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A German court forced the removal of a Wikipedia article’s history

wikimediafoundation.org

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Re: A German court forced the removal of a Wikipedia article’s history

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is actually already an ongoing collaboration between Wikipedia and Internet Archive to snapshot almost every single web page to Wayback Machine as soon as they are referenced on any Wikipedia site: https://blog.archive.org/2018/10/01/more-than-9-million-brok... The pages are being archived at a rate of 20 million URLs/week. PS. This is not free. Internet Archive is one of those great online institutions that ne…

What's going to happen when someone like this professor decides to swing the GDPR hammer at Internet Archive to get the rotted page purged first?

GDPR applies to EU-citizens, so I think if the Internet Archive contains material referencing an EU citizen they would need to comply.

Re: A German court forced the removal of a Wikipedia article’s history

#43

Is it time to decentralise Wikipedia...?

Decentralization has been thrown around as a buzzword for the past year. I can see a strong case for decentralizing Wikipedia. Or a comparable offering.

People say it to seem smart. And then you start asking questions and they look foolish indeed.

For example, decentralize how? At what level? Article? Storage? Editorial? Might as well say all you need to build a car is 4 wheels and some power.

Re: A German court forced the removal of a Wikipedia article’s history

#44
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's going to happen when someone like this professor decides to swing the GDPR hammer at Internet Archive to get the rotted page purged first?

GDPR applies to EU-citizens, so I think if the Internet Archive contains material referencing an EU citizen they would need to comply.

How does the EU can enforce anything over an organization that does not have a legal presence in the EU? At best they can force their ISPs to block the website in their countries, but I can't see how much more they can do.

Re: A German court forced the removal of a Wikipedia article’s history

#45
post #7

>Three months ago Why did it take three months to write this blog post?

https://wikimediafoundation.org/2019/03/26/european-parliame...

What does that have to do with anything? OP isn't about copyright.

Re: A German court forced the removal of a Wikipedia article’s history

#46

Is it time to decentralise Wikipedia...?

You don't need do decentralize it. You only need to make it easy to mirror content in case it's taken down. Wikipedia has a lot to lose by not complying (site getting blocked, donations cut off, etc.), but unaffiliated third parties don't. Get them to host censored content. Russian users can host German censored content, and German users can host Russian censored content. Combine this with a notice on every page that has content removed so people know when to look for it.

Re: A German court forced the removal of a Wikipedia article’s history

#49
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDPR applies to EU-citizens, so I think if the Internet Archive contains material referencing an EU citizen they would need to comply.

How does the EU can enforce anything over an organization that does not have a legal presence in the EU? At best they can force their ISPs to block the website in their countries, but I can't see how much more they can do.

They don't - OP is incorrect in their understanding of GDPR.

Re: A German court forced the removal of a Wikipedia article’s history

#50

How does Wikimedia determine which country’s laws it will comply with? Unless they have some physical presence in Germany, why wouldn’t they just tell the Germans to go pound sand instead?

I don't believe they comply with every edict from the likes of Turkey or China. Perhaps it's related to taking donations from Germany, or perhaps they want to be able to lobby its government and the EU without appearing to be a criminal organization.

> perhaps they want to be able to lobby its government and the EU without appearing to be a criminal organization.

It's interesting because they would only appear that way to the EU itself. For ordinary people, especially in the United States (though I suspect elsewhere), Wikipedia is far more of a respected organization than the European Union.

(To be clear, I mean that if Wikipedia says "what we're doing is okay" and the EU says "what you're doing is illegal", I think more people are going to believe Wikipedia. That's an interesting position to be in, whether it's ultimately useful to you or not.)

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