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."

Comments

Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand

[Opportunist]

She knows how well that works.

Frankly, I am living close to Germany and until now I didn't know that guy. Ok, I'm not the leftmost person on this planet, but maybe he just wasn't that important. Now, though, I do. And I know that he's probably not the nicest person to be around.

I also wonder how many have considered voting for his party and now, learning about this and what kind of people are inside it, won't touch it.

Not to mention that, if you really insist, you can still choose a different copy of Wikipedia to get information about him. Ok, granted, not in German, but is there anyone in Germany using the internet and NOT able to read English?

Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand

[lukas84]

It's the same in almost every European state - most anti racism laws undermine Free Speech.

Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand

[corsec67]

most anti racism laws undermine Free Speech.

Could you have a anti-racism law that doesn't undermine free speech?
One of the basic premises of free speech is that offensive speech should be allowed.

A big part of anti-racism laws is to prevent offensive speech as it relates to race, right?

Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand

[Alex Belits]

anti-racist-speech laws violate free speech

True.

and are bad laws.

Not necessarily so. Elevating free speech over other rights is a part of American ideology, however it is not universally accepted, certainly not in Europe or Asia.

Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand

[narcberry]

I dunno, Hitler may have said he was a socialist, but he didn't throw very many parties. I'd say he wasn't a people person, but I did not know him personally.

Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand

[BobNET]

Did you know that North Korea real name is the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea".

The longer a country's name is, the less likely it is to be true...

Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand

[Captain Splendid]

Oh right ... it translates to "socialist".

Both Hitler and yourself can keep calling him and the nazi party socialist all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that the country was run pretty much as a Totalitarian regime focused on unilateral warfare, hyper-patriotism and strong law & order credentials, which is about as far from socialism as you can get.

Thanks for playing!

Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand

[HappySmileMan]

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.

Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand

[the_other_chewey]

Germany serves as a reminder of what will happen to a country if you vote far-left too long.

Uhhh... what?

The head of state (and the chancellor) are from what is considered the center right. Far-left parties
never were in power. And last I checked, Germany was doing a lot better in this financial meltdown than
the US (which doesn't mean they are doing incredibly well, just a lot better).

Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

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.

Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand

[DiniZuli]

I'm from Denmark.
Compared to many people from USA (not all), the majority of people in Denmark are "socialists" (again not everyone). All parties that we can vote for - even the ones we place on the far right on our own political scale, would belong among the democrats in USA. Nearly all political parties in Denmark, would be called leftish in USA. It has been like this for many many decades and I would say that we are doing pretty well, with our national health care system, common wealth, education, etc., etc. - I would even say we are doing better than USA. In Denmark, Nazis, racists and the like are almost always placed on the far right on the political scale.
Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Mao and others like them, might have SAID that they were socialists and making leftish policies. But they weren't/didn't. They were not anywhere near it. They would like people to think so - and I can see they even got to some of you too. A shame.

Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand

[smidget2k4]

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.

Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand

[rtb61]

You are obviously terribly confused. A political party is defined by it's actions not by the labels it chooses to advertise under. So the German Nazi party was far right, as private corporations functioned and profited during that whole period. All the arms manufacturers were private none of them where nationalised, citizens retained private ownership of resources and assets (at least the single group approved of by the party).

As for any associations with the intelligentsia, I see you have failed to hear of junk science, people who basically will trade upon their qualifications and say or write what ever they are paid to say or write. Technically Bill Ayers in his youth put forward his own opinions and with the impatience of youth expressed them in a questionable manner, behaviour which he had long since matured out of.

Now as for the whole gamut of right and left political bias, technically in a global sense the US does not have a leading left wing political party as the democrats and centre right and the republicans are far right, to see actual centre left political parties in action running countries you have to look overseas, Canada, Australia, England, etc. The outer edges of right and left politics has always demonstrated itself to be destructive, a grand deceit based upon propaganda and lies to empower and enrich a minority at the expense of the majority, from Hitler and Stalin, to Bush and Cheney, some of course are far more destructive than others but they have all been equally self serving and, any limits upon their actions have been forced upon them by outside influences rather than their own consciences.

A good indication of how centre a party is defined by it's willingness and hence the politicians of the parties willingness to be open to criticism, open to questions and open to ideas and not resorting to censorship to protect the facade they have created to hide their true nature.

Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand

[Tony Hoyle]

Only an american could describe hitler as left wing....

Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand

[Heddahenrik]

The divided states of North America
The barely united queendom of small Britain and some part not really on Ireland
The party's one party state of China
The secular dictatorship of Iran

Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand

[MrMista_B]

Someone who's 'far-right', anywhere else in the world, in America would be considered 'moderate' or 'left-leaning'.

Think about that for a few moments, and realise what that means.

Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand

[alzoron]

What you just described is already taken care of with laws against inciting riots. Why do we need more laws covering the same thing? It's like having a law against apples, and another law against red apples.

Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand

[Sapphon]

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.

Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand

[m.ducharme]

You totally forgot to mention that Hitler was backed by corporations and some aristocracy before he took over, and in bed with Corporate Germany during/after the war. You think that just because he called his party the "National Socialist" Party that he really meant it? Have you forgotten he was the greatest propagandist of his era?

He didn't nationalize large industries in Germany, he printed piles of money to pay the corporations for their work on his war, and made their owners filthy rich (until the currency collapsed, of course, doesn't this sound familiar to you?). A lot of those corporations still exist, in some form or other, but they keep that part of their corporate history quiet, you can be sure. This is totally opposite to Stalin and the Communists, who simply took over the corporations and executed the owners.

Fascism =/= Socialism, sorry, you need to go get some education in that regard. Fascism == Authoritarianism, and Communism == Authoritarianism, but guess what, socialism doesn't automatically equal authoritarianism (unless you've been brainwashed by the current champion propagandists in the US, that is). As hard as it is to believe, you can have a socialist, liberal government. Of course, in these troubled times, when all nations are leaning hard to the authoritarian side, thanks to Mr. Bush and his advisors, Tony Blair, John Howard, etc, examples are hard to come by.

Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand

[ta bu shi da yu]

Oh yay, let's all classify others on a simplistic and misleading two-dimensional political scale. Hey, at least it helps us from having to use our brains to comprehend the world around us.

Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand

[Frozentech]

That's because the term Fascist has become utterly misused in the United States. It pretty much has devolved to mean "bully", rather than a political-economic system.

Re:Mr. Heilmann, you should talk to Mrs. Streisand

[Carewolf]

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.

Oops

[sakdoctor]

Thankfully for Lutz Heilmann, who formerly worked for the Stasi, attempting to censor information does not cause it to be widely publicized.

There should be a name for that.

Re:Oops

[Tubal-Cain]

Stasiand effect?

All doubts are gone

[Charles Dodgeson]

People may have doubted whether a former DDR Stasi employee would reform or continue with old ways of treating the public. Now all questions about this particular thug have evaporated.

FAIL!

[Chris Snook]

If you don't want publicity associating you with the Stasi, this probably isn't the best method of challenging the accusation.

Not a good idea....

[jawtheshark]

If you really have a shady background, the internet will surface the truth. So, either you deny and have the consequences, or you admit your faults and people might start to respect you that you're an upstanding person.

Lutz Helimann, ex Stasi?

[blind biker]

I didn't know that. Now I do. And so do a few tens of thousand other people who would have not known, if he had not tried to have the German Wikipedia shut down.

In fact, I bet that most of the readers of the German Wikipedia didn't know that Lutz Heilmann was a Stasi, and now they do.

Who the fuck elected this crooked fully-employed ex-Stasi to the Bundestag, though?

Re:So what's the problem?

[wild_quinine]

So what part of that is he claiming is illegal?

The defamation he's about to recieve on his wikipedia page.

Re:How can this happen?

[techno-vampire]

In principle, at least, it could happen in Britain if the truth were considered sufficiently defamatory. Unlike in America, the truth is not an absolute defense there against libel and if you can persuade a judge that you were defamed you can win a libel suit even if what was published was the plain, unembellished truth. If, let's say, you had photographic evidence of a politician cheating on his wife and put them up on the web, he could sue and the judge would probably end up ordering them taken down. I doubt that anybody would go this far, but there's nothing in their law to prevent it.

Re:So what's the problem?

[Kjella]

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...

Working for them is not an indiscression

[MikeRT]

You can't work for an agency like the Stasi and just apologize for it. To be forgiven, you must don sackcloth, repent and repudiate what you once stood for. If this politician hasn't repudiated everything--everything--the Stasi stood for, he should be hounded for life for having worked for them.

He successfully took down another site

[cjfs]

... his own.

Please contact the server administrator, [no address given]

Re:So what's the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone editing his page should be careful to sticking to the facts, else they just justify its removal as well as degrading the stature of Wikipedia. German news agencies should get a copy of the wiki at the time when Heilmann complained and check all the info on it, then report on it noting the parts he specifically complained on including the findings of their own research. It wouldn't hurt for academia and the general public to join in on this as is their duty as citizens.

It needs to be made clear to politicians and bureaucrats everywhere that their very positions permit or even demand microscopic public inspection of their actions. If they are going to act to ban negative comments on themselves then the comments need to be at a minimum unprovable as facts or better yet provably false. If comments are found to be provably true then the response to the government official(s) involved should be harsh.

Completely false summary

[br00tus]

That Heilmann worked for the German Democratic Republic's Ministry for State Security has been well known for a while, he is objecting to claims on Wikipedia that he was a pornographer and the like, which there is very little evidence of. Of course, the person summarizing this making bullshit up has a much better chance of getting people up in arms over it, lying always helps in mud-slinging since the point of mud-slinging is to throw as much mud as possible and see how many uninformed people will believe any stuck, debunking lies is mostly a waste of effort.

In terms of free speech in Europe this is very minor, people are jailed for analyses of Nazi treatment of Jews during World War II that don't follow a set pattern. If people are being sent to jail for writing in Europe, I don't see why closing down a press or web site is that big of a deal. From my understanding of things, many Nazis tended to be barbaric, so I would be skeptical of apologetic books on how nice concentration camps were, but I don't think people should be jailed for it, or the books and presses even shut down.

Summary is wrong

[canajin56]

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)!

Re:What Rights?

[DesScorp]

"Fortunately, those of us in the U.S. are about to get rid of our despotic strongmen, along about January 20 of next year."

You realize that you just defeated your own argument, don't you? If you can vote them out, then are they despots? Despots don't tend to stand for things like free elections, and George Bush and his party have lost two in a row without sending the Army to void those elections. Just because you don't like the guy doesn't qualify him as a tyrant.