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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

#61

Post by baroffoos »

vbezhenar wrote: post #14
ratsmack wrote: post #5

I 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.

I would prefer them to keep a separate version for Germany which will have additional indication that this page was censored by German government. People coming from other IP addresses should view original page. Surely Germany can't forbid people from the other countries to get some information from servers located outside of Germany.

A big black box over one of the paragraphs saying that it was censored would be effective.

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

#63

Post by voxic11 »

philwelch wrote: post #33

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?

Maybe because Wikipedia is a community effort and it would be a loss if Germans could no longer contribute to it without aiding a criminal enterprise. At the very least German administrators would no longer be allowed, because they could be compelled by German courts to remove the entries.

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

#64

Post by HarryHirsch »

powera wrote: post #54
dmurray wrote: post #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 so…

The WMF has operated in this fashion for years and years; they comply with court orders to remove material. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Office_actions describes the English-language policy; German should be effectively the same.

That's what they would like you to think. When Wikipedia gets in trouble with the law it usually complies quietly and under the table. Public "office actions", as they call it, are used when the Wikipedia Foundation wants to shine a spotlight on a perceived injustice.

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

#65

Post by petre »

vbezhenar wrote: post #14
ratsmack wrote: post #5

I 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.

I would prefer them to keep a separate version for Germany which will have additional indication that this page was censored by German government. People coming from other IP addresses should view original page. Surely Germany can't forbid people from the other countries to get some information from servers located outside of Germany.

Or they could block access from Germany altogether, like the Gutenberg project did after another court ruling.

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

#66

Post by cooper12 »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #23

Is there any reason that Wikimedia does not mention the name of the person in question? Historically, Wikimedia has been in favour of free speech to the detriment of all else, so it can't be out of consideration to the article's subject.

Probably to discourage a witch hunt. The ire here shouldn't be directed towards the individual, who operated within the German legal system, but the courts themselves. Also I'm not sure what you're basing the latter part of your comment on. It doesn't really seem to match my understanding of the history of the project.

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

#67

Post by jocoda »

At least Wikipedia content is still accessible in Germany.

Because of a German court order to regarding some of their items[0] Project Gutenberg blocks German access to _all_ of their books. Now for more than a year.

I sympathize with them but a total block seems a bit heavy handed, punishing all of Germany for a maybe poor decision. Guess this was the simplest way to respond given the resources they have.

Curious to see how this is going to play out in the end.

Back to Wikepedia

> Because of the very short deadline from the legal proceeding—we were given less than one day to take action

What I don't understand in the Wikipedia case is why the deadline was so tight. Seems unreasonable.

[0]. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16511038

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

#68

Post by hndamien »

gruez wrote: post #46
hndamien wrote: post #19

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…

Some like this, with some sort of diff checker, then take the diffs and commit them to decentralised storage + IPFS so they then have no territory.

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

#69

Post by gumby »

rstuart4133 wrote: post #52
gumby wrote: post #2

The 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.

Still being up does not make it true, particularly if it is in archive.org. I have no idea what when on, but given the facts as presented in that article, this is possible: 1. Papers publish an article about a professor. 2. Wikipedia repeats was is said in the article, and cites the article as proof. 3. archive.org and others makes copies of the article (perhaps Wikipedia starts taking copied of things it cites - whi…

Wikipedia isn’t supposed to make such judgements. If the article is on archive.org or anywhere it can be cited; articles about challenges to the veracity of such an article can also be cited and discussed.

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

#70

Post by incompatible »

justtopost wrote: post #53

Brexit is seeming smarter every day. What started as knee jerk reaction to immigration seems more sensible than ever, for myrid reasons.

Yeah, British politicians are so much better, they will produce only fair, sensible policies.
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