John Seigenthaler Sr. Criticises Wikipedia 672
EsonLinji writes "John Seigenthaler Sr, a former assistant to Robert Kennedy, has written a commentary in USA Today expressing outrage at a libelous biography that appeared on Wikipedia that suggested he was involved with the assasination of JFK and spent more than a decade in Russia. His commentary also takes aim at internet providers and the laws that allow them to act as common carriers without liability for the actions of their users."
What? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)
And no, I'm not gonna be the one to do it.
Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What? (Score:3, Insightful)
This dude isn't Bush, Hitler or God, he's just some old man. I know I never heard of him, maybe he's well known in the USA, but the world is full of old men who used to be famous. Not every article about such men on Wikipedia con
Re:What? (Score:4, Insightful)
And he is correct to do so. The fact that WikiPedia can be used in such a manner, terribly diminishes the worth of WikiPedia's articles. How do you know an article that is based on fact vs. an article that is based on vindictiveness?
WikiPedia is a great concept, but it needs to grow up before it can earn the place in society that so many ascribe to it now. Part of that growing up process will be accountability of its authors and responsibility to its readers.
grow up! (Score:5, Insightful)
Wikipedia's worth is simply determined by its usage, no more and no less. And apparently, enough people use it for Mr. Seigenthaler to worry about what is says about him.
How do you know an article that is based on fact vs. an article that is based on vindictiveness?
Whatever gave you the idea that everything you read is based on fact? Do you seriously believe that everything the Bush administration publishes is based on fact? That everything in the EB is based on fact? That everything in your textbooks is based on fact? That everything in the newspaper is based on fact? Do you make a habit out of believing accusations against people without evidence? How naive can you be?
The problem isn't with the Wikipedia. The Wikipedia is completely honest about what it is.
The problem is that people like Seigenthaler and you need to grow up yourself and stop nurturing the illusion that publication is some kind of quality control. Start using your head and start asking for evidence, for whatever claims you hear.
As for Mr. Seigenthaler and his little problem: the Wikipedia provides the means for him to correct those issues he feels inaccurate. If the original author is still around, they can hash it out on the discussion page. Maybe one side or the other will provide some evidence to support the accusation or the defense. That's all there's to it. But, as he told us, he isn't interested in correcting the information, he is interested in dragging the original author in front of a court, and I'm sorry, that kind of powerplay just doesn't work anymore in the 21st century.
Re:grow up! (Score:3, Insightful)
No, if the original author was truly being libelous, then they should get sued.
Re:grow up! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:grow up! (Score:3, Insightful)
I haven't opened a Brittanica volume in months, despite the high degree of respect I hold for it. Have you?
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah yes, apply your priceless logic to any system of communication and you will find that the more valuable they are, the more ways they can be abused. Email has spam, phones have obscene calls from the pay phone on the corner, the message board at the corner store can be so disorganized that you'll never see that lost cat notice and be a hero for a day.
These forms of communication are so popular because of their value which far exceeds their inadequacies. You can tinker around the edges, but to put forward greater restrictions on their use and to try to impose too many controls would be to destroy their value not improve it.
How do you know an article that is based on fact vs. an article that is based on vindictiveness?
The same way you do in any other context, cross referencing the stated facts. The same way you know when the New York Time says that US Warplanes bombed a wedding party shooting into the sky in celebration, and the US Department of Defense Spokesman says that US warplanes attacked a terrorist camp in Western Iraq. Or when the Iran government says that it is developing Peaceful nuclear technology and the US government says that Iran is going to build bombs. Or when one guy says that Global Warming is manmade and another says it is not. Referencing one source of information for all your facts may have been okay in 3rd grade, but it doesn't fly in real life.
Wikipedia is great simply because it puts those discrepancies in your face and allows anyone to weigh in. And by keeping a full history of revisions that can be viewed, reverted to or merged, we can dig a little deeper right there on the article to see how it got put together. Wikipedia has bones.
WikiPedia is a great concept, but it needs to grow up before it can earn the place in society that so many ascribe to it now. Part of that growing up process will be accountability of its authors and responsibility to its readers.
No, you need to grow up. Seriously. What exactly constitutes accountability to you? You want to make sure that all the writers are in the Guild? Want everyone who has something to say to buy writers insurance, and relax libel laws so that we can't write anything bad about anyone without getting sued?
You can't say it is a great idea and then attack its premise.
If you don't like wikipedia's lack of a meaningful hierarchy of privilege to edit content, then go out and make your own with your own system of trust. You can even take their content to start and let the market decide which content becomes more valuable to them over time.
Despite what you say, Wikipedia has earned a certain level of respect in society in a remarkably short amount of time and you would be hard pressed to make any truly constructive suggestions which would substantially change the model of openness that they follow.
Re:What? (Score:3, Insightful)
While I agree the potential for abuse is there, the potential for abuse and censorship by the "official" maintainers of what is historically true and what is not is also subject to abuse, bias and outright lies. History is just as much lies and mythmaking as it is 'historical fa
Re:What? (Score:3, Informative)
A researcher could write up an article on his latest topic of study, a scientist could write up an article about her little known subject. Of course it isn't vetted, but it isn't supposed to be.
Re:What? (Score:3, Informative)
I'm afraid you're missing the point of wikipedia. This is *not* what it's about at all -- it intends to produce a high quality encyclopaedia.
Wikipedia bashers are wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh...that's, like, okay.
Because Wikipedia links directly to original sources.
The reason that it was so crucial for old-media encyclopedias to be so heavily examined is because it was a pain in the ass to check original sources.
Most things that people hear word-of-mouth or in the newspaper are less well-checked than what I read on Wikipedia. And that's what I and 99% of the people out there use Wikipedia for. We aren't trying to use it as an authoritative source for writing a doctoral thesis, where the propagation of even a single error might be significant. We're trying to get real-world usable information. And Wikipedia does a better job than anything else out there of doing this.
A lot of people bash Wikipedia because it doesn't seem like it should work. It clashes mightily with the common computer security approach of accepting absolutely no attacks against something. Wikipedia, however, takes advantage of a completely different mechanism that most people undervalue -- recoverability. *Anyone* can vandalize Wikipedia. Vandalizing Wikipedia en-masse, however, is totally useless, because the bulk of Wikipedia's content *is* useful and *does* keep improving.
If someone thinks that Wikipedia is bad, fine. Let them *branch* Wikipedia into a "stable branch", and they can only allow fully reviewed changes to be added, or whatever. That's absolutely legal. There's at least some argument that maybe Wikipedia only needed to be wild and loose in its early days. I don't really think that it's likely, but instead of bitching about how Wikipedians are doing their volunteer work that they're giving to the world, sit down and fix it, you know?
Personally, I think that the rate of update and the value of more articles outweighs ideological arguments about review, but whatever.
Maybe at some point, there will be some concept of a gradient of article stability, and it will require more work to change an older article. [shrug] I dunno. But I hate all the nay-saying about WP.
Re:What? (Score:3, Insightful)
One can use Wikipedia for things like information on physics, chemistry, biology, and other sciences, books, television shows, etc., etc.
Unfortunately, in this instance/entry, history is open to interpretation/revision, and so may not be entirely provable or factual. Wikipedia walks a dangerous line in some instances, and whi
Re:What? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What? (Score:4, Insightful)
...Or any of the math articles, or most of the science articles, or anything people actually looked at, or etc. etc. etc.. Vandalism like this is limited to things that no one cares about, and this guy fits squarely in that category.
Would be interesting to see the page hits for the article; it'd be kind of disheartening to see that more people looked up, say, Lebesgue Integration [wikipedia.org] on any given day than you in 4 months.
Standard wikipedia response (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Standard wikipedia response (Score:2, Flamebait)
He doesn't understand why corrections are normally made "within minutes" - it's because in the majority of articles someone gives a shit!
If he's the only person that cares then it's clearly up to him to put or right or to live with it...
Re:Standard wikipedia response (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Standard wikipedia response (Score:4, Interesting)
In any case, no amount of indignant editorials or feet-stamping make anyone else responsible for changing the article.
'real' laws on the internet... (Score:2, Insightful)
Laws vary from country to country. In this situation, you can try and coerce countries to abide to them in a method agreed by everyone as WIPO Copyright and the Geneva conventions do currently.
Of course like Copyright, and the Geneva conventions, people's interpretation of such agreements vary, as do their enforcement of these agreements.
Re:'real' laws on the internet... (Score:2)
They also vary from state to state (at least in Australia). I agree with you that dealing with laws internationally is a nightmare and something the internet has made much, much harder. Although I fear America attempting to force everyone into accepting their libel and slander laws.
Are wiki's above the law? (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone else comes along, see this and is outraged. They want to do something. What can they do?
"Change it yourself" is like saying "if skinheads painted Nazi slogans on your house wall, just repaint it". Is that really OK and is all that should be done? Nobody should be pursued for this?
Are we saying that a wiki is somehow above the laws and should be exonerated by default of any consequences, along with its administrators, host and everybody, except perhaps that malicious contributor who can't be tracked down anyway?
Personally, I'm glad the dude raised his voice about this. The terms of use and so called "licenses" that wiki's generally use are simple jokes. You can't put up a system where anybody can enter anything they want, in high exposure, and expect to get away with it when something illegal is inserted. Why? Because a wiki is not a discussion. It's supposed to be reference.
Re:Are wiki's above the law? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's illegal to disseminate information that doesn't infringe on someone's privacy, isn't untrue and doesn't break copyright laws? Wow. Talk about the land of the free.
slander or liber about a certain person,
I doubt many (if any) wiki's support sound so including slander really isn't possbile.
excerpts from a book against copyright,
I'm a bit confused what "against copyright" means, but copyright laws in America allow excerpts to be displayed.
"Change it yourself" is like saying "if skinheads painted Nazi slogans on your house wall, just repaint it".
A good enough analogy for the point you were making. I agree. I also never said "change it yourself."
Nobody should be pursued for this?
Not at all. The person who made the libelous changes should be persued. I said Wikipedia itself shouldn't be persued, unless it has been made aware of the content and has done nothing to change it.
Are we saying that a wiki is somehow above the laws and should be exonerated by default of any consequences, along with its administrators, host and everybody, except perhaps that malicious contributor who can't be tracked down anyway?
That I am. Although to say it is "above the law" is dishonest at best. It isn't above the law, the laws merely say it can't be held responsible unless it doesn't fulfill the requirements outlined in a cease and desist order, which by the way, wasn't necessary in this instance. I think it would be ridiculous to say all content hosts should be held responsible for any information I post on their website. If I said something libelous, I don't believe slashdot should be held responsible. Same thing with me going on live television. The television studio shouldn't be held responsible.
And the person can be tracked down. If the article writer had wished to persue the matter legally, then Bellsouth would have provided the information he asked for. However even if he couldn't be tracked down, to blame someone else merely because the the person can't be caught is ridiculous.
Because a wiki is not a discussion. It's supposed to be reference.
No, wiki software can be used for anything. Wikipedia is meant as a reference, not a discussion.
Re:Are wiki's above the law? (Score:3, Informative)
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the New York Times, stating that "profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open".
Re:Are wiki's above the law? (Score:3, Insightful)
What you're suggesting is that the homeowner should be sued because skinheads painted slogans on their wall.
The guy and his lawyers were told that if they wanted to sue and had a case a court could order release of the name. Why does he want the name without a court order and what on earth leads him to believe he'
Re:Are wiki's above the law? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, this could easily happen with our house. The south side of the house is easily visible from one of the two streets. (We're on a corner lot so everything is visible from a street). But we normally approach the house from the north, and the entrances are on the east and west sides. We look out the south-facing windows every day, but we can go for
Re:Standard wikipedia response (Score:4, Informative)
Actually he called up Jimbo and it was changed (that's what happens when you RTFA
Re:Standard wikipedia response (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not saying I agree completely with his position, but just saying how I parsed his column.
Re:Standard wikipedia response (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you read his article? During part of it, he bitches that Bellsouth won't tell him the name associated with a certain IP without a court order!
He's pissed that he can't easily walk over federal privacy laws.
Re:Standard wikipedia response (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah, that pent up hostility can only lead to presidential assassinations, if you ask me.
And on the other foot... (Score:5, Insightful)
His right to publish a rebuttal in the op-ed section is safe, but then he (apparently) has money.
Freedom is slippery.
Re:And on the other foot... (Score:4, Interesting)
Free speech
The First Amendment says that people have the right to speak freely without government interference.
The Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center presents several programs addressing aspects of free speech, including Freedom Sings and First Amendment on Campus.
Free press
The First Amendment gives the press the right to publish news, information and opinions without government interference. This also means people have the right to publish their own newspapers, newsletters, magazines, etc.
The Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center provides a program for newspaper editors and other staff through a partnership with the American Press Institute.
Conspicuously absent from the first amendment ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.") is any mention of libel or such. In fact, the first amendment which he claims to defend is extremely specific in saying that Congress is not allowed to make any law that abridges the freedom of speech or of the press in any way (some will point out that congress doesn't stop people from publishing libellous documents, just punishes them afterwards... personally I consider that if a man tells me "if you say this you'll be fined $1000", he is abridging my freedome of speech, but this particular argument is, I suppose, off-topic).
While I sympathise with Mr Seigenthaler about the crap that ended up attached to his name on Wikipedia, I don't sympathize with this sort of dual approach to freedom.
Daniel
Re:Standard wikipedia response (Score:5, Insightful)
This seems to be a pretty stock response. It's one of those issues that makes me think the average Slashdot geek doesn't have much knowledge of human nature (not to mention law).
Accusing people of involvement in the murder of their friends will make people extremely angry, angry in a way many of the lamers here just don't seem to understand. "Indignant" doesn't begin to cover it.
He's an intelligent enough man to recognize libel. Contrary to popular belief here on Slashdot, nothing about the First Amendment requires him to ignore that. Why would he?
Re:Standard wikipedia response (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think he should have to monitor his entry every day to make sure nobody is libeling him. It seems more reasonable to just hold people accountable for the behavior in the first place.
Re:Standard wikipedia response (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the key. Wikipedia needs to attribute all edits to a person. I'm all for anyone's right to say anything; however, they need to be accountable for that speech. That's the check to keep the balance.
Now, I also understand there is sometimes a need for anonymous speech. Wikipedia could adopt a model similiar to Slashdot and the Anonymous Coward. The key is to make sure anonymous content is marked as such so th
Re:Standard wikipedia response (Score:3, Interesting)
- Users will need to know that you actively intend for them to trust anonymous content less than non-anonymous content, but
- Users will need to know that even though you have now created two classes of content, and anonymous content is explicitly not to be trusted, non-anonymous content is still not guaranteed. One is to be trusted less than the other, but neither are to be trusted. Named content can very much still be wrong,
Re:Standard wikipedia response (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Standard wikipedia response (Score:3, Insightful)
You do yourself massive discredit by pretending that the guy who wrote that blurb cared about "the truth". If that were the case we wouldn't be having this little argument.
I don't agree with what he's done in attacking Wikipedia, but it's a pretty predictable response to what happened. He's got more traction than you or I would have because of his position, but still, Wikipedia do
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Standard wikipedia response (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Standard wikipedia response (Score:3, Insightful)
Let us review the definition of libel [reference.com]:
Calling Charles Manson a "mass murderer" is not libel, since he has been convicted of the crime in a court of law. Insinuating that Mr. Siegenthaler is involved in an assassination is most definitely libel.
Re:An AC Post (Score:3, Funny)
That's what Wikipedia
Get a life (Score:3, Funny)
Since when do political assassins give lessons about liabilities for one's actions?
I wouldn't mess with him... (Score:4, Funny)
John.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Is it really something to sue about? (Score:5, Funny)
My personal interpretation of the above quote is that "someone at some point suspected he was involved".
If someone says "man, that backslashdot guy was thought to be an idiot by some people". Sure this obvious and clear falsehood wreaks of deliberate libel, but I'm not going to run around having a hissy fit and sue unless someone were to say "that backslashdot guy, he's an idiot cause I saw him say something stupid".
What happened to the first amendment? Is anyone allowed to say?
Bad idea (Score:2, Insightful)
Whatever (Score:2, Informative)
From something I read somewhere:
Re:Whatever (Score:2)
Re:Whatever (Score:2)
It seems that on Wikipedia you can perform a character assassination with no consequences, but maybe I don't understand Wikipedia well eno
Re:Whatever (Score:2)
John Seigenthaler founded the First Amendment Center in 1991 with the mission of creating national discussion, dialogue and debate about First Amendment rights and values.
Yeah, he ought to know something about the First Amendment, since he founded "The First Amendment Center".
Of course the First Amendment does not allow one to commit libel or slander. But Mr. Seigenthaler (who has been a journalist for most of his life) would also be aware that the Supreme Court gives specia
Re:Whatever (Score:5, Interesting)
I knew someone was going to say that.
No. My local newspaper purports to be accurate and non-libelous. Wikipedia does not. The difference (almost) is between something in a newspaper, and something scribbled on a bathroom wall.
Meanwhile, you have the right to commit libel, as I have the right to sue you for it, if I can prove that you said it. Seigenthaler has the same option. What he is advocating is prior restraint.
In related news... (Score:2)
Another one that doesn't understand (Score:4, Insightful)
If the ISPs were deemed to not be classed as common carriers, and liable for every action of their users, the restrictions on people signing up to ISPs would be unworkable (if the ISP was to remain viable).
Also, they could then be liable for actions of businesses against businesses.
This would set up being as ISP as a very dangerous business. So much so, that it would likely stifle network activity.
If that's stifled, then businesses don't communicate as effectively.
Nor do people.
Which would seriously limit the participation and movement of his discussion and debate forums mentioned in his proper biography.
So, by getting his own way, he'd eventually end up shooting himself in the foot..
How foresighted.
First Amendment (Score:5, Insightful)
There's some irony for you.
Re:First Amendment (Score:4, Informative)
I have to admit that I was expecting more than a couple of sentences of offending text in wikipedia though. Either one of those sentences could be passed off as misinformation though. Even if he found the author, I think it would be hard to prove that it is libel.
He's complaining about the wrong people. (Score:5, Insightful)
There are probably plenty of blogs and tinfoil-lined web sites that do his reputation much worse than the entry in question, but he doesn't really need to worry about those because they are obscure. Wikipedia has become an intellectual crutch for millions of lazy visitors, and thus something of an institution. It smells authoritative and is treated that way by too many people. The only cure is for smart people who know better to cite better, direct information and to let Wikipedia play the role that its entire structure demands that it play: one big idealogical squabble-fest.
Re:He's complaining about the wrong people. (Score:2)
It should probably be considerdd about as accurate and authoritative as the so called "MSM" then...
Re:He's complaining about the wrong people. (Score:4, Insightful)
Certainly I don't agree with Seigenthaler's accusations, but let's not forget that Wikipedia is far from perfect. Events like this might serve to lead us to further optimize Wikipedia's mechanisms.
Re:He's complaining about the wrong people. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's an extremely obscure article. The fact that nobody fixed it for 132 days may very well mean that nobody read it for 132 days.
However, I do think there's one very simple thing WP should do: stop allowing people to edit without being logged in to an account. There was probably a time, very early in WP's life, when letting anons edit was necessary in order to get enough participation. That time is long past, and from my experience on WP for the last three years, anons are responsible for a very high percentage of the trolling, vandalism, and mayhem that goes on, while only doing a very small percentage of the useful work.
Re:He's complaining about the wrong people. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sortof like most our media, in fact, like most information we're ever exposed to that we cannot independently verify ourselves?
"The only cure is for smart people who know better to cite better, direct information"
The only cure is for smart people who know better to cite multiple independent sources of information. As long as you use a single source you're always vulnerable to disinformation.
And the only way we will be able to cite those multiple independent information sources is if some segments of the academic community gets over itself and commits to freely publishing its research and papers; otherwise Wikipedia will end up being the 'authoritative' source by default.
Wikipedia is a lasting resource if you make it so (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a natural conclusion, but it's simply wrong. This is like arguing that the U.S. Capitol is not a lasting resource because parts of the roof and many of the interior walls have had to be replaced over the past fifty years. Or that the writings of Plato are not a lasting resource because their original media crumbled to dust centuries ago. Or that the Bible is not a lasting resource because it has been reorganized, rewritten, retranslated, and augmented over the course of dozens of centuries.
Knowledge does not last unless you maintain it. Erosion tries to break it; idiots try to deface it, censor it, ridicule it, or drown it out. And, of course, knowledge eventually goes out of date -- some of the attacks on it eventually prove to be legitimate, and the knowledge evolves to suit. Honest scholars must do work, hard work, throughout their lives, in order to preserve the old knowledge and keep it up to date. This has always been true; Wikipedia just makes the process much more evident by speeding it up several hundred times.
Wikipedia is accurate to the extent that people maintain it. The articles that people watch are very accurate indeed. The entries that nobody reads or cares about -- including Siegenthaler's biography -- are not. If Siegenthaler wants an accurate biography of himself to appear on Wikipedia, he should write one and put it up, or have someone else do so. If he wants to be sure that trolls don't deface it, he has to monitor all the changes and revert it to a previous version whenever it gets defaced. (Which will probably be a lot more often, now that he's turned himself into a poster boy for the thin-skinned.)
Does he think that this work should be someone else's responsibility? Too bad. TANSTAAFL. If you care about it, do the work. If you don't care, don't expect me to care, either.
The problem, which you identify, is that people think that the text which appears on Wikipedia at any given moment is authoritative. But that's only a symptom of a bigger problem: there is no authoritative source of information. A "squabble-fest" is all we have. The good thing about Wikipedia is that intellectual squabbles take place online, in front of your eyes, in real time -- instead of being spread out across dozens of books, articles, and isolated websites, published over years or even centuries, each of which is a hodgepodge of accurate and inaccurate information.
Re:He's complaining about the wrong people. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a set of dated encycopedias with copyrights spreading from 1916 to 1930. They make an interesting read. There is a consistent... bias... that seems to fall in line with thinking from bygone eras. Most of the information contained is correct. Some is incorrect compared to more recent understandings of the subject. And some is simply incorrect by today's social standards.
No source no matter what institution it comes from is free of bias - particularly due to ideology. I agree that anyone using the Wikipedia should be aware of it's nature. But I would be careful about claiming any other source of information is inherently safe.
Why? (Score:2, Interesting)
Tell me, why the hell should ISP's be responsible for the actions of their users? I don't see the telco getting visits from the FBI as soon as someone suspects them of providing service to "unwanted" elements.
Somehow I fail to feel sorry. (Score:3, Insightful)
Instead, this guy does the going-over-peoples'-heads thing, pulls strings here and there to get things removed from websites, and considers going after an ISP because that evil intarnet needs to be controlled. It's like wanting to know who scrawled naughty messages about you on the blackboard before you walked into class in 3rd grade, when the fucking eraser is in front of your eyes and you're failing to use it.
I was hoping to see something redemptive about the article, but honestly, all I saw was whining. Unfortunately, whining of the dangerous kind, because it comes from a guy who has lots of strings to pull, and who is completely out of touch with the world he lives in. My $0.02.
Re:Somehow I fail to feel sorry. (Score:2)
The fundamental problem with this argument is that he would then have to spend some time for the rest of his life checking that it wasn't reverted. Why should he have to do that?
Wikipedia's problem is that it's as easy (easier in fact) to unfix as it is to fix an article.
TWW
Re:Somehow I fail to feel sorry. (Score:3, Interesting)
In other news (Score:2)
Or, more simply stated, boo-fricken-hoo.
Incentives (Score:2)
E.g. I get zerged in a game, so I plant some false info about me in the Wikipedia, then call up and claim that their customer put it there, etc. If I do it well, he's got to shop around for an ISP. That's when I raid his fortress.
Without something like a lawsuit, or requiring the complainer to pay Bellsouth to investigate, it seems they'll get buried in silly compl
He can edit at Wikioedia as well! (Score:2)
From Wiki on this subject (Score:2)
Of course they're not liable (Score:2)
Seigenthaler wants these sites to be publishers, liable for their users' content, b
Partisanship (Score:2)
Also, from the article, John Seigenthaler is a founder of Vanderbilt University's The Fr
ahhhh people (Score:2)
What really concerns me, though, is comments like this, "...we live in a universe of new media with phenomenal opportunities for worldwide communications and research -- but populated by volunteer vandals with poison-pen intellects. Congress has enabled them and protects them."
I suppose elite folks
Just Making Things Worse (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't spoil it (Score:2)
Hardly the worst accusations I've seen... (Score:2)
I didn't find anything but a blog [jorgenarnor.com] in English, but it was in all the mainstream press in Norwegian and you can see the original edit here [wikipedia.org]. It also said he was doing a bad job as PM from 2000 to 2001, but I consider truth a defense to libel
goes without saying (Score:2)
unlike the complexities of people who complain about missing features or bugs in open s
Third World War? (Score:2)
He's Right, Wikipedia Has Earned Our Mistrust (Score:2)
Wikipedia's apologists here have already mounted the usual lame retort: If you don't like it, just edit it. (An uncanny parallel to to equally lame rant frequently heard coming from the mouths and pens of equally arrogant and equally naive open source software fanatics: If you don't like it, just edit the code.)
People who purport to be running an o
he's a hypocrite. (Score:2)
In 1986, Middle Tennessee State University established the "John Seigenthaler Chair of Excellence in First Amendment Studies," honoring Seigenthaler's "lifelong commitment to free expression values". He founded the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University
And this guy is going ballistic because he can't find out who maligned him on Wikipedia, so he wants Wikipedia, and the ISP, to be accountable. He obviously doesn't care at the immense chilling effect this would ha
I hereby libel Mr. Seigenthaler: (Score:3, Interesting)
Mr. Seigenthaler has committed the terrible act of jumping from a perfectly ordinary valid grievance (Wikipedia has a questionable entry about him) to a completely bizarre and horribly dangerous generalization about information in general (people who provide connectivity should be liable for the actions of their customers).
Ok, Seigenthaler (can I call you Ziggy?), let's see you sue my ISP.
Wikipedian oversight is uneven and haphazard (Score:4, Insightful)
But plausible or accidental misinformation, especially if well-written, can remain in Wikipedia unchallenged for very long periods of time. Spelling errors will be corrected, sentences rewritten, but facts don't get checked in any systematic way. Two that I personally ran across:
Example number 1: From July 2003 until October 2003 the article on Jack London said that he "attended the University of California" (true) where he was the editor of the university's literary journal (not true). When I asked the editor who inserted it for his source, he replied "it was the story that was spread around at Cal when I was going there. I don't know if it's true or not, but I had no reason to doubt it at the time that I wrote the info."
Example number 2: Wikipedia policy is act immediately to remove "copyvios"--any material copied from a source that does not explicit provide a free license or is not demonstrably in the public domain. Nevertheless, from June 2004 until a couple of days ago, most of the material in Wikipedia's article on Khalil Gibran [wikipedia.org] was a direct copy from a Cornell University website. Nobody happened to notice it.
These are examples I happened to catch, so I'm proud of them. But there are also two embarrassing examples. There are at least two examples I know of misinformation I personally inserted into Wikipedia. One was carelessness. The other, far worse, was a case where I inserted casual personal "knowledge" that I believed to be true but didn't check--just like the other editor who thought Jack London had edited the Berkeley literary journal. Both went uncorrected for over a year.
The large number of facts that are corrected blinds Wikipedians to the existence of many that are not. Fact-checking is haphazard and catch-as-catch-can. It all works surprisingly well, but "working surprisingly well" is not the same as "working."
It's understandable, but people still don't get it (Score:4, Interesting)
Naturally, anything of this nature that you read of the Wikipedia must be treated with extreme suspicion. That's a good habit to get into anyway, because it turns out the conventional media isn't necessarily better. They can do character assasination under the guise of innuendo and formulae carefully crafted to keep them out of legal trouble. Just think of the signature Fox technique for this. If they wanted out to get Mr. Seigenthaler, they'd simply keep saying as they go to commercial break, "Coming up, was John Seigenthaler part of a Kennedy assasination conspiracy?" They don't have to do anything; maybe they'll have a lame and completely unmemorable two minute discussion. The important thing is that they've drummed the following the following phrase into the public consciousness "Kennedy assasniation conspiracy", then associated his name with it.
I think an important thing to learn from the Wikipedia is the degree to which people should or should not be trusted. Clearly this incident shows how one should approach information in the Wikipedia with caution. However, to pick one or two incidents and use it as a representative of the whole is foolish indeed. It misses more than 50% of the data. Consider the following statement by Mr. Seigenthaler:
He says this as if it is other than it should be.
The same kind of arguments about the depredations of wicked individuals have been made in favor of censorship of the press and in favor of aristocratic rule. If people are allowed to print what they want, some of them will print libel and heresy. If people are allowed to rule, then the vote low minded persons will count as much as virtuous people. The problem with this train of thought is that it misses so much. It misses the shortcomings of the alternatives: the possibility that it might be the censors who have a libelous agenda, or the possibility that the aristocrats are the bigoted and low minded persons.
It also dismisses out of hand that virtue and decency may be more common in the general population than proponents of elitism will have you believe.
I am by nature a cynic about human nature, but if you need a counter example showing the preponderance of decency in the general population, I can think of no greater one than the Wikipedia. We all know the spiteful have less to do and thus more time to pursue their work than the fair minded. It takes ten, possibly a hundred or more decent people to balance one nasty one with an agenda. Given this, you would expect the Wikipedia, given its rules of governance, to be an utter cesspool. But it's not. Quite the contrary, it is nearly always very balanced, at least in articles with many people are watching. Clearly in the case of obscure figures such as Seigenthaler, there are few people watching. About the only thing it is safe to take from such an article is that he was somehow associated with the Kennedys.
When I was a child, my mother lectured me on the evils of "gossip." She held a feather pillow and said, "If I tear this open, the feathers will fly to the four winds, and I could never get them back in the pillow. That's how it is when you spread mean things about people."
Then how much worse to spread an evil opinion about people in general?
The lesson of democracy and free speech is that there is always somebody somewhere who is breaking open the pillow and spreading the feathers around, and it's futile to try prevent it. But is possible to get them all, or mostly back. You just need lots of help.
Issues (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm very happy to see the standard knee-jerk "change the article!" defense of wikipedia in full effect. The problem with that is that you're not allowed to change articles about yourself, so even this ridiculous charge is meritless. I also think there's a fundamental problem with the way people are looking at this. For one second, put aside your self-righteous indignation and think about the position the guy's in. You worked with a guy, were his friend, and knew his brother. Next, remember what effect these assasinations had on the country at large, not even just those who knew the brothers. We had people suing for infliction of extreme emotional distress just because they SAW President Kennedy getting shot. Now, imagine someone claiming that you were involved in the death of your friend and his brother, AND that you were in collusion with a foreign power, and sticking it on a website, where everyone could see it. Sure, it might not be libel, but it's pretty close, and warrants better discussion than "he should just change the article! The magic of wiki!"
Next, the utility of wikipedia. I'm sorry, I don't see it. First of all, there's a huge credibility problem, because they don't take responsibility for anything. This isn't something new, every other month we see a collection of things gone horribly wrong, and every time we get a push to fix the symptoms, but never the cause. Sure, the new certification procedures will have some bite, but not nearly enough. They don't have enough staff, they don't have researchers to double-check things, so anything that looks plausible will likely get through. Witness the article by John Dean a couple of months ago, which claimed that he ghost-wrote his books. Not only did he not, as he explained, the article got the number of book he had written incorrect. How are subtle but very important problems like that going to be addressed, when they're being reviewed by someone with too much on his plate and no solid expertise on the subject? If it can happen to someone as important as John Dean, why can't it happen to really anyone?
I've also seen a lot of comparisons to the so-called "Main-stream Media." While I'll agree that the media has a lot of problems, this comparison is completely bogus. Firstly, the media actually has accountability, in the form of a large group of people who get very angry when things do go wrong. Witness Rathergate, Jason Blair, et al. Secondly, in most cases (high-profile reporters are often exceptions), reporters are under pressure to get things right to both keep the editor off their backs (yes, editors do fact-check!) and to not get fired, which is what happens to (most) reporters when they go off the reservation. Perfect? No. But a lot better than the monkeys-at-typewriters approach so in vogue with the internet nowadays. As a friend said: The best is the enemy of the better.
Finally, I see a lot of stuff about how wikipedia is good for quick-fire information, that the things are usually verifiable, and that it covers topic in a good basic way. My question to that is: How does that vary from an internet search? If you're going back to other sources to verify, why not just start at the sources? If they're being cited in a basic article about the subject, they most likely are treating the subject in the same basic way the wiki article is. Plus, if you search the internet, you get ALL the information, not just cherry-picked bits. If we're purporting that you should decide on the wiki based on the validity of the sources, you should be in a similar position to weed out the chaff. So in the end you get more information, the same level of error-checking, and no filter.
So, why is this the great golden god of the internet? It's not particularly useful for its stated purpose, it's shown to often be inaccurate, and any criticism of it leads to a large number of people ignoring the problem and simply chanting "change the article." If we want a collaborative information project, this is just about the exact wron
Anonymity, an honorable tradition (Score:4, Informative)
I was going to point out the role that anonymous pamphleteers played in kindling the American Revolutionary War, which I think we're safe in assuming John Seigenthaler Sr still recognizes as a good thing. But in researching references, I found someone who had already articulated this argument better than I could hope to:
(Full article by Ken Anderson, Editor of the Magic City Morning Star, is here [magic-city-news.com]; it points out how many of the founding fathers 'posted anonymously')
It's too bad John Seigenthaler Sr. has his feelings hurt by what is an obviously untrue story about him. I'm a little suprised that someone with what appears to be both polititcs and journalism in his background is so easily perturbed such ludicrous accusations; both professions generally involve thicker skins than that. he's welcome to his opinion about the wisdom of allowing anonymity - but fortunately (in my opinion!), reality differs.
Hold ISPs Responsible (Yeah Right) (Score:3, Insightful)
Site owners can be held responsible if they refuse to take off libelous comments after a legal request is made, but there is no way that site providers or ISPs should or can monitor postings to ensure that no defamation is taking place. Yes it may suck that anyone can post something to a website that is totally untrue about another person, but unless you want to turn the Internet into a speech regulator and pretty much disallow any negative information then you are SOL in my opinion.
As Seen on TV (Score:3, Insightful)
Instead, people should learn to have no respect for publications without accountability. We already have societal values where everyone learns that statements must be backed with evidence to be credible. Perhaps "common carrier" publications need to allow unedited responses to any publication to avoid liability. For example, recent editing in Wikipedia's "swiftboating" entry [wikipedia.org] first saw a battle between two polarized, exclusive political meanings of the current term and its practice. But now it has settled to an informative version, largely acceptable to consensus. We're still experimenting with free expression. The more we talk about it freely, the better we'll get at it. And now that we do it so much, it's clear that the right to express comes with a responsibility not just to express accurately when damage is at stake, but also to consider the expression with clarity and skepticism.
good ol' Washington thinking (Score:3, Insightful)
Mr. Seigenthaler, it's the 21st century. Anybody can write anything about anybody else anonymously and expose that to several hundred million Internet users. You may think that this is a bad thing. I think it's a good thing. Either way, it's not going to go away. Get used to it. Or don't. It's not you but younger generations that will be living with it.
As for Wikipedia, it is only distinguished by its reputation. That is, on the whole, people find it informative and accurate enough to be useful and interesting. I doubt that the article about you is going to affect that either way, whether it is accurate or not.
Just do what other people do and follow the regular dispute procedures on Wikipedia, and stop behaving like a Washington insider and butthead.
Re:why no moderation (Score:5, Insightful)
Supposed by whom? Wikipedia is at best a starting point for information on anything of any importance. Fortunately most articles tend to cite their references, so you can go and check on facts relatively easily.
I do also notice that Wikipedia has a lot of entries for stuff that might not otherwise be considered important enough to be in an encyclopedia
Why is that a problem?
Re:why no moderation (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, a new feature called article validation [wikimedia.org] is about to go live on wikipedia. See the article from this week's signpost [wikipedia]. The feature will hopefully help adress some of the issues being raised in this story.
I do also notice that Wikipedia has a lot of entries for stuff that might not otherwise be considered important enough to be in an encyclopedia - open source software that is not yet out of beta, cars in video games etc.
Yeah, so? Jimmy Wales [wikipedia.org]:"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing."
Re:why no moderation (Score:3, Insightful)
Moderation reinforces group-think which is the Wiki's main problem to begin with.
Pretty soon you'll have a database of "facts" that conform only to how people want to perceive them. Not based on any actual validation for correctness.
"Facts" are generally known to an astonishingly small number of people. Not that there are only 5 people that know anything in the world of course. Each person in the world probably knows one fact really well. But that doesn't stop 5000 o
Re:Is that libellous? (Score:2, Insightful)
As for living in the Soviet Union - I assume he didn't. Even so, lying about where he lived does not constitute libel.
However I can understand his unhappiness at the situation. Futhermore it is not his responsibility to go and edit the article. Why should he repair damage caused by others?
I think Wikipedia is going to be in the crossfire increasingly since it is not easy to stop malicious content in a very short time.
Re:Is that libellous? (Score:2)
Re:Is that libellous? (Score:2)
In the article he mentions how terrible it is that any Tom, Dick or Harry can't call up an ISP and demand to know someone's details by providing their IP and time they were online. He does have legal recourse, but for whatever reason has decided not to persue it.
What if a gay porn webmaster rings up based on IPs and gets the name for many of the people who visited his website,
Wikipedia and authoritative sources (Score:2)
So, he is missing the point of a Wiki. If he is so upset, why does he not log on and edit the article? I am sure that his edits would be most welcome by a large percentage of the Wikipublic. Yo John Seigenthaler, become a part of the process. Don't bitch about it.
The standard nitwit response, and an atitude that will ultimately harm free speech on the Internet. So you are suggesting that anyone who is being maliciously slandered on the web should get into a pissing match with his attacker? Wouldn't it b
Re:Missing the point (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, he's only using Wikipedia as an example of the current legal status of online content providers and the protections private citizens have. It isn't really about Wikipedia at all.
Re:First Amendment (Score:3, Informative)