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You'd think that if libel against holistic health professionals were so rampant on Wikipedia, they would take it to court and get a payout. But I guess that wo
by hannasanarion 8y ago
You'd think that if libel against holistic health professionals were so rampant on Wikipedia, they would take it to court and get a payout.
But I guess that would involve proving something about the real world, which holistic health professionals aren't particularly good at.
- close04 8y agoIt's highly unlikely that such an initiative would ever result in a favorable outcome for the person being defamed. The hoops you have to jump through make sure of that. You have to sue Wikimedia to find out who was the editor, you have to be able to enforce that court order in the editor's country, you have to prove the defamation and possible damages incurred. And if they were quoting and interpreting other articles available at the time you're out of luck. You'll kick the ball around forever. Or as long as your money lasts. The reasons why Wikipedia isn't implementing any strong mechanisms and processes to avoid or at least to quickly correct these issues are that it's profitable to play the "pay to write anything you want" game and that it's impossible for them to be found responsible. Wikimedia will always be protected by laws like the Communications Decency Act: > operators of Internet services are not to be construed as publishers (and thus not legally liable for the words of third parties who use their services). There are people who's Wiki page mentioned them as being suspects of pedophilia, murder, etc. for months and still nobody was found responsible for it. You should see what kind of effort is involved in taking down a page even when it runs afoul of Wikipedia's own rules, let alone litigate.