Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-09-26/In the media

In the media

Courts order Wikipedia to give up names of editors, legal strain anticipated from "online safety laws"

By Bri, Oltrepier, robertsky, Smallbones, and HaeB

Indian high court demands names be given up

As reported here in July, India's Asian News International (ANI) has brought the Wikimedia Foundation to court. The allegation is of publishing defamatory content about ANI, at the English Wikipedia article, which stated at that time that they had "been accused of having served as a propaganda tool for the incumbent central government, distributing materials from a vast network of fake news websites, and misreporting events on multiple occasions". The Foundation is now being compelled by the Indian court to reveal personal information of some editors who have edited the article, according to Livemint (report) and The Hindu (report). The next hearing will be on 25 October 2024. Wikipedia's internal consensus of ANI's suitability as a citable source for articles (as in this 2021 discussion and WP:RSPANI) generally holds it to be somewhere between marginally reliable and generally unreliable for general reporting, prudent to give in-text attribution for potentially contentious claims, and generally unreliable in its coverage of domestic and international politics (and other topics that the government of India has a stake in). – rs

"Very demanding" new "online safety" laws start to put legal strain on Wikipedia

In European courts, on the other hand, things have been going better for the Wikimedia Foundation lately. In the UK, British-born Swiss lawyer Matthew Parish sued the WMF for libel, because the article about him (correctly) noted his legal issues; however, the case has been dismissed by High Court judge Karen Steyn.

And as highlighted by Techdirt ("The Wikimedia Foundation Successfully Sees Off Another SLAPP Suit, But More Protection Is Needed Globally"), WMF recently reported another legal victory in Germany ("Wikimedia Foundation defeats gambling magnate’s lawsuit in Germany"). The Foundation characterized it as having "had all the hallmarks of an illegitimate 'SLAPP' lawsuit: a strategic lawsuit against public participation. SLAPPs are lawsuits designed to force organizations and individuals to remain silent on legitimate matters of public interest. [...] The [German] Wikipedia article in question names Mladen Pavlovic as one of three co-founders of Tipico, a major European gambling company headquartered in Malta." According to the WMF, this was well-sourced public information. Yet "Pavlovic engaged a reputable German law firm to threaten the Foundation with legal action unless we agreed to censor the Wikipedia article. After consulting members of the German Wikipedia community, we refused the lawyers’ demand." Pavlovic then filed a lawsuit which "was especially intensive for our team because of the unusual number of legal briefs to which we were asked to reply. [...] These usually repeated earlier arguments, and introduced—in our opinion—increasingly thin or irrelevant new ones." As summarized by Techdirt, "that approach seems a conscious attempt to deplete Wikimedia’s limited financial resources [for legal defense], increasingly under strain" from what the WMF blog post describes as a changing legal environment:

The Foundation’s legal team now also has to deal with a wave of new and very demanding “online safety” laws across the world: for example, the EU Digital Services Act (DSA) and the UK Online Safety Act. These conditions force us to be as efficient, creative, and effective as possible, including in lawsuits like this one.

These laws may not have directly affected Pavlovic's lawsuit yet, as it predates the DSA. However, according to WMF, it fits a resource-draining pattern: "The Foundation faces several SLAPP-like cases each year" (citing examples including the still unresolved Caesar DePaço lawsuit in Portugal, see previous Signpost coverage). The Foundation's post ends with a call for anti-SLAPP reform (about which, according to Techdirt, "Some progress has already been made" in the EU and UK). However, it reiterates that insufficient anti-SLAPP protection is only part of the legal challenges affecting Wikimedia projects, briefly noting other concerning developments:

Privacy-infringing laws like France’s data retention law, and emerging online identity requirements, together with laws that give government authorities insufficiently regulated powers to order content takedowns, are also a significant issue.

– H

Gen Z can save Wikipedia from its "existential crisis", Stephen Harrison says

Old Wikipedian at work

Wikipedia beat reporter Stephen Harrison, who is best known for his articles in Slate, has recently been busy promoting his debut novel, The Editors, focused on a fictionalized version of the platform (named "Infopendium") that is suddenly caught up in global cyberwarfare during the COVID-19 pandemic — see previous coverage from the Signpost here and here.

Now, though, he has written an article for The Guardian detailing his view on the future of Wikipedia, which is subtitled "The world's most important knowledge platform needs young editors to rescue it from chatbots – and its own tired practices". Harrison says Wikipedia is currently facing an "existential crisis" due to the emergence of AI applications and large language models, which could potentially undermine the platform's visibility. According to Harrison himself, Gen Z editors are the best-equipped to help Wikipedia survive and, possibly, even thrive in this new context: he pointed out a 2022 survey reporting that about 20% of Wikipedia editors were between the ages of 18 and 24, while also noting the role of young contributors in recent debates on the incorporation of chatbot-generated content on the encyclopedia. The article notably includes a short interview with a very prominent Gen Z editor: the latest Wikimedian of the Year, Hannah Clover.

As for those "tired old practices", Harrison has his say about the sometimes inflexible norms and normalizing institutions of Wikipedia, not to mention mobile-unfriendly editing interface, which he calls "issues that dissuade the younger generation from joining the cause". For instance, he says that the tasks taken on by new editors from a decade ago – ones letting them dip their toes in the editing experience in a low-risk, low-consequence environment – are now more highly automated, leaving a lack of "clear entry points". This in turn may lead today's new editors to unknowingly get into contentious topics where they experience off-putting "harsh feedback" from the more established editors. Harrison left unsaid that there are more contentious topics and areas under sanctions than ever before (see prior Signpost coverage that noted "policies of closure and the formalization of boundaries, rules and routines").

Whether the new generation can adapt to, or reform the tired Wiki, and eventually make it their own as they become the normies, or whether they abandon it for something new, only time can tell. – O, B

How do you give away 25 million euros?

Joshua Yaffa in The New Yorker explains (paywalled) the difficulties Marlene Engelhorn had in giving away 25 million euros through the Guter Rat für Rückverteilung (Good Council for Redistribution). Engelhorn had inherited her money from a fortune that started with the founding of BASF and later grew with the Boehringer Mannheim pharmaceutical company. She felt that she should give away most of it to reduce wealth inequality in Austria and as a learning experience to guide others who have the same goal. Engelhorn was keeping about 10% of her money and about €3 million was spent on implementing a process where a citizen council – a group of 50 ordinary Austrians selected by lottery – decided where the money should go. This included the use of moderators who "wield huge power" according to an academic who studies this area. They have "an emphasis on getting things done ... it can all mean that, in the moment, you take away the possibility for improvisation or dissent.”

Nearly eighty organizations were selected by the council, with an average of €312,500 for each organization. "Wikipedia" (as they called the Wikimedia Foundation) turned out to be the most controversial choice:

The idea came from a Vienna resident in his mid-thirties [...]. He saw Wikipedia as addressing many of the council’s core values: democracy, accessibility, transparency. The idea was immediately opposed by Kyrillos, a high-school student and the council’s youngest member. “We have a lot of other, more important issues to address here,” he said. Anyway, he went on, his teachers wouldn’t allow him to use Wikipedia as a source in his papers—why give it money?
Factions emerged. Some saw Wikipedia, a nonprofit based in the U.S., as an inefficient use of the council’s resources. Others viewed the effort to nix it as a violation of the council’s ground rules. [...]
The Wikipedia debate was ultimately settled with a compromise. The members of the education group agreed to give the organization fifty thousand euros, a small portion of their total.

Thanks Marlene!

The name "Engelhorn" may ring a bell for longtime Signpost readers. In 2015, the Reiss Engelhorn Museum in Mannheim, Germany, filed lawsuits against the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia Deutschland and a Wikimedia Commons user over the use of photographs of public domain artworks on Wikimedia projects. (Cf. Signpost coverage: "Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia Deutschland urge Reiss Engelhorn Museum to reconsider suit over public domain works of art", "Wikimedia lawsuits in France and Germany". While the museum prevailed in court against the Foundation, the EU Copyright Directive subsequently made such assertions of copyright over faithful reproductions of public domain works impossible.) Indeed the museum is so named after one of its sponsors, German industry titan Curt Engelhorn (1926–2016), a relative of Marlene Engelhorn. As detailed in the German Wikipedia article about him, back in 1997, in what was Europe's largest company takeover to date, he had controversially managed to sell off the family's company holdings for 19 billion DM without paying any taxes to the German state, and Marlene Engelhorn has publicly criticized his (lack of) philanthropy.

– Sb, H

In brief

Is this Doctor Wikipedia?

"Can You Trust Dr. Wikipedia?": The Office for Science and Society of McGill University has recently discussed the accuracy of Wikipedia's medical content and how difficult it is to address some questions. What's your purpose in studying "accuracy"? Which language version are you interested in? When was your sample of articles taken? Despite a horrifying lede invoking toasters (see previous Signpost coverage) and John Seigenthaler, the authors conclude that it is "useful and fast" for many purposes, including for medical students approaching their licensing exams. They also praise WikiProject Medicine and the use of classes that teach health science students to edit Wikipedia.
New problems emerge in Iran: Pejman Amiri reports in NewsBlaze about the Iranian government's attempts to manipulate and censor the Farsi Wikipedia, while openly accusing the head of the Iranian Wikimedians User Group, Mohammad Heydarzadeh (known on-Wiki as Darafsh), of "trying to gain higher and sensitive access to the Wikimedia Foundation", among other things. While much of this report is very difficult for The Signpost to verify, you can see previous Signpost coverage of a global ban possibly linked to actions of the regime.
Do it, or else: According to a recent report from OC Media, Farid Pardashunas, an Azerbaijani blogger who had received a presidential award in 2021, revealed the identities of contributors to the Azerbaijani Wikipedia – including admin Solavirum – who had deleted about 3,000 articles on soldiers killed in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War; in what essentially represents blackmail, the blogger urged the contributors to restore the pages, while threatening to send their personal data to the national State Security Service.

A snippet of the English Wikipedia article about "Zionism", as it stood during preparation of this issue. The first sentence states, "Zionism is an ethno-cultural nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century and aimed for the establishment of a Jewish state through the colonization of a land outside of Europe."

Bias in Judaism and Zionism related articles: Many newspapers have looked at potential bias and reliability issues in articles relating to Judaism and/or Zionism:
The latter source mentions there was an attempt at the reliable sources noticeboard to downgrade The Jewish Chronicle back in May. However, it should be noted that the aforementioned newspaper is just now in the middle of a notable scandal involving fabricated news stories and opaque ownership, with Israeli sources first sounding the alarm. See also the ongoing discussion over at the Noticeboard.
Paid editing saga involving Portland commissioner Rene Gonzalez continues: Several regional media sources, including The Oregonian and KOIN, reported that Portland city commissioner and candidate for mayor Rene Gonzalez has been cleared of wrongdoing by the City Auditor's Office on September 16, as evidence about Gonzalez's use of local funds for paid editing on Wikipedia was deemed as insufficient to prove a violation of the city's campaign finance law. See previous Signpost coverage on the matter here and here.
Do Wikipedia – responsibly: Whilst being best known as an actor and the firstborn son of Brad Hall and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Henry Hall is also a musician. Back in August, he released his second studio album, Stop Doing Funny Stuff, which contains the single "Wikipedia-ing Poison Snakes", a solemn-sounding testimony from a terminally online man who keeps going down rabbit holes on Wikipedia, ranging from predictive text to Booksmart, in order to distract himself from "his own head, his own bed, every word he's ever [freaking] said". If you feel like this song is too relatable, just know we're in this together (and many of us need some help).

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26 September 2024 (all comments)

In the media

Discuss this story

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Online safety laws and Wikipedia

It's interesting that "privacy infringing laws" are considered "a significant issue", as well as "privacy enhancing laws" like Germany's "right to be forgotten." Is it possible that the WMF, Wikimedians at large, and the open knowledge community are seeing the negative impact of various jurisdictions, and not the positive? I would fall out of the clouds if the opposite was the case, as I'm semi-reliably informed the Germans say. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 22:44, 26 September 2024 (UTC).[reply]

Azerbaijan literally jails people who disagree with the ruling dynasty (sorry, democratically elected president). I've disagreed with solavirum in the past but I hope nothing bad happens to our Azerbaijani editors. (t · c) buidhe 00:43, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What's happening to Azerbaijani editors is horrible. Is there anything we can do to support them? Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 20:23, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Clayoquot: That's a good question, but honestly, I don't know which would be the best way to reach out and protect them from further personal damage... Oltrepier (talk) 19:13, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

General discussion

What had happened in India and Azerbaijan should concern WMF more than what it is today. With what’s going on around the world today, we could clearly see that government overreach, censorship, and monitoring may tend to increase. Discussions should be clearly be done to balance between security and privacy. At this point Wikipedia tend to be on “security” as we disallow proxies/VPNs and we logged the IPs and the emails of the editors, but what happened if the government demanded Wikipedia to hand over the data of its editors? Most of the Wikipedia editors are living on countries with good record of freedom of speech, but what happened to those that live on countries that have questionable freedom of speech? Like this case in India - would WMF be willing to close up shop in India just for the sake of protecting few of its editors? Hopefully WMF took this issue more seriously. ✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 12:37, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

ITN: Absolutely not the point, but while you're Wikipediaing poison snakes, make sure to visit List of dangerous snakes, which is some damn fine en-wiki work. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jengod (talk • contribs) 16:48, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jengod: Finally, I've got soooooomething new... to obsess about! : D Oltrepier (talk) 08:05, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The headline (subheadline?) Bias in Judaism and Zionism related articles is misleading. At a minimum it ought to be something like "Accusations of bias in Judaism and Zionism related articles"; perhaps better would be "some media outlets dislike academic histories of Zionism". As one would be able to tell by going to the Wikipedia article in question, the claims that the cited media outlets dislike are all grounded in top quality sources: academically published books, peer-reviewed journal articles, etc. If there is bias in Judaism and Zionism related articles, it's not there. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 16:40, 28 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Hydrangeans I personally stand by our articles prose, but I also don't see the point in wrapping any criticism we dislike in "alleged/purported/accusation of" type of language. The body of the summary makes it clear, that these publications do not understand nor like our community editorial process. I came up with the suggested titles, because I prefer to be direct with the subject is about, instead of the intentionally more opaque "Bias in religion/ethnicity related articles?" but I take your feedback in good faith. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 10:28, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Criticism of the changes to the article Zionism in the last year wasn't confined to media outlets; the historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, in a tweet which included before and after screenshots, wrote the following:
History needs to be balanced & authoritative, based on facts and knowledge. Its replacement here @wikipedia by prejudiced ideology, distorted facts, and ahistorical fakery is alarming . @wikipedia is (was) respected & important because it presents facts & history without bias. Sometimes there were duels on pages between historical schools of thoughts but ultimately its editors wished to present history based on facts and balance. Has this page been captured by activists? It looks like it has. If so dear @wikipedia come back: You are part of the wider underpinnings of truth, authoritative history and factbased reportage that we desperately need in our society to foster the trust in information, reporting and scholarship, and the respect for learning and evidence that we need for our democracies to work. These principles are under attack in our academies, our media and of course in social media. @wikipedia has with a few exceptions been rare sanctuary of standards. We need you. Plse restore those all important principles
Admittedly this would not have been a good fit for "In the media" (I proposed on the Suggestions page that it be covered), but as it should be noted in our closest thing to a paper of record I've quoted it in full here. Ham II (talk) 08:20, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with our coverage of this subject (and several others) is an inevitable result of the following:
- Many editors view academic sources as automatically reliable and do not apply their usual editorial judgment to them.
- A number of academic disciplines (e.g. Middle Eastern studies, postcolonial studies) effectively only exist to promote a particular ideology (usually, trying to claim that the Western world and its inhabitants are immoral) with little to no regard for factual accuracy.
The former seems easier to fix than the latter. Partofthemachine (talk) 00:35, 3 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In conclusion, ANI is a cesspool for ~~thoughtful~~ Wikipedia:Drama either way ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 10:31, 29 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A couple months ago, people were saying that Wikipedia has a Zionist bias, and now, it's the opposite. It's honestly confusing and getting too deep into this is guaranteed to give me a headache 💽 LunaEclipse 💽 ⚧ ^{【=◈︿◈=】} 22:06, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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