Wikipedia Wins Defamation Case

Raul654 writes "Yesterday, a French judge dismissed a lawsuit against the Wikimedia Foundation for defamation. The judge found that 'Web site hosts cannot be liable under civil law because of information stored on them if they do not in fact know of their illicit nature.' According to the inquirer: 'Three plaintiffs were each seeking 69,000 euros ($100,000) in damages for invasion of their privacy after their homosexuality was revealed on the website.'"

Comments

Re:When "defamation" include the truth?

[CheshireCatCO]

Better yet, since these homosexual men felt the revelation of their orientation was defamatory, what does that say about how they feel about their own sexuality? Probably not much. What it most likely tells you about is how their society perceives their sexuality. (Or, even more pedantically, how they think that society perceives it.) A gay person in the US military may be quite happy and well-adjusted about his or her orientation, but also realize that word of that getting out would have serious negative consequences.

Re:When "defamation" include the truth?

[WaltBusterkeys]

"Defamation" does not include the truth, but "invasion of privacy" and "public disclosure of private information" both do. Let's say that you had HIV, but it was under control with medication. You'd hope that you would have a cause of action against your doctor if he revealed that information to the world, right? Or if you kept it a secret that you were a victim of child abuse and somebody published a full-page advertisement in the local newspaper calling you out on it. It's not necessarily something to be "ashamed of" but it might not be something you want the world to know.

Unless you're a public figure, the law in most states recognizes that there is true information that people have a right to keep to themselves. See, ironically, Wikipedia on invasion of privacy.

Re:I wonder how far this could be applied

[frp001]

From what I read, there are 2 things:
- The judge ruled that, despite its aspect, Wikipedia, is more like service provider than a newspaper or editor work (i.e. internet users publish their stuff on it, not the Wikimedia foundation)
- The French law requires that illegal material must be formally notified to the provider by register letter.

Apparently the plaintiffs did notify Wikimedia but not in the correct form.

So, for what I understand both are true Wikimedia cannot be held responsible for what others publish. The can be if they have been informed published work is illegal and have not taken actions to remove it. It would then be the plaintiff's work to:
- prove to material is illegal in some way (this where the making a better case of comes in)
- prove that Wikimedia knew the work was illegal.