[WikiEN-l] Discrimination on Wikipedia

[George Herbert]

Employees of public relations firms are not a protected class under US
anti-discrimination law.

Further, such employees, acting as individuals and not agents of their
firms, are not restricted from editing Wikipedia.

What's been banned is a certain class of commercial speech; no publisher,
even an "open content" one, is mandated to accept all speech from anyone,
and in particular the protections of commercial speech producers are far
more easily legally restricted.

This is a pretty weak legal claim, Greg.  Please stop wasting people's time.


-george

On 12/5/06, Gregory Kohs <thekohser at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Jim Schuler wisely stated:
>
> >Might depend on tax law.  If I remember correctly (it's been 15 years
> since
> >I dealt with this), 501(c) and 501(c)(3) tax-exempt and private
> foundations
> >can run afoul of the IRS if there is a clear indication of active
> >discrimination.
>
> But then also stated:
>
> >In this case, I don't see any evidence of an active policy
> >of discrimination...
>
> There actually *is* a fairly active policy of discrimination that's been
> carried out for the
> past few months.
>
> Employees of public relations firms are not allowed to edit Wikipedia.
>
> http://blog.bitepr.com/2006/08/jimmy_wales_on_.html
>
> The IRS and the appropriate Attorneys General will certainly get involved
> when an
> organization operating with tax-deductible funding begins to administer
> itself in ways
> that run contrary to its stated public mission.  The State of Florida's
> Division of Consumer
> Services was sufficiently concerned about Wikipedia's discrimination
> against
>
> commercial interests (in light of the GFDL explicitly stating the license
> must not
> limit commercial use of the work), that it contacted Brad Patrick in late
> November.
>
> The earlier comment by Earle Martin that "Wikipedia is a
> privately-operated
> members'
> club" is a sad statement of empirical evidence that the Wikipedia
> leadership
> has
> clearly lost sight of its being a 501(c)(3) non-profit entity that goes
> well
> beyond a
> private club.
>
> (Still on a Wiki-break, but this list is just too fascinating.)
>
> --
> Gregory Kohs
> Cell: 302.463.1354
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-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com