LONDON, INDIA: The Internet providers in the UK have blocked a page of Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, following accusations that the site was carrying ‘potentially illegal’ images of child pornography.

The article that was blacklisted by Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), Britain's de facto online watchdog, is about a 1976 album ‘Virgin Killer’ by German rock band The Scorpions.

What irked the authorities was the image of the record's controversial cover - which featured a prepubescent naked girl with her genitals obscured by a crack in the camera lens.

A statement for IWF said that the organization had received a report claiming the page was pornographic through its website, and that after a review the decision was made that the page was ‘potentially illegal’.

"As with all child abuse reports received by our Hotline analysts, the image was assessed according to the UK Sentencing Guidelines Council," it said.

Justifying its decision to blacklist the article, IWF said the content was considered to be a potentially illegal indecent image of a child under the age of 18.

Jay Walsh, a spokesman for the Wikimedia Foundation, which manages the encyclopedia, said the removal of the page also appeared to have stopped thousands of UK users from editing articles on Wikipedia, which allows readers to self-edit its pages.

Even at the time of putting it online, the page had reportedly been the subject of debate among Wikipedia editors as to whether the original cover image should be used.

The decision by the UK Internet providers to block the page on allegations of containing pornography has annoyed many users of the popular site.

The censoring system that uses the blacklist, known as Cleanfeed, was first launched by BT in 2004 and later Britain's main Internet providers also began using it. The IWF runs the blacklist, largely focusing on images of child abuse.

How do you see this development? Can child abuse over the Net be prevented this way?