City Officials Tried To Force Wikimedia To Remove Truthful, But Unflattering, Content From Its Wiki Page
from the well,-this-should-make-everything-worse dept
The best Streisanding is the Streisanding you give yourself, as the adage goes. The adage is even enshrined at Wikipedia, where it points to the creator of the term: Mike Masnick. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.
The best thing to do to counter negative content is presenting your own side of the case. The worst thing, however, is trying to bury it, especially when the burial attempt involves public figures. Internet case law has made this obvious for more than two decades. The people who think the Streisand Effect will never affect their actions are people who think the internet can be controlled with a combination of “being angry about stuff” and bullshit takedown demands.
That brings us to the latest in inadvertent self-sabotage, this time involving members of the Durham City (North Carolina) government, which thought it could force Wikipedia to identify the editors who posted the (squints at request) factual information. Here’s Lena Geller with the details for Indy Week:
At the request of several elected officials, Durham city attorney Kimberly Rehberg last month asked Wikipedia to unmask the identities of users who have published accurate but unfavorable information about said officials to the crowdsourced encyclopedia—a move that experts call inappropriate and troubling.
In a certified letter to the Wikimedia Foundation dated June 29 and obtained by the INDY last week, Rehberg explained that she was writing at the “express request” of Mayor Elaine O’Neal and city council members DeDreana Freeman and Monique Holsey-Hyman, each of whom took issues with content on their Wikipedia pages.
Ah, the ol’ “took issues with content.” Not that there was anything illegal or incorrect about the “content.” No, they only “took issue” because the (factual) “content” makes these entities look bad.
“Express request” or not, there’s nothing Wikipedia needed to do to respond to these bullshit requests other than check stuff out and (when the edits proved to be true), ignore them.
But these officials demanded three contributors be unmasked by Wikipedia. The people involved with the bogus unmasking request are all people who definitely prefer their internet existence be laundered by the biggest players in the internet content business.
Holsey-Hyman is being investigated by the State Bureau of Investigation following a developer’s allegation that she attempted to solicit a bribe in exchange for her vote on a rezoning proposal. She has also been accused of improperly attempting to enlist city staff to work on her reelection campaign.
[…]
Freeman made news in March when her defense of Holsey-Hyman during a contentious city council meeting led to a profane shouting match that reportedly turned physical.
Hey, speaking as a nominative amateur here: if you don’t want bad stuff about you spread all over the internet, the obvious solution is to just not participate in bad stuff. And if you do, maybe try to explain yourself to your constituents instead of demanding a host of factual reporting unmask contributors and/or remove factual reporting.
When you do the latter, you do the RICO Streisand. “Hearts and minds” is the name of the game, one first explored when the US government was napalming Vietnamese children into early graves. You can regain the trust of constituents by being open and honest about unwise decisions. You can only alienate people by pretending your misdeeds should be buried by those reporting on them.
This is not a justification for unmasking. And I sincerely hope (or my own interests as a contributor for Techdirt) that one of these involved asshats thinks that internet users should be punished for publishing facts and decides to go federal.
On Wikipedia, the allegations and shouting match are summarized without any apparent factual error and with links to news articles as references.
The only question now is whether legislators like these can be voted to extinction. It was long presumed people doing things like this were too stupid to survive in the wild, but the threats of wild have long been mitigated without any corresponding effect on innate stupidity.
The internet is everyone’s playground. It shouldn’t just be an attempted tool of oppression for people who don’t understand how this all works. Being this bad at a simple thing like this strongly indicates no one should be spending their tax dollars on your ideas, much less your continued employed. Criticism comes with the job. And trying to out critics just so you can (presumably) make their lives miserable is exactly the sort of thing the United States has been against since its founding.
Filed Under: dedeana freeman, durham, durham city, elaine o'neal, kimberly rehberg, monique holsey-hyman, north carolina, wikipedia
Companies: wikimedia foundation
Comments on “City Officials Tried To Force Wikimedia To Remove Truthful, But Unflattering, Content From Its Wiki Page”
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Vet your topics better
Hey Tim, bad news. You’ve been played. Wikipedia has no article for Durham County in Indiana, and the list of counties in Indiana does not include a Durham. I know technically you’re n,t a journalist but…
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Try North Carolina. The complaint was about the web pages for the named individuals, not about the county as such. So the right geographic is easy enough to dig up.
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After reading the article it turns out that the “City” of Durham is in North Carolina.
Re: North Carolina
A cursory viewing of the Indy Week story and Wikipedia seems to indicate that only the state is wrong…. It’s North Carolina, not Indiana. While as a native Hoosier I would not be surprised if this kind of fuckery took place in my home state, I knew immediately that Durham had been misplaced. I agree the research on this one was a little sloppy…. It should have been immediately apparent to anyone doing the slightest amount of fact checking this was all taking place in North Carolina.
Article error
There is a mistake in your article. You state “Durham County (Indiana) government” It’s actually, North Carolina not Indiana.
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Yeah, it’s North Carolina… we’ve updated the story.
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Oh god, this happened in my neck of the woods?
I apologize for the stupiditiy of politicians from my home state.
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It’s not your fault unless you are an educator and/or there is something your wife should know. Or better not.
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Intelligence has nothing to do with politics. – Ambassador Londo Mollari
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No you haven’t – the headline still starts out with “County”, not “City”. Yes, the City of Durham resides in (and is the county seat of) the County of Durham, but I’m fairly certain that the County officials would not wish to be somehow connected to or with the events that happened within the City’s governing body.
When that’s corrected, feel free to delete this missive.
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Kimberly Rehberg, is that you?
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That’s a fair question, deserving of a no-nonsense answer.
No, I’m a long time TD reader and occasional commenter. I’ve never been elected to any public office, let alone in your state. But your surmisal does deserve a Funny, so have one on me.
They are not asked to survive in the wild but in an election. The qualifications for that are quite different. Cases in point too plentiful to hope for thriving democracies.
Sheesh.. pompous political twits
Sounds like a cat fight!!
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So sad
why this happens?
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It happens due to arrested development of mental acuity. Observedly, this happens at the age of 4 or perhaps 5. While the body continues to grow, the maturity-quotient stagnates thereafter, and forever more we have children in adult’s clothing.
You know what’s sad about all that? They vote.
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Dude, that was generic link spam text and you fell for it.
One simple lesson
Every elected official and civil servant should be taught one simple lesson before starting their job: If you don’t want to see it as front page news, don’t do it.
Re: ...but...
I spent 20 years as a faceless bureaucrat at the state level so I know it won’t work completely. Too many power-mad (as if they have power) types in government (and HOAs). But it would cut down on this type of buffoonery.
Oh hey, that’s my workplace city! Now I’m tempted to call in to the next city council meeting, not to read them the riot act or anything, but to educate them on this cool thing called the Streisand Effect, and how I would have never heard of these allegations if they hadn’t attempted to get them removed from Wikipedia.
And despite clearly demonstrating they are unfit for office, there will still be people supporting them.
“And trying to out critics just so you can (presumably) make their lives miserable is exactly the sort of thing the United States has been against since its founding.”
All together now……
…And the times, they are a-changing!