There are two possible discussions:
1) a discussion about the legal requirements - please leave this to
the legal experts. I'm confident that Mike Godwin keeps an eye onto
it, and if he doesn't you could solicit the advice of a legal expert,
and bring that advice to him or the WMF ED/board.
2) a discussion on whether we want to make Wikimedia better accessible
to people having significant problems with a category of content. -
that discussion be held here, if the necessary data is found (as laid
out in a previous email).
best, eia
2009/11/18 Delirium <delirium(a)hackish.org>rg>:
George Herbert wrote:
On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 9:27 PM, Anthony
<wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:
So state it as much as you want. The WMF is a
publisher. Under
Section 230 of the CDA it most likely won't be treated as a publisher,
but that doesn't mean it isn't a publisher.
The section 230 that would seem to matter here?
The WMF has all sorts of roles, depending on who you are, how you look
at it, and what your perspective is (and what day of the month it is,
etc). Referring to legal issues, one has to remain domain specific
when using specific terms in a legal sense.
It's also quite unsettled what Section 230 protections consist of to
begin with. Some U.S. courts have applied them *extremely* broadly. One
still-current Circuit Court precedent, which is binding in the distrct
Wikimedia servers are located, is _Batzel v. Smith_ (9th Circuit, 2003),
which holds that a blogger who reposts material emailed to him, even
though he chooses which emails to republish, is entitled to Section 230
protection by virtue of the mere fact that the material he publishes
originates ultimately with his "users", and is not something he
personally authored. It's hard to imagine any Wikimedia Foundation
activity w.r.t. Wikipedia that doesn't meet at least the _Batzel_
standard, apart from Wikimedia Foundation employees literally inserting
original content into Wikipedia articles while on the clock. If the
ultimate source of the content is elsewhere, regardless of what
editorial or publishing decisions are made in the middle, it's
Section-230-protected under _Batzel_. Of course, _Batzel_ might be wrong
and overturned in the future, which is the risk of relying too much on
law in this as-yet-unsettled area...
-Mark
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