I think you're indulging in the common tendency of inferring that if WMF did not do something a decade ago that it had the legal right to do, it follows that it lacked the moral courage to do that thing (or else that it had moral courage then but lacks it now--the moral-judgment fantasy can run in both directions).

Given that concern about disinformation on Wikipedia and elsewhere was less prominent in public discourse a decade ago, Occam's Razor suggests that the primary reason for any change in willingness to engage in top-down intervention was that disinformation was perceived, rightly or wrongly, as less of problem. In addition, you assert (without any facts offered in support) that WMF was just as well-positioned to directly intervene in disinformation problems a decade ago as they may be now, or as they may soon be. This doesn't seem to be grounded in anything other than prejudgment.

But if moral condemnation based on presumption of a lack of ... some virtue or other ... floats your boat, who am I to detract from your innocent fun?

Mike

On Sun, Aug 22, 2021 at 12:59 PM Andreas Kolbe <jayen466@gmail.com> wrote:

Well, that was the difference I was referring to. (I wasn't really thinking of content found libellous in court, child pornography etc.)

What is new is that the WMF is expressing an interest in the actual integrity of the encyclopedic content, hiring staff to address "misleading content", "disinformation", etc., rather than restricting itself to deletions required by law.

The WMF's recent action concerning the Croatian Wikipedia surely is an example of this shift. The WMF had the means – but not the will – to do what it has done now, ten years ago.

In a similar way, I understand that content added by ISIS sympathisers is a problem in the Arabic and Farsi Wikipedia versions that the WMF is now trying to address.

Andreas

On Sun, Aug 22, 2021 at 1:31 PM Mike Godwin <mnemonic@gmail.com> wrote:

Andreas Kolbe writes:

It's worth noting that Yumiko's article (now also on fastcompany.com)
quotes the WMF as saying it "does *not often* get involved in issues
related to the creation and maintenance of content on the site."

That "not often" actually indicates a little publicised but significant
departure from past practice when the WMF would disclaim all responsibility
for content ....

WMF did not "disclaim all responsibility for content." Instead, WMF disclaimed primary responsibility for content, and still does. When WMF was understaffed, as it typically was during Wikipedia's first decade, we made a point of steering certain complaints and legal demands to the editor community as a default choice. The policy reasons for this choice were straightforward. But WMF directly intervened on a number of occasions, typically as required by law.

Mike Godwin

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