Wikipedia: A Nightmare Of Libel and Slander

Wikipedia: A Nightmare Of Libel and Slander

By Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency

Jerusalem---- May 8.....It all started with a divorced father in Israel who wanted more hours with his child. A dad who is a children's and father's rights activist who has written about the subject, participated in demonstrations and met with public officials. So what does this have to do with Wikipedia?

Wikipedia describes itself as "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." Thousands of Wikipedia users could describe the Website as "the free encyclopedia that anyone can abuse."
A former editor at the venerable Encyclopedia Britannica recently likened the site to a public rest room: "You never know who used it last." Britannica has been around since before the American Revolution; Wikipedia just celebrated its fifth birthday.

Robert McHenry, a former editor-in-chief of Encyclopedia Britannica, has described Wikipedia as "a game without consequences."

The rise of Wikipedia as an "online encyclopedia" has added to the Britannica's pressure to maintain its own credibility. And Britannica has been taking the offensive. The company strongly rebutted a study conducted by journalists at Nature magazine that compared Wikipedia favorably to Britannica, and which was accompanied by an editorial plea for the scientific community to contribute to the project.

The study blind-tested extracts from each site with experts, and was widely reported as showing them to be of comparable quality. "It should have said 31 percent less reliable and worse written," McHenry says of the Nature study. Britannica, meanwhile, says the study was biased towards Wikipedia.
"It's offensive to lump these gross offenses against publishing with a typo in Britannica," says its executive editor Theodore Pappas.

Britannica said Nature cited passages not in the encyclopedia and criticized it for refusing to publish the referees' reports. Nature says it stands by its report and can't release the full reports for confidentiality reasons. Nature's news editor Jim Giles denies the journal had identified itself closely in the Wikipedia camp.

If you looked up Jimmy Carter on Wikipedia one morning this past winter, you would have discovered something you couldn't learn from Britannica. According to the photo that accompanied Carter's entry, America's 39th president was a scruffy, random unshaven man with his left index finger shoved firmly up his nose.

Now try performing a search for the Wikipedia user Israelbeach. You won't find that Wikipedia user because he was assaulted daily with personal attacks by another Wikipedia user who works there as an Wikipedia administrator. This administrator responded to Israelbeach regarding the issue of Father's Rights in Ra'anana, Israel with: "Save your diatribe for local forums." This administrator calling herself "Woggly," a self-proclaimed feminist, would not tolerate any edit from a father's right's activist who was quoting three separate news sources to illustrate that children's right's is indeed an issue in the Welfare Department of Ra'anana.

Israelbeach is aka Joel Leyden, the author of this story. Woggly is a Wikipedia administrator who tried to hide her identity from those she attacked. Woggly aka Gili Bar-Hillel works as a Hebrew translator in Tel Aviv.

As I found myself editing the City of Ra'anana article on Wikipedia one day, Woggly drops in from nowhere hurtling insults and legal threats at me. Calling me an "idiot," a "creep" but most hurting were her statements that I was a "dangerous person" and insinuated that I was "dangerous to her children."
Under Wikipedia's rules, no personal attacks are allowed.
No legal threats are allowed. But being an administrator with close relations with Danny Wool, Wikipedia's number two man, kept her immune from any kind of punitive action.

One realizes after being inside Wikipedia, behind the many so-called facts and figures, that there are networks within a network. Some good, some bad. A few respond with vicious relentless assaults that would make the Mafia proud. They can accuse you of being a "sockpuppet" or a user who is accessing several computers using several identities. One can also be accused of being a "meatpuppet" that is being the friend of a user. I never really understood what was criminal about having friends in Wikipedia? And if you are merely suspected of being a "sockpuppet" or "meatpuppet" you can and will be blocked from editing!

Danny Wool was basically in shock when he received telephone calls from Wikipedia users BonnieIsrael, IDFbarak aka Tomer Shohatovitz and Sara Silber, a very real child psychologist in Ra'anana, Israel who had her article deleted without a Wikipedia community vote and was blocked from editing Wikipedia.

Tomer, who is a writer for the INA, just spoke with Danny Wool who defended his actions by stating that Israelbeach was a "spammer." We just quite don't understand that. IDFbarak was accused of being a sockpuppet, Bonnieisrael was accused of being a sockpuppet and here they are in the flesh saying we were talking and commenting on the Wikipedia site. We are not Israelbeach!

Real people who kept asking in Wikipedia why Woggly or Gili Bar-Hillel was not being blocked for making personal attacks and legal threats. Wool was silent. He thought he knew it all. He thought wrong. Very wrong. But yet had the chutzpah to tell these users that if they made any comment about Israelbeach they would be blocked or banned. Now how does one spell censorship? Where are all of the truly good, objective and intelligent Wikipedia administrators? Why have they been silent?

The answer is simple. There are not enough administrators in Wikipedia to police the Website. That is one of the very true, central and sad elements of Wikipedia which leads to dozens of libel and slander cases on a daily basis. For this alone, no investor would be interested in pouring money today into Wikipedia.

I addressed this problem before in an earlier story. I openly questioned what is Wikipedia? Is it an encyclopedia? Or is it entertainment - a Hollywood gossip factory? What I have learned is that it is both and that disqualifies or "bans" Wikipedia from being a true and reliable encyclopedia.

So getting back to my small case, I pleaded with Danny Wool to take action or take down my Wikipedia user page as I had no right to reply to the many personal attacks. I was blocked even on my own user page. Well, Danny Wool responded to my pleas. He unilaterally deleted an article or biography about this author after the Wikipedia community voted in January to keep it.

The pretext Danny Wool gave for this action was that I was not a "notable" and am only famous for creating a "blog." That blog for which Wool is referring to is what you are now reading. And it ain't a blog. Do you see any other people uploading to this article? Nope. The Israel News Agency was the first Israel Government Press Office accredited on-line news organization to disseminate news from Israel back in 1995.

Before taking action against my "elected" biography on Wikipedia, I had uploaded Gili Bar-Hillel's name on a Wikipedia page. I was immediately told to take down these "personal details" by a another Wikipedia administrator or I would be blocked from editing Wikipedia. I followed his instructions within minutes. But protested that all one had to do was a simple search on Google for: "woggly wikipedia" and you would find Gili proudly proclaiming her Wiki identity to the world.

It was no secret. It was in the public domain. My actions were not performed with malice. If I really wanted to draw blood, I could have posted her telephone number, street address and a Web site that she had created for her children. I apologized for my actions. And as a result of my apology I was "banned for life." That is "Israelbeach" was banned for life, as anyone can simply create hundreds if not thousands of usernames using a different computer's identifying IP address.

Wikipedia has many "banned" users now hiding under and contributing from other user names and many of those users are administrators. An administrator can throws rocks at others in Wikipedia and you don't know where the rocks are coming from.

But being banned at Wikipedia is as Wikitruth describes: "Is like getting a free drink in Las Vegas: not that overly difficult to do. We've been banned literately hundreds of times. But so have we become administrators. Odd, that."

It should be noted that Wikipedia has deleted all copy, comments and discussion on my and many other user discussion pages. This blatant censoring of material, this "whitewashing" was most likely due to anxiety felt by Wikipedia that I could take legal action here in Israel against both Bar-Hillel and Wikipedia Israel. In Israel, when it comes to slander or libel, there is no discrimination as to whether you are a service provider or a publisher.

Censoring is not something new at Wikipedia. According to Wikitruth, Alan Dershowitz was censored by Wikipedia Jimbo Wales on December 8, 2005. "In true Wikipedia style, this article was reduced down to a single sentence reading "Alan Morton Dershowitz (born September 1, 1938) is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School." on the early morning of December 8, 2005. His rational for doing so was: "I have received a very strong complaint about this article, and so I have protected this very short version for tonight. Unlike the normal case where protected articles should not be edited, I want to try an experiment -- admins can edit this article. We need to verify very carefully, with documentable sources, every single fact in the article.--Jimbo Wales 00:09, 8 December 2005 (UTC)"

Wikitruth continues: "The standout effect of the censorship of Dershowitz's article is that as of March 22, 2006 it sources a dispute with Noam Chomsky in its references that has been censored from the article! The edit history prior to December 8, 2005 at 00:07 UTC has been manipulated or otherwise destroyed from the Alan Dershowitz article by Jimbo and his underlings, very possibly a GFDL violation. Dershowitz is a highly controversial lawyer, famous for getting into scrapes with other high-profile types. That's fairly common knowledge: few of us would not have seen his face in the paper at one time or another.

But Wikipedia thinks he's just another lawyer. Dershowitz didn't like his Wikipedia article. If you don't like what the wiki says about you, there are two roads to fixing it. First you can try editing the article. You'll generally be heavily abused by Wikithugs, who will chant weird invocations like WP:AUTO at you and expect you to understand that that means they believe they have a license to treat you like shit if you have the temerity to work on your own biography. Then, if you are a high-powered lawyer, or know one, you can try the second route. Give Jimmy a call and use the magic words. ...the magic words are "legal action". But take care. Don't mention them on the wiki, or a Wikithug will banish you for "making a legal threat". Make your legal threats to Jimbo directly."

As far as being considered "notable" I don't think I am. Yeah, I maybe I have achieved a few good things here and there, but as the Village Voice recently commented: "Not notable? Wikipedia hosts approximately three jillion full-page articles about local high schools, complete with alma mater lyrics, and it can't make room for a critical look at its own practices? Perversely enough, though, "notability" has indeed become a byword for Wikipedia's freelance fact police, who delete at will whatever they think might worsen the site's smoldering reputation as a trivia dump."

Woody Allen would say: "I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member."

One should note that many of the editors at Wikipedia are professional, dedicated, creative and highly talented, but they do not make up a majority. They deserve credit for their many hours and contributions, but can you imagine a car repair garage stating "the free garage where anyone can play with your cylinders?"

But my story is dust nothing compared to Erik Moeller, a former Chief Research Officer at Wikipedia who has made 15,000 edits since 2001. "I have just been indefinitely blocked from the English Wikipedia, and desysopped, by user Danny, under the new nickname "Dannyisme", as an "Office Action" for alleged "reckless endangerment" which was not specified further. I have called Danny on the phone, but he said that he was not willing to discuss the issue, and that I should instead talk to the Foundation attorney instead."

Wikitruth, a watchdog site which has also been censored by Wikipedia, picked up on this story and said: "(Erik Moeller) was slaving away at Wikipedia for 5 years, writing software, doing tens of thousands of edits, and helping to maintain the quality side, he gets utterly and totally fucked; locked out for 48 hours, his privileges revoked, treated like an outsider and referred to a lawyer when he calls up. And yet still, he patiently waits, lets people know about the problem, and then accepts his returned privileges (not by Danny, of course; another Sysop ended up restoring them)."

Morton Brilliant, the campaign manager for Secretary of State Cathy Cox resigned a few weeks ago amid allegations that he altered a Wikipedia biography of her Democratic opponent to add a mention of his son's arrest in a fatal drunk driving accident. Cox said an internal investigation confirmed that the posting about her opponent, Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor, on Wikipedia, came from within her gubernatorial campaign.

"My campaign manager Morton Brilliant, who is responsible for all the work in my office, has offered me his resignation and I have accepted it,'' Cox said. Morton Brilliant was accused of revising the entry for Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor to add his son‘s arrest last August in a drunken driving accident that left his best friend dead. The link to Brilliant was discovered by Taylor‘s campaign, which immediately accused the Cox camp of engaging in "gutter politics" and demanded Brilliant‘s resignation. "The beauty of a forum like this is free speech," Wales said. "But we also promote a neutral point of view." "Free speech" or is it libel, slander and or even incitement?

Finding out who is writing what on the site is not always easy. Internet addresses can be traced to a computer, but not necessarily to the person at the keyboard. And experts say someone with computer savvy could easily cover his or her tracks.

However, such oversight is probably minor, said Steven Jones, who teaches communications and technology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "Given the sheer size of Wikipedia and the sheer number of entries, it seems impossible that they could police it in an effective way," Jones said.

It also appears that the US State Department is fascinated by Wikipedia. The government organ's apparatchiks like to keep an eye on the people's encyclopedia and tend to edit out references they don't like.

But it must be a nightmare for the CIA, Mossad and MI-5, as so much information is accurately corrupted.

Mark Glaser, of PBS's MediaShift commented: The more time I spend looking at Wikipedia , delving into its arcane rules and hearing from its various supporters and detractors, the more it feels like a religious sect. People have very strong views on the community-generated free online encyclopedia, ranging from calling it a revolution in collective wisdom to a place where “people who can’t write and who can’t edit and who can’t do research are running things.” I’m starting to think the people who edit Wikipedia are engaging in some kind of massive multiplayer game, where they speak their own language, gain power by playing the game the longest — with everyone fighting to be the arbiter of all human knowledge. So it’s not too surprising that my question to you — how much do you trust Wikipedia?"

Glaser then points out: "The Great Failure of Wikipedia": A Presentation by Jason Scott at Notacon 3 in Cleveland, Ohio, on Saturday, April 8, 2006. Covers the universally-editable encyclopedia-like site Wikipedia, architectural and procedural choices by co-founder Jimbo Wales and the often-unintended consequences of these choices and philosophy. Includes short overviews of the Brian Peppers Debacle, the Ashida Kim Controversy, and the fallacy of "Notability" and "Neutral Point of View" as implemented in Wikipedia as it currently stands.

If someone accuses you on Wikipedia of being responsible for killing a person, don't expect much relief from the courts. That's a lesson that's emerging from former USA TODAY editorial page editor John Seigenthaler's run-in with an article in the online, anyone-can-contribute encyclopedia, which for four months carried an article falsely linking him to the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and John F. Kennedy. But as angry as Seigenthaler was, and as untrue as the article had been, it's unlikely that he has a good court case against Wikipedia, according to legal experts interviewed by CNET News.com.

Seigenthaler himself acknowledged as much in a USA Today op-ed piece. News.context What's new: A case in which a man was falsely linked on Wikipedia to the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and John F. Kennedy has led some to question the online encyclopedia's libel liability. Bottom line: While Wikipedia is most likely safe from legal liability for libel, the issues raised by the Seigenthaler case should be carefully considered, some legal experts say. More stories on Wikipedia Thanks to section 230 of the Federal Communications Decency Act (CDA), which became law in 1996, Wikipedia is most likely safe from legal liability for libel, regardless of how long an inaccurate article stays on the site. That's because it is a service provider as opposed to a publisher such as Salon.com or CNN.com.

In his scathing, Nov. 29 opinion column in USA Today, the 78-year-old Seigenthaler wrote that in the original Wikipedia article, "one sentence was true. I was Robert Kennedy's administrative assistant." The article was written by an anonymous Wikipedia user traceable only to a BellSouth Internet account, but Seigenthaler added that the giant ISP wouldn't reveal the author's name. And despite his protestations, Seigenthaler wrote, Wikipedia's only action prior to removing the offending article on Oct. 5 was to change a misspelling on May 29, just three days after it was originally posted.

"I have no idea whose sick mind conceived the false, malicious "biography" that appeared under my name for 132 days on Wikipedia, the popular, online, free encyclopedia whose authors are unknown and virtually untraceable. I phoned Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's founder and asked, "Do you ... have any way to know who wrote that?" "No, we don't," he said. Representatives of the other two websites said their computers are programmed to copy data verbatim from Wikipedia, never checking whether it is false or factual. Naturally, I want to unmask my "biographer." And, I am interested in letting many people know that Wikipedia is a flawed and irresponsible research tool."

"When I was a child, my mother lectured me on the evils of "gossip." She held a feather pillow and said, "If I tear this open, the feathers will fly to the four winds, and I could never get them back in the pillow. That's how it is when you spread mean things about people." For me, that pillow is a metaphor for Wikipedia."

Speaking of children, Gili Bar-Hillel writes children's books. One would think that she just might have one ounce of compassion for these children's dads. Not to relegate a father's rights and gender bias discrimination issue solely to one page entitled father's rights, but to any Wikipedia page which can illustrate through citations that these issues are associated with them.

A few months ago Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg found his Wikipedia biography had been vandalized and contained a number of libelous statements, a story which was widely covered in the national press.

Then former MTV VJ and podcaster Adam Curry admitted to anonymously editing the podcasting Wikipedia entry to remove credit from other people and make his own role in the early days seem more significant.

On censorship, Wikitruth stated: "Wikipedians against censorship, a Wikipedia WikiProject founded on August 20, 2005 suddenly came under fire this month, March 2006, once it had a purpose. With the invention of WP:OFFICE last February, Jimbo and other God-Kings have finally found a way to delete, censor, and control content on Wikipedia without the need for any explanation or accountability whatsoever. Consensus no longer matters. Wikipedia REALLY IS turning into Jimbo's own personal little fiefdom. One user, 127.*.*.1, indicated that "Wikimedia is run by its members, as indicated in the Bylaws. Jimbo's exalted position comes from consensus." Hmm, that's interesting. The laughingstock of insanity that is Miscellany for Deletion was used to try and delete the entire Wikipedians Against Censorship project. That's right, an attempt to censor information about a group united against censorship! Even the most inbred power-mad royal wouldn't attempt this, but someone decided to."

As the Village Voice stated: "Ah, Wikipedia: No true believer in the democratic promise of the Web can fail to gladden at the very mention of this grand experiment—the universal encyclopedia "anyone can edit"!—or fail to have noticed, by now, what a fucked-up little mockery of that promise it can sometimes be."

In order for Wikipedia to have any sense of credibility today it will need to hire full-time and part-time professional editors whose only agenda is to provide objective and accurate information. Volunteers can be used to assist these editors, but the volunteers would now forsake the front line for professionals.

Until then Danny Wool, who is in charge of the Wikimedia Foundation Grants Committee, can forget about seeking grants from investors for the Wikipedia Foundation. Danny has to realize that if you hurt others - their businesses and their families - accountability will come knocking at your door in the form of editorials such as this, and hundreds others.

Danny Wool, who handles press relations for Wikipedia was contacted for comment three times by the INA. He never responded with comment or to an interview with the Israel News Agency.
Danny Wool instead deleted an article about this author because in his view the Israel News Agency which reaches over 60 million readers (Alexa.com) is just a "blog."

The Wikipedia community can do better. If Wikipedia is truly a people's Web site, a ray of democracy and free speech on the Internet, then both the users and administrators need to speak up now or find that their favorite Website has become extinct as many other dot coms. before it.

Editor's note: If you have been injured either commercially or personally by libel or slander at Wikipedia, the INA wants to hear your story. The above article is part one of a five part series. Please click here to write to the INA.

If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.
Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking the keyword or topic Israel.

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I think most freepers are aware of wikipedia's "shortcomings". Than can be a good source, when their information is sourced. Like a bibliography.

I've edited Wikipedia articles in the past. Wikipedia is a good starting point for an article / paper, but should never be seen as the ultimate authority on anything.

Of course, the spirit of Open Source demands that you update the W'pedia once your work is done.

I didn't read the entire mile-long article.. but isn't Wikipedia made by contributions from regular people, as opposed to being authored by the company itself like Britannica et al?

I didn't read the entire mile-long article.. but isn't Wikipedia made by contributions from regular people, as opposed to being authored by the company itself like Britannica et al?

Essentially, then edited. It's accuracy depends on the honesty of the "regular people", and the editors.

Of course, one can expect Britannica to have a vested, self-interest in discrediting Wikipedia..

Wikipedia is addressing it's problems in this respect, and I have every confidence on most issues I wish to look up..
It's the matter of current events and individual reputations / political views that most often come under attack..
Politics, Religion, Famous People..
All come under attack from various sources according to their point of view, be it ideological or personal..

If Wikipedia manages to get together a decent, even handed board of review for such topics, and restricts editing to fully reviewed and approved information, then these matters of contention will be resolved..

Wikipedia is addressing it's problems in this respect, and I have every confidence on most issues I wish to look up..

I guess we differ, I have little confidence in anything I can't verify from other sources. Though as I noted, they're good on footnoting, and thus a worthwhile resource.

And yet time after time, some FReeper quotes from Wiki as though it's legit. Whenever I bring it up (how worthless it is), I get flammed.

Wikipedia is NOT a legitimate source for research needs.

According to the photo that accompanied Carter's entry, America's 39th president was a scruffy, random unshaven man with his left index finger shoved firmly up his nose.

Sure. But tell us about the ERRORS!

I suppose it depends on what you use it for..

Not much controversy on say, the article on Helium, or Liquid Natural Gas..

But, I can almost guarantee there will be difference of opinion on say, Ted Kennedy, or Intelligent Design vs. Evolution..

That's all I'm saying..
If you understand that something like current events have yet to be sorted out as to what is "truth" and what is not, like the veracity of WMD claims in Iraq, then one must expect there will be differences of opinion..
It may be another 40 years before we're 75% sure of whether the claims were justified or not..
Even then, there will still be "conspiracy theory" advocates insisting there was a "cover up" of one view or the other..

I can, on the other hand, look up the Wizard of Oz and get a fairly reliable accounting of the story and it's author, with plenty of links, etc. to supporting and related material.

What I loved was when the guy that discovered the vulnerability of Fedx Kinko's card readers to manipulation decided to write his own biography in Wikipedia describing himself as a 22 year old security expert. I have boots with more security experience than this fool.

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