I'm a little unclear on this from reading Wikipedia's policy on libel.
It seems concerned only with libel of individuals. What is the policy with regards to organisations? In the UK the libel laws cover organisations as well as individuals.
For example, what happens if an article is being used as a front for a religious hate group? Would whether the "religion" was mainstream or quite small make any difference?
Thanks, bksimonb
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Simon Blandford wrote:
I'm a little unclear on this from reading Wikipedia's policy on libel.
It seems concerned only with libel of individuals. What is the policy with regards to organisations? In the UK the libel laws cover organisations as well as individuals.
From what I remember last time libel was a hot button issue, there is little regard given to UK laws as there are no assets in the UK. I was told people weren't overly worried about the UK law, only US law as that is where the servers are held. Whether the position has changed, I don't know, but I've argued before that there are certainly aspects of publicity that may be of concern here, and also that European Union ties may mean assets held within the union may be seizable under a UK ruling. But I'm not a lawyer and I think a UK libel lawyer would be the best person to work all this out. I would assume the foundation are up on this and I think the policy on libel really has to come from the top down. On the issue itself, I guess if that's the law in the UK, then UK editors are going to have to be really careful about what they edit and remove anything they feel may leave them open to a prosecution whenever they edit a page.
On 10/29/06, Steve Block steve.block@myrealbox.com wrote:
Simon Blandford wrote:
I'm a little unclear on this from reading Wikipedia's policy on libel.
It seems concerned only with libel of individuals. What is the policy with regards to organisations? In the UK the libel laws cover organisations as well as individuals.
From what I remember last time libel was a hot button issue, there is little regard given to UK laws as there are no assets in the UK. I was told people weren't overly worried about the UK law, only US law as that is where the servers are held.
There are US laws regarding defamation of organizations too. In fact, several US states even have laws against defamation of food.
Anthony
Hi Anthony,
Thanks, that's really useful to know.
I guess the next part of the question is if there is any mileage in following the advice on Wikipedia-Libel and me sending an email to info-en@wikimedia.org listing all the defamatory statements in an article that are either untrue or unproven in a court (or whatever level of proof would normally be required before they can be stated as fact), I obviously don't want to go down this route if it is just going to irritate, backfire or be a time-sink to the admins or if the slow processes of challenging each and every part of the article in the discussion page one at a time is a more appropriate way forward.
What about allegations against an organisation in the discussion page? There is stuff on there that is even more extreme.
Thanks, SimonB
Anthony wrote:
On 10/29/06, Steve Block steve.block@myrealbox.com wrote:
Simon Blandford wrote:
I'm a little unclear on this from reading Wikipedia's policy on libel.
It seems concerned only with libel of individuals. What is the policy with regards to organisations? In the UK the libel laws cover organisations as well as individuals.
From what I remember last time libel was a hot button issue, there is little regard given to UK laws as there are no assets in the UK. I was told people weren't overly worried about the UK law, only US law as that is where the servers are held.
There are US laws regarding defamation of organizations too. In fact, several US states even have laws against defamation of food.
Anthony _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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Anthony wrote:
There are US laws regarding defamation of organizations too. In fact, several US states even have laws against defamation of food.
On 10/31/06, Simon Blandford simon@bkinfo.net wrote:
Hi Anthony,
Thanks, that's really useful to know.
I guess the next part of the question is if there is any mileage in following the advice on Wikipedia-Libel and me sending an email to info-en@wikimedia.org listing all the defamatory statements in an article that are either untrue or unproven in a court (or whatever level of proof would normally be required before they can be stated as fact),
If you're the subject of that article (an officer of the corporation, a member of the organization, a seller of the food, etc.) then yeah, it seems like "the info team" (never heard of them before now) want you to do that.
If not, then you should probably just remove the defamatory statement.
As for what level of proof is required, what's required in court I believe would be a preponderance of the evidence. But Wikipedia's requirement that everything within it is "verifiable" should go well beyond that. If there's really any doubt at all as to whether or not a statement is true, it should be cited *and* attributed.
Now IANAL, and I'm not an expert in libel law at all, but I believe a statement which is properly attributed would not be libelous.
I obviously don't want to go down this route if it is just going to irritate, backfire or be a time-sink to the admins or if the slow processes of challenging each and every part of the article in the discussion page one at a time is a more appropriate way forward.
Wikipedia policies are pretty clear that the one who should be undergoing a slow process of challenging should be the one trying to put a statement *in* to the encyclopedia.
What about allegations against an organisation in the discussion page? There is stuff on there that is even more extreme.
As long as they're attributed to the person making the statement, I personally don't have a problem with them. I believe policies are less forgiving than I, but I'll let someone else speak to that.
Anthony
P.S., yes, Oprah won her case, but I don't think the laws got thrown out, just that the jury found her not to have violated them.
P.P.S., it's debatable at best that Wikipedia/Wikimedia would be subject to any of these libel laws. They'd have a lot of defenses, including the CDA.
Anthony wrote:
On 10/29/06, Steve Block steve.block@myrealbox.com wrote:
Simon Blandford wrote:
I'm a little unclear on this from reading Wikipedia's policy on libel.
It seems concerned only with libel of individuals. What is the policy with regards to organisations? In the UK the libel laws cover organisations as well as individuals.
From what I remember last time libel was a hot button issue, there is little regard given to UK laws as there are no assets in the UK. I was told people weren't overly worried about the UK law, only US law as that is where the servers are held.
There are US laws regarding defamation of organizations too. In fact, several US states even have laws against defamation of food.
But Oprah did win her case when she was sued in Texas for badmouthing beef.
Ec