Saudi Government Narrative Control Efforts Now Include The Jailing Of Wikipedia Administrators

from the evil-no-longer-constrained-by-public-perception dept

There are plenty of governments operating on platforms of pure evil, but the Saudi government is one the few that continues to be given a pass by other governments who fear alienating a source of oil located in the Mideast.

North Korea may be evil but it’s limited by its lack of a functioning economy. Sooner or later, the nation led by North Korean equivalent of a trust fund kid will be reduced to doing nothing more than talking, which is the most economical of antagonistic rhetoric options.

The Saudi government — headed by kings and princes — will never have money problems. And that makes this government far more disturbing when it chooses to indulge itself. This is the government that recently imprisoned a US citizen for 16 years over critical tweets. This is the same government that outlawed satire in 2018, instituting five-year prison sentences for those “mocking” the government and its favored religion.

This is the same government that killed and dismembered a Washington Post journalist (and legal US resident) and got away with it because no one in the international community with the power to stand up against the Saudi government chose to do so.

The DOJ recently indicted two former Twitter employees for acting on behalf of the Saudi government to spy on Twitter users the Saudi government hoped to silence, if not imprison. So, it’s clear the Saudi government’s efforts to silence critics and control the narrative have extraterritorial reach.

But it’s still doing what it can on the home front, where it’s not subject to laws that haven’t been written to favor the Saudi government. The latest news on the government’s efforts to control the narrative brings Wikipedia into the picture, showing the Saudi government — as powerful as it is — still fears the history it is constantly rewriting will be undercut by people concerned with compiling facts.

Saudi Arabia has infiltrated Wikipedia and jailed two administrators in a bid to control content on the website, weeks after a former Twitter worker was jailed in the US for spying for the Saudis.

One administrator was jailed for 32 years, and another was sentenced to eight years, the activists said.

An investigation by parent body Wikimedia found the Saudi government had penetrated Wikipedia’s senior ranks in the region, with Saudi citizens acting or forced to act as agents, two rights groups said.

The investigation referred to in this Guardian report was performed by DAWN (Democracy for the Arab World Now). The first notable aspect of this investigation is the fact that these arrests did not occur recently.

According to sources with knowledge of the matter who spoke to DAWN and SMEX, in September 2020, the Saudi government arrested two high-ranking Wikipedia administrators in Saudi Arabia, Osama Khalid and Ziyad al-Sofiani on the same day, charging them with “swaying public opinion” and “violating public morals.” The Specialized Criminal Court, the country’s counter-terrorism court used to prosecute political detainees, sentenced them in the summer of 2020 to five and eight years in Al-Haer prison in Riyadh, respectively.

For two years, these obviously politically motivated arrests flew under the radar. The fact that bullshit laws crafted solely for the government to wield against critics is the unsurprising part. But things did get worse far more recently for one of the Wikipedia administrators arrested and charged by the Saudi government:

The Specialized Criminal Court increased Mr. Khalid’s sentence to 32 years in September 2022 for the same charges in what appears to be part of a broader campaign to impose harsh additional sentences against political detainees. 

That’s insane. Khalid’s sentence was originally five years. Even at that length it was unjust and clear abuse of the government’s power. After serving nearly half his original sentence, the government decided to take away his freedom for another 27 years.

Wikipedia can’t save the editors the Saudi government has jailed. But it can help prevent the Saudi government from sock-puppeting its way into an alternative set of facts.

On December 6, 2022, Wikimedia announced that it had banned 16 users for “conflict of interest editing” following an internal investigation it had commenced in January 2022. Sources with knowledge of Wikimedia’s operations revealed to DAWN and SMEX that the ban was against 16 Saudi users, Wikimedia’s highest ranked editorial team in the region, following its discovery that they were serving as agents for the Saudi government to promote positive content about the government and delete content critical of the government, including information about political prisoners in the country.

DAWN says the publication of the list of excised Saudi administrators is a good start. But it feels the Foundation should do more. While increased vigilance in response to proven infiltration is essential, the Foundation should do more to prevent it from happening in the future, including monitoring administrators based in other countries with long histories of human rights abuses to ensure articles and edits originating from those countries aren’t just government propaganda.

But no matter what Wikipedia does in response to this situation, the Saudi government has already proven its point. And its willingness to jail people for decades simply because they tried to publish facts will serve as a strong deterrent to Saudi residents who think they can still pursue the truth.

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That One Guy (profile) says:

Re: Get back to me, I'll figure it out eventually I'm sure

One involves a government jailing people for years if not decades for saying unflattering things about the people in charge.

The other involves a government sending notices of potential TOS violations and letting the platform decide what if anything they want to do about the users involved.

There’s some sort of difference here but I just can’t put my finger on it…

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Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:

If you let government get away with “suggestions” (they weren’t) it will turn into demands

Twitter ignored more than half of the FBI’s suggestions. The FBI didn’t retaliate against or punish Twitter for those refusals. I fail to see where that is the same thing as the Saudi government jailing Wikipedia administrators, but please feel free to explain away the discrepancy.

I’m honestly glad that one of you Musk-sucking Freeze Peach types finally commented on an article about actual censorship in a way that didn’t try to justify the censorship.

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Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:3

They could have ignored 100% and it still would be a first amendment violation.

Except it wasn’t. As the “Twitter Files” themselves pointed out, the FBI never threatened any kind of retaliation for a refusal to follow its suggestions. One of the letters from the FBI encouraged Twitter to take any inaction it deemed “appropriate”. Had the FBI so much as implied that Twitter would face some form of punishment for refusing to follow its suggestions, that would’ve been a 1A violation. But the FBI didn’t do that and you can’t point to any-fuckin’-thing in the “Twitter Files” that proves otherwise.

David says:

Re: Re: Re:4

To be fair, the courts have shown a comparatively dim view towards government “suggestions” in relation to when First Amendment violations (the government actually impacting Free Speech) start. After all, any “it would be a real shame if something happened to your business” from the government carries clout that dwarfs that of similar comments from non-government actors because concerning your rights, the government is the last resort.

Most governments have way less protection for Free Speech than the U.S., and it’s sort of a good thing that the U.S. does cover one end of the spectrum.

It is under constant assault, however, some threats are of a rather fuzzy nature, some of the more imaginary and/or hypocritical kind.

So I don’t think there is anything wrong with performing thorough oversight here. As the ultimate arbiter ends up being the voter, some of that oversight ends up performative.

That’s distasteful, I’ll readily agree. But I don’t see a way to avoid that without causing more damage in the course of trying to upkeep the First Amendment than one tries to salvage.

Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:5

any “it would be a real shame if something happened to your business” from the government carries clout

And if that had happened with the FBI’s letters to Twitter, rest assured that I’d be shittalking the FBI over it. But it didn’t.

We can have a good discussion about how much involvement, if any, any government organization should have in re: social media moderation. But that shouldn’t involve making shit up about what the FBI said to Twitter⁠—something other people (but not you) have done in the past despite having the full text of an actual letter in front of them. As Mike pointed out in this comments section, in other cases that found (or should’ve found) 1A violations from the government, the threats and attempts at coercion went way further than anything the FBI was shown to have said.

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Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:3

I’m not trolling here:

Do you have a citation, perhaps binding precedent, to back up the assertion that “the government notifying a company of terms of service violations of a third party” is a first amendment violation? … and is it a violation of the company’s rights, or those of the third party?

You make that assertion. I would like to see what you base it on, which would, naturally, be in court records.

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Mike Masnick (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:4

Do you have a citation, perhaps binding precedent, to back up the assertion that “the government notifying a company of terms of service violations of a third party” is a first amendment violation? … and is it a violation of the company’s rights, or those of the third party?

Bennett does not have such a citation, and even though he regularly calls me an idiot who should shut down Techdirt, I’ll actually provide you with a few competing citations, so that you can see what the (slightly contradictory) state of the law is, but also why Bennett’s broad claims are not supported by clear jurisprodence.

The case most favorable to Bennett’s view is Bantam Books: https://casetext.com/case/bantam-books-inc-v-sullivan

I cite that case regularly when I think government agents go too far. However, in Bantam Books, the commission clearly went much, much further than the FBI has been shown to have gone here. It sent notices to booksellers implying that certain books on their shelves were obscene, suggesting they were NOT protected by the 1st Amendment AND telling the booksellers that local law enforcement had also been contacted. That was the key element to the coercion part in Bantam Books. Not only was the Commission saying that the books violated the law, but also suggesting law enforcement might go after them for it. Furthermore, the letter suggested that the state’s top enforcement official, the AG, would enforce the law against the booksellers.

In Maxwell v. New Hope, courts said that government officials pushing for a billboard to be removed did not violate the 1st Amendment. https://casetext.com/case/rc-maxwell-co-v-borough-of-new-hope

Frankly, I think this case was decided incorrectly, but this very much cuts against Bennett’s arguments, since the coercion in Maxwell was WAY MORE than anything the FBI did with Twitter, and the court found it to not be a problem.

Then there’s Okwedy v. Molinari. Another billboard case which might be the closest to the issues in this case. https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=14431043191361725077

Here, the court ruled that a reasonable jury could find that a request from the borough president to remove billboards, saying that those billboards “were not welcome” in the borough violated the 1st Amendment. But, again, in Okwedy, the borough President didn’t tell the billboard operator to look at whether or not the billboards violated the company’s policies, but rather said the messages on them “are not welcome.”

In Okwedy, the court made it pretty clear that there needs to be some sort of threat of coercion. “What matters is the distinction between attempts to convince and attempts to coerce.”

If the FBI had sent this list of tweets to Twitter and said “these are not welcome.” Or “these tweets must be removed,” then there would be a strong 1st Amendment case against the FBI. But… as they clearly said “we think these might violate your policies, do as you feel is appropriate,” and Twitter often left them up… it seems clear that the FBI’s actions meet none of the standards of Bantam, Maxwell, or Okwedy… and (especially based on Maxwell) would not be seen as violating the 1st Amendment.

One final case, which we’ve written about a bunch in the past was Dart v. Backpage. https://casetext.com/case/backpagecom-llc-v-dart-1

It has a lot of useful language for these debates. In that case, Dart (Cook County Sheriff) threatened credit card companies for providing services to Backpage. When Backpage sued in response, Dart argued that he was just using his own free speech, but Judge Posner didn’t buy it.

And that’s because, again, Dart didn’t just say “hey, can you see if Backpage violates your policies.” His letter was clearly coercive. The letter asked the credit card companies to “immediately cease and desist” from providing services to Backpage. The letter also went much further, implying that providing services to Backpage was in “willful” violation of sex trafficking laws.

So, again, if the FBI’s communications implied any legal violation, there might be an issue.

So, those are the key cases on the issue, cases that Bennett clearly has not read and does not understand. I’ve cited these cases many times in discussing these issues and the many times I do think public officials go over the line.

The problem is that there’s no reading of any case out there that supports Bennett’s conjecture that merely sending a list and saying “hey check to see if these violate your policies” would be seen as a violation. Indeed, under Maxwell, where a much more coercive letter was sent and found to be okay, it suggests that Bennett’s understanding of 1st Amendment issues is not built on any actual legal jurisprudence, but rather his personal infatuation with supporting Musk’s interpretation of the Twitter files.

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Matthew M Bennett says:

Re: Re: Re:5

Two of the cases you cited are actually relevant, show a clear precedent in my favor, and then you want to claim they don’t apply because the actions of small town officials were somehow more threatening than the freaking FBI, DHS, CDC, and several congressional committees that were already threatening to investigate and regulate Twitter.

Jesus wept, Masnick, that’s sad.

Mike Masnick (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:6

Two of the cases you cited are actually relevant

No. All of them are relevant.

show a clear precedent in my favor

They do not. At all. And if you just look at many of the cases that cite them, they show that without any actual coercion, courts are very, very willing to give the gov’t the benefit of the doubt.

Until you can show some kind of coercion from the FBI, your claims are laughable. You clearly have no knowledge or experience on this issue and it fucking shows.

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Matthew M Bennett says:

Re: Re: Re:7

You’re just making things up, Masnick.

courts are very, very willing to give the gov’t the benefit of the doubt

It’s actually the opposite of that, particularly in 1A cases. They give individual agents a lot of personal immunity but are hair-trigger prepared to injunction government actions inhibiting speech.

Until you can show some kind of coercion from the FBI

1) I don’t have to, really
2) it’s not just the FBI, it wasn’t just one email, it was many agencies all at once and embedded FBI agents (recently “ex”, that’s the way you play that game)
3) if you want coercion, congress was threatening to regulate them that whole time you walnut Oh yeah, committees were also telling them to ban people. Schiff demanded they ban someone who hadn’t violated any TOS at all. (they told him no…and then did for no reason a couple months later)

You have no knowledge or experience you little shit. You don’t even know what “doxxing” is

Mike Masnick (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:8

1) I don’t have to, really

According to the courts, you fucking do.

2) it’s not just the FBI, it wasn’t just one email, it was many agencies all at once and embedded FBI agents (recently “ex”, that’s the way you play that game)

No, that’s not how any of this works. You don’t know shit.

3) if you want coercion, congress was threatening to regulate them that whole time you walnut Oh yeah, committees were also telling them to ban people. Schiff demanded they ban someone who hadn’t violated any TOS at all. (they told him no…and then did for no reason a couple months later)

And… we actually agree there. As I’ve said in the past, I think Congress went over the line, and Schiff has been especially bad on this (Mark Warner too on the Senate side).

Again< I will call out actual 1st Amendment problems, contrary to what you claim. I don’t care who it is or what team they play for.

You have no knowledge or experience you little shit. You don’t even know what “doxxing” is

You’re simply wrong, and it must be burning you up inside to recognize that you’re an ignorant little child who finally tried to bully someone who is more knowledgeable than he is. Deal with it.

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Matthew M Bennett says:

Re: Re: Re:9

Posted this before, going to post it again, Turley says U R DUM.

https://jonathanturley.org/2022/12/22/conspiracy-theorists-attempting-to-discredit-the-agency-the-fbi-attacks-critics-objecting-to-its-role-in-twitters-censorship-system/

You’re simply wrong, [doxxing]

For bonus points here’s the definition of doxxing you keep on trying to ignore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doxing

“Doxing or doxxing (originally spelled d0xing) is the act of publicly providing personally identifiable information about an individual or organization, usually via the Internet.[1][2][3] Historically, the term has been used interchangeably to refer to both the aggregation of this information from public databases and social media websites (like Facebook), as well as the publication of previously private information obtained through criminal or otherwise fraudulent means (such as hacking and social engineering). The aggregation and provision of previously published material is generally a legal practice, though it may be subject to laws concerning stalking and intimidation.[4] Doxing may be carried out for reasons such as online shaming, extortion, and vigilante aid to law enforcement.[5][6] It also may be associated with hacktivism.”

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Matthew M Bennett says:

Re: Re: Re:11

Your site (from 2005) glitched and put the following comment down at the bottom of the page rather than here:

I know you think you “backed up” your statements. You sure did say a bunch of stuff. Did it make sense? Not so much. You made a bunch of claims that are in no way true (repeatedly) and eventually it’s just easier to quote an actual constitutional scholar explaining why you’re wrong.

Just gonna continue to ignore that you’ve been proven wrong on the doxxing thing, too, huh? Providing the current and future location of his plane is exactly the same as providing his home address, for all the same reasons. (in his case he has several of both) You haven’t even attempted to make an argument to the contrary, just said “No it’s not, you idiot” which to be honest basically what you always say, without the extra steps.

Get fucked, you delusional loon. Having mouth-breathing antifa for a comment section telling you you’re smart hasn’t been good for you psyche.

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bluegrassgeek (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:3 Simply?

The only thing simple here is your understanding of the 1st Amendment.

Hint: It does not mean a government agency is forbidden from even interacting with an American company. In your fantasy world, the FBI can’t even investigate if a crime was committed without violating the 1st Amendment.

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PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:4

The funny thing is that he would have a point. If Twitter had blindly responded to every request with a shutdown, with zero independent activity, then it could have fit within his claim.

But – even by his own admission – this did not happen. Not even close.

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bhull242 (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:5

Show me where in the Twitter Files (or anywhere else) the FBI actually said “ban these people”. Not something that you think implies it, because that’s not what you’re saying here. You’re saying there’s a difference between interaction and the words “ban these people”.

Again, we dispute whether what the FBI actually said even implies a suggestion to ban the listed accounts (I can’t see how a suggestion that these accounts may violate Twitter’s rules is even an implication or suggestion to ban anyone under any reasonable interpretation, especially given Twitter only acted on 40% of them and no consequences were imposed on them or threatened for failure to act on any or all of them), but even you have acknowledged that the FBI didn’t literally and explicitly say to ban anyone, so any comparison to “ban these people” is irrelevant.

Matthew M Bennett says:

Re: Re: Re:6

OK, so I already know you’re not a serious person based upon other comments, but that whole line of reasoning is disingenuous. “Ban these people” is a paraphrase, but why else would the FBI send a list of people that violated TOS if it didn’t want them to be banned? Were they just being helpful, doing Twitter’s data work for them? No of course not. Those were accounts that they were asking to be banned. “Ban these people”. That twitter only listened to them sometimes isn’t terribly important, the crime isn’t theirs anyway, it’s the FBI’s They were a government entity directing the suppression of speech. Heck you could argue that twitter ignoring them in some cases meant they weren’t actually violating TOS and the FBI was lying, but that doesn’t change much either. It’s a government entity directing censorship. It’s the FBI, threat is inherent.

Nevermind that Rep Schiff’s office and others were much more explicit in their demands.

So no, they said implicitly (some offices explictly) “Ban these people” and the comparison is pretty direct.

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Bloof (profile) says:

Re:

Only after you explain to the rest of the class why it was essential to democracy that rightwingers should be allowed to post Hunter Biden revenge porn which would be a breach of twitter rules and the laws of many of the jurisdictions the website operates in no matter who the pictures were of.

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Matthew Bennett says:

Re: Re: Flag on the play

Blatant strawman. No one cares about the “porn”. They care about the emails showing Biden Sr accepting his cut of bribes. The “porn” just provides verification that is basically impossible to fake that the laptop was his. (Photoshop is easy to detect, folks)

If you are against investigating the laptop and investigation of same, you are for corruption. Full stop.

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Stephen T. Stone (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:

No one cares about the “porn”.

And yet, several of the tweets linked to in the “Twitter Files” that were meant to show a clear political bias were tweets that had posted pictures of Hunter Biden’s dick without his permission.

The “porn” just provides verification that is basically impossible to fake that the laptop was his.

No, it doesn’t. Anyone with the requisite knowledge could’ve found the pics on his phone or an online data storage account, downloaded a copy of the pics, and put them on the laptop to bolster the idea that the laptop belonged to Hunter Biden.

I’m not saying that’s what happened, but I’m also not saying it couldn’t have happened. And given all the other issues with the laptop story, my idea isn’t that far-fetched. It’s certainly more believable than “Hunter Biden got so high on crack on a single day that he gave his laptop to a computer repair store and never once noticed it was gone after the fact”.

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PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:2

“Anyone with the requisite knowledge could’ve found the pics on his phone or an online data storage account, downloaded a copy of the pics, and put them on the laptop to bolster the idea that the laptop belonged to Hunter Biden”

Let’s just recap what I understand about the situation: The laptop was taken to a legally blind person on the other side of the country who couldn’t verify if it was Hunter himself who took it in for repair. After some random decision making and many months, he looked at what was on the laptop, and decided it was bad. After supposedly trying to tell the FBI about it, he took a forensically invalid copy of it, then sent it to the lawyer of the opposing candidate to the father of the alleged owner, who presented it as evidence as Hail Mary pass when said candidate was losing.

I’m not sure if the porn is real, but I know who’s high as hell to believe that story.

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Matthew M Bennett says:

Re: Re: Re:3

No, that’s really not an accurate of description of events. He gave the FBI the laptop (which they aknowledge but they “lost” it) he didn’t “try” to tell them. And an imaged hard drive is perfect forensically valid.

Nevermind that it has been several times over been verified as legitimate. Pretending that data is not real simply is not credible. As you kids like to say, it’s “conspiracy theory” type stuff.

Toom1275 (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:4

He gave the FBI the laptop (which they aknowledge but they “lost” it) he didn’t “try” to tell them. And an imaged hard drive is perfect forensically valid.
Nevermind that it has been several times over been verified as legitimate

Fact check:

As always from Batty Matty, not a single one of the above-quoted claimes has any real-world basis to them whatsoever.

Out here in the non-hallucinatory world, the hard drive lacks chain of custody integrity, and only some of the emails were verified as most likely legit.

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Matthew M Bennett says:

Re: Re: Re:2

The laptop has been (and had been at the time) verified as legitimate and actual experts have stated that there’s no way that enormous volume of information could be faked.

You’re just making up excuses for a politcal hit job which is exactly what was done at the time. The difference is we now know those excuses are indefensible.

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Bloof (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:

No, conservatives don’t care about the porn and would like
the illegal content of the posts that were ‘censored’ by the Biden campaign, who were not in office at the time, swept under the rug as it is an inconvenient truth that makes it harder for you to wail about bias and censorship. Saying ‘we’re not allowed to talk about Hunter’s laptop’ is a lot easier to build a scandal from than saying ‘We’re not being allowed to post stolen pictures starring the penis of a private citizen that is not running for office.’

This is nothing more than conservatives punching someone for being related to a political candidate then squealing about censorship when being told to stop.

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bhull242 (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:3

What I know is that 1) I don’t know what Hunter’s penis looks like, so I even if I looked at the images at issue (which I’m not going to do because I have no interest in that sort of thing), I wouldn’t necessarily be able to link them to him; and 2) you can put images from another source onto a given device, so the presence of explicit images of Hunter on the laptop doesn’t definitively prove the laptop was his.

That said, even if the laptop was Hunter’s, that doesn’t prove that he (or someone acting on his behalf) was the one to drop it off at the store, nor that it wasn’t tampered with between it leaving Hunter’s possession (if it was ever in his possession in the first place) and the publication of the allegedly incriminating emails, nor that the emails allegedly found on it were ever actually on the laptop to begin with, nor that the emails weren’t tampered with, nor that the evidence allegedly found there actually demonstrates any corruption on Joe Biden’s part even ignoring everything else. There are so many issues with this whole thing that it doesn’t even matter if it was actually Hunter’s laptop.

Again, merely having something of Hunter on the laptop doesn’t necessarily prove the laptop was his; maybe it belonged to someone who was sent Hunter porn. Either way, it doesn’t come close to showing that the story is factual in a way that actually matters.

Matthew M Bennett says:

Re: Re: Re:4

It’s sounds like you don’t know much about how computers work AND you don’t know anything about the story of the laptop or the thousands of pictures on it.

Seriously, 100% confirmed to be Hunter’s laptop. It was mostly known and confirmed at the time (which is why spiking the story was such a travesty) but it’s 100% confirmed now. Claiming to doubt it is not credible. Willful ignorance is not a strategy.

PaulT (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re:5

“It’s sounds like you don’t know much about how computers work”

Forensic chain of evidence is a thing. The guy who got suspended from practicing law because he kept lying about things after mistaking a landscaping business for a hotel might not be the best source for disproving that.

“story of the laptop or the thousands of pictures on it”

Story is about right. As far as I’m aware, the only pictures deleted were revenge porn pics of his penis. Which not only would not be acceptable whatever party the target was part of, it has nothing to do with his father’s job. Lots of people who do good things have idiot relatives.

“Willful ignorance is not a strategy.”

Yet, it’s the only one you’ve tried in the4se threads…

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Anonymous Coward says:

Wikipedia can’t save the editors the Saudi government has jailed.

…but if it were not so dead-set against anonymous editing, the government might not have been able to find them. There are, in theory, ways to get an exemption to Wikipedia’s IP-blocking. But one apparently has to become “trusted” first, and “demonstrate the need”, and there seems to be no way to do this without revealing one’s real IP address. And then the user would be on a big public list that I’m sure would be of interest to oppressive governments.

Even in a not-so-repressive country, I found this sufficiently onerous that I stopped editing when they implemented this policy. There are errors on almost every page I look at, so using a single login would reveal almost my entire Wikipedia browsing history—which will inevitably include things that hint at my real-world identity, along with some embarrasing stuff. But Wikipedia doesn’t like people having multiple logins either, and anyway, that would be too easy to fuck up. It’s hard to imagine someone doing this, and more, when their lives could be put in danger from any mistake.

(By the way, research suggests anonymous editors aren’t much different from anybody else.)

Anonymous Coward says:

Re:

The hilarious irony?

They have massive issues with just the registered users even with the processes in place, since, named or otherwise, people WILL do just about anything to harass, hinder and ruin the site.

At least most of the petty vandalism can be cleaned automatically. Dealing with a global community of people though…

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Anonymous Coward says:

Sooner or later, the nation led by North Korean equivalent of a trust fund kid will be reduced to doing nothing more than talking, which is the most economical of antagonistic rhetoric options.

…Uh. North Korea is basically a Chinese toady. And Kim jong-Il WAS the trust-fund asshole. True, their damage is limited compared to Saudi Arabia and, I dunno, the whole of Southeast Asia, but as long as China “bankrolls” North Korea, they’ll do more than just talk. And it’ll be Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan that will suffer.

But you’re quite right on Saudi Arabia, though.

This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.

Matthew M Bennett says:

I know you think you “backed up” your statements. You sure did say a bunch of stuff. Did it make sense? Not so much. You made a bunch of claims that are in no way true (repeatedly) and eventually it’s just easier to quote an actual constitutional scholar explaining why you’re wrong.

Just gonna continue to ignore that you’ve been proven wrong on the doxxing thing, too, huh? Providing the current and future location of his plane is exactly the same as providing his home address, for all the same reasons. (in his case he has several of both) You haven’t even attempted to make an argument to the contrary, just said “No it’s not, you idiot” which to be honest basically what you always say, without the extra steps.

Get fucked, you delusional loon. Having mouth-breathing antifa for a comment section telling you you’re smart hasn’t been good for you psyche.

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