Soaring Wings

Say no to child porn. Pic: Representational purpose only

California: Wikipedia has strongly rejected its departed co-founder’s accusation that the online encyclopedia is knowingly distributing child pornography in their products.

“Our community abhors issues around pornography and pedophilia and they don’t want to provide opportunities for these things to take place,” The Age quoted Jay Walsh, Wikipedia spokesman, as saying.

“We don’t have material we would deem to be illegal. If we did, we would remove it,” he added.

He further said that neither Wikipedia nor the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation behind the online encyclopedia had heard from the authorities.

“As a serious, law-abiding organization we would work with these folks,” Walsh said.

“In general there is a constant change in information at Wikipedia. If inappropriate material is posted volunteers remove it immediately,” he added.

Earlier, Wikipedia’s co-founder Larry Sanger, who left the organization in 2002, had claimed that Wikimedia Commons, the parent company of Wiki products including Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikinews and Wikiquote, is rife with renderings of children performing sexual acts.

He also said that he had sent a letter to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) outlining his concerns and identifying two specific categories, which he believes violate federal obscenity laws.

The first category, entitled “Pedophilia”, created three years ago, contains 25 to 30 explicit and detailed drawings of children performing sexual acts, while the second, “Lilicon”, provides cartoons similar in detail and depiction.

“I was not shocked that it was online, but I was shocked that it was on a Wikimedia Foundation site that purports to be a reference site,” Sanger said.

“I think a lot of teachers and education technologists responsible for the filters at public schools don’t realize how much and what level of pornography there is in the system. I’m quite sure that if they knew there were pages devoted to pedophilia, it might make them think twice about giving students unrestricted access in schools.”

“I’m going to sound really old fashioned, but I felt that it was my duty. I really did. Wikimedia has quite a bit of pornography on it and they had no idea,” he added. (ANI)