On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 6:42 PM, Marie Earley <eiryel(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
Yes, no action from ArbCom or however, followed by a
criminal conviction.
Quotes from the judge in the criminal trial appearing in the media
alongside quotes from those on-wiki who just said, "Closing this... no
action... trivial... this isn't a matter for administrators..." etc.
Perhaps even a judge who expresses surprise and/or disappointment at a
lack of action from Wikipedia, a headline along the lines of: "Judge
accuses Wikipedia for failing to support victim of hate speech."
There is also the crime of defamation which is also a more serious offence
under UK law than it is under US law.
US -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_defamation_law#Criminal_defamat…
UK -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation_Act_2013
Marie
With reference to
Marie and Daniel's emails
, an
d
to Maia's email under a different subject line – where she
discusses
the US cyber-stalking and cyber-harassment laws
<http://www.ncsl.org/research/telecommunications-and-information-technology/cyberstalking-and-cyberharassment-laws.aspx#overview>
– one difficulty for Wikipedians is whether they would be blocked from
editing
if they were to invoke the law in their defence. (This assumes the editor
causing the problem hasn't been banned, in which case I can't imagine that
NLT would ever be applied.)
Wikipedia:No legal threats
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_legal_threats>
(NLT)
says: "If you make legal threats or take legal action over a Wikipedia
dispute, you may be blocked from editing so that the matter is not
exacerbated through other channels."
This is arguably more likely to have an impact on women. People aren't
blocked from Twitter or Facebook for using the law to defend themselves,
and women are generally encouraged to seek legal help rather than deal with
bad online situations alone. NLT should be updated to distinguish between
invoking the law merely to intimidate and invoking it as a legitimate
defence, though it would need careful wording.
Sarah