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

from the nice-try,-though dept

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


Reader Comments

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  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Nov 2008 @ 4:50am

    Old Lessons relearned.

    It's not the story -it is the cover up.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    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

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    SteveD, 17 Nov 2008 @ 6:11am

    Remember politicians; if you don't like it, its probably breaking a law somewhere. :P

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    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.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Dkp, 17 Nov 2008 @ 9:15am

    duh

    why didn't he just edit the information himself.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 17 Nov 2008 @ 1:29pm

    Re: duh

    No kidding? Must be a pretty r3tarded politician.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Alias, 17 Nov 2008 @ 1:45pm

    Thank you...

    Streisand effect.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    methylamine, 19 Nov 2008 @ 11:27am

    Re: Re: duh

    isn't "retarded politician" redundant?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    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.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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