3 ms·

This isn’t a political takedown request.

aspenmayer 2y ago
It seems like an explicitly political takedown request to me, based on what I have read and what others who study such things also say. Can you find some sources that share your view, or can you elaborate why you think that this is not a case of censorship and extraterritorial overreach by the Indian court?
- adastra22 2y ago
  TFA backs me up as a source: > The takedown follows an order by the Delhi High Court, where Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela ruled that the Wikipedia page describing criticism of the lawsuit “amounts to interference in Court proceedings,” and that this violated the “subjudice principle”. In case you're not familiar with the subjudice principle: > This legal concept essentially means that cases being considered in a current trial should not be prejudiced by public discussion. It aims to avoid biasing or influencing the judicial process while the matter remains undetermined by a judge or jury. https://www.vintti.com/blog/sub-judice-legal-concept-explained#:~:text=This%20legal%20concept%20essentially%20means,by%20a%20judge%20or%20jury https://www.vintti.com/blog/sub-judice-legal-concept-explain.... Basically the article in question is about a current court case in which Wikimedia is the defendant. The court has ruled that neither party should be making public statements about the case until a judgement is made. This is very standard practice and happens in all jurisdictions. The article on Wikipedia, hosted by the Wikimedia foundation itself, would be such a statement. Wikimedia is not being asked to censor an article for political purposes. It is asked merely to refrain from making statements about an ongoing court case in which Wikipedia itself is a defendant, in standard accordance with the subjudice principle.
  - aspenmayer 2y ago
    WMF isn't making statements; WMF is being forced to censor free speech of independent Wikipedia editors on behalf of a court that doesn't even have jurisdiction over editors outside India, to my reading.
    - adastra22 2y ago
      Legally speaking, the entire contents of Wikipedia is Wikimedia Foundation's mouthpiece, regardless of how the editing works. And the legality is what matters here, since we're talking about a court of law.
      - aspenmayer 2y ago
        In what legal jurisdiction are you making such claims? This is not consistent with my understanding of US copyright law, which is what would apply in my reading. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation > The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., abbreviated WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, and registered there as a charitable foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Non-US_copyrights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Non-US_copyrights > The Wikimedia Foundation that supports Wikipedia is located in California and the servers that host Wikipedia are located in Virginia, so Wikipedia is bound to comply with United States copyright law.
        adastra22 2y ago
        This isn't about copyright law. Who is responsible for content served on the internet? In pretty much all jurisdictions I'm aware of, it defaults to the one hosting the content. In this case, the Wikimedia foundation. In the case of US law, Section 230 exempts Wikimedia Foundation from being responsible for the content of Wikipedia, which is probably the basis for your intuition, but there is not to my knowledge any analogue to Section 230 in Indian law.
        aspenmayer 2y ago
        To the degree that servers are not present in India, and WMF/Wikipedia assets are not hosted in India, I don't find that Indian courts have any means to assert their rulings over Wikipedia or WMF outside Indian IP space, to my understanding. Wikipedia just doesn't want to be blackholed in India until legal avenues are explored, so they complied with a too-broad ruling, in my opinion. The case isn't over yet. https://archive.is/dNTEl https://archive.is/dNTEl > The Safe Harbor clause of Information and Technology Act, 2000, comparable to Section 230 of Communications Act of 1934 in the United States, exempts online platforms from any legal liability for third-party content generated by its users and hosted by the platform, subject to several conditions. In February 2021, the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party government introduced amendments to the IT Act, imposing stricter obligations on intermediaries, including requiring them to proactively monitor content for illegal or harmful activity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Technology_Act,_2000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Technology_Act,_20...
  - AnimalMuppet 2y ago
    I'm in favor of not letting the jury be biased. But... in order to avoid biasing a jury in India, nobody worldwide can read about the case? Can you see that that might be a little overbroad? In the US, the judge tells the jury to not read articles about the case, and expects the jury to do their job.
gruez 2y ago
> "political" takedown requests (I'm using this broadly to include anything between blasphemy/lese majeste laws and defamation/right to be forgotten laws, as opposed to something like DMCA requests) Emphasis mine
- adastra22 2y ago
  None of which apply here? This is a subjudice gag order.
  - aspenmayer 2y ago
    In US courts, the truth is a defense against defamation. I don't see that defamation is explicitly what is claimed in this case, but the gag order seems motivated to silence those individuals (editors) and groups (Wikipedia and WMF) not in Indian jurisdiction for purposes of suppressing legitimate discussion and dissent of a court case that is relevant to the public. This can only create a chilling effect, suppressing exercise of free speech rights of all individual editors and freedom to read of all. https://archive.is/dNTEl https://archive.is/dNTEl > The filing accused Wikipedia of publishing "false and defamatory content with the malicious intent of tarnishing the news agency's reputation
benterix 2y ago
Why? After reading the article it looks like the most political one to me.
- adastra22 2y ago
  Don't confuse the content of the case, which is certainly political, with the principle of subjudice underlying the court's takedown request.
  - randunel 2y ago
    Wouldn't this principle apply to all news, blogs and social media posts? Why would a website operated by a defendant with content from 3rd parties be any different? Also, is the principle of subjudice applied in countries without jurors?
    - adastra22 2y ago
      Yes, subjudice applies even when a judge is making the decision. Third party news outlets aren’t involved in this case. There is a clear distinction between involved parties and independent journalism.
AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> This isn’t a political takedown request. On the basis of that categorization it is. The reason sites generally comply with copyright takedowns worldwide is that most relevant countries have copyright laws and it's often more expedient to execute the takedowns everywhere than to hire lawyers to figure out where they have to do it and where they don't. In particular, that isn't a court in India ordering Wikipedia to do something in the US, it's Wikipedia in the US assuming that the US would require them to do the same thing and getting ahead of it. Suppressing discussion of active court cases isn't commonly agreed upon. For example, in the US prohibiting it would have obvious First Amendment problems. So a court in India ordering Wikipedia to do that in the US is a big deal.
- aspenmayer 2y ago
  For what it's worth, Wikipedia itself considers this so-called single-article dispute an explicit case of censorship: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia#India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia#India

It seems like an explicitly political takedown request to me, based on what I have read and what others who study such things also say. Can you find some sources that share your view, or can you elaborate why you think that this is not a case of censorship and extraterritorial overreach by the Indian court?

adastra22 2y ago
TFA backs me up as a source: > The takedown follows an order by the Delhi High Court, where Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela ruled that the Wikipedia page describing criticism of the lawsuit “amounts to interference in Court proceedings,” and that this violated the “subjudice principle”. In case you're not familiar with the subjudice principle: > This legal concept essentially means that cases being considered in a current trial should not be prejudiced by public discussion. It aims to avoid biasing or influencing the judicial process while the matter remains undetermined by a judge or jury. https://www.vintti.com/blog/sub-judice-legal-concept-explained#:~:text=This%20legal%20concept%20essentially%20means,by%20a%20judge%20or%20jury https://www.vintti.com/blog/sub-judice-legal-concept-explain.... Basically the article in question is about a current court case in which Wikimedia is the defendant. The court has ruled that neither party should be making public statements about the case until a judgement is made. This is very standard practice and happens in all jurisdictions. The article on Wikipedia, hosted by the Wikimedia foundation itself, would be such a statement. Wikimedia is not being asked to censor an article for political purposes. It is asked merely to refrain from making statements about an ongoing court case in which Wikipedia itself is a defendant, in standard accordance with the subjudice principle.
- aspenmayer 2y ago
  WMF isn't making statements; WMF is being forced to censor free speech of independent Wikipedia editors on behalf of a court that doesn't even have jurisdiction over editors outside India, to my reading.
  - adastra22 2y ago
    Legally speaking, the entire contents of Wikipedia is Wikimedia Foundation's mouthpiece, regardless of how the editing works. And the legality is what matters here, since we're talking about a court of law.
    - aspenmayer 2y ago
      In what legal jurisdiction are you making such claims? This is not consistent with my understanding of US copyright law, which is what would apply in my reading. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation > The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., abbreviated WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, and registered there as a charitable foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Non-US_copyrights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Non-US_copyrights > The Wikimedia Foundation that supports Wikipedia is located in California and the servers that host Wikipedia are located in Virginia, so Wikipedia is bound to comply with United States copyright law.
      - adastra22 2y ago
        This isn't about copyright law. Who is responsible for content served on the internet? In pretty much all jurisdictions I'm aware of, it defaults to the one hosting the content. In this case, the Wikimedia foundation. In the case of US law, Section 230 exempts Wikimedia Foundation from being responsible for the content of Wikipedia, which is probably the basis for your intuition, but there is not to my knowledge any analogue to Section 230 in Indian law.
        aspenmayer 2y ago
        To the degree that servers are not present in India, and WMF/Wikipedia assets are not hosted in India, I don't find that Indian courts have any means to assert their rulings over Wikipedia or WMF outside Indian IP space, to my understanding. Wikipedia just doesn't want to be blackholed in India until legal avenues are explored, so they complied with a too-broad ruling, in my opinion. The case isn't over yet. https://archive.is/dNTEl https://archive.is/dNTEl > The Safe Harbor clause of Information and Technology Act, 2000, comparable to Section 230 of Communications Act of 1934 in the United States, exempts online platforms from any legal liability for third-party content generated by its users and hosted by the platform, subject to several conditions. In February 2021, the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party government introduced amendments to the IT Act, imposing stricter obligations on intermediaries, including requiring them to proactively monitor content for illegal or harmful activity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Technology_Act,_2000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Technology_Act,_20...
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago
  I'm in favor of not letting the jury be biased. But... in order to avoid biasing a jury in India, nobody worldwide can read about the case? Can you see that that might be a little overbroad? In the US, the judge tells the jury to not read articles about the case, and expects the jury to do their job.

gruez 2y ago

> "political" takedown requests (I'm using this broadly to include anything between blasphemy/lese majeste laws and defamation/right to be forgotten laws, as opposed to something like DMCA requests) Emphasis mine

adastra22 2y ago
None of which apply here? This is a subjudice gag order.
- aspenmayer 2y ago
  In US courts, the truth is a defense against defamation. I don't see that defamation is explicitly what is claimed in this case, but the gag order seems motivated to silence those individuals (editors) and groups (Wikipedia and WMF) not in Indian jurisdiction for purposes of suppressing legitimate discussion and dissent of a court case that is relevant to the public. This can only create a chilling effect, suppressing exercise of free speech rights of all individual editors and freedom to read of all. https://archive.is/dNTEl https://archive.is/dNTEl > The filing accused Wikipedia of publishing "false and defamatory content with the malicious intent of tarnishing the news agency's reputation

benterix 2y ago

Why? After reading the article it looks like the most political one to me.

adastra22 2y ago
Don't confuse the content of the case, which is certainly political, with the principle of subjudice underlying the court's takedown request.
- randunel 2y ago
  Wouldn't this principle apply to all news, blogs and social media posts? Why would a website operated by a defendant with content from 3rd parties be any different? Also, is the principle of subjudice applied in countries without jurors?
  - adastra22 2y ago
    Yes, subjudice applies even when a judge is making the decision. Third party news outlets aren’t involved in this case. There is a clear distinction between involved parties and independent journalism.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago

> This isn’t a political takedown request. On the basis of that categorization it is. The reason sites generally comply with copyright takedowns worldwide is that most relevant countries have copyright laws and it's often more expedient to execute the takedowns everywhere than to hire lawyers to figure out where they have to do it and where they don't. In particular, that isn't a court in India ordering Wikipedia to do something in the US, it's Wikipedia in the US assuming that the US would require them to do the same thing and getting ahead of it. Suppressing discussion of active court cases isn't commonly agreed upon. For example, in the US prohibiting it would have obvious First Amendment problems. So a court in India ordering Wikipedia to do that in the US is a big deal.

aspenmayer 2y ago
For what it's worth, Wikipedia itself considers this so-called single-article dispute an explicit case of censorship: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia#India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia#India