Posted on 05/26/2006 4:04:47 PM PDT by IsraelBeach
Wikipedia Attempts To Censor Israel News - Again
By Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency
Jerusalem----May 27......The Israel News Agency, which has been a favorite target of Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda and the Hizbullah is again in the sights of Wikipedia for a third time in four months.
The Israel News Agency, Israel's first on-line Government Press Office accredited news organization since 1995, has had it article removed three times on Wikipedia. The Israel News Agency, which directly disseminates news from the Israel Government Press Office, in addition to local, international news, features and editorials, has a reach of over 60 million people worldwide.
The Wikipedia article on the Israel News Agency in a vote to delete by the Wikipedia community was approved with a "keep" by a wide consensus in January. Two weeks ago, Danny Wool, Wikipedia's number two executive (after Wikipedia founder and CEO Jimbo Wales) unilaterally wiped the Israel News Agency off the Wikipedia map stating that the news agency was a "vanity page." After much protest, the article on the Israel News Agency was again reinstated only to again be placed in a vote for delete.
The Israel News Agency has recently joined dozens of global newspapers including the New York Times, The Village Voice, The Boston Globe and the Guardian in criticizing Wikipedia for its blatant censorship of articles and allowing hundreds of cases of libel and slander to go unnoticed by many of its administrators.
The INA has been credited with many exclusives including Al-Qaeda : The 39 Principles of Holy War, with news reports directly from the scenes of the Passover Massacre in Netanya, Israel, the Tel Aviv terror attack on the Dolphanarium, and the 9/11 terror attack in New York. The Israel News Agency recently sponsored a global SEO contest to address the Holocaust cartoon contest which was coordinated by the Iran government. The INA has served as a news source to Google News since 2002.
The Wikipedia attacks against the Israel News Agency began shortly after the INA published Wikipedia: A Nightmare Of Libel and Slander.
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."
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."
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?" Are Wikipedia's investors and venture capital sources such as Bessemer Venture Partners, Dan Gillmor, The Omidyar Network, Pierre Omidyar, Mark Andreessen, Reid Hoffman, Joichi Ito, and Mitch Kapor aware of the rampant libel, slander and censorship taking place in Wikipedia's so-called "citizens media?"
To censor any free and democratic source of news is a violation of our basic rights to free speech in a free society. As Wikipedia is a leading source of information coming out of the US, censorship of non-inciteful accredited news media is a direct breach of public trust which only serves the egos and pride of Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales and his assistant Danny Wool.
Censorship at Wikipedia is a highly serious and dangerous action. Furthermore, Wikipedia, which is now being blocked for use by many universities and colleges for its lack of accountability, through its lack of accountable user and administrator posts could actually be aiding terrorists to communicate with one another on the Internet through their anonymous edits.
Are we witnessing a new era of McCarthyism? Is it no mistake that al-Qaeda, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah, Hizbullah and the PFLP are referred to as "militant" groups rather than organizations which plan and implement terrorism?
Perhaps the worst case of Wikipedia libel, slander and censorship centered around former USA TODAY editorial page editor John Seigenthaler. Wikipedia 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. 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."
Related Web site: The Wikipedia Review
If you use Wikipedia as anything more than a "trivia dump" you need your head examined.
I'm passing on this thread to my colleagues so this can be looked into and added to our list.
It looks like the deletion discussion going on now will result in "no consensus" which means the article will remain.
I thought that, in order to qualify as a "service provider," you could not modify or delete "objectionable content" in any way.
I've been to Wikipedia a couple of times. I thought it was edited by anyone who signed up to be an editor. I would never use it for fact-checking. I assumed it was biased to begin with. It's not much more than a semi-informational blog.
Although this is an interesting argument, I would have to agree with ECM by saying that Wikipedia, although fairly reliable, is not exactly a credible source.
like my brother who claims that history books are no longer useful anymore because of the success of the History Channel...
I sigh and shake ny head...
Agreed. I see Wikipedia as a haven for amateur, untrained, wanabee “Gonzo” journalists, who without the education, writing skills or the “Gonzo”, are nothing more than frustrated bloggers suffering delusions of grandeur.
But now that I think on this a bit more, how are the "editors" at Wikipedia any different from the "journalists" for the NY Times, Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, CBS News, etc.? Those dinosaur media outlets don’t have much in the way of fact checkers either.
Wikipedia; "entertaining but not a reliable source". Who cares?
This isn't a knock against your brother, per se, but the fact that people with that mentality likely make up the majority of people in this country is extremely disturbing.
MegaDelete The Israeli News Agency and the page for Israel should be deleted as they are the products of a terrorist group that has gained 'legitimacy' after years of terrorist attacks such as the Jerusalem train station bombing, the bombing of the King David Hotel, and the Lavon Affair in which Israelis dressed in Arab clothing attempted to frame Egyptian nationals with yet another bombing. This wasn't the first time Zionists dressed up as Arabs (see the King David Hotel bombing where they dressed up as Sudanese and Arabs) nor was it the last. Wikipedia should have no ties to terrorist groups nor should they disseminate news from them, I look upon the Israel News Agency the same way I would look at an Al-Queda or IRA news feed, not a fit subject matter for an encyclopedia. I choose to remain ANONYMOUS because Israeli Fascists have been known to attack activists who disagree with their terrorist state. --71.102.46.200 23:32, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
I kindly request FreeRepublic to upgrade this story's status to Breaking News - as it now appears that bin-Laden & associates are now working as administrators at Wikipedia.
Sadly that's not far from the truth. Wikipedia administrators tend to be one of two things:
(1) Immature geekish teenagers who supplement their lack of friends in real life with computer communities of fellow geekish teenagers on Wikipedia
and
(2) Middle aged ultra left wing activists who are typically unemployed or do not hold meaningful jobs and who are far too radical to participate in the mainstream of American political discourse, thus prompting them to supplement their general rejection from society with their computers. Wikipedia allows these types to become petty tyrants of cyberspace and enforce their extremist views on articles.
Of these two categories, the first are probably more numerous and whiny, but they are also less harmful. The persons in the second tend to rank higher in the wikipedia heirarchy and include some truly dangerous and deviant individuals. Wikipedia's administrator bureaucracy is a haven for communists, homosexual activists, eco-terrorists, bin laden sympathizers, pornographers, paedophiles and paedophile sympathizers, "transgendered" freaks, ex-cons, and other deviants who have generally been rejected by mainstream society.
Just to name a few examples:
- Wikipedia's founder Jimbo Wales is the former owner of an internet pornography business called Boomis.
- one of the highest ranking Wikipedia sysops under Wales is a guy named Fred Bauder. Bauder is an ex National Lawyers Guild attorney who got forcefully disbarred by the Colorado Supreme Court in a prostitution scandal.
- Another high ranking Wikipedia admin is a "lady" named Kelly Martin. Martin used to be a man named Scott Goehring. This bona-fide Wikipedia he-she is also a founding member of the scientology newsgroup.
- Another Wikipedia administrator is named FCYTravis. Some people at the wikitruth.info site did a search on FCYTravis and discovered that he's a regular on a diaper fetish pornography messageboard. FCYTravis has posted lengthy messages there with lewd content and paedophile themes.
Any parent that lets their children use the Wikipedia website is putting them at danger to these aforementioned of scumbags and dozens more just like them. They don't just troll there - they actually run the place. The inmates have taken over the asylum in this one.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.