DailyDirt: Computers Are Editing Our Double-Plus-Ungood Content

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

More and more digital media is being edited and prioritized in datacenters by intangible algorithms. As usual, this can be good and bad, depending on how the technology is used. On the one hand, algorithms can do laborious tasks that humans don't want to do. But at the same time, algorithms might introduce all kinds of errors or inadvertent biases on a scale that no group of humans could ever accomplish without automation. Here are just a few links on bots tinkering with online content.

• The Los Angeles Times reported on an earthquake in about 3 minutes -- thanks to an algorithm that collected data from the US Geological Survey and automagically created an article about the seismic event. This robotic reporting isn't exactly a new thing, but the robotic "scoop" can't be matched by human writers. [url]
• About half of all the edits on Wikipedia are made by bots. Algorithms keep spam links from flooding the site, and they also create whole entries based on online data, as well as perform tedious tasks such as grammar and spelling corrections. Not surprisingly, the biggest bot job on Wikipedia is detecting vandalism. [url]
• Algorithms aren't free of bias; they can actually amplify biases. Humans can also trick algorithms by gaming their inputs and biasing results, so computer-produced content isn't necessarily more objective than the writings of humans (not that anyone here would have assumed that). [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: algorithms, artificial intelligence, automation, bias, bots, earthquakes, journalism, labor, media, scoop, wikipedia

Greek Politician Tries To Use Defamation Lawsuit To Gag Wikipedia, Is Rewarded With Streisand Effect

from the seems-fair dept

For those of us that tend to take Wikipedia and the way it works for granted, it comes as something of a shock to encounter someone who clearly doesn't understand it at all. That seems to be the case in a lawsuit brought by the Greek politician and academic Theodore Katsanevas against the Greek Wikipedia user and administrator Dimitris Liourdis, also known as "Diu". A post on the Wikimedia blog explains the situation:

Mr. Katsanevas complains that the Greek-language Wikipedia article about him contains some unflattering statements. Instead of addressing his concerns with the Greek-language Wikipedia community through the appropriate processes, Mr. Katsanevas chose to file a lawsuit against Diu.

The controversial statements in question reference the will of Andreas Papandreou, former Prime Minister of Greece and father-in-law of Mr. Katsanevas. The will allegedly characterized Mr. Katsanevas as a "disgrace" to the family and reportedly accused Mr. Katsanevas of "attempting to politically exploit George Papandreou", also a former Prime Minister of Greece. The statements were properly sourced and in accordance with Wikipedia policies.

It's not clear why Katsanevas thinks Diu had anything to do with the passage in question or, indeed, how he found out Diu's name, as this detailed article about the case on The Press Project points out:

An interesting question is how Mr Katsanevas identified the particular administrator. The latter has not made his personal information public. Despite this, the administrator told us in a telephone telephone interview that Mr Katsanevas had located him in 2009 at which point he had sent him notice demanding parts of the wikipedia entry be deleted.

Fortunately -- and wisely, given the broader implications of this attack on Wikipedia's editorial independence -- the Wikimedia Foundation is standing behind Liourdis:

Diu faces serious monetary and criminal penalties as a result of Mr. Katsanevas’s lawsuit. We have offered -- and Diu has accepted -- assistance through our Legal Fees Assistance Program.

The case won't reach the courts until 2016, but in a preliminary hearing the Greek judge too seemed not to grasp how Wikipedia functioned :

In an e-mail interview with Ars [Technica], Liourdis described the situation in the courtroom last week. The hearing lasted just a few minutes, he wrote, and only the lawyers were allowed to speak. "My lawyer tried to explain [to the] judge how Wikipedia works and that I couldn't effectively remove the text," he wrote. "Anybody who knows how Wikipedia works knows that if he removes ... a text, which is verified by reliable sources, finally he will [be] banned from the project. We pointed that [out], but unfortunately she didn't understand."

Liourdis followed the judge's instructions to delete the text, but sure enough, it was quickly replaced.

Techdirt readers will not be surprised to learn that this attempt to gag Wikipedia not only failed, but also provoked a familiar online response from the Wikipedia community:

The administrator noted that the lawsuit and publicity had produced a Streisand effect and that the original Greek article was now hosted in translation on multiple Wikipedias in English, Catalan, Polish, Yakut, French, German, Dutch, Spanish and Italian.

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Filed Under: dimitris liourdis, greece, theodore katsanevas, wikipedia

German Court Tells Wikimedia Foundation That It's Liable For Things Users Write

from the that's-a-problem dept

I've spent a bit of time in Germany over the past few years, and the entrepreneurial community there is really interesting. It's become a hot place for emerging startups and there's a lot of excitement, especially in Berlin. Similarly, it appears that a number of internet activists have been flocking to Berlin. So it's become a really vibrant community of folks trying to make the internet better.

But the one thing that worries me quite a bit about the German internet scene is its very dangerous view of secondary liability -- in that German law and courts tend to lean towards blaming the intermediary for the actions of their users. I learned this the frightening way on stage at conference in Germany, under some very hot lights (in a decommissioned airport) where a somewhat angry questioner in the audience insisted that some comments written on Techdirt by some of our users were "illegal in Germany" and that, under German law, I was liable for them. He stood at the microphone with a laptop reading the comments and demanding I answer for them, despite never having even read those comments, let alone created them. I suddenly started mentally counting down the time until my flight home. I defended secondary liability (and basic free speech concepts) and was able to leave the country without problem (and have been back a couple times since then). However, as a few people explained to me on that trip, a real hindrance to innovation in Germany is this antiquated view of secondary liability whereby sites can almost always be declared liable for actions of their users.

It appears that this tragic view has struck again -- this time against the Wikimedia Foundation, the organization behind Wikipedia. The Higher Regional Court of Stuttgart, has found that the Foundation can be held liable for content on Wikipedia. In this specific case, someone argued that some Wikipedia content was libelous. While the court says that the organization doesn't need to proactively police its content, it does say that if anything has received any sort of complaint, suddenly the Foundation can be held liable.

Of course, this is a recipe for easy censorship. If you don't like something in Wikipedia, just file a complaint, and to avoid liability, the Wikimedia Foundation will have strong incentive to delete the contested language. Of course, this goes against nearly everything that Wikipedia stands for in terms of how content gets edited on the site. Even if legally required to, it's ridiculous for a German court to basically tell the Foundation that it needs to effectively delete passages of Wikipedia editors and then block that content from being put back. Rulings like this make true user-supported media operations legally difficult to maintain, and will increasingly scare top internet companies out of Germany.

If someone posted libelous information, go after them. Putting the blame on an intermediary isn't just misguided, but it also creates a strong chilling effect on innovation.

Filed Under: germany, secondary liability, wikipedia
Companies: wikimedia foundation, wikipedia

Wikipedia Fights Back Against Socking

from the sock-it-to-them dept

The idea that Wikipedia is dying has become one of the Internet's recurrent stories. Because something used by so many people every day is completely free and dependent on the selfless dedication of relatively few individuals, there is perhaps an underlying fear that it will disappear, and it will be our fault for not supporting it better. However, alongside major issues like the need for an influx of new contributors from more diverse backgrounds, one of the lesser-known challenges Wikipedia faces is the rise of "socking", or sock puppetry. Here's how Wikipedia defines the term:

The use of multiple Wikipedia user accounts for an improper purpose is called sock puppetry (often abbreviated in discussion as socking). Improper purposes include attempts to deceive or mislead other editors, disrupt discussions, distort consensus, avoid sanctions, or otherwise violate community standards and policies. The term comes from sock puppet, an object shaped roughly like a sock and used on the hand to create a character to entertain or inform. In Internet terminology it is an online identity used for deception.

One of the most frowned-upon forms of socking involves payments. A fascinating article in The Daily Dot reveals a company called Wiki-PR that offers exactly that:

Wiki-PR is no secret. Wikipedia admins have been aware of the company for some time. It openly boasts of its service on its website. Wiki-PR claims to have a "staff of 45 Wikipedia editors and admins helps you build a page that stands up to the scrutiny of Wikipedia's community rules and guidelines."

It claims a roster of 12,000 clients and offers them this ironic warning: "Don't get caught in a PR debacle editing your own page."

It's ironic, because a PR debacle is what Wiki-PR seems to be experiencing thanks to a major Wikipedia clampdown on socking, announced in this post by the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, Sue Gardner:

Editors on the English Wikipedia are currently investigating allegations of suspicious edits and sockpuppetry (i.e. using online identities for purposes of deception). At this point, as reported, it looks like a number of user accounts -- perhaps as many as several hundred -- may have been paid to write articles on Wikipedia promoting organizations or products, and have been violating numerous site policies and guidelines, including prohibitions against sockpuppetry and undisclosed conflicts of interest. As a result, Wikipedians aiming to protect the projects against non-neutral editing have blocked or banned more than 250 user accounts.

She goes on to explain why paid advocacy is a problem:

Editing-for-pay has been a divisive topic inside Wikipedia for many years, particularly when the edits to articles are promotional in nature. Unlike a university professor editing Wikipedia articles in their area of expertise, paid editing for promotional purposes, or paid advocacy editing as we call it, is extremely problematic. We consider it a "black hat" practice. Paid advocacy editing violates the core principles that have made Wikipedia so valuable for so many people.

What is clear to everyone is that all material on Wikipedia needs to adhere to Wikipedia’s editorial policies, including those on neutrality and verifiability. It is also clear that companies that engage in unethical practices on Wikipedia risk seriously damaging their own reputations. In general, companies engaging in self-promotional activities on Wikipedia have come under heavy criticism from the press and the general public, with their actions widely viewed as inconsistent with Wikipedia's educational mission.

What's interesting about this episode -- aside from all the details revealed by The Daily Dot investigation -- is that it raises some key questions about what Wikipedia is and what it is trying to do. For example, when does an article about a company become promotional material? What if a PR person is genuinely correcting incorrect info? Can they do so ethically? More generally, what kind of subjects should be included? Wikipedia uses the idea of "notability", but what does that mean? Would paying Wikipedia contributors help to bring in the much-needed new blood to re-invigorate the project, or would it simply lead to yet more socking? Those are questions worth pondering and answering because, for all the concerns about Wikipedia's future, few have any doubts about its value and importance -- both to the Internet, and indeed to modern society.

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Filed Under: knowledge, pr, socking, sockpuppets, wikipedia

Should Wikipedia Force All Users To Use HTTPS?

from the politics-of-encryption dept

It would be something of an understatement to say that encryption is a hot topic at the moment. But leaving aside deeper issues like the extent to which the Internet's cryptographic systems are compromised, there is a more general question about whether Web sites should be pushing users to connect using HTTPS in the hope that this might improve their security. That might seem a no-brainer, but for the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), the organization that runs Wikipedia and related projects, it's a more complex issue.

The problem is that HTTPS access is disabled in some countries precisely to prevent users from being able to access sites securely. So when Wikimedia introduced its HTTPS-by-default policy on August 28, it made a couple of exceptions:

Some users live in areas where HTTPS is not an easy option, most times because of explicit blocking by a government. At the request of these communities, we have made an explicit exclusion for users from those affected countries. Simply put, users from China and Iran will not be required to use HTTPS for logging in, nor for viewing any Wikimedia project site.

An interesting post by Erik Möller, the WMF's Deputy Director, raises the question whether such exceptions help or hinder freedom in those countries:

In the long term, the Wikimedia movement is faced with a choice, which is inherently political: Should we indefinitely sustain security exceptions for regions that prevent the use of encryption, or should we shift to an alternative strategy?

Here are some of the considerations he mentions:

If we accommodate [China]'s or Iran's censorship practices, we are complicit in their attempts to monitor and control their citizenry. If a privileged user's credentials (e.g. Checkuser) are misused by the government through monitoring of unencrypted traffic, for example, this is an action that would not have been possible without our exemption. This could potentially expose even users not in the affected country to risks.

Möller goes on to suggest the following:

It could be argued that it's time to draw a line in the sand -- if you're prohibiting the use of encryption, you're effectively not part of the web. You're subverting basic web technologies.

Drawing this hard line clearly has negative near term effects on the citizenry of affected countries. But the more the rest of the world comes together in saying "What you are doing is wrong. Stop it." -- the harder it will be for outlier countries to continue doing it.

That may have been a defensible position last week, when he wrote those words, but it certainly isn't now. Snowden's information about efforts by the NSA and GCHQ to undermine every form of online encryption shows how they are "subverting basic web technologies" in a profound way; it is therefore no longer possible for the West to wag a finger at countries like China that are doing the same. However, Möller also points out:

There _are_ effective tools that can be used to circumvent attempts to censor and control the Internet. Perhaps it is time for WMF to ally with the organizations that develop and promote such tools, rather than looking for ways to guarantee basic site operation in hostile environments even at the expense of user privacy.

This is surely a better strategy. It would allow Wikimedia users in countries where HTTPS is blocked to access Wikipedia and related projects in a discreet way. Such circumvention tools could also be useful for many other sites that face the same problem, and so would be a force for combating censorship and control in general. Finally, if the privacy situation in the West continues to deteriorate, the software might even come in handy there, too.

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Filed Under: challenges, filtering, https, security, wikipedia
Companies: wikimedia foundation, wikipedia

Jimmy Wales Thinks Snowden Is 'An Innocent Party' And 'A Hero'; Wants To Know If He Ever Edited Wikipedia

from the another-mystery dept

A post on Examiner.com points out that Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's co-founder, is interested in Edward Snowden:

I'm sure this has been discussed somewhere. In the media there have been reports of user accounts used on various tech discussion sites by Edward Snowden. He was apparently quite an active person online, particularly a few years back when he was younger. It seems highly likely to me that he would have edited Wikipedia -- most people who fit his profile (tech savvy, internet activist types) will have done so. Do we have any evidence of that, or suspicions about that?

As Wales says, it certainly seems possible that Snowden might have fiddled with a bit or two on Wikipedia, as one does, so it's a reasonable question to pose. But there's a complication, also pointed out in the Examiner.com story:

However, a key problem for Mr. Wales is that Wikipedians aren't allowed to snoop into the identity of other other Wikipedia editors who have not disclosed their real name on Wikipedia.

This tension between wanting to know if Snowden was a Wikipedia editor, and rules that say the identity of editors should not be revealed unilaterally, is explored in a fascinating -- and lively -- discussion underneath Wales's original post that's well-worth reading. His position on the matter is the following:

It is not 'outing' when the user ids in question are already published widely in the media in reliable sources. I looked for a couple of variant spellings and found nothing, so I asked to see if others could find anything. I think it is not only acceptable but highly desirable for people to openly discuss such matters. If someone discovers or knows something that they feel would be inappropriate to post publicly, then they should send it to me privately.

Snowden's relationship with Wikipedia remains a mystery; Wales's views on Snowden, by contrast, are pretty clear:

I personally think in general Snowden is an "innocent party" -- a hero, in fact.

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Filed Under: ed snowden, editors, jimmy wales, wikipedia
Companies: wikipedia

TX Congresswoman's Misdeeds Re-Vaulted Into News Via That Pesky Streisand Effect

from the hey,-look,-there-it-is-again! dept

The thing about this damned internet is you just can't get stuff to disappear, you know? Whether it's automakers trying to disappear offensive advertising, bus companies apparently run by Mr. Burns trying to get negative reviews to go away, or that embarrassing home video my mother put up of me performing the lead role in my grade school's rendition of Hairspray (seriously, why would a K-12 school even do that?!?), the internet never forgets. More importantly, it vehemently punishes those that try to force amnesia upon it, via the Streisand Effect.

Reader dennis deems writes in about the latest such example in which someone keeps trying to delete 3-year-old controversial information out of Texas Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson's Wikipedia page only to find that controversy being resurrected in the news yet again.

The deleted entry, which has since been restored, concerned a 2010 scandal in which Johnson was found to have "awarded 23 scholarships over five years to two of her grandsons, two sons of her nephew and the children of her top congressional aide in Dallas." It was a clear violation of the scholarship fund's anti-nepotism and residency rules. Johnson eventually repaid the foundation more than $31,000 for the misappropriated scholarships, but has been hammered over the issue by rivals during her two most recent campaigns.

And now it will be an issue in any subsequent campaigns as well, and fresh in the media's bloodstream too, all thanks to whoever is trying to disappear the entry about Johnson's apparent corruption. For her part, the Congresswoman insists that it isn't she who is attempting these changes and she has no idea who is. Whether you believe that or not, even supporters of Johnson who might try this have to be punching themselves over how this is all working out. The report suggests a link to Johnson's campaign manager which, if it is indeed him, simply indicates that the Congresswoman needs a new campaign manager.

After all, as we continue to learn, no matter how bad the transgression of a public figure, the coverup is always worse. As one Wikipedia editor told the culprit:

By removing information about Johnson's nepotistic scholarship awards, you served only to bring this scandal back to the attention of The Dallas Morning News. If that was your intention, then you succeeded - as the material is now back in the article and Bernice's name is once again being smeared in Dallas. If it wasn't your intention, then you really screwed the pooch. At any rate, if you persist in removing content from this encyclopedia, regardless of your motives, your account will be disabled.

So take heed, public figures. There is simply no percentage in fudging your Wikipedia entries. It won't actually work, it will Streisand-rocket whatever information you're trying to suppress, and you'll end up with media egg all over your face.

Filed Under: eddie bernice johnson, streisand effect, wikipedia

Eric Holder, The American Library Association And Wikipedia Are America's Worst Porn Enablers

from the thinking-of-the-children-is-tough-when-your-brain's-shut-off dept

As has been pointed out before, the Internet is for porn (when not being used for bogus lawsuits). Unfortunately, the Internet was thoroughly dissed by Morality in Media's "Dirty Dozen" list, which names and shames the 12 filthiest "enablers" of our nation's "porn pandemic."

The top name on the list is a bit of a surprise: Eric Holder. Certainly, Holder is less than beloved here at Techdirt. (Here's a few dozen reasons why.) But to date, we've never really found him to be some sort of Bob Guccione Jr., wandering the Dept. of Justice spreading the Good News about porn.

Here's why Holder is public enemy no. 1, according to Morality in Media.

Mr. Holder refuses to enforce existing federal obscenity laws against hardcore adult pornography, despite the fact that these laws have been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court and effectively enforced by previous attorneys general.

Hmm. Maybe it's because he's got bigger fish to fry, what with Kim Dotcom still wandering around New Zealand shooting his mouth off (and opening new storage lockers), domestic spying and possible domestic drone attacks to keep under his hat, FOIA requests to ignore and the prosecution of Aaron Swartz to answer for.

Federal obscenity laws are randomly enforced. Previous attorneys general may have made an effort if enough noise surrounded the case, but by and large, porn continues unabated.

Here are the other 11 of the "Dirty Dozen:"

Comcast

Comcast gets named out front, but the dropdown text names every major cable/DSL provider, each of which provides premium and PPV porn.

Facebook

Considering Facebook won't even let you post a naked breast anywhere (even in breast cancer/breast feeding discussions), it's somewhat laughable to think Big Social is a porn fan's paradise. Morality in Media says:

The world’s most popular social networking site has become a top place to trade pornography, which we have reported on numerous occasions. According to reports, even child pornography is regularly shared on Facebook and women and children are trafficked on the site.

Oh, never mind. It's completely laughable. It's like Craiglist, only with a UI that won't make your eyes bleed! (Oddly enough, Human Traffic Central does not make the list.)

Google Play

Unlike Apple's walled garden of fully-clothed delights, Google's app store is rather laxly policed. As MiM points out, porn is everywhere ("in every category"). Android also enjoys a larger marketshare than IOS. COINCIDENCE?

LodgeNet

SpanktroVision.

Hilton Hotels

Porn pushers as well, apparently. Hooked up with SkyLodgeNet and timing its porn ads so they're the first thing you see when you turn it on... at least according to MiM's research.

Twitter

Twitter doesn't police tweets containing external links, so the service may as well just be the hype man outside an adult bookstore, pressing Tweets into the hands of every passerby.

Twitter has become the new ‘micro-porn’ service with tens of thousands of porn tweets an hour. Of course, there is no way to keep this from children.

Of course. Children are unregulated entities who raise themselves by foraging for food and following porn-y Twitter feeds. If only they had parents...

American Library Association

Oh, look. Big Lend is hooking your innocent little children up to porn IVs disguised as publicly accessible computers. And when it's not doing it directly, it's allowing your children to peek over the shoulder of that skeevy-looking dude browsing porn in public. For shame. If only the ALA would shut up about this "First Amendment" and keep its computers locked up tighter than an AOL portal with NetNanny running over the top.

Wikipedia

Useful tool or PORN LOCKER? You be the judge. (Or don't. It looks as though MiM has that position locked up...) Because Wikipedia won't proactively monitor content uploaded to Wikicommons, it is now awash in all kinds of pornography, ranging from the merely titillating to the hideously obscene to the kiddie. (Again, according to the "researchers" at Morality Central.)

Cosmo Magazine

I, for one, cannot be bothered to defend Cosmo's "good" name. It certainly can't be bothered to defend anyone outside its target demographic.

This staple of the supermarket checkout line may be as pornographic as Playboy magazine, but without the pictures.

So... just like the Playboy app currently being sold at iTunes?

This publication has steadily declined from a somewhat inspirational women’s magazine to a verbally pornographic “how-to” sex guide, further desensitizing young women and girls to the pornified culture around them.

One thing's for sure: "pornified" is a way underused term. (Also: porntacular, pornstravaganza, porned up, pornundated.)

Barnes & Noble

Well, good thing it's on its way out, then. MiM found nearly "two dozen" porn mags for sale at one store it randomly checked. (Give it another month or two, MiM! You may not be able to find the store at all! Smooches, Amazon.)

Dept. of Defense

O. M. G.

Servicemen "read" porn.

MiM says the DoD has a "porn problem" and acts like this is a new thing, instead of something that's been going for as long as young, warm-blooded males have been sent miles away from their loved ones for months at a time, often while being shot at frequently. Of course they had porn. And still do. Next, MiM will be adding the federal prison system to this list and acting shocked that incarcerated males would be in possession of pornography.

Morality in Media wants your help to "target, expose and shame" entities like the American Library Association, the Department of Defense and, um, Cosmo. It even gives you a pre-written petition to sign and, oddly enough, the opportunity to share this on Face[porn]book. But this whole list reeks of extrapolation and desperation, as if actual pornographers were nowhere to be found. Instead, we are given the opportunity to approach porn at an oblique angle and shame entities and services that have plenty of positive aspects. (Not included: Eric Holder, LodgeNet.) It takes a special sort of mindset to look at libraries and Wikipedia and see nothing but gaping pornholes.

Filed Under: eric holder, libraries, porn, porn enablers, wikipedia
Companies: american library association, morality in media, wikipedia

French Intelligence Agency Forces Wikipedia Volunteer to Delete Article; Re-Instated, It Becomes Most-Read Page On French Wikipedia

from the not-so-clever dept

Last week, we wrote about an organization that was unhappy that a Wikipedia article no longer existed. Now we have the opposite problem: an organization unhappy because a Wikipedia article does exist. And not just any organization, but the "Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intéieur" (Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence, DCRI), a French intelligence agency, which suddenly decided that an article about a military base contained classified information, and wanted it deleted. As the English-language Wikipedia article on the subject explains:

The Wikimedia Foundation asked the intelligence agency what precise part(s) of the article were a problem in the eyes of the intelligence agency, noting that the article closely reflected information in a freely available television broadcast. The DCRI refused to give these details, and repeated its demand for deletion of the article.

Wikipedia refused to delete it, and then things took a nasty turn, as a press release from the Wikimedia Foundation explains:

Unhappy with the Foundation's answer, the DCRI summoned a Wikipedia volunteer in their offices on April 4th. This volunteer, which was one of those having access to the tools that allow the deletion of pages, was forced to delete the article while in the DCRI offices, on the understanding that he would have been held in custody and prosecuted if he did not comply. Under pressure, he had no other choice than to delete the article, despite explaining to the DCRI this is not how Wikipedia works.

As the Wikimedia Foundation goes on to note:

This volunteer had no link with that article, having never edited it and not even knowing of its existence before entering the DCRI offices. He was chosen and summoned because he was easily identifiable, given his regular promotional actions of Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects in France.

This is very similar to the situation discussed last week, where Benjamin Mako Hill seems to have been targeted because he, too, was easily identifiable. As we noted then, putting pressure on Wikipedia volunteers in this way is extremely problematic, since it naturally discourages others from helping out. As Wikimedia wrote in its press release:

Wikimedia France cannot understand how bullying and coercitive methods can be used against a person dedicated to promote the freedom and knowledge. As Wikimedia France supports free knowledge, it is its duty to denounce such acts of censorship against a French citizen and Wikipedia editor.

Has editing Wikipedia officially become risky behaviour in France? Is the DCRI unable to enforce military secrecy through legal, less brutal methods

There is also the interesting question of how a national intelligence service only found out about the article now, several years after it was first added: this hardly suggests a firm grasp of what's happening in the online world. That's confirmed by the fact that the deleted article is, of course, back on line, in French and a dozen other languages. Moreover, the DCRI's ham-fisted attempt to censor an extremely obscure Wikipedia page that hardly anyone ever visited, has achieved exactly the opposite effect: in the last few days, the page has been viewed over 45,000 times. This is how the article about the not-so-secret military installation now concludes:

As a result of the controversy, the article became the most-read page on the French Wikipedia. It was translated into multiple other languages. The French newspaper 20 minutes noted it as an example of the Streisand effect in action.

Will they never learn?

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Filed Under: censorship, dcri, france, french intelligence, streisand effect, wikipedia

Wikipedia Editor Threatened With Lawsuit For Participating In Discussion Leading To Deletion Of Entry

from the skin-in-the-game dept

After weathering earlier attacks on its reliability, Wikipedia is now an essential feature of our online and cultural landscapes. Indeed, it's hard now to imagine a world where you can't quickly check up some fact or other by going online to Wikipedia and typing in a few keywords. But that centrality brings with it its own problems, as a post from Benjamin Mako Hill about legal threats he received thanks to his work as a Wikipedia editor makes clear.

You can read the long and involved tale on his site, but the facts are basically these. A Berlin-based organization called the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy (ICD) is unhappy because an entry about it had been deleted from Wikipedia. Hill explains why that happened:

Although the Wikipedia article was long and detailed, it sent off some internal Wikipedian-alarm-bells for me. The page read, to me, like an advertisement or something written by the organization being described; it simply did not read -- to me -- like an encyclopedia article written by a neutral third-party.

I looked through the history of the article and found that the article had been created by a user called Icd_berlin who had made no other substantive edits to the encyclopedia. Upon further examination, I found that almost all other significant content contributions were from a series of anonymous editors with IP addresses associated with Berlin. I also found that a couple edits had removed criticism when it had been added to the article. The criticism was removed by an anonymous editor from Berlin.

After discussions among some of Wikipedia's editors, the article was first proposed for deletion, and then duly deleted -- but not before Hill's own Wikipedia page had been edited to accuse him of slander and defamation. Things went quiet for a while, and then another Wikipedia page about ICD appeared:

Several months later a new article was created -- again, by an anonymous user with no other edit history. Although people tend to look closely at previously deleted new pages, this page was created under a different name: "The Institute of Cultural Diplomacy" and was not noticed.

That was problematic, for the following reason:

Deleted Wikipedia articles are only supposed to be recreated after they go through a process called deletion review. Because the article was recreated out of this process, I nominated it for what is called speedy deletion under a policy specifically dealing with recreated articles. It was deleted again. Once again, things were quiet.

But not for long. On 25 February of this year, yet another article about ICD appeared on Wikipedia, once more "out of process", and by a user with almost no previous edit history. The next day, Hill received the following email from Mark Donfried, who is described on ICD's Web site as "Executive Director and Founder of the institute for Cultural Diplomacy":

Please note that the ICD is completely in favor of fostering open dialogue and discussions, even critical ones, however some of your activities are raising serious questions about the motives behind your actions and some even seem to be motives of sabotage, since they resulted in ICD not having any Wikipedia page at all.

We are deeply concerned regarding these actions of yours, which are causing us considerable damages. As the person who initiated these actions with Wikipedia and member of the board of Wikipedia, we would therefore request your answer regarding our questions below within the next 10 days (by March 6th). If we do not receive your response we will unfortunately have to consider taking further legal actions with these regards against you and other anonymous editors.

These events indicate how important it is becoming to have a Wikipedia entry -- preferably a favorable one. Indeed, it's getting to the point where some people think that they actually have a right to one. Although that's a wonderful sign of Wikipedia's power and importance, it also means that it will find itself increasingly under pressure from those who are unhappy at not having an entry, or because of the things the entry says. Maintaining objectivity and a neutral point of view was always hard, but is bound to get harder in the future.

Moreover, it seems likely that Hill finds himself on the receiving end of legal threats because he uses his own name on Wikipedia, rather than operating anonymously as many others do. ICD's current actions almost certainly mean that fewer people will be willing to take that risk, and will instead opt to carry out their work under the cloak of anonymity, or may not want to get involved at all. That last point -- the potential chilling effect -- is the most worrying, as Hill explains:

If I can be scared off by threats like these, anybody can. After all, I have friends at the Wikimedia Foundation, a position at Harvard Law School, and am close friends with many of the world's greatest lawyer-experts on both wikis and cyberlaw. And even I am intimidated into not improving the encyclopedia.

I am concerned by what I believe is the more common case -- where those with skin in the game will fight harder and longer than a random Wikipedian. The fact that it's usually not me on the end of the threat gives me lots of reasons to worry about Wikipedia at a time when its importance and readership continues to grow as its editor-base remains stagnant.

We may come to look back on today's Wikipedia as the project's golden age, before those "with skin in the game" started their assault in earnest, and before Wikipedia editors increasingly gave up trying to ward them off for fear of legal reprisals.

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Filed Under: benjamin mako hill, deletion, legal threats, mark donfried, wikipedia
Companies: institute for cultural diplomacy