Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-04-14/In the media



Wikimedia Sweden loses copyright case
The Swedish chapter, Wikimedia Sweden, has been found guilty of violating the country's copyright laws by providing a database of royalty-free photographs of outdoor art without the artists' consent.

The case has been covered by many English-language media outlets, including the BBC, The Guardian, International Business Times, Ars Technica, Fortune, The Next Web and NDTV.

As reported by The Guardian on April 5, the lawsuit, brought by Swedish Visual Copyright Society Bildupphovsrätt i Sverige (BUS, see article in the Swedish Wikipedia), concerned the Offentligkonst.se website operated by the chapter, which makes photographs of publicly displayed artwork available for educational purposes and commercial re-use.

As reported by the BBC (April 5), the court took the view that—

The Wikimedia Foundation disagreed with the ruling, characterising it as "a strike against freedom of panorama":

The decision sparked much discussion in social media, with people worried whether, as private individuals, they were still at liberty to upload images of statues for example to Facebook or Instagram. Supreme Court Justice Lars Edlund told SVT, Sweden's national public TV broadcaster, that the court's decision only applied to this specific case, i.e. a large-scale open database of artwork photographs; the legality of individuals posting such photographs to Facebook or Instagram was not considered in this case.

The judgment was welcomed by BUS, who said it had been important in establishing "who decides over the artists' works; the artists themselves or the big players on the internet." BUS lawyer Erik Forslund told Ny Teknik (April 4) that the decision finally confirmed artists' exclusive rights to publication online, adding that BUS presently has agreements with local governments who pay a fee to show their art on the web. According to Forslund, these fees amount to "a few hundred dollars" per municipality, depending on how large the municipality is and how many works are involved.

Forslund said his organisation was not interested in what individuals did online—and indeed that it would be inappropriate to go after individuals—but expressed the view that this ruling opened up new opportunities for BUS to sign contracts with large commercial players publishing images of public art such as Swedish search engine Hitta.se, Facebook and Google, as well as Wikimedia.

Wikimedia Sweden's Anna Troberg remained unconvinced, saying she did not believe BUS might not be willing to seek compensation from private individuals in the future. She told The Local, an English-language website focused on Swedish news:

Troberg said that Wikimedia Sweden would consult with its lawyer and the Wikimedia Foundation to decide their next steps: "Our priority now will be to re-shape the debate, because clearly this is an outdated judgement."

BUS, on the other hand, recalled that Wikimedia had—

The amount of damages Wikimedia Sweden will have to pay BUS will be established at a later date by a Stockholm district court.

Resources: AK
 * Supreme Court judgment (in Swedish)
 * Supreme Court judgment (English translation hosted on the Wikimedia Foundation website)
 * Supreme Court statement (in Swedish)
 * Wikimedia Sweden press release (in Swedish)
 * Wikimedia Sweden blog (in Swedish)
 * Wikimedia Foundation blog post (in English)
 * BUS press release (in English)

Tex Watson
Many publications, ranging from The Washington Post, The Independent and The Times to Gawker and the National Enquirer have noted the postal edit request concerning the Tex Watson biography, apparently received from the biography subject. From the Washington Post article (April 6):

When the Signpost asked for further details about how the letter found its way to the Wikimedia Foundation, its communications department would only say:

See also the related op-ed in this week's Signpost by : Should prison inmates be permitted to edit Wikipedia? AK

AI assistants: citation needed
Slate writer Will Oremus comments on how "terrifyingly convenient" artificial intelligence assistants like Amazon Echo and Siri are becoming and deplores the lack of sourcing transparency in the answers they provide in response to users' questions.

This is a topic that has been discussed in recent Signpost stories exploring the relationship between Wikipedia, Wikidata and the various commercial answer engines now coming onto the market, which at some level compete with Wikipedia, even as they're basing their responses on Wikimedia content (see "Whither Wikidata?" and "So, what's a knowledge engine anyway?").

As Oremus notes, after communicating with "Alexa, the voice assistant whose digital spirit animates the Amazon Echo",

Oremus also looks at the way certain vendors could and indeed do receive preferential treatment from voice assistants like Amazon Echo, affecting consumers' choices—whether they're ordering a pizza or buying music. He envisages—

AK

Congressman's campaign removes "unflattering information" from his Wikipedia article, blames other Wikipedia editors for "opposition research messaging"
Republican Congressman David Jolly discovered the Streisand effect first-hand when Buzzfeed reported on April 5 that his campaign admitted to editing his Wikipedia article to remove "unflattering information". Jolly represents Florida's 13th congressional district in the US House of Representatives and is running for the US Senate to replace Senator and former US Presidential candidate Marco Rubio. Jolly spokesperson Sarah Bascom, president of the political firm Bascom Communications & Consulting, told Buzzfeed: "We were notified a few months ago that a consultant who works for one of our us senate [sic] opponents has been intentionally editing the David Jolly Wikipedia page to follow their opposition research messaging so they can use it in a mail or digital campaign. Once we found about it, we went in and attempted to correct his page to be consistent with all of his public bios."

Two edits were made in March and April by an account that at the time was named "Bascomcomm". They added promotional material and language to the article and removed references to Jolly's career as a lobbyist, his divorce, his support for same-sex marriage, and his relationship with Scientology. The latter detail was prominently mentioned in subsequent news reports, including Techdirt and Gawker. The "worldwide spiritual headquarters" of the Church of Scientology is in Jolly's Congressional district and his connections to the Church, including donations and appearances at fundraisers and events, have been previously highlighted by the media. After each edit, the information was restored by other editors.

Bascom accused two editors by name of working on behalf of Jolly's political opponents: and, editors since 2012 and 2013, respectively. Both edit articles on a range of US politicians from both major political parties. Bascom refused to tell Buzzfeed who those editors were allegedly working for and offered no proof of their alleged affiliations. Bascom claimed "I have been told by numerous people who is behind it, but I can't use that. That would be unethical."

On April 6, the Tampa Bay Times reported Jolly's response. Jolly told the Times "It was a careless staff mistake that I first learned about from the Times" and said that an unidentified campaign aide edited Wikipedia at their own initiative. Buzzfeed too had a follow-up article on April 6, including a response from, who called the allegations "absurd". G



In brief

 * What is Wikipedia hiding about Donald Trump?: Gawker's Ashley Feinberg presents another round-up of Wikipedia's latest deletions, including Short-Fingered Vulgarian (deletion discussion)—noting that Barack the Magic Negro still exists, though it is also being considered for deletion—Anti-Violation Technology (which was speedied), Mask fetishism (deletion discussion) and other crowdsourcing gems. As usual, copies of the deleted articles can be accessed at http://deletedwikipedia.gawker-labs.com/wiki/(ARTICLETITLE). (Apr. 13) AK
 * 12-year-old becomes Australian PM ... on Wikipedia: The BBC, the Sydney Morning Herald and many other outlets are reporting that a 12-year-old school kid became the Prime Minister of Australia on Wikipedia: "Orley Fenelon simply edited himself in to the Wikipedia list of Australian Prime Ministers. The site didn't even notice the edit to take it down." This is not entirely true: Orley's edits were reverted by three different editors, but in one instance, the revert only came after 22.5 hours. The article in question, List of Australian Prime Ministers by age, normally averages fewer than 30 pageviews a day. (Apr. 13) AK
 * Amon Amarth: Loudwire has another episode of "Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction?", this time focused on Amon Amarth vocalist Johan Hegg. (Apr. 13) AK
 * Model article: Pulse Nigeria celebrates the fact that Nigerian model Olajumoke Orisaguna now has a Wikipedia biography, created a couple of months ago by . (Apr. 13) AK
 * Women scientist watch: The New York Times barely ever mentions Wikipedia, but science editor Michael Roston includes Nautilus' interview with Wikipedia editor and Signpost contributor Emily Temple-Wood  in its "What We're Reading" feature. (Apr. 5)  Nautilus also published an article by Temple-Wood called "It’s Time These Ancient Women Scientists Get Their Due". (Apr. 12) G
 * Walcome tae Wikipaedia: In Mental Floss, linguist Arika Okrent offers "17 Utterly Charming Articles" found on the Scots Wikipedia. (Apr. 8) G
 * Citation needed: The webcomic xkcd provides another humorous look at Wikipedia culture, this time at article talk pages. (Apr. 8)  G
 * That Wikipedia List: Tubefilter reports on a Wendover Productions YouTube video series titled "That Wikipedia List", focusing on the articles listed at Unusual articles. (Apr. 8) AK
 * Canadian government edits:  Global News reports that an IP address belonging to the Correctional Service of Canada edited the article Political positions of Donald Trump to include inaccurate information regarding the sexuality and gender identity of the current US Presidential candidate.  Homophobic edits from the very same IP address prompted an investigation in January. Motherboard also looks into this kind of editing from Canadian government employees: "There's no better way to peer into the seamy underbelly of bureaucracy than by looking at how people in power waste their time. It's in this spirit that I present to you a curated list at all the ways employees of the Canadian federal government, from the military to tech support, have edited Wikipedia in 2016. It's quite the collection—from one person arguing that Donald Trump is a self-proclaimed [redacted] to another claiming that Ghanaian Jollof rice tastes like 'pupu' compared to the Nigerian variety." The collection is based on a Twitterbot logging edits from Canadian government IP addresses. (Apr. 6–7)  AK, G

Do you want to contribute to "In the media" by writing a story or even just an "in brief" item? Edit next week's edition in the Newsroom or contact the editor.
 * Stumped: AskMen notes the deletion of the Wikipedia article on the "Stump" drinking game, "Wikipedia's reason being that the game's not notable enough. But Jimmy Fallon and Elijah Wood played it on Late Night in 2010, so here's hoping more attention will raise its profile enough to keep the page alive." (Apr. 6) AK
 * Revolution: Newsweek highlights a Quora answer by Egyptian activist Wael Ghonim, which likens the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 to the social processes underlying Wikipedia: "The decentralized nature of the protest, and the shared commitment among everyone who took part of the movement, reminded me of how Wikipedia operates." (Apr. 6) AK
 * Emertainment Shemertainment: Emertainment Monthly (the "official entertainment magazine" of Emerson College, get it?) believes that the graphic novel Out There: The Evil Within is "Deserving of a Wikipedia Page". Why haven't you acceded to this completely reasonable request, Wikipedia?  The series by Brian Augustyn and Humberto Ramos was originally published in 2001, back when Wikipedia was being created, so we were a little busy at the time.  Emertainment Monthly writes, "This will hopefully inspire someone, somewhere to finally write something about the Out There universe on Wikipedia", but they can't do it themselves because they are busy creating the official entertainment magazine of Emerson College. (April 3) G
 * AfD meets the ballot box: Jay Freeman, software engineer and current candidate for county supervisor in the third district of Santa Barbara County, California, brags to the Lompoc Record about his Wikipedia article. He says "I’m somebody who is actually fairly famous.  I don’t just have a Wikipedia article because I wrote it, I have a Wikipedia that is very well cited and is something that many other people have edited over time."  This is bound to earn him a trip to Articles for Deletion.  Good luck, Jay.  (April 3) G