A German court forced the removal of a Wikipedia article’s history
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A German court forced the removal of a Wikipedia article’s history
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Re: A German court forced the removal of a Wikipedia article’s history
#2The way I read this article in English, were the original article still online, or had it been archived by archive.org and the Wikipedia link changed, then it could stay up. Does that make sense?
The article doesn't link to German coverage so it's hard to learn about the underlying matter.
Re: A German court forced the removal of a Wikipedia article’s history
#3>This result is disappointing for us, but it is not a notable change in the law
Bullshit. This is a big precedent where Wikimedia will now remove material from Wikipedia if a court orders them to. They even acknowledge that the material in this case was, if not unambiguously true, at least well sourced.
That's a huge precedent. It only remains to be seen whether Wikimedia decide to fight a similar decision made by some other court, perhaps in a less popular jurisdiction like China or North Korea.
Perhaps they mean that this is not a notable change in the law because Germany is not a common law jurisdiction, and changes to the law happen only through the legislature and not through the judicial system. But in that case the claim is trivial, and still equally irrelevant now that Wikimedia have set the precedent that they will obey courts in these cases.
Re: A German court forced the removal of a Wikipedia article’s history
#4>This result is disappointing for us, but it is not a notable change in the law Bullshit. This is a big precedent where Wikimedia will now remove material from Wikipedia if a court orders them to. They even acknowledge that the material in this case was, if not unambiguously true, at least well sourced. That's a huge precedent. It only remains to be seen whether Wikimedia decide to fight a similar decision made by so…
Wikipedia has already been removing material from revision histories for years for many reasons,[1] including legal reasons such as copyright infringement and libel.[2] This is not exactly new terrain for Wikipedia.
I would also say that I think Wikimedia decides strategically which countries to have a physical presence in, and therefore follow the laws of that country, and which ones to stay out of. I don't think Wikimedia will have to worry about a North Korean court decision, because they are not in North Korea.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CFRD
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_gu...
Re: A German court forced the removal of a Wikipedia article’s history
#5I would think the Wikimedia would stand on principle and refuse to remove items that are factually true. This capitulation to the whims of globally driven censorship needs to come to an end, and will only happen with an organization with a strong backbone and a commitment to freedom of speech and/or press.
Re: A German court forced the removal of a Wikipedia article’s history
#6> "the content was in fact defamatory, largely because the source in question had been taken offline"
Is there not an archive.org link for the source? Or some other archive? Or maybe it was taken down from archival sites similarly?
Re: A German court forced the removal of a Wikipedia article’s history
#7>Three months ago
Why did it take three months to write this blog post?
Re: A German court forced the removal of a Wikipedia article’s history
#8The way I read this article in English, were the original article still online, or had it been archived by archive.org and the Wikipedia link changed, then it could stay up. Does that make sense? The article doesn't link to German coverage so it's hard to learn about the underlying matter.
Well, it depends. The EU doesn't like free speech; archive.org is not exempt (April 10th):
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190410/14580641973/eu-te...
Re: A German court forced the removal of a Wikipedia article’s history
#9If I were running Wikipedia, I would make some effort to programmatically archive online citations, like archive.org does. Imagine some government persona mis-tweets something that leads to article-worthy historical consequences; if twitter deletes the tweet, can that person sue to have it removed from wikipedia because it made her/him look bad, on the basis that the original citation link doesn't work?
Re: A German court forced the removal of a Wikipedia article’s history
#10>This result is disappointing for us, but it is not a notable change in the law Bullshit. This is a big precedent where Wikimedia will now remove material from Wikipedia if a court orders them to. They even acknowledge that the material in this case was, if not unambiguously true, at least well sourced. That's a huge precedent. It only remains to be seen whether Wikimedia decide to fight a similar decision made by so…
Wikipedia has already been removing material from revision histories for years for many reasons,[1] including legal reasons such as copyright infringement and libel.[2] This is not exactly new terrain for Wikipedia. I would also say that I think Wikimedia decides strategically which countries to have a physical presence in, and therefore follow the laws of that country, and which ones to stay out of. I don't think Wi…
We should put up a page highlighting controversial, publicized wiki pages as they are historically significant.