The Danger of Wikipedia

Editor & Publisher ^ | November 30, 2005 | Jay DeFoore

[billorites]

NEW YORK Although many in and especially outside the online news industry have lauded the power of citizens' media and the self-correcting "wisdom of the crowd" ethos, little attention has been given to the very real dangers that come when people are allowed to post anything they want anonymously.

Writing an Op-Ed in Tuesday's USA Today, John Seigenthaler, a retired journalist who served as Robert Kennedy's administrative assistant in the early 1960s, says that a very personal experience has convinced him that "Wikipedia is a flawed and irresponsible research tool."

Seigenthaler writes that a "biography" on the site posted by an anonymous author libeled him when it offered the following unsourced statement: "For a brief time, he was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations of both John, and his brother, Bobby. Nothing was ever proven."

As the founder of the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, Seigenthaler is not known to be an advocate of restricting the right of free speech.

Seigenthaler describes first his shock, and then his so-far unsuccessful attempt to discover the identity of the original poster. Wikipedia was unable to identify the source, although he was able to discover the source's IP address, 65-81-97-208, and then trace it to a customer of BellSouth Internet.

Discouraged by the ISP's lack of personal attention to his request -- the first response was a form e-mail signed by the "Abuse Team" -- Seigenthaler then pursued satisfaction through legal means.

"My only remote chance of getting the name, I learned, was to file a 'John or Jane Doe' lawsuit against my 'biographer'" Seigenthaler writes. "Major communications Internet companies are bound by federal privacy laws that protect the identity of their customers, even those who defame online. Only if a lawsuit resulted in a court subpoena would BellSouth give up the name."

But legally, his options appear limited: "Federal law also protects online corporations -- BellSouth, AOL, MCI Wikipedia, etc. -- from libel lawsuits. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, passed in 1996, specifically states that 'no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker.' That legalese means that, unlike print and broadcast companies, online service providers cannot be sued for disseminating defamatory attacks on citizens posted by others."

Seigenthaler disputes Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales' assertion that the site's thousands of volunteer editors operate a quick self-correcting mechanism.

"My 'biography' was posted May 26. On May 29, one of Wales' volunteers 'edited' it only by correcting the misspelling of the word 'early,'" Seigenthaler writes. "For four months, Wikipedia depicted me as a suspected assassin before Wales erased it from his website's history Oct. 5."

Seigenthaler concludes with the following: "And so we live in a universe of new media with phenomenal opportunities for worldwide communications and research -- but populated by volunteer vandals with poison-pen intellects. Congress has enabled them and protects them."

[nuconvert]

must be "Pick on Wikipedia Day"

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1533725/posts

[Khepera]

I don't know but maybe it is not good to just let anyone write what they think happened in a history book.

[Balding_Eagle]

LOL! Like this should come as any surprise.

The DUmmies have been posting their lies there for years.

[samtheman]

And who has more time to fill up Wikipedia with lies than the left? Just the California teachers union alone (whose members can probably get by with working one or two days a month) can devote millions of hours a year to the job of rewriting history.

Get the word out: Wikipedia is bunk.

[SamAdams76]

It should come as no surprise that the mainstream journalists, who have been the gatekeepers of our information for decades, feel threatened by things like Wikipedia.

While there are certainly flaws with Wikipedia, it is but a small part of the information revolution that is quickly making what used to be known as "mainstream media" irrelevant and unnecessary.

[DUMBGRUNT]

Oliver Stone's world?... thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations of both John, and his brother, Bobby

[BricksAndMortar]

You get what you pay for, and there's no such thing as a free lunch. Even with Wiki.

I use it only for technical and science-related searches. For all else, they have major vulnerability toward skewing the real picture.

[billhilly]

If that can happen to John Seigenthaler it can happen to anyone or anything.

[tarzantheapeman]

I said this on the other thread on this topic but I think it's worth repeating here.

I actually heard Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia) speak about his site. He expressed a concern that only a small number of people contibute the majority of information, He acknowledged that most of the contributers have a bias against the present administration, Republicans in general, and of the USA. He said that the best way to combat this bias was to get more people with other opinions and beliefs to contribute to the site. Concerned Freepers should pick articles that they have problems with and contribute new content to document a more objective picture. People get a chance to vote on modifications, especially on controversial topics, so the more Freepers involved the better.

[Reconray]

Wikipedia should take a page from the NYT and just post a small correction in section B....

[DancesWithBolsheviks]

I don't know but maybe it is not good to just let anyone write what they think happened in a history book.
But then where do we draw the line. websites? blogs? tabloids? Wikipedia, like all other written material, only has 'authority' as far as its 'credibility' can carry it in the free market. Too much BS and it will lose in the marketplace of ideas.

[billhilly]

Oh crap. History by committee? If the information is skewed the best thing to do is to ignore it. There are many other ways to obtain information.

[NHResident]

Amazing, Siegenthaler gets his panties in a twist over his bio in Wickie - but check out almost any text book used in our schools and you will find gross distortions of conservatives, capitalism, and history. Major historical figures and events are ignored or distorted to build up a false 'self-esteem' based on race, gender, or other PC classification.

[quantim]

What if the IP was dynamic rather than static? Isn't that like a cat chasing it's tail?

[Doctor Raoul]

"Wikipedia is a flawed and irresponsible research tool."

But it's better than E&P...

[Tribune7]

If it were left up to the old media, Clarence Thomas would be known to history as a sexual pervert and Bill Clinton a defender of women.

I'd trust Wiki over the NYT. (or LAT or Phila. Inquirer)

[Paul C. Jesup]

I don't know but maybe it is not good to just let anyone write what they think happened in a history book.

(sarcasm) Of course, opinions should only be reserved for the elites. Us serfs don't have any rights to free speech.

[afz400]

"It should come as no surprise that the mainstream journalists, who have been the gatekeepers of our information for decades, feel threatened by things like Wikipedia. "
Napolean said "History is a lie agreed upon".
Wikipedia offers a fresh look at things we thought we knew the truth about, and challenges some of those lies. That obviously is frightening to some people whose lives are based on those lies.