CoS Bigwig Likens Wikipedia Ban to Nazis' Yellow Star Decree

We mentioned on Thursday that Wikipedia has banned edits originating from certain IP addresses belonging to the Church of Scientology; reader newtley writes now that Scientology leader (CEO and Chairman of the Board of the linked, but legally separate, Religious Technology Center) David Miscavige calls the ban "a 'despicable hate crime,' and asks, 'What's next, will Scientologists have to wear yellow, six-pointed stars on our clothing?' During World War II, Hitler forced Jewish men, women and children to wear a a yellow cloth star bearing the word Jude to brand them in the streets of Europe, and in the Nazi death camps."

Comments

Haven't we learned anything?

[petes_PoV]

As advocates of free software and speech, people in the FOSS community are always saying that censorship on the internet doesn't work. That people will find a way around the "problem". Well now the shoe is on the other foot and we're seeing that the proponents of liberty and free speech fail the first time their principles are challenged - complete hypocrites. While I do not support Scientology (not even sure what it is - it seems to be an american thing, so it doesn't have much effect on the other 95% of the world) as a bystander I can see that censorship simply won't work.

It's also saddening to see how quickly otherwise liberal minded people revert to the old, dictatorial, oppressive and ultimately ineffective ways of trying to silence people they don't like.

Re:Haven't we learned anything?

[petes_PoV]

I think you misunderstand censorship:

Oh no. I understand perfectly. Wikipedia are trying to censor the censors. No matter how you wrap it up, there's still active suppression taking place of people / organisations that wikipedia don't like - that's censorship. The second point is that merely barring some IP addresses is in itself futile - they'll just use other ones. So all the wiki-people do is make themselves look like totalitarians without actually obtaining the outcome they wanted. The test of a democracy (democracy? on the internet? hah!) is how it reacts under pressure. We now know how wiki acts under pressure: badly.