Section 230 is the linchpin for Wikipedia

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wexter
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Section 230 is the linchpin for Wikipedia

Post by wexter » Fri Jan 28, 2022 12:32 am

Wikipedia and WMF (the same entity) have hundreds of millions of dollars at their disposal yet they refuse to be act in a responsible, reasonable, and accountable manner.

If Wikipedia and WMF (the same entity) won't reform they need to be compelled to do so.
Section 230 repeal is the hammer that must be dropped on the WMF and Wikipedia.


WMF and Wikipedia has been structured to take advantage of a poorly written law;

"section 230 creates a federal immunity to any cause of action that would make service providers liable for information originating with a third-party user of the service," the 3rd Circuit wrote in its 1997 opinion"

Wikipedia and WMF see vulnerability in the loss of Section 230 protection yet they won't provocatively reform their operation and work-product.

Wikimedia Foundations senior public policy manager Sherwin Siy said Wikipedia and other nonprofits rely on Section 230 "to exist in the way that we do." Without it, Wikipedia would be exposed to liability if they did not immediately correct errors or soften certain language, Siy noted. "Wikipedia wouldn't exist but for Section 230. You could have an online encyclopedia, but you couldn't have an online encyclopedia that anyone could edit. Not unless you had all the lawyers in the world and a content moderation team that's the size of a country," Siy said.

Nobody is happy with Section 230


There is bipartisan support on this issue, Both President Donald Trump and presidential candidate Joe Biden have called for Section 230 to be revoked or removed.

Don't fight about the details

Wikipedia and WMF thrive on minutia, distraction, pointing fingers, divisiveness, and divide and conquer.

Fight WMF-Wikipedia by lobbying for Section 230 reform by contacting members of congress.
Wikipedia - "Barely competent and paranoid. There’s a hell of a combination."

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Re: Section 230 is the linchpin for Wikipedia

Post by ericbarbour » Sun Jan 30, 2022 1:59 am

Also:

The Wikimedia Foundation has to operate in the USA, for the same reason. No matter how "global" or "multicultural" they claim they are, the headquarters could only exist in a country with favorable Internet laws and libel laws. Maybe POSSIBLY they could exist in some parts of Western Europe; though that would make a wonderful theoretical argument someday.

Remember that the language Wikipedias for certain countries are being controlled and censored by government operatives or paid editors. Kazakhstan is merely one of the most notorious examples. The Uzbek WP is not much different. The Hebrew Wikipedia is unquestionably being controlled by Israelis and as hostile toward Palestinians as possible, while Arabic and Farsi WPs are full of raging about the "illegal state" of Israel and its many war crimes. That kind of thing.

The Mandarin Chinese WP is inaccessible to users in the PRC, AND is being censored by Chinese "state actors" as well. Greek Wikipedia lol. Russian Wikipedia still has an entire wiki dedicated to criticizing the people who run it. Ask Bastrykin if he would like Wikimedia to operate in Russia.

Et cetera, et cetera. Blah blah. :shrug:

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Re: Section 230 is the linchpin for Wikipedia

Post by wexter » Sun Jan 30, 2022 4:37 pm

Wikepeida is a media product with the endpoint being enrichment of a few people. I realized that Wikipedia is content agnostic in that it does not matter what the content is as long as there is allot of it and it sells.

Its not surprising but, ts new information to me that countries have bespoke versions of Wikipedia that have been tailored to political objective or pander.

Money is the political objective here in the US and divide and conquer is the way to generate traffic. The useful-idiots providing free labor don't realize the endpoint is fascism; as I mentioned on my talk page (which is the last corner of Wikipedia I am not banned from) pick your flavor of fascism.

It really won't matter to the useful-idiots if the fascism comes from the left or right when they are either destitute or in a gulag.

-------------------------- on my talk page a dying breath. (it is too cold to sail here in FLA)


“Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”
I have tried to argue points based on objectivity, critical thinking, and fact, and I have asked people to be objective to the stated rules of this platform. Wikipedia is information agnostic in that it does not care about quality or truth in content so the mob rules. The mob here has bias and instead of being an encyclopedia full of fact this eponymous site is a political platform ripe with bias. Ironically, Wikipedia is feeding the very radicalism it seeks to fight.

Through banning, vilifying, name-calling, shaming, and censorship, Wikipedia has become a very active participant and driver of a new "Cultural Revolution" with the endpoint being an amplified cycle of radicalism.

An analog of the forces at work can be found in Negative Dynamic Stability; the sine wave of instability gets wider and wider as it ocelates between two diametrically opposed and radical perspectives.

It is very likely that all the people that are now being banned, vilified, name-called, shamed, and censored as right-wing fascists today are going to push back against Wikipedia's radicalism tomorrow(left wing fascism). Radicalism invites more radicalism from the other direction with the endpoint being far worse than what people are currently engaged in "fighting."

The solution is to think and be objective; something the mob on this platform won't do. WMF is not going to spend its money and incur liability to take the ethical path.

Don't be surprised if you get what you wish for and then find out you have created a fascist state. I cannot tell you if the flavor of fascism will be left or right but its going to be terrible and this platform and its users are active participants in the outcome. You might as well be Nazi's.
Wikipedia - "Barely competent and paranoid. There’s a hell of a combination."

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Re: Section 230 is the linchpin for Wikipedia

Post by wexter » Sun Jan 30, 2022 7:33 pm

Enough. If you think this way, don't use Wikipedia. But you don't get to continue your soapboxing here. Talk page access revoked for a month; you may contest this using WP:UTRS. They'll take a dim view of requests like this, though. --Yamla (talk) 17:15, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
Wikipedia - "Barely competent and paranoid. There’s a hell of a combination."

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