[Foundation-l] Interesting legal action

[Seth Finkelstein]

[Posting wearing my battered free-speech (ex)activist hat, not
the Wikipedia-critic hat]

1) Stand-down a little - apparently Twitter is only being asked to
produce identity information, same as the Wikimedia Foundation has
been in other cases (under court order).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13477811

"Lawyers at Schillings who represent CTB have issued a statement
clarifying the action it has taken.

It said it was not suing Twitter but had made an application "to
obtain limited information concerning the unlawful use of Twitter by a
small number of individuals who may have breached a court order"."

That is, this isn't a provider liability case.

2) Regarding "Our BLP policy has worked.", that's a fascinating
argument that the super-injunction *is* worthwhile. If Wikipedia
defines verifiability in terms of major media sources, and the
super-injunction inhibits those sources, then it effectively
inhibits Wikipedia (even if it's impolitic to put it that way).
I actually believe that the accumulated sourcing now *should* satisfy
Wikipedia's verification requirements in the case of the footballer,
and was tempted to make that argument. But given I have a nontrivial
connection to UK jurisdiction, plus I'm sure I'd get a huge amount
of personal attack due to the various politics, it wasn't worth it. 
Just observing, on various talk pages, I believe the WP:NOTCENSORED 
faction has made its sourcing argument poorly. Maybe there's another
lesson there as to relative costs imposed.

-- 
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  http://sethf.com
Infothought blog - http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/
Interview: http://sethf.com/essays/major/greplaw-interview.php