Wikimedia Censors Wikinews 180
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)."
From the Deletion log (Score:5, Informative)
Some more digging (Score:5, Informative)
Wikipedia Signpost has another take [wikipedia.org] on the porno conflict.
This was on Ars Technica weeks ago. (Score:5, Informative)
Ars Technica had this story weeks ago. [arstechnica.com] EFF has filed a motion to quash [eff.org] (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.
limits to CDA 230 immunity? (Score:4, Informative)
in part:
Re:Do we need a WikiNewsNews? (Score:5, Informative)
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." And let's face it, the top management at Wikipedia (and many other organizations) often do a lot a stupid things despite themselves.
Also talk about FUD; the "child pornography" they were talking about is of album art from a famous heavy metal rock band:
Re:Hmm... what to do... (Score:5, Informative)
The Bible-bashers should punish their kids. It's not Wikipedia's problem if their kids are looking up autofellatio on Wikipedia (one of their other complaints).
Re:Hmm... what to do... (Score:1, Informative)
STUPIDEST FUCKING THING EVER.
Its on amazon.com for fucks sakes http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-media/product-gallery/B0000073NK/ref=cm_ciu_pdp_images_1?ie=UTF8&index=1 [amazon.com]
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
230 Applies Even if Content is Controlled (Score:4, Informative)
Age of consent NOT "waay higher" (Score:2, Informative)
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
Re:Hmm... what to do... (Score:5, Informative)
I saw the cut version a few years later and quite frankly I couldn't see what the problem was, but what do I know.
Compare Pretty Baby to Blue Lagoon, another prepubescent skin flick featuring Brooke Shields (this woman sure knew what she was doing I guess). Same controversy, pretty much. Even more so in the early 80s because the prude movement was starting to grow exponentially by then in response to the perceived excesses of the 60s and 70s.
But Pretty Baby was a huge deal back in the day.
OK, now I'll go back to playing Pong on my PDP-10.
Re:Hmm... what to do... (Score:2, Informative)
http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3554440/Pretty.Baby._Brooke_Shields__Susan_Sarandon__(1978) [thepiratebay.org]
or buy it from amazon or some dvd store near you.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pretty-Baby-Keith-Carradine/dp/B000KQGX46/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1211065895&sr=1-1 [amazon.co.uk]
Re:limits to CDA 230 immunity? (Score:3, Informative)
The hallucinations of the article author?
Prior to CDA, US case law was converging on a problematic standard. It was looking like providers at all layers would be held legally responsible for defamatory or otherwise illegal content carried on their facilities if they practiced any prior restraint at all or if they engaged in ex post facto removal of content that was less than perfect, with a lot of fuzziness in how strong an editorial approach would trigger liability. Exercising editorial control of any sort opened providers to lawsuits over actions taken or not taken, because determining whether a provider was a "speaker" or "publisher" or "secondary publisher" would have to be determined by a trial of fact.
The point of the part of the CDA that became 47USC230(c) was to eliminate that problem and the endless litigation trap that the rest of the CDA would have created otherwise. Probably more important than part 2 was part 1:
That effectively immunizes any service provider from being held responsible for defamation or obscenity someone else writes that they end up providing to their users, and it has no exceptions. Part 2 does have exceptions for actions not taken in good faith but having dabbled in bad faith editorial judgments doesn't kill the immunity given in part 1.
Re:I'm just guessing (Score:2, Informative)