[WikiEN-l] History of "Verifiability, not truth"

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

On 4/9/08, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 09/04/2008, WJhonson at aol.com <WJhonson at aol.com> wrote:
>
> >  That was a little strong, let me rephrase.
> >  A BLP subject does not have the right to expunge any material that other
> >  editors deem has come from a reliable source.  If you show your boobs on
> video
> >  while you were drunk once, guess what?  You did it, now face the
> consequences
> >  :)
>
>
> I'm talking about the case where something simply incorrect makes it
> into a newspaper and never goes away, and the subject can't correct it
> because robotic idiots claiming to be editors read in WP:RS that a
> newspaper is always a Reliable Source. Never mind that anyone who's
> ever actually been in the press will laugh hollowly at the notion.
> Suability is not the same as accuracy.
>
>
> - d.

A sad case in point being the scientologist driven campaign to shut down
The anon.penet.fi server. The Observer was spoofed by them into reporting
that 90% of child porn on the internet is trafficed by the server. Even though
The Observers own readers wrote in in huge volume that that was quite
preposterous, espescially as Julf had put severe restrictions on the size
of emails that could be sent through penet, and yet, The Observer never
admitted it had erred, but merely pedaled down the story by noting that
"Johan Helsingius had consistently denied the allegations." Which is a
very poor form of apology for getting the story wrong.


Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]