> Did Godwin censor Wikinews?

Rootology

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Water...#Wikipedia_porn

What do we make of this? Brian MacNeil:

QUOTE

We did start this story at Wikinews:Story preparation/Child pornography scandal erupts on Wikipedia; FBI to investigate. It has since been deleted Anonymous101

17:25, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

* Cary was the one who spoke to the reporter at WND, and characterised her as coming across as a hysterical Middle American conservative mom (paraphrase).
* The Foundation is blissfully unaware of any FBI involvement.
* Content had been drawn from Valleywag which made allegations against Erik Moeller.
* The portrayal of these allegations in the Wikinews article could be considered actionable libel. Both against the Foundation, and against the main contributor DragonFire1024.
* I deleted the article after a highly concerned late-night phone call from Mike Godwin.
* I have mailed parts of the deleted article to David to see where the problems lie.
* This is not a OFFICE action - we don't have WN:OFFICE. Office actions have been severely curtailed since Mike Godwin came on board.
* A factually accurate title would be Child porn allegations levelled at Wikipedia; source claims FBI will investigate.

I can understand pulling the Erik Moller stuff for libel concerns. This is a weird mix of events. It makes sense from a legal protection standpoint to pull it, but there is also the Child Porn story angle. Why nuke the whole story, and not just the Moller aspect?

Moulton

QUOTE

This is not a OFFICE action - we don't have WN:OFFICE. Office actions have been severely curtailed since Mike Godwin came on board.

If final authority of what is publishable resides in WP:OFFICE or WN:OFFICE, then it makes WMF the publisher of final authority.

Godwin appears to be tiptoeing around the authority of WP:OFFICE.

Rootology

QUOTE(Moulton @ Fri 16th May 2008, 1:29pm)

QUOTE

This is not a OFFICE action - we don't have WN:OFFICE. Office actions have been severely curtailed since Mike Godwin came on board.

If final authority of what is publishable resides in WP:OFFICE or WN:OFFICE, then it makes WMF the publisher of final authority.

Godwin appears to be tiptoeing around the authority of WP:OFFICE.

Wonder how this affects Section 230 and Barbara Bauer.

GlassBeadGame

QUOTE(Rootology @ Fri 16th May 2008, 1:39pm)

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Water...#Wikipedia_porn

What do we make of this? Brian MacNeil:

QUOTE

We did start this story at Wikinews:Story preparation/Child pornography scandal erupts on Wikipedia; FBI to investigate. It has since been deleted Anonymous101

17:25, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

* Cary was the one who spoke to the reporter at WND, and characterised her as coming across as a hysterical Middle American conservative mom (paraphrase).
* The Foundation is blissfully unaware of any FBI involvement.
* Content had been drawn from Valleywag which made allegations against Erik Moeller.
* The portrayal of these allegations in the Wikinews article could be considered actionable libel. Both against the Foundation, and against the main contributor DragonFire1024.
* I deleted the article after a highly concerned late-night phone call from Mike Godwin.
* I have mailed parts of the deleted article to David to see where the problems lie.
* This is not a OFFICE action - we don't have WN:OFFICE. Office actions have been severely curtailed since Mike Godwin came on board.
* A factually accurate title would be Child porn allegations levelled at Wikipedia; source claims FBI will investigate.

I can understand pulling the Erik Moller stuff for libel concerns. This is a weird mix of events. It makes sense from a legal protection standpoint to pull it, but there is also the Child Porn story angle. Why nuke the whole story, and not just the Moller aspect?

So much for information wanting to be free. Did Erik send some sort of take down notice or demand for retraction? Not a very Erik thing to do. If done in the absence of such a request it is simple CYA, not intervention from a non-publisher ISP. Also this clearly demonstrates that WMF can shape or even eliminate content of any project at will based on its public relations concerns. Not good from a Sec. 230 immunity standpoint.

ThurstonHowell3rd

In related news, Wikinews received a DMCA take down notice from the LDS concerning their reporting on the publication of copyright LDS material by Wikileaks.

dtobias

Censoring Wikinews? What a Nazi-like thing to do!

Kato

QUOTE(dtobias @ Fri 16th May 2008, 11:10pm)

Censoring Wikinews? What a Nazi-like thing to do!

Yes! I just love a good Godwin irony gag.

Anyway, Danny Wool has a blog post about this:

http://allswool.blogspot.com/2008/05/all-n...-to-censor.html

Disillusioned Lackey

QUOTE(Rootology @ Fri 16th May 2008, 2:39pm)

I can understand pulling the Erik Moller stuff for libel concerns. This is a weird mix of events. It makes sense from a legal protection standpoint to pull it, but there is also the Child Porn story angle. Why nuke the whole story, and not just the Moller aspect?

Because they not only "arent real reporters" (despite their disclaimers), but they aren't a real journalistic venture, with accordant principles to defend.

They are a propaganda rag. Full stop.

Not that this is an issue they are defending, per se. Just that they are practicing the same old same old cover up our asses until we can't anymore modality.