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Politician Forces German Wikipedia Off the Net

Stephan Schulz writes "A German Member of parliament for a left-wing party, Lutz Heilmann, has obtained a preliminary injunction against the local chapter of the Wikimedia foundation, Wikimedia Deutschland e.V., forbidding the forwarding of the popular http://wikipedia.de to the proper http://de.wikipedia.org. Apparently Heilmann is not happy with the fact that his Wikipedia article (English version) contains information on his work for the former GDR Stasi, the much-hated internal secret service. Wikimedia Germany displays a page explaining the situation, and has announced that it will file an objection to get the injunction lifted. The German Wikipedia has more than 800,000 pages, and is hosted, like all Wikimedia projects, by the Florida-based Wikimedia Foundation, and hence beyond the effective reach of at least German politicians and judges."

7 of 569 comments (clear)

  1. Re:So what's the problem? by Kjella · · Score: 5, Informative

    According to the page they have put up instead, the german company has been forbidden from forwarding to any site that contains the accusations against him. Not linking to the accusations, but any forwarding. Under that ruling, they definately couldn't forward to google.com either...

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  2. Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand by HappySmileMan · · Score: 4, Informative

    And the GDR was called the German Democratic Republic. That must mean it was a democratic republic right?

    I wouldn't called extreme racism, homophobia etc. left-wing.

    There's also the matter of his constant public speeches about how the left-wing movements were Jewish attempts to topple him and how socialists must be destroyed for Germany to prevail.
    He arrested all trade union leaders and enforced a pay freeze on all workers.
    Of course he did claim prior to the election that we would do just the opposite and give workers more control, but dishonesty seemed to be one of his faults.

  3. Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 4, Informative

    Say, that word, nazi, what does it mean again ? Oh right ... it translates to "socialist".

    It doesn't "translate" it is a contraction for "National Socialist."

    Here's an interesting quote for you - "Nazism makes out is is subversive. The most terrible white terror against people and socialism the world has ever seen takes on a socialist disguise. To this end its propaganda must develop a revolutionary facade with trappings of the Paris Commune."

    Looks like their pseudo-revolutionary cover suckered you right in, even 60 years later.

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  4. Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand by smidget2k4 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Hate speech is generally more than "politically incorrect." Usually hate speech is defined as being intended to incite violence against someone. For example, if I gave a speech and used an ethnic slur for each group of people I talked about, sure, I'd be in bad taste, but it wouldn't be hate speech. Now, if I gave that same speech minus the ethnic slurs, but was rallying the crowd and telling them they should kill these groups, that would be hate speech.

    It is the same idea as not being able to yell fire in a crowded theater. You have the freedom of speech until it harms someone else.

  5. Summary is wrong by canajin56 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Or at least misleading. While he MAY not like the fact that they link him to the Stasi, the reason for the injunction is that the German Wikipedia page claims he never finished his university degree, and was involved in pornography in some way or other. The fact that he was in the Stasi was well known, and caused a political shitstorm when it first hit the presses, though he somehow managed to evade impeachment. He denies having not finished his degree, as well as his involvement in a pornography business. Whether or not they are true is unknown to me, but it DOES say so on Wikipedia (without sources)!

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  6. Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand by Sapphon · · Score: 4, Informative

    Being "left" or "right" has nothing to do with whether you're fascist or not. Fascism is an expression of total authoritarianism, which it is perfectly possible to combine with an attitude of socialism. They're two separate axes on the political compass.

    Note that on the above chart, Dr. Angela Merkel (current German chancellor) is, in fact, "right". She's just not as right as most other Western leaders, leading to the impression that she is, in fact, "left".

    Lutz Heilmann is even further left (his Party is called "The Left"), and on the Authoritarian/Libertarian scale doubtlessly up nice and high.

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  7. Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand by Carewolf · · Score: 4, Informative

    No, not really. Medicine is one of the strong industries in Denmark. By citizens Denmark produces more patents and earns more Nobel prices than the US in Medicine (by a factor of 4). Most of the large US medical companies has research centers in or near Copenhagen in the so-called "Medicon Valley", and Novo Nordisk one of the largst pharmaceatical companies is danish. One of the benefits of free education is a highly educated population ideal for research and development.