Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-12-24/In the media
Delhi High Court considers Caravan and Ken for evaluating the ANI vs. WMF case
Delhi High Court Justice will read the sources
Bar and Bench, an Indian source for news on the judicial system, reported that Justice Subramonium Prasad, who is hearing the Wikimedia Foundation's appeal of a possible injunction in the Asian News International case, has said that he will read the sources used to reference the alleged defamation, with a particular focus on articles published by The Caravan and The Ken. A similar article appeared in Medianama. If the sources cited support the text included in the Wikipedia article about ANI, then Justice Prasad may not impose an injunction upon the WMF.
As per the Bar and Bench report, the Justice said that "the courts in case of 19 1(a) ... have said that injunction must be exception and not the rule. Keeping that in mind, I have to then look into the question of irreparable loss, prima facie case and balance of connivance."
"I will also read the articles ... to see whether the (edits) are borne out of the articles or not. Obviously, if they are not borne out of the articles, they cannot do it [publish the claims]. Therefore, I can, to that extent, even ask them to take down those offending statements," the Court said.
The Court added that if it finds that such inference, as made in the edits, can be drawn from the articles, then it may not pass a takedown order.
However, it also wondered whether it can go into such detail at the interim stage.
"This is an understanding of the editor of what the source means. If the understanding is so defamatory that it is relying on something which actually does not mean it at all, then the person can be restrained... again the question is even if it can be understood in that way, then would the court go deeper into that aspect to come to a conclusion as to whether in no circumstances can it be construed it as that at all."
Pertinently, The Caravan and The Ken are not party to ANI's defamation suit before the High Court.
The defamation suit was filed alleging that Wikipedia was allowing defamatory edits to its page on the online encyclopedia.
The Court also said it would later examine whether Wikipedia is only an intermediary or a publisher to whom different rules will apply.
–Bar and Bench
Justice Prasad may not even have too much reading to do. As of July 1, 2024, just before ANI filed their lawsuit, there were only two references to The Caravan in the whole article about the news agency:
- "The Image Makers – How ANI reports the government's version of truth" (behind paywall, cited 28 times);
- "ANI, Srivastava Group named in massive EU disinformation campaign to promote Modi government's interests" (not paywalled, cited only once);
And just one reference to The Ken:
- "How ANI quietly built a monopoly" (paywalled, cited 12 times).
The page contains eight more news stories cited from Alt News, BBC, The Diplomat, The Guardian, Le Monde, Newslaundry, Outlook magazine, and Politico.
See previous Signpost coverage about the ongoing case here and here. – S
Prison or worse: the stories of volunteers imprisoned for editing Wikipedia
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In a recent article for Boing Boing, named "From keyboard to prison cell: The dangerous side of Wikipedia editing", Ellsworth Toohey reminds us of four Wikipedia editors who have been imprisoned and one editor who has been executed for editing Wikipedia.
- Bassel Khartabil was a Syrian open source software developer, who had worked with Creative Commons, Wikipedia, Mozilla and other open source projects; he was arbitrarily arrested in March 2012 and tortured, before being charged with "spying for an enemy State" and sent to the Adra Prison in Damascus. Despite the global efforts to secure his release, Khartabil was executed shortly after being transferred from the Adra Prison in 2015.
- Osama Khalid and Ziyad al-Sofiani are two Saudi medical doctors and Wikipedia volunteers who were arrested in 2020 for "swaying public opinion" and "violating public morals". Khalid (formerly an admin on the Arabic Wikipedia) received a five-year prison sentence, which was later increased to 32 years, while al-Sofiani received an eight-year sentence.
- Pavel Pernikaŭ is a Belarusian human rights activist and Wikipedia editor was sentenced to two years in prison in April 2022 for "discrediting the Republic of Belarus" through editing activity that had taken place before the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He was reportedly released in August 2023.
- Mark Bernstein is a Belarusian blogger and contributor to the Russian Wikipedia who spent several weeks in jail awaiting trial apparently based on an alleged violation of a Russian law rather than a Belarusian one. He was arrested on March 11, 2022, then released from custody on June 24, when he received a sentence of three years of restricted freedom for "organizing and preparing activities that disrupt social order".
See List of people imprisoned for editing Wikipedia and previous coverage in the Signpost. – S
Morrissey: Wikipedia not "intelligent enough to set the record straight"
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The Smiths' former frontman Morrissey laments what he considers to be inaccuracies on the Wikipedia page about him. As reported by NME, Morrissey listed the purported inaccuracies about his alleged past affiliations to two different punk rock bands: The Nosebleeds – briefly active between 1976 and 1978 – and Slaughter & the Dogs – formed in 1975 and still going. Morrissey's "Madness" missive, posted on his own website on December 1, stated:
“Wikipedia confidently list me as an ex-member of Slaughter And The Dogs, and an ex-member of The Nosebleeds. I did not ever join The Nosebleeds and I have no connection whatsoever with Slaughter And The Dogs. Is there anyone at Wikipedia intelligent enough to set the record straight? Probably not.”
But somebody has been quick enough to edit out details about both bands from Morrissey’s article, with a few users engaging in reciprocal reverts. The page, which has been white-locked for a while now, no longer contains any reference to Slaughter and The Dogs; on the other hand, phrases about Morrissey’s ties to The Nosebleeds both in the introduction and the "Early life" section are now referenced by the NME article. The Wikipedia page about the Nosebleeds had also been modified to reflect Morrissey’s claims, before user Martey reverted the edits. The article for Slaughter & the Dogs has actually stayed untouched since October 21, and never included any major reference to Morrissey.
Morrissey is not shy about controversies, and he might have a point, so Stereogum put together a lengthy investigation on his past relationships with both bands. According to their report, in John Robb’s 2006 oral history Punk Rock, Slaughter & the Dogs' guitarist Mick Rossi stated that Morrissey auditioned for the band right after their first singer, Wayne Barrett-McGrath, had departed. Morrissey recorded four demos in the process, but none of these recordings have ever surfaced, and the artist never joined the group on a stable basis.
However, the game gets trickier when discussing The Nosebleeds. The Italian edition of Rolling Stone noted that the only significant reference to that band left on Morrissey's Wikipedia page, which mentions that Morrissey had agreed to join them as the lead vocalist in November 1977, is supported by a citation of David Bret's 2004 biography Morrissey: Scandal and Passion. The Stereogum report managed to find an even older source supporting this version: Johnny Rogan's 1992 biography Morrissey & Marr: The Severed Alliance, where a mutual friend of the future Smiths leader and his fellow member Johnny Marr confirmed that Morrissey had briefly joined The Nosebleeds, while Rogan himself stated that the artist had even co-written several of the group's songs with guitarist Billy Duffy.
Duffy's website provides more evidence of Morrissey's involvement with the punk rock band, as he joined him for at least two live gigs in 1978, the latter of which was even reviewed by NME, and later recreated in the 2017 biographical film England Is Mine. To his credit, Morrissey did acknowledge this performance in his 2013 memoir Autobiography, but insisted that it was a one-off and that he was "lumbered" with the line-up for that evening being billed as The Nosebleeds.
So, while Stereogum tried their best to fact-check Morrissey's claims, it’s safe to say that the trip down his past music ventures is just as confusing as some of the various recent controversies. Still, as suggested by the magazine, if anyone manages to put the man himself "in touch with Mr. Wikipedia", maybe we can finally "set the record straight". Let us just make all those involved aware of the rules on paid editing and COI, and let a reliable source sort it all out before editing the articles again. – O
In brief
- Wikipedia-ing Kimchi snakes: Josiah Gogarty reported for the UK edition of GQ on how "Wikipedia boyfriends" have resorted to binge-searching on the site as a healthier alternative to doomscrolling, even noting that a study published in the American Political Science Review in March 2023 had named the encyclopedia "the last good place on the internet".
- More Wiki sociology: Shakespeare and dreck: Annie Rauwerda, of Depths of Wikipedia fame, explained to Boing Boing why our seven-year-long yogurt spelling war was "longer than three Shakespeare plays", why WikiProjects such as Military history and Tropical cyclones are so respected, and why biographies of social media influencers are dreck.
- Wikipedia's coverage of COVID-19 deemed hard-to-read: A long paper published in the Universal Access in the Information Society last November analyzed the readability of information about COVID-19 on Wikipedia. As per the paper: "A total of 36 Wikipedia pages on COVID-19 were analyzed with 7 validated indices. The results revealed that the text in Wikipedia pages on COVID-19 is difficult to read and is suitable primarily for advanced readers. All pages are above the recommended readability level, and none of the pages are suitable for the general public."
- JPost reports on recent ArbCom verdict on Palestine-Israel articles: In "Wikipedia suspends pro-Palestine editors coordinating efforts behind the scenes", the Jerusalem Post commented on the recent Arbitration Committee decision on a new case involving Palestine-Israel articles (see prior Signpost coverage), and media coverage of PIA. JPost states that "an arbitration committee set up by Wikipedia for 'Palestine-Israel Cases' has banned two editors indefinitely and imposed restrictions on three others." The Signpost notes that user Ïvana was banned in a private-evidence case, but we're unable to find a second banned editor in the public case, named Palestine-Israel articles 5.
- Xmas cram session "like reading War and Peace": As per the Daily Mirror, Irish actor Nicola Coughlan said she didn't know anything about Doctor Who when she was cast for a part on the series' newest Christmas special, "Joy to the World", and that cramming on the related Wikipedia article was "like reading War and Peace".
- Long Live Regina Claudia: Italian newspaper la Repubblica recently interviewed and made a reference to the it.wiki article for supercentenarian Claudia Baccarini, which is currently the joint-eighth oldest living person in the world (together with Izabel Rosa Pereira), according to the Gerontology Research Group. Baccarini, who turned 114 on 13 October, is also the oldest living person in Italy, having first gained the special crown following the death of Domenica Ercolani in November 2023.
- Wikipedia blocked in Edinburgh schools: According to Glasgow-based newspaper The Herald, schools in Edinburgh have had Wikipedia blocked from access on school devices, but it wasn't clear if it was intentional. As per the report, the main goal of the block was actually to prevent access to any search engine other than Google over pre-existing concerns with online safety and filtering systems.
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