[Foundation-l] Minors and sexual explicit stuff

[Delirium]

George Herbert wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 9:27 PM, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:
>   
>> So state it as much as you want.  The WMF is a publisher.  Under
>> Section 230 of the CDA it most likely won't be treated as a publisher,
>> but that doesn't mean it isn't a publisher.
>>     
>
> The section 230 that would seem to matter here?
>
> The WMF has all sorts of roles, depending on who you are, how you look
> at it, and what your perspective is (and what day of the month it is,
> etc).  Referring to legal issues, one has to remain domain specific
> when using specific terms in a legal sense.
>   

It's also quite unsettled what Section 230 protections consist of to 
begin with. Some U.S. courts have applied them *extremely* broadly. One 
still-current Circuit Court precedent, which is binding in the distrct 
Wikimedia servers are located, is _Batzel v. Smith_ (9th Circuit, 2003), 
which holds that a blogger who reposts material emailed to him, even 
though he chooses which emails to republish, is entitled to Section 230 
protection by virtue of the mere fact that the material he publishes 
originates ultimately with his "users", and is not something he 
personally authored. It's hard to imagine any Wikimedia Foundation 
activity w.r.t. Wikipedia that doesn't meet at least the _Batzel_ 
standard, apart from Wikimedia Foundation employees literally inserting 
original content into Wikipedia articles while on the clock. If the 
ultimate source of the content is elsewhere, regardless of what 
editorial or publishing decisions are made in the middle, it's 
Section-230-protected under _Batzel_. Of course, _Batzel_ might be wrong 
and overturned in the future, which is the risk of relying too much on 
law in this as-yet-unsettled area...

-Mark