Court Says Wikimedia Isn't Liable For Statements On Wikipedia
from the section-230-isn't-user-editable dept
Back in May, when literary agent Barbara Bauer sued the Wikimedia Foundation, claiming that it was liable for various critical comments on the site (such as the ones calling her the "dumbest of the twenty worst" agents, who has "no documented sales at all"), we suggested she probably would have saved a lot of time, effort and heartbreak using Wikipedia to look up Section 230 of the CDA that says that service providers are not liable for the content of their users. Instead, she went forward with the lawsuit and had the court teach her the lesson that Wikipedia could have: the court tossed out the case, noting that the Wikimedia Foundation is not liable under section 230. The end result for Barbara Bauer? She doesn't get to sue Wikipedia, and her actions brought a lot more attention to the fact that she has a lot of critics. I have no idea how "smart" she is as a literary agent, but this didn't seem very "smart" concerning how to respond to criticism of her reputation.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: barbara bauer, liability, section 230, wikipedia
Companies: wikipedia
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Funny how quickly people like this rail against *certain* free speech, yet - if it was something that had $$$ potential for her, she'd be whining about free speech.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Wiki
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
intelligence
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: intelligence
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Writer Beware Coverup on Wikipedia
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]