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| Wikipedia must be sued to stop antisemitic atrocities like this |
For the greater part of the year, this blog has been documenting Wikipedia's pro-Hamas bias. One question that we frequently get is simple: "What can I do about it?"
The answer, unfortunately, has been "Not much." Early on, we published a guide on how to navigate Wikipedia's contradictory rules. But Wikipedia regulars and "power users" are hostile to new editors, and it's easy to get blocked even if you follow the rules.
Wikipedia acts as if it is responsible to no one, and even its top body, its "Arbitration Committee," wields enormous power without accountability. It can't be sued if Wikipedia acts as an outlet for Hamas propaganda, allowing antisemitism and anti-Israel extremism to infect its thousands of articles on the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
The reason for this is an outcome liability shield called Section 230.
Fortunately, the new Trump Administration has pointed the way toward a solution. According to the New York Post, Trump's new Federal Communications Committee chairman Brendan is weighing steps to curb Section 230:
Congress passed the Section 230 provision as part of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 — essentially giving tech a pass for third-party postings on their platforms.
The thinking was that lawsuits over defamation, etc., created by third parties could cripple innovation in the new economy.
Plus, unlike traditional media, they’re simply unbiased conduits of information.
They don’t operate as a traditional publisher by hosting a message board, chat room and should not accept the liability that goes along with it.
But Carr, my sources say, believes the world has changed dramatically since the early days of the Internet.
Social media has replaced chat rooms.
The operators of these sites make all sorts of editorial decisions.
That certainly applies to Wikipedia, which is specifically cited in the article: "Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, publishes consequence-free stuff based on the mostly progressive political views of the volunteers who supply its content, critics allege."
It's not clear what Carr can do to force Wikipedia to be forced to take responsibility for its content. Post columnist and Fox News reporter Charles Gasparino says as follows:
How he gets there is the great unknown among telecom lawyers I spoke to.
The FCC — with a new GOP majority led by Carr — is the top regulator of media, new and old.
It has the legal authority to interpret Section 230, and change the prior guidance that has given those expansive protections to Big Tech.
He can weaken or eliminate the shield by issuing a so-called advisory opinion.
Then it’s up to the courts to decide if they should use his guidance when they weigh Section 230 cases.
There’s a good chance many will, particularly in litigation before conservative judges.
That means defamation cases against Big Tech that have been dismissed in the past on summary judgments could have “standing” in the courts and move toward discovery depending on how a judge interprets the FCC edict.
Tech firms could settle rather than fight because litigation is never cheap.
So watch this space. Focus on this. Wikipedia must be defunded. It must also be sued. Legal and financial pressure are the only solution to the takeover of Wikipedia by pro-Hamas operatives.
1 comment:
We SHOULD NOT demolish Section 230 altogether because it will bring about unexpected consequences against free speech and right of expression as copyright maximalists WILL surely take advantages of whatever will come.
But you're correct that major reforms are in order. There should be some antitrust regulations in the search engine market so that the players are restricted or prohibited from overly favoring one encyclopedic platform to a ridiculous degree, like what Google is doing to Wikipedia now.
Some wants the US to adopt compherensive data privacy and protection regulations, like EU's GDPR, because entrenched editors have been known to have violated the privacy of their "enemies" from time to time, such as having dedicated pages to smear them as "long term trolls".
It's not unlike Scientology's "fair game doctrine" in which the cult set up web domains named after their targets and post pages trashing their characters and reputations. LOOK NO FURTHER than leahreminithefacts[dot]org and then compare and contrast them to Wikipedia's SPI and "long term trolls" page.
Reading those pages, there's the impression that they are denying the enemy's humanity and nuances after all, just like how Hitler and Hamas looked at the Jews.
Some who are lucid enough fear that it's going to lead to tragedies one day; maybe a victim or so will go postal on either a Wikipedia-related event or against individual editors in their homes. If such a terrible thing were to happen the media WILL CERTAINLY finally start asking serious questions about Wikipedia, like what happened after Luigi shot the UnitedHealthCare CEO.
But let's be clear, I DO NOT want such tragedies to happen at all and I hope that there are peaceful ways to get the mainstream media and so on to finally do vibe checks against Wikipedia.
On a hopeful note though, there are a few cases in the past where progressives like me grudgingly acknowledge the problem(s) after long dismissing them as "conservative prattles". We used to dismiss the Russia threat back in the old days as "cold war relics" before they started wars against Ukraine in 2014. Criticism of TikTok used to be exclusively right-wing before Biden took office and found out how intrusive the app is.
Please keep out your good work. You deserve honorable mentions if Disney or Netflix make an investigative series about Wikipedia in the future.
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