<img alt="" height="1" width="1" />Convicted Murderer To [b]Wikipedia: Shhh![/b]
EFF (blog)
In 1990, Bavarian actor Walter Sedlmayr was brutally murdered. Two of his business associates were convicted, imprisoned for the crime, and recently paroled ...



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Now THIS should get interesting!



Good ol' Calton...

I assume all the BLP fanatics will be supporting this unfortunate chap who's having one little event from his distant past blown up out of all proportion by some nasty defamation machine.

Everyone knows you're just trolling, but I want to point out that there are no articles on Manfred Lauber or Wolfgang Werlé. I assume that if there were, then yes, the BLP fanatics would be arguing for their deletion. Why don't you create some and find out?

It's interesting that the EFF, who have always stated that Section 230 of the CDA intended to protect websites by defining them as "service providers" rather than as "publishers," would carry this line in the article to bolster their claim that the two German ex-cons should not have their names removed from WP:
The fact is, from an encyclopedic standpoint (as opposed to a revenge-against-murderers standpoint), there's no reason to actually name these two men - it would be perfectly adequate to change this:...to this:
Having said that, revenge against murderers is far, far, far more acceptable from a social/cultural perspective than revenge against ex-spouses, ex-lovers, ex-employers, guys who ripped you off on used car purchases, college professors who gave you a bad grade in Econ 101, or some guy who wrote a bad review about your failed first novel. The real question is, is anyone on Wikipedia really qualified to judge when naming people like this is beneficial for society at large, and when it isn't? Sure doesn't look that way.

The Free Kulture types seems to be scaling down their efforts after taking on the Internet Watch Foundation and National Portrait Gallery. Those causes might have been wrong headed but they at least they were aggressive and confident. Making a cause off of some hopelessly unpopular murderer rotting in prison who files some ill advised court action seems a little weak.

I have no great desire to publicise their names as you have done. (I assume this is a Google-able forum.)

The names are mentioned in the EFF's document and in the WP article, both already linked from this thread.

And in this big, fat Wired article.......

All the less reason to give the names further publicity, no?

The tech press is pathetic. This is a mere assertion of what German law says by an advocate on behalf of the convicts. It is not state action in any way. Framing this in terms of "censorship" is self indulgent.

In what sense does the article suggest this is "state action"?

Passing a law permitting or encouraging private action to suppress publication of things is a state action, even if the particular application of it is not. A judge agreeing with the private parties and imposing an order of suppression would also be state action, if it happens.

There are lots of different definitions of "censorship", some of which require state action and others that encompass any situation where outside parties beyond the writers and editors involved compel the removal or alteration of a publication. Since few will admit to being in favor of censorship, people will play a game of intellectual Twister to contort the definition and the facts of particular cases so that things they disagree with are censorship while things they agree with are not.

The court action was ill-advised. In terms of the person getting his name removed from public record, well now its done the opposite effect. It's been published in many news stories now around the media world, ignoring the request not to name him. I doubt they can legally stop the naming countries outside of German territory. The best they could have hoped to achieve is to prevent the German wiki from naming him, which is little consolation now.

The "Streisand Effect" is one name that's been given to the phenomenon that, in the Internet age, an attempt to suppress information is more likely to publicize it, after an attempt by Barbra Streisand (a high school classmate of my mom's, by the way -- Erasmus Hall High School, Brooklyn, class of 1959) to force takedown of a coastal California aerial picture that showed her mansion.

The four paragraph article has two references to The First Amendment which applies only to state action. It cites LICRA vc. Yahoo which involves the enforcement of a French court order by an American court which was of course state action. Here there is no foreign order to be enforced, only the Plaintiffs pleadings. It is not established here that either the German courts would grant the plaintiff any relief nor that if they did if the Plaintiff would seek enforcement in American courts.

The relevance of the First Amendment is that it is what would be used to defeat any attempt to enforce a ruling on this subject against US-based Wikipedia entities should it come to court.

The purpose of the reference to the First Amendment in a foreign suit over a spurious and unsympathetic claim is to give another occasion for libertarian whining.

Surely the C&D claims that state action will be taken if the material is not censored.

Wolfgang Werlé is now valid as of the time I'm posting this.

Maybe Jimbo will step in and delete the article anyway, citing "human dignity", just like he did with that child molester's biography.

I'm sorry, but certain people just don't deserve BLP protections.