Wikimedia Foundation muzzles Wikinews

Found on The Register on Tuesday, 20 May 2008
Browse Censorship

Wikinews - like its sister site, Wikipedia - bills itself as a place without bias. Ostensibly, it's a democratic news source that never answers to a higher power. But that's just a setup for the latest act in the world's greatest online farce.

"Wikimedia has been doing things that are out of the ordinary and, in my opinion, against everything it stands for - such as free information for all and the fact that they claim to not censor anything," says Jason Safoutin.

Late last month, Wikimedia general counsel Mike Godwin filed a declaration with the court, pointing out that an article on Barbara Bauer "no longer appears on the Wikipedia site."

In telling Wikipedians to avoid re-posting a Barbara Bauer article, Godwin also tells them he's not telling them to avoid re-posting a Barbara article.

According to WorldNetDaily, the FBI is investigating Wikipedia after someone uploaded a photo of a nude adolescent. Safoutin's piece focused on the FBI probe, but it also mentioned other reports that Wikimedia Number Two Eric Moeller has advocated the free exchange of child pornography and posted a child pornography image to his web site.

Godwin killed this story too.

So much for a free encyclopedia. Everybody cries out when someone dares to modify an article; especially when said someone is a multi-billion dollar company, a government agency or a politican. The Internet doesn't forgive such attempts and makes them explode out of proportions (Streisand effect); but, unfortuately for Wikimedia, the Internet is blind and will happily do this to everybody.