[Foundation-l] Fwd: [WL-News] Wikimedia Foundation indangeroflosing immunity under the Communications Decency Act

[Todd Allen]

On Sat, May 24, 2008 at 8:54 AM, Brian McNeil
<brian.mcneil at wikinewsie.org> wrote:
> The Wikipedia article was libel. The Wikinews article was after the WP one
> was deleted and potentially contempt of court.
>
> The child porn article was potential libel.
>
>
> Brian McNeil
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
> [mailto:foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Dalton
> Sent: 24 May 2008 16:19
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Fwd: [WL-News] Wikimedia Foundation
> indangeroflosing immunity under the Communications Decency Act
>
> 2008/5/24 Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil at wikinewsie.org>:
>> I'm hardly a random admin.
>>
>> For the Bauer article I received a most concerned email from Mike Godwin
>> that there was a risk that publication was contempt of court, so the issue
>> was an IAR one.
>
> Contempt of court? Before, people were talking about libel (although,
> I think that was just guesswork). If there's a specific court order
> that would be violated by the article, I don't understand why it
> wasn't an OFFICE action - complying with court orders would seem to be
> just the kind of thing OFFICE was created for.
>
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Publication being "contempt of court"? It was my understanding that
prior restraint of free speech had to meet a pretty high standard. I
also strongly doubt if it was published by someone who was a party to
the court action. The whole point of Section 230 is to make clear that
the -service provider- is not the -publisher- unless the provider
itself generates the content. And if the court ordered the Foundation
specifically to delete the Wikinews article, they shouldn't have
screwed around asking nicely for someone to do so, they should have
either challenged the order if they believed it wrong or complied by
an OFFICE action if they believed it correct.

As to the Bauer article "being libel"? Not so sure. To be libelous,
one must show the material was false. "X said Y about Z" cannot be
libel if X really did say Y, even if Y in and of itself is wholly
false, because the fact that X said it is true. Of course, if Y is
wholly or partially -true-, any libel case is totally out the window.
Regardless, we're still back to Section 230, where WMF did not
actually generate the content, so the person who -did- do so would
still bear responsibility for any libel.

-- 
Freedom is the right to say that 2+2=4. From this all else follows.