Wikimedia Foundation calls on US Supreme Court to strike laws that threaten Wikipedia
Wikimedia Foundation calls on US Supreme Court to strike laws that threaten Wikipedia
The Foundation supports challenges to laws in Texas and Florida that jeopardize Wikipedia's community-led governance model and the right to freedom of expression.
The Foundation supports challenges to laws in Texas and Florida that jeopardize Wikipedia's community-led governance model and the right to freedom of expression.
An amicus brief, also known as a “friend-of-the-court” brief, is a document filed by individuals or organizations who are not part of a lawsuit, but who have an interest in the outcome of the case and want to raise awareness about their concerns. The Wikimedia Foundation’s amicus brief calls upon the Supreme Court to strike down laws passed in 2021 by Texas and Florida state legislatures. Texas House Bill 20 and Florida Senate Bill 7072 prohibit website operators from banning users or removing speech and content based on the viewpoints and opinions of the users in question.
“These laws expose residents of Florida and Texas who edit Wikipedia to lawsuits by people who disagree with their work,” said Stephen LaPorte, General Counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation. “For over twenty years, a community of volunteers from around the world have designed, debated, and deployed a range of content moderation policies to ensure the information on Wikipedia is reliable and neutral. We urge the Supreme Court to rule in favor of NetChoice to protect Wikipedia’s unique model of community-led governance, as well as the free expression rights of the encyclopedia’s dedicated editors.”
“The quality of Wikipedia as an online encyclopedia depends entirely on the ability of volunteers to develop and enforce nuanced rules for well-sourced, encyclopedic content,” said Rebecca MacKinnon, Vice President of Global Advocacy at the Wikimedia Foundation. “Without the discretion to make editorial decisions in line with established policies around verifiability and neutrality, Wikipedia would be overwhelmed with opinions, conspiracies, and irrelevant information that would jeopardize the project’s reason for existing.”
Wikipedia is one of the most impressive collective creations of the modern world. One day corrupt politicians will ruin it. They're one of the organizations I donate to every year in my futile hope they preserve it as long as possible. Articles like this just reinforces the need to vote for people who aren't actually cartoon villains. May not vote for SC but we do for who appoints them.
I've said this before. They are targeting the wrong layer!
They want to force websites to be neutral while allowing the internet providers to block and shape traffic however they want.
Force ISPs to allow access to all websites - good
Force ISPs to allow anyone to host a website at home - good
Force AWS to allow anyone to pay for and host websites on their infrastructure - probably good, but we're approaching the line
Force websites to host content they don't want to host - bad
They should just show up to Clarence Thomas' house with a suitcase of money and get some Argentinian old guy to call up Roberts claiming to be the Pope and tell him how to vote.
They say the multiverse contains every possible version of existence. They are wrong. There is no version of existence in which our illegitimate "supreme" court sides with any entity that exists to provide honest education to the public. As long as conservatives have infested the court (and our nation), it simply cannot happen.
these fascist laws are fucking insane. we need to stop these state governments now!
I think people would be surprised just how often the Wikipedia mods have to remind people that the government or court of any nation does not affect the facts of an event or change the reporting of media.
There's a cesspool of a changes thread for the Gujarat Massacre page because every BJP supporter showed up deleting entire swaths of paragraphs because the Supreme Court of India cleared Modi of any involvement, so obviously that means he's innocent and the event in question never happened.
I feel like those laws would affect all social media platforms and directly go against Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
Gosh this seems so relevant to the Wikipedia highway discussion. Maybe there cannot be flexibility in their rules when they are facing this type of threat.
Texas House Bill 20 and Florida Senate Bill 7072 prohibit website operators from banning users or removing speech and content based on the viewpoints and opinions of the users in question.
These laws expose residents of Florida and Texas who edit Wikipedia to lawsuits by people who disagree with their work
I don't understand this. Content on wikipedia isn't removed based on the viewpoints or opinions of users.
Honestly Overbanning is such a problem that I actually support these laws