German Politician's Plan To Block Wikipedia Backfires... Badly

from the nice-try,-though dept

Mon, Nov 17th 2008 4:16am — Mike Masnick

How many times will situations like the following happen before people realize how badly trying to suppress information online backfires? Apparently, a German politician who was upset about some things in his Wikipedia profile went to court and got a judge to issue an order to block Wikipedia's German site. Of course, as soon as news of this came to light, the politician backed down and apologized. So, instead of getting the information he wanted suppressed, now that information has been brought to many more peoples' attention, and (of course) the site will remain accessible. Good work.

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Filed Under: germany, streisand effect, wikipedia

9 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 17 Nov 2008 @ 4:50am

Old Lessons relearned.

It's not the story -it is the cover up.
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- Anonymous Coward, 17 Nov 2008 @ 5:12am
  
  Re:
  The number of people that want to ruin it for everyone else amazes me. Need more people that give a damn IMO
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SteveD, 17 Nov 2008 @ 6:11am

Remember politicians; if you don't like it, its probably breaking a law somewhere. :P
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Nov 2008 @ 7:17am

Someone should put in a section on this event on the page that discusses him on Wikipedia. THAT would be a complete backfire.
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Dkp, 17 Nov 2008 @ 9:15am

duh
why didn't he just edit the information himself.
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- Anonymous Coward, 17 Nov 2008 @ 1:29pm
  
  Re: duh
  No kidding? Must be a pretty r3tarded politician.
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  - methylamine, 19 Nov 2008 @ 11:27am
    
    Re: Re: duh
    isn't "retarded politician" redundant?
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Alias, 17 Nov 2008 @ 1:45pm

Thank you...
Streisand effect.
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Erik, 19 Nov 2008 @ 12:59pm

It is almost shocking to me how dumb politicians are and it seems like the majority don't really understand the fundamentals of the information age. Censorship no longer works and is like sending up a "Look at me" flare when they try to suppress unflattering information. They would do far better by trying to live more honorable lives than trying to scrub reality.
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