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Wikimedia Censors Wikinews
An anonymous reader writes "Wikileaks has revealed that the Wikimedia Foundation Board (which controls Wikipedia and Wikinews) has killed off a Wikinews report into the Barbara Bauer vs. Wikimedia Foundation lawsuit. Wikinews is a collaborative news site and is meant to be editorially independent from the WMF. The WMF office also suppressed a Wikinews investigation into child and other pornography on Wikipedia, which was independently covered by ValleyWag and other outlets this week. The US Communications Deceny Act section 230 grants providers of internet services (such as the Wikipedia and Wikinews) immunity from legal action related to their user-generated content provided they do not exercise pre-publication control. In deleting articles critical of the WMF prior to publication, Wikileaks says the Wikimedia Foundation may have set a dangerous precedent that could remove all of its CDA section 230 immunity (at least for Wikinews, where the control was exercised)."
But is this due to a gag order? It seems likely.
To cover news on WikiNews without censorship?
Let me get this straight. WikiLeaks is reporting that Wikinews suppressed an article on Wikipeida about WikiPorn? Now, the WikiInvestigators are ....I've gone cross eyed...
Wikinews used to have its own embargo on reporting about Wikipedia, because they were giving disproportionate weight to Wikipedia in the news. In fact, it even led to -- I think it was the Washington Post -- referring to Wikinews as "the news website about Wikipedia". We Wikinewsies collectively ground our teeth when we heard the fruit of our labors described like that.
Wikiwars 2008. Let the trolls and slander begin.
Where can you see that the articles were actually deleted by the Wikimedia Foundation and not by the Wikinews community?
I obviously can see the censorship issues in the first article. We're talking about an individual trying to use the legal system to squelch her deservedly bad reputation in business dealings. Welcome to the information age, lady. News of bad deals travels fast now.
On the other hand, I can't say I disapprove of the deletion of nude underage children in sexual contexts on Wikipedia, or of the decisions of moderators to override group votes on such manners. (Note the "group vote" was likely by music fans in regard to a specific album cover. What do you *think* their vote would be? Duh.) I'm not a prude or anything, but there's no real need to show some of the images they discussed. If you want those images, they're likely just a few clicks away elsewhere on the net anyhow. It seems that Wikipedia should cater to a wide audience, with content appropriate for all ages. Even the most adult of subjects can be handled in a way that makes it appropriate for all ages of the audience without diminishing its usefulness as a research tool.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
So, are we in the midst of a Wikiwar?
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
The Wikinews discussion about the story is here.
Wikipedia Signpost has another take on the porno conflict.
Ars Technica had this story weeks ago. EFF has filed a motion to quash (EFF site currently overloaded), and they'll probably win.
As Ars Technica points out, the effect of this lawsuit is to widely disseminate the information that this little-known literary agency is a dud.
in part:
Interesting, my workplace uses the Smartfilter censorship software to keep us from, you know, doing our jobs, and just noticed this gem:
You cannot access the following Web address:
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikinews_suppressed_Wikipedia_pornography_investigation
The site you requested is blocked under the following categories: Hate Speech, Historical Revisionism, Extreme
You can:
Use your browser's Back button or enter a different Web address to continue.
The powers of be must HATE that site. I don't think the Historial Revisionism thing even exists on Smartfilter's official list of categories to censor.
If I see the word "wiki" one more time I'm going to hurl.
Better known as 318230.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
The post says "The US Communications Deceny Act section 230 grants providers of internet services (such as the Wikipedia and Wikinews) immunity from legal action related to their user-generated content provided they do not exercise pre-publication control." But this is factually inaccurate. 230 applies even if a website exercises editorial control prior to publication. See, e.g., Blumenthal v. Drudge. Eric.
I know it's very popular these days, but can we try to go a little easy on the Big Wikimedia Conspiracy for World Domination for once, and look at facts instead?
A publishing agency (and not some poor innocent lady named Barbara Bauer) with known questionable reputation and practices has pressed charges against Wikimedia Foundation for reporting on these practices.
The plaintiff call Wikipedia's reports "libel". The judge might call them "the truth about Barbara Bauer". Noone really knows before the case is settled.
Then, Wikinews is reporting on this case. And due to the way the editing process that define Wikinews works, the reports on the case was most likely written by a unrelated volunteer contributor somewhere and not approved by the lawyers of Electronic Frontier Foundation's, who handles the case for Wikinews. The reports might even have quoted the supposed libelous statements.
Now, Wikinews is owned by Wikimedia Foundation. Legally, Wikinews and its articles is the Wikimedia Foundation. In other words, the Wikipedia Foundation may (involuntarily) be publicly repeating the reports a questionable publishing agency have pressed charged over.
How will the judge respond when he or she sees the Wikimedia Foundation repeating what might be offense under investigation, after the lawsuit was filed?
Is it really wrong of Wikimedia Foundation to reverse reports they have been sued over, while the case is still pending?
I don't know the details; if any has anything to add to the above assessment, please, fill us in.
The age of consent in the United States varies from 16 to 18. With exceptions for teachers, parents, and others in authority, it's 16 in more than half the states.
In most countries the age of consent is 14-18. It's lower in a few and higher in a few. 16 is not "waay higher" than 14.
The differences between the white-English-speaking and non-English-speaking and non-white world:
* we are generally more prudish, especially about nude art
* "15 will get you 20" instead of a few months
* The enforced close-in-age exceptions are narrower. A 20 year old man with his 14 year old fiancee here would face prosecution, elsewhere he will be given a shotgun wedding.
* More than a few nude photos of infants and toddlers in your family scrap-book will get you thrown in jail.
* Teens sharing pictures of themselves with their friends get prosecuted
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Of course, the Wikinews article was not deleted prior to publication. All Wikinews articles, even ones in development, are accessible by the public, and are therefore "published" in the sense of the law. Articles in development are simply not placed in as prominent of positions on the site as those which are considered to be finished.
The claim that the Wikimedia Foundation exerts pre-publication control over Wikinews articles is therefore false. Merely because the Wikinews site may refer to some publicly-accessible articles as "published" and other publicly-accessible articles as "in development" does not change the fact that both classes of articles are, for legal purposes, published: that is, intentionally placed in the public view.
remember that the lawsuit against Wikimedia Foundaion is about libel and HAS ENTERED INTO TRIAL, of which a statement or article, even posted on Wikinews, AND REGARDLESS OF WHO WROTE THAT, could be constituted as a official response about the lawsuit and could very be held against Wikimedia Foundation.
Section 230 does not apply in this case.
Well the so-called "child pornography" controversy covers many areas, some of which have apparently solid reasoning behind them, others of which does not.
Let us start with the simplest case, production of pornographic images involving children, who actively do not consent. Obviously that involves direct exploit of children, and is not acceptable. There is virtually no controversy over that.
But what about the cases of photos taken of minors who are over the age of consent, and in fact do consent. The argument that a child is being exploited here is questionable. Further should it matter if the image taker was one of the consenting individuals? What about 2 individuals who are under the age of consent, who produced the images in question on their own initiative, without any external influence? Are we really claiming that a child can exploit himself or herself? That sounds nearly as absurd as the claims of an underage child "raping" himself/herself under the statutory rape laws. (That has been alleged before, although the circumstances escape me).
Then there are the questions of whether possession/distribution of materials should be a crime, independent of their production. The oldest logic here is the idea of creating new perverts. Obviously that one is highly suspect. The modern theory is that the existence of such images may create a market for them resulting in people exploiting children to create them. A seeming credible theory, although not without problems. After all, scarcity of such images with some level of demand tends to drive the value up. The images having high value may encourage some to take the risk and produce the content in question.
Then there is the issue of simulated content. Obviously that does not involve the actual exploitation of children. The theory though is that it may influence the market in such a way as to encourage additional production of non-simulated content.
So in the end, we have a few real questions. Does the government have any right to attempt to manipulate the market for the relevant content? The answer is probably yes, due to the exploitation of children in production of the real content. The next question is what measures may the government take to manipulate this market? Clearly only some measures are reasonable. Some may perhaps only be reasonable depending on just how effective it is at minimizing the production of the content. Finally, what acceptable measures when taken minimize the production of the (non-simulated content)? That unfortunately is an economics question, and despite our best efforts economics is still not really a hard science. The reality is that there are to many variables to consider them all at the same time, economic systems are always at least somewhat chaotic, and every change in the system produces 2 opposing pressures on each dependent variable, so determining the magnitude of each (or at least the net magnitude) is rather important but is shockingly difficult. The end result means that this is a debate that will go back and forth for centuries. Even if we perfected economics, the question of what measures are appropriate are still subjective, so the debate will likely never end.
Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524