Don't search Wikipedia for "fisting," "fellatio," or "pearl necklace."
That's what Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger warned on TechCrunch TV today.
"I'm not saying that pornography is taking over the site," Sanger said. "But there's an awful lot of it there."
Sanger argues that Wikipedia and its parent nonprofit, the Wikimedia Foundation, must stop letting children stumble upon pornography on their sites. Right now, he says, there is too little oversight and too much porn.
On the French version of Wikipedia, for example, if you search for "homework," the first video that comes up is a porno.
"I've got a couple of little kids now," he told interviewer Andrew Keen, an author who has criticized Wikipedia for other reasons. "There needs to be some responsibility here in helping parents and teachers present the right sort of information for a kid at the right time."
Sanger proposes that Wikipedia should either filter content or declare itself not to be kid-friendly. He left Wikipedia in 2002 when the site was unable to pay him, and soon became disillusioned with the site.
"Do you regret quitting?" asked Keen.
"I don't regret it the slightest bit," said Sanger.
Here's the full interview via TechCrunch:
