Friday, September 25, 2009

Assassination via Wiki

"John Seigenthaler Sr. was the assistant to Attorney General Robert Kennedy in the early 1960's. For a brief time, he was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations of both John, and his brother, Bobby. Nothing was ever proven."
— Wikipedia

The Seigenthaler biography appeared in Wikipedia for 132 days.

I myself am a Wiki baby. When searching for random facts, I would first click on Wikipedia to get a general view of whatever topic I’m searching for. So for me, Wiki is simply wonderful. Obviously, the same sentiment is not felt by John S. The Wiki facts and entries are composed by contributors who may or may not have expertise or any particular knowledge in the area. More importantly, the contributors are unknown and virtually untraceable.

Apparently in the US, major communications Internet companies are bound by federal privacy laws that protect the identity of their customers. So even those who defame online are protected and their names will only be given up if a lawsuit resulted in a court subpoena. Amazingly, Federal law also protects online corporations such that they are not treated as the publisher or speaker. In other words, online service providers cannot be sued for disseminating defamatory attacks on citizens posted by others.

Hehe. Very explosive since the Internet is such a great avenue for free speech.

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