6 ms·

Wow. No Wikipedia articles on him either, and reports of people getting permanently banned from Wikipedia for trying to create that article, or even mentioning

Wow. No Wikipedia articles on him either, and reports of people getting permanently banned from Wikipedia for trying to create that article, or even mentioning him in another.

willis936 6y ago
Wow. It's almost like the missions of popular websites fall in line with protecting individuals against government-sponsored attacks on whistleblowers. Witness protection isn't some flashy thing in movies. It's real and society benefits from it.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- CamelCaseName 6y ago
  1. I imagine state actors have better information than Wikipedia editors. 2. Leaving that aside, why permanently ban those who make such contributions to Wikipedia?
  - anoraca 6y ago
    Are most people who repeatedly try to edit Wikipedia with disallowed content banned?
  - dodobirdlord 6y ago
    1. State actors also have a long and established history of abuses of power. We should not defer to what they have to say on issues related to their possible abuses. 2. Propensity for creating such a page is a strong indication of extremely poor judgement.
- s_y_n_t_a_x 6y ago
  .
  - willis936 6y ago
    >You don't get special agent treatment for being in WP. Yes. You do. WISTEC covers their bases, but they can't force large organizations to play ball at a whim. Those organizations need to be willing to help. And it's heart warming to see that they are.
  - anigbrowl 6y ago
    What's more troubling is there's a list going around being used for censorship that citizens can't FOIA or see. Citizenship has no bearing on the internal policies of private corporations. If you don't like the large corporate offerings, do without and use other services. Being a consumer of their services doesn't grant legal standing because you haven't suffered any definable injury.
- cryptonector 6y ago
  What are you talking about? The impeachment is over. Everyone knows the whistleblower's identity -- it can't be protected. Horse, barn, door.
  - sangnoir 6y ago
    I actively didn't want to know the identity of this whistle-blower. I wish parent had put the name at the end of the comment so I could skip it entirely. I will not take part in some chilling-effect and/or stochastic terrorism effort (see Ping Pong Pizza incident); I understand why Google, wikipedia and Facebook wouldn't want to be party to that either.
    - TechBro8615 6y ago
      Maybe you shouldn’t venture outside of the curated Internet then. If you don’t want to read something, you’ll just have to stick to places like Facebook that delete it to protect your eyes from such dangerous words and ideas.
      - sangnoir 6y ago
        Do you avoid spoilers? I do, and that doesn't mean I'm "afraid of ideas". Actively avoiding certain information doesn't require a curated internet - it helps when other people respect that (spoiler tags/warnings and such). I expect most people who hang out on HN would understand that there are no good outcomes when PII is in the wrong hands - that's not even a controversial idea.
        TechBro8615 6y ago
        Interesting point, but I’m not sure the analogy holds up under scrutiny. You don’t want spoilers because they contain information that you do ultimately want to know. A better analogy might be NSFL videos (people dying, mutilation etc.) I would be upset to find such a video auto playing in my feed. But I also think it’s a whole different level of offense compared to words on a page. And I know not to visit certain pages on 4chan, for example, if I want to avoid seeing such content. So do I benefit from using moderated platforms like Reddit instead? I would say yes. But then I would also suggest you need to apply the same logic to words on a page; if you don’t want to see them, stick to platforms that censor them for you. Regarding PII, I’m not sure how you can argue that the name of a public figure is PII. The person in question is a “whistleblower” in some sense, but it’s very debatable whether he actually has any legal protections regarding others publicizing his name. As far as I know, he is not protected by WITSEC or any official, legal whistleblower statute or act. All censorship or omission of his name has been voluntary on the part of media organizations and social media platforms.
rickdeveloper 6y ago
Here's a related Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiInAction/comments/du2nnn/wikipedia_wont_allow_anyone_to_talk_about_eric/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiInAction/comments/du2nnn/wikipe...
shp0ngle 6y ago
If you want to edit wikipedia, you need to know and play their game. Politically charged topics on wikipedia need multiple reliable sources. I can’t find any sources, that would pass as reputable on wikipedia, on this guy. Maybe if there was a script from Senate from Rand Paul, who spoke his name publicly, that could be used. New York Post is the only kind-of-reputable source I can find, I don’t think that’s enough for now edit: people link Conservapedia etc, but you can quickly see the stuff is full of misinformation. The like to point out, as Rand did, that Schiff daughter was in some relationship with the CIA guy. This is provably false. Maybe the Wikipedia rule on sources is actually good.
- KyleBerezin 6y ago
  People who authored pages about him get banned, a couple got life bans. This is almost certainly censorship, not some extensive source verification. There also seems to be a media blackout on the topic.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
acka 6y ago
There are articles about him on WikiSpooks[0] and Conservapedia[1]. [0] https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Eric_Ciaramella https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Eric_Ciaramella [1] https://www.conservapedia.com/Eric_Ciaramella https://www.conservapedia.com/Eric_Ciaramella
- maest 6y ago
  Is Conservapedia satire? > Ciaramella, who has been derided by critics as a beta male, is represented by kiddie-porn lawyer Mark Zaid. Regardless of political leaning, you can't take anything like this seriously, surely.
  - tryptophan 6y ago
    Wow, that website is really something. Feels like peeking into the mind of a deranged person.
plibither8 6y ago
There doesn't seem to be any deletion log associated with "Eric Ciaramella": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log?type=delete&user=&page=Eric+Ciaramella&wpdate=2020-05-19&tagfilter=&subtype= https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log?type=delete&user=&..., but then who's to say that they haven't just deleted these logs too.

Wow. No Wikipedia articles on him either, and reports of people getting permanently banned from Wikipedia for trying to create that article, or even mentioning him in another.

willis936 6y ago

Wow. It's almost like the missions of popular websites fall in line with protecting individuals against government-sponsored attacks on whistleblowers. Witness protection isn't some flashy thing in movies. It's real and society benefits from it.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
CamelCaseName 6y ago
1. I imagine state actors have better information than Wikipedia editors. 2. Leaving that aside, why permanently ban those who make such contributions to Wikipedia?
- anoraca 6y ago
  Are most people who repeatedly try to edit Wikipedia with disallowed content banned?
- dodobirdlord 6y ago
  1. State actors also have a long and established history of abuses of power. We should not defer to what they have to say on issues related to their possible abuses. 2. Propensity for creating such a page is a strong indication of extremely poor judgement.
s_y_n_t_a_x 6y ago
.
- willis936 6y ago
  >You don't get special agent treatment for being in WP. Yes. You do. WISTEC covers their bases, but they can't force large organizations to play ball at a whim. Those organizations need to be willing to help. And it's heart warming to see that they are.
- anigbrowl 6y ago
  What's more troubling is there's a list going around being used for censorship that citizens can't FOIA or see. Citizenship has no bearing on the internal policies of private corporations. If you don't like the large corporate offerings, do without and use other services. Being a consumer of their services doesn't grant legal standing because you haven't suffered any definable injury.
cryptonector 6y ago
What are you talking about? The impeachment is over. Everyone knows the whistleblower's identity -- it can't be protected. Horse, barn, door.
- sangnoir 6y ago
  I actively didn't want to know the identity of this whistle-blower. I wish parent had put the name at the end of the comment so I could skip it entirely. I will not take part in some chilling-effect and/or stochastic terrorism effort (see Ping Pong Pizza incident); I understand why Google, wikipedia and Facebook wouldn't want to be party to that either.
  - TechBro8615 6y ago
    Maybe you shouldn’t venture outside of the curated Internet then. If you don’t want to read something, you’ll just have to stick to places like Facebook that delete it to protect your eyes from such dangerous words and ideas.
    - sangnoir 6y ago
      Do you avoid spoilers? I do, and that doesn't mean I'm "afraid of ideas". Actively avoiding certain information doesn't require a curated internet - it helps when other people respect that (spoiler tags/warnings and such). I expect most people who hang out on HN would understand that there are no good outcomes when PII is in the wrong hands - that's not even a controversial idea.
      - TechBro8615 6y ago
        Interesting point, but I’m not sure the analogy holds up under scrutiny. You don’t want spoilers because they contain information that you do ultimately want to know. A better analogy might be NSFL videos (people dying, mutilation etc.) I would be upset to find such a video auto playing in my feed. But I also think it’s a whole different level of offense compared to words on a page. And I know not to visit certain pages on 4chan, for example, if I want to avoid seeing such content. So do I benefit from using moderated platforms like Reddit instead? I would say yes. But then I would also suggest you need to apply the same logic to words on a page; if you don’t want to see them, stick to platforms that censor them for you. Regarding PII, I’m not sure how you can argue that the name of a public figure is PII. The person in question is a “whistleblower” in some sense, but it’s very debatable whether he actually has any legal protections regarding others publicizing his name. As far as I know, he is not protected by WITSEC or any official, legal whistleblower statute or act. All censorship or omission of his name has been voluntary on the part of media organizations and social media platforms.

rickdeveloper 6y ago

Here's a related Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiInAction/comments/du2nnn/wikipedia_wont_allow_anyone_to_talk_about_eric/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiInAction/comments/du2nnn/wikipe...

shp0ngle 6y ago

If you want to edit wikipedia, you need to know and play their game. Politically charged topics on wikipedia need multiple reliable sources. I can’t find any sources, that would pass as reputable on wikipedia, on this guy. Maybe if there was a script from Senate from Rand Paul, who spoke his name publicly, that could be used. New York Post is the only kind-of-reputable source I can find, I don’t think that’s enough for now edit: people link Conservapedia etc, but you can quickly see the stuff is full of misinformation. The like to point out, as Rand did, that Schiff daughter was in some relationship with the CIA guy. This is provably false. Maybe the Wikipedia rule on sources is actually good.

KyleBerezin 6y ago
People who authored pages about him get banned, a couple got life bans. This is almost certainly censorship, not some extensive source verification. There also seems to be a media blackout on the topic.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

acka 6y ago

There are articles about him on WikiSpooks[0] and Conservapedia[1]. [0] https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Eric_Ciaramella https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Eric_Ciaramella [1] https://www.conservapedia.com/Eric_Ciaramella https://www.conservapedia.com/Eric_Ciaramella

maest 6y ago
Is Conservapedia satire? > Ciaramella, who has been derided by critics as a beta male, is represented by kiddie-porn lawyer Mark Zaid. Regardless of political leaning, you can't take anything like this seriously, surely.
- tryptophan 6y ago
  Wow, that website is really something. Feels like peeking into the mind of a deranged person.

plibither8 6y ago

There doesn't seem to be any deletion log associated with "Eric Ciaramella": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log?type=delete&user=&page=Eric+Ciaramella&wpdate=2020-05-19&tagfilter=&subtype= https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log?type=delete&user=&..., but then who's to say that they haven't just deleted these logs too.