[WikiEN-l] Another "BADSITES" controversy

[Sheldon Rampton]

jayjg wrote:

> I'm not interested in generalities and slippery slope arguments,
> though,  I'm looking for specifics. When would it be beneficial to
> Wikipedia to link to WR?

This statement is an interesting example of the rhetorical technique  
known as "framing." Jayjg is defending a policy that enables BADSITES  
supporters to impose a censorship rule on every other Wikipedian. The  
proper question to ask here is, "why would it be beneficial to adopt  
this sort of censorship?" Instead, however, jayjg has framed it as,  
"when would it be beneficial to engage in the type of speech that I  
wish to censor?"

This is exactly equivalent to having someone like Jerry Falwell argue  
that Hustler Magazine should be banned because, "When would it be  
beneficial for someone to read Hustler Magazine?" Framing the  
argument this way turns the discussion into a debate about the merits  
of Hustler Magazine instead of a debate about censorship. Any  
discussion about the hated speech then draws howls from the censors  
about how the speech that they want censored is horrible, horrible,  
horrible. No decent, right-minded person could ever think otherwise.  
Anyone who disagrees with the censor is therefore by definitiion  
indecent and wrong-minded. And the censorship expands from there.  
We've already seen Slim Virgin put forward the following argument:

> The problem with that, Joe, is that some members of the "community"
> who've been particularly vocal on the linking issue are regular
> posters to Wikipedia Review.

Note the assumptions here:

(1) Someone who merely posts comments on the censored website is  
automatically presumed to be behaving inappropriately. Following my  
analogy, that's the equivalent of "You shouldn't vote for Jimmy  
Carter because he gave an interview to Playboy magazine."

(2) Such individuals are not true members of the Wikipedia community.  
They're members of the "community" in quote marks, meaning they're  
only PRETENDING to be part of the community, as opposed to genuine  
members like Slim Virgin. Again following my analogy, this is like a  
fundamentalist minister saying, "Jimmy Carter isn't a true Christian  
because he gave an interview to Playboy."

By trapping people in this loop of hate speech, you divide the world  
up into decent versus indecent people, and subsequent debate focuses  
on how to purge the indecents so that they no longer pollute the  
"true community." The real debate, however, should begin by  
discussing the problems with censorship itself.

I'm sure that Daniel Brandt and Wikipedia Review have done some  
unpleasant things, but the reality is that they're not quite the  
absolute demons that certain thin-skinned individuals pretend they  
are. Brandt was also the person who identified the guy who  
anonymously libeled John Siegenthaler on Wikipedia (for which he was  
praised by Siegenthaler, a respected journalist). Some people here  
have claimed that Brandt was also the person who called Essjay's  
faked credentials to the attention of The New Yorker. I haven't done  
any checking to confirm whether Brandt actually did that, but even if  
he did, the truth turned out to be on his side in that instance as  
well. The polarizing hysteria with which people here have responded  
to Brandt (calling him a "sociopath" or a "terrorist") is absurd and  
merely makes it more difficult to deal with him effectively and  
rationally. The BADSITES policy is an example of that hysteria. It  
harms Wikipedia by making it harder to discuss Brandt and WR with any  
precision. Instead of pointing to a specific thread or comment on WR  
and discussing it specifically, everyone who adheres to BADSITES is  
forced instead to resort to generalities and loose characterizations  
of what has been said on the Site Whose URL Must Never Be Mentioned.

In another post, jayjg wrote:

> WR is a site that contains "criticism of Wikipedia" in the same way
> that Jew Watch is a site that contains "Scholarly Collection of
> Articles on Jewish History" and "Focuses on Professionalism". In the
> real world these things aren't so gray, though I understand your
> interest in obfuscating them.

In the interest of clarifying rather than obfuscating, let's note  
that Wikipedia has a detailed article about Jew Watch, with a link to  
its home page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jew_Watch

Personally I find Jew Watch much more offensive than Wikipedia  
Review, but I would never suggest that all mention of it should be  
censored from Wikipedia.

--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
|     Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
|     Weapons of Mass Deception
|     Banana Republicans
|     The Best War Ever
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