Sheldon Rampton wrote:
> This brings up a question that I'd like answered: Given that Wikipedia
> is *not* a public forum, can it or its owner be sued for libel?
>
> What happens, for example, if an anonymous user with a determined
> attitude insists on posting something claiming that Michael Moore is a
> pedophile? Since the anonymous user's identity can't be traced,
> Moore's only recourse would be to sue the MediaWiki foundation. And
> even if the user is banned, he could come back forever and keep
> posting the claim on different articles under different sock-puppet IDs.
>
> Doesn't this put Wikipedia in the difficult position of being legally
> responsible for behavior that it doesn't have the power to control?
First of all, it's not necessarily impossible to trace the source of the
information, whether this hypothetical libeller has a username or is
editing as an IP. In a court case, the Wikimedia Foundation might be
required to disclose information to assist in the tracing process. That
sounds more likely to me than being sued directly. Of course, there
would be costs to being involved in a lawsuit, even if we're not being
asked to pay damages.
Since we can't control the behavior, the appropriate way for an injured
party to handle this would be to complain to the Foundation and ask it
to remove the libel (including possibly removing it from the page
history entirely). This is similar to the procedure expected for
copyright violations. I don't see how a sensible court could find the
Foundation at fault unless it continued to publish the libel after a
complaint had been made.
--Michael Snow