[Foundation-l] Fwd: [WL-News] Wikimedia Foundation in danger of losing immunity under the Communications Decency Act

[Thomas Dalton]

On 18/05/2008, Mike Godwin <mgodwin at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>  Thomas writes:
>
>  > The WMF expressing legal concerns about the stories is effectively
>  > identical to the WMF removing the stories. The WMF wants the stories
>  > gone, the stories go - that's the short of it.
>
>
> That is hardly the case. It's always possible for editors to refuse to
>  follow our advice.   If there's a way to compel volunteer editors to
>  do anything, I haven't come across it.

Sure, but it's not going to actually happen.

>  > If the general counsel
>  > of the WMF tells you there are legal concerns regarding one of your
>  > articles, you delete the article, you don't have any say in the
>  > matter, regardless of whether or not the WMF actually demands
>  > deletion.
>
>
> If you are under the impression that I told someone they had no choice
>  but to accede to my recommendations, then you are mistaken. I took the
>  trouble of explaining at some length what our legal concerns were.
>  These concerns included legal protection of Wikinews and its
>  individual contributors.

As I explicitly said, it doesn't matter if you actually demand it or
not, just saying there are legal concerns is effectively a demand for
its removal.

>  > That said, the WMF removing stories because of legal concerns has
>  > always been accepted (albeit reluctantly) by the community as
>  > something the WMF has to do. The WMF has a responsibility to obey the
>  > law, whether we like it or not. There is a big difference between
>  > removing the articles due to legal concerns and, as Wikileaks seems to
>  > claim, censoring articles critical of Wikipedia. As long as it was
>  > just the former (and I have no evidence to suggest otherwise), I have
>  > no problem with it.
>
>
> That's good to hear. But in this instance the WMF did not remove
>  stories.

Yes, you did.