

They simply used the image of a pre-pubescent girl to symbolise virginity. I'm sure they could've just as easily used another example, like a tattered wedding dress, but it wouldn't have had the same "shock factor" that their symbolism has.

Also; I don't know why the picture was censored. The girl's nipples and genitals have already been censored through obstruction and distortion.


By PrinceGaz on 12/9/2008 9:42:57 PM , Rating: 2
This is an album which was originally released in 1976 -- 32 years ago -- in an LP record sleeve with that picture on it that was about one foot in size square (30cm x 30cm for those of us more metric). Record shops everywhere had it on the shelves along with other albums.

More recently, Amazon and pretty much every other online e-tailer who stocked it have shown the CD cover on their website, and no action was taken against them.

The IWF (Internet Watch Foundation) is clearly a right-wing over-reactionary group which probably consists mainly of rabid Daily Mail readers who spend most of their time online looking for "filth" that they think should be banned. Mary Whitehouse would be proud of them.

It sounds rather like the 'Parents Music Resource Centre' which featured in the final rollover random bonus question in a pub quiz I was at tonight. They were quite clearly the same sort of reactionary nutjobs-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PMRC

Internet censorship is wrong, regardless of the content. It shouldn't be blocked in any civilised country with freedom of speech, instead seriously unlawful or unwanted content access should be monitored (things like child pornography, or Al-Qaeda membership, or sites which support GW Bush's policies ;)

Free-speech is essential to the western-world remaining how it is. Once we start down the slippery slope of blocking anything, even what is generally considered the most disgusting content, it will invariably end with ever more material being blocked because of pressure from various lobby groups and the government themselves. It is either no blocks at all, or accept that we may end up with a state imposed firewall like China or Saudi Arabia has. There is no inbetween level of censorship in the long run, because once you start censoring some stuff, more and more invariably follows.


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