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A French judge has ruled that Wikipedia is not responsible for defamatory content it hosted on its website. The open source encyclopedia was facing action for damages from three people described as homosexual by the website. Each wanted €69,000 in damages, according to AFP. But Judge Emmanuel Binoche said that under a 2004 …

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  1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    Quite understandable

    While I do acknowledge that libel is quite unpleasant, I also agree that Wikipedia cannot possibly be held responsible for anything.

    It is, after all, totally irresponsible to begin with.

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  2. John Latham

    Defamatory?

    If calling someone "homosexual" is defamatory, then so is calling them "French", non?

    John

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  3. James Le Cuirot
    Dead Vulture

    Not feeling yourself today, El Reg?

    Referring to Wikipedia as an encyclopedia? XD

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    re: Defamatory?

    Ho, ho, ho.... quite the cutting wit!

    Actually, the plaintiffs were suing over invasion of privacy, not because the comments were defamatory - something I would have thought should have been covered in the story...

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  5. Steven
    Unhappy

    Wiki may respond to change things quickly...

    .... but if it's anything like the time's I've changed Wiki entries in the past, they'll quickly get changed back by some Wiki 'Nazi' who would rather have their own opinion/nutball information in place than the truth.

    Wonder how many times they had to remove the gay reference here before some Wiki editor was given the boot for reverting it.

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  6. Mo

    Re: Defamatory?

    Quite so. It might be incorrect, but it's hardly defamatory. It could, of course, be damaging (say, to a claimant's wife), but as there's nothing wrong with being homosexual, there's no defamation.

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Steven

    You're completely right.

    I once came across a weird line in an otherwise unrelated nature article referrring to sci-fi. While I'm used to seeing completely pointless fanwank on wikipedia, I thought I could improve the article by editing it out. This I did, only to have it reverted back by an editor hours later. So I edited again, giving a reason, and it was reverted.

    This went on for a while, it amused me mildly to keep editing it (from different IP addresses), to see if any would stick. They never did. Although looking at that page now I notice it has been rewritten and the line has been removed.

    This is why I don't put any trust in wikipedia, it seems to have become a clique of friendly editors who between them extinguish any edits from newbies or (shock horror) anonymous contributors.

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    re: Re: Defamatory?

    Mo,

    The ones suing were alleging invasion of privacy, not defamation.

    In other words, this El Reg article is just as reliable as Wikipedia... strong words, but accurate ones.

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  9. john oates

    Title

    Hello,

    Reuters says the case involved privacy and defamation.

    And describing someone as gay can be libel - just ask Robbie Williams or Jason Donovan.

    http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article331523.ece

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  10. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Halo

    Tears on my pillow

    "And describing someone as gay can be libel - just ask Robbie Williams or Jason Donovan."

    If I remember correctly, the argument in Donovan's case was that, although he did not mind being called gay, he did mind being accused of deceiving the public as to his sexuality.

    I choose Steve Jobs as my avatar. I'm not implying anything by that. He is a married man after all. Although you'll notice that he does wear tight sweaters a lot.

    It's a shame there isn't an icon of Coronation Street's Bill Roach, who sued The Sun for saying that he was boring, and won (although it bankrupted him).

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  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    re: Title

    Although Reuters is indeed reporting the story like that, other news sources are focussing on the privacy angle and not mentioning the defamatory claims.

    Maybe Reuters is right, maybe it's wrong but its article does say "Binoche did not rule on the whether the information contained in the article was defamatory." However, with El Reg's opening lines ("A French judge has ruled that Wikipedia is not responsible for defamatory content it hosted on its website."), you wouldn't know that - nor is there any mention in the article about the invasion of privacy angle of the case, which is pretty central to the whole thing.

    "And describing someone as gay can be libel - just ask Robbie Williams or Jason Donovan."

    True, but remember Kirk Brandon's ill-fated lawsuit against Boy George?

    In any case, weren't these cases in the UK, rather in France?

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  12. Marco

    The real question is:

    Who the fuck -is- responsible at Wikipedia?

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  13. Britt Johnston
    IT Angle

    How to kill a wiki

    I recently worked on the content side of a wiki describing data processes - sounds boring, but in fact it was useful and informative.

    What stopped it cold was a quality department which insisted on disclaimers on top and bottom of each page that the contents were a mixture of facts, opinions and ideas, and please refer to the official company documents. Who wants to contribute small facts sandwiched between fat disclaimers?

    Couldn't you antipediamongers torpedo wikipedia by enforcing such large disclaimers that they displace the ads, as well as the content?

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