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Release date May 17, 2008



Summary

Suppressed Wikinews article about Barbara Bauer vs. Wikimedia Foundation from May 9, 2008. The article was deleted immediately prior to publication by the Wikimedia Foundation head office (not by the author or the Wikinews editorial team).

Wikinews and Wikipedia are legally and physically controlled by the "Wikimedia foundation" (no relation to Wikileaks).

The US Communications Deceny Act section 230 grants providers of internet services (such as the Wikipedia and Wikinews) immunity from most legal action related to user generated content.

The suppression of the article appears to have been motivated by the Wikimedia Foundation board wishing to keep certain details of the Barbara Bauer case secret.

A 78 message thread on the Wikimedia Foundation Mailinglist appears here. The most important message of which follows:

Re: Fwd: [WL-News] Wikimedia Foundation in danger oflosing immunity under the Communications Decency Act Click to flag this post by Brian McNeil-2 May 20, 2008; 03:24am I deleted the article. Cary contacted me via Skype late at night and said Mike [Godwin, WMF counsel] wanted to talk to me. I forwarded my cellphone number. When I saw the article in question, there was no doubt in my mind that it could readily be construed as actionable libel. Thus, I deleted it. The Bauer case is more complex. Her article was removed from Wikipedia - as I see it - in a good faith move to encourage the court to throw out her action against WMF. Wikinews reported on this, and that article was quashed. Everyone will be able to see why when - hopefully - the court throws out her allegations against the WMF. In this case the EFF is championing the cause, but rules and guidelines are needed; both to retain S.230 protection and to maintain Wikinews' impartiality. Brian McNeil _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list

A text version of the censored article follows this description.

See also Wikinews suppressed Wikipedia pornography investigation

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May 9, 2008

A lawsuit has been filed against the Wikimedia Foundation, the parent organization of the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia, by Barbara Bauer of 'Barbara Bauer Literacy Agency', an agency claiming it is "specializing in the development and marketing of new and unpublished authors." As a result of the associated conflict, edits pertaining to Bauer on Wikipedia were deleted and, following the commencement of legal proceedings, Wikinews exclusively obtained the offending texts and edits.

A press release by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) issued on May 2 defends against a suit Bauer filed against Wikimedia which states that contributors on Wikipedia posted "libel statements" against Bauer that labeled her as number three on a list of twenty people grouped as the "worst" publishing agents, and included allegations that she had "no documented sales" through her firm. Complaints filed against her and her firm state that Bauer had a bad record when dealing with "commercial publishers,", and questioning her practice of, "charge[ing] in advance of making a sale, against the generally-accepted industry practice."

In March of 2007, Wikimedia was named in a lawsuit filed in Superior Court of Monmouth, New Jersey, along with 20 other defendants which included operators of the Absolute Write web site and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America who authored the list.

Wikinews has learned that Bauer's Wikipedia article was deleted some time during the course of the proceedings, along with the edit history of her article and its talk page as a "courtesy." During our investigation, Wikinews found that all edits to her article, and edits to pages requesting it to be deleted were deleted by Wikipedia administrator MaxSem.

Wikinews has also exclusively obtained all the edits affiliated with Bauer's article, which was sourced accurately, the deletion requests along with the edit history of all pages related to the discussion about Bauer's article. Fearing retribution on Wikipedia by other administrators and users, the source who provided Wikinews with the edit information wishes to remain anonymous.

The deleted Wikipedia article on Bauer stated that she claims "to have placed books with a number of well-known commercial publishers, but does not provide specific details of the books in question. In 2006, due to the number of complaints they receive, Writer Beware (part of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America writers' organization) listed Bauer's agency as one of the twenty worst literary agencies."

Bauer's article was started on May 25, 2006 but was not deleted until March 21, 2008 by Wikipedia administrator and Wikimedia office employee Cary Bass, who was not able to comment on the incident. It underwent two requests to be deleted, with the second one passing, and it was subsequently deleted. It had first been deleted on March 25, 2007 by Doc Glasgow, an administrator, amid allegations that the information presented in the article was "a bloody disgrace, full of 'allegations of who said what on message boards. No mainstream media interest." It was later restored on March 26 to undergo a "deletion review." It was then deleted just under one year later after an extensive discussion.

Edit histories of Bauer's article confirm that blog postings from a now defunct site called NielsenHayden.com which was "critical of Bauer", was taken off line by their internet service provider after Bauer made legal threats to the owners. Wikinews has attempted to contact the author of these posts, who goes by the name JulesH on Wikipedia, but has yet to receive a response.

One blog even states that Bauer attempted to get people fired from their jobs, after allegedly posting information online that was in any way connected to the Top 20 worst agents.

"Barbara Bauer has been running around the Internet lately threatening people who've posted information about her fee-charging, non-manuscript-selling ways, including people who've linked to the Twenty Worst list. She has threatened legal action; she has even attempted to get people fired," states Victoria Strauss on accrispin.blogspot.com.

The EFF, along with attorneys at Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton, are defending Wikimedia submitting a motion to dismiss the suit against the Foundation. The Foundation says that that the First Amendment of the United States Bill of Rights and New Jersey law protect the contributers from any legal action.

"Wikimedia asks the Court to dismiss the claims against it, with prejudice. The claims against Wikimedia are frivolous because they are barred as a matter of law by the Communications Decency Act (47 U.S.C. § 230( c), "Section 230" or the "CDA"), by the First Amendment, and by New Jersey law. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia written by its users, the content of which can be created, edited, or removed by anyone. The claims arise from statements made on numerous Internet websites, which Plaintiffs assert describe them as being among the "20 Worst Literary Agents" and having "no...significant track record of sales to commercial (advance paying) published" states the motion filed in Superior Court of New Jersey, Monmouth County.

Specifically, Section 230 of the act states, "no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected."

Bauer claims that her agency informed Wikimedia of the false allegations, and requested that they be removed. She also claimed that Wikimedia refused to remove the information when requested. Bauer further states that the contributers involved with her Wikipedia article "conspired to defame Plaintiffs and interfere with their prospective economic advantage."

Mike Godwin, attorney for the Foundation states that the point of Wikipedia is to return the knowledge it provides, to a worldwide culture.

"We provide a platform through Wikipedia for smart citizens to give their knowledge back to a larger culture. Our ability to offer citizens that platform is what's at stake in this case," said attorney representing the Foundation, Mike Godwin in a EFF press release on May 2, 2008.

Despite the claim of freedom of speech, Wikinews has learned that on the same day, Godwin requested that the edits and the article on Wikipedia relating to Bauer, be deleted by a community action. Godwin also stated that the Foundation has "filed court papers in which we stated that the article is no longer available."

"I've been trying to keep 'Office actions' to a minimum (partly in reaction to some fairly heavy-handed WP:OFFICE stuff in the past), and it would be helpful to be able to say that any given action was taken by the community, not by the Foundation," said Godwin on Wikipedia's Administrators' noticeboard on May 2, the same day of the EFF's press release. 'Office actions' are changes directly authorized by the Foundation which are made to content on any of the Wikimedia projects. The edits are made by staff members working for the Foundation's head office located in San Francisco, California. Edits of this nature are generally "removals of questionable or illegal Wikimedia content following complaints," according to Wikipedia's policy on 'Office Actions.'

A few minutes after, MaxSem, an Wikipedia administrator, deleted the edits related to the deletion request of Bauer's article as a "courtesy" stating that there would be "legal problems" if the edits were not deleted. A few hours later, the edits were restored by an unknown administrator and as of this report, they are still visible to anyone on Wikipedia.

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