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

[Mike Godwin]

Todd Allen writes:

> On that, I would agree. However, when it -is- WMF taking an official
> action, it should be clearly marked as such. If it is not, it should
> be made absolutely, 100% clear that this is "Mike Godwin, the editor"
> not "Mike Godwin, the WMF representative" putting forth the position.

My closet has room for more than two hats.  I understand you would  
prefer that I wear only a black hat or a white hat, but the real world  
has a knack for thumbing its nose at us when we try to impose binary  
categories.

> What should be studiously avoided (ESPECIALLY in cases where the
> material at issue is critical of WMF) is some grey area between the
> two.

I agree it should be avoided, if possible, and if avoiding it does not  
entail legal risks. It should be noted that one of the stories that  
was removed was not at all critical of WMF, so far as I know. The  
other one was absolutely legally actionable, but not because it was  
critical of WMF.  If we followed your rule, then you'd have given  
defamers a great "gotcha" card to play -- all they have to get us into  
an editorial fight is make sure they accompany whatever libel they  
post about someone else with a criticism of WMF.  Then if WMF uses an  
OFFICE action to remove libelous material, they can cry "censorship!"  
and trigger a flame war on the lists.

Yes, yes, that would be far more productive than simply contacting an  
editor and explaining what is urgently wrong with an article.


--Mike