A photo on Wikipedia can ruin your life
- Andreas Kolbe is a former co-editor-in-chief of The Signpost and has been a Wikipedia contributor since 2006. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Signpost, its staff or of any other Wikipedian. Responses and critical commentary are invited in the comments section.
The Wikimedia Foundation's Legal Director, Jacob Rogers, this month published a triumphant essay on Wikimedia's Diff blog, titled "A victory for free knowledge: Florida judge rules Section 230 bars defamation claim against the Wikimedia Foundation". As he says in his post describing this legal victory for the Foundation,
The case began when plaintiff Nathaniel White sued the Wikimedia Foundation in January 2021, claiming that the Foundation was liable for the publication of photos that incorrectly identified him as a New York serial killer of the same name. Because of its open nature, sometimes inaccurate information is uploaded to Wikipedia and its companion projects, but the many members of our volunteer community are very effective at identifying and removing these inaccuracies when they do occur. Notably, this lawsuit was filed months after Wikipedia editors proactively corrected the error at issue in September 2020. Wikimedia moved to dismiss the amended complaint in June, arguing that plaintiff's claims were barred by Section 230.
In its order granting the Wikimedia Foundation's motion to dismiss, the court affirmed that "interactive computer service providers" such as the Foundation generally cannot be held liable for third-party content like Wikipedia articles and photographs. ... the plaintiff argued that the Foundation should be treated like a traditional offline publisher and held responsible as though it were vetting all posts made to the sites it hosts, despite the fact that it does not write or curate any of the content found on the projects. The court rejected this argument because it directly conflicts with Section 230 ...
This outcome perfectly demonstrates how critical Section 230 remains to crowdsourced projects and communities.
— Diff