Indian government pressures Wikipedia into changing maps
Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2023 12:08 am
In yet another sign that the dipshits at Wikipediocracy don't know their ass from their elbow regarding legal action and Wikipedia, the SignPost is carrying an extraordinary story about a recent legal dispute involving the Indian government about Wikipedia's maps.
Buried amongst all the shite about how the Foundation doesn't do editing, were some very inconvenient facts. Merely by threatening the owners of Wikipedia with a foreign law that has no jurisdiction over Wikipedia, the Indian government succeeded in making the Foundation their bitch. The mere threat of blocking Wikipedia in India for breaking their laws regarding maps, was enough to achieve the following......
** The Foundation communicated the content demands of the Indian government to Wikipedia volunteers. Namely, alter your maps of India to acknowledge the existence of India's map law or else.
** The Foundation conducted a "thorough manual review" of 81 (EIGHTY ONE!!!) Wikimedia content urls to see if they needed changing to meet the demands of the Indian government.
** The Foundation drew up a list of twelve maps on Commons that "require attention" to both alter imagery and add captions to comply with the Indian government's demands.
** The Foundation publicised the fact the Indian government has uploaded its own official map of India in the expectation it will be used as a reference in making these changes
People can talk whatever bollocks they like about how India didn't actually win a court case or get the Foundation to make any edits, but they can fuck right off. All they are doing is refusing to acknowledge what actually happened here and what it says about the lies the Foundation tells people and the power of foreign laws over an American encyclopedia.
The absolutely existential fear the Foundation has that they might be blocked in a territory the size of India, which of course has the resources and national pride to set up an alternative in short order, meaning that even if the Foundation overturns the ban in an Indian court, it may be a very moot point by then.
For all the strong words about neutrality of the projects and editorial independence, it is a simple fact that through the above outcomes, the Indian government has already secured a massive advantage in what is essentially a content dispute.
For all the talk of how paid editing is banned and nobody can buy influence over Wikipedia content, the Indian government has effectively just used Indian taxpayer's money to buy influence over Wikipedia as a paid editor making direct and detailed requests for edits.
The Foundation has quite literally expended quite a lot of time and money on a matter it claims it doesn't do except in limited circumstances where they have a legal obligation. There is no Claifornian statute that requires the Foundation to perform what are in essence, editorial research activities, on behalf of the Indian government.
Having caved in quite spectacularly under the mere threat of legal action, the Foundation has sent out enough coded and not so coded signals to its editors that in the first instance, the Foundation would very much like these changes to be made expeditiously by their own hands, and in the second intance, if they are too lazy to do so, they should not stand in the way of anyone who does make these changes.
Local volunteers have absolutely no chance of resisting these changes, unless they like the idea of being identified as the reason Wikipedia got blocked in India. Indeed, the Indian government might actually be hoping the volunteers do make it plain that they will quite happily ignore and actively resist doing what even the owners of the website clearly expects them to do as part of their charitable mission, since this will only bolster the case that Wikipedia is not what it claims to be and must be blocked.
The Indian government has effectively just completely nullified English Wikipedia's policy against canvassing and their rules against conflict of interest editing. In the unlikely event nobody in India now volunteers to make these changes on behalf of their government, they are now free to hire their own editors to do it under the radar. As long as they don't do something daft like edit from a government IP, with this much public information and direction emanating from the Foundation, how could any Wikipedia Administrator hope to make the case that there must be an undisclosed conflict of interest at work, if someone now registers solely to make these changes?
It is highly likely that the volunteers might just lock these maps down totally, which will again further the Indian government's case.
Of course the elephant in the room is what damage will be caused when the other governments do the same thing. Pretty soon, the brand value of Wikipedia will be in the toilet in the sub-continent, since it will be clear that on entire areas of Wikipedia, the only editors with the time and energy to fight, are those being paid by their respective governments to do so.
The Foundation has clearly decided to do away with its principles and saddle itself with yet more reputational harm in a growth market, given the far worse alternative that a credible legal threat forced them to confront, no matter how unrealistic it actually is.
After all, it's not like Wikipedia hasn't been victorious in foreign courts before.....
It is pragmatism. And as such, it will drive the volunteer editors fucking crazy. They love nothing more than standing up for their rights as independent sovereign citizens of the internet. As long as they're not the ones paying the bill.
In short, legal threats work.
Buried amongst all the shite about how the Foundation doesn't do editing, were some very inconvenient facts. Merely by threatening the owners of Wikipedia with a foreign law that has no jurisdiction over Wikipedia, the Indian government succeeded in making the Foundation their bitch. The mere threat of blocking Wikipedia in India for breaking their laws regarding maps, was enough to achieve the following......
** The Foundation communicated the content demands of the Indian government to Wikipedia volunteers. Namely, alter your maps of India to acknowledge the existence of India's map law or else.
** The Foundation conducted a "thorough manual review" of 81 (EIGHTY ONE!!!) Wikimedia content urls to see if they needed changing to meet the demands of the Indian government.
** The Foundation drew up a list of twelve maps on Commons that "require attention" to both alter imagery and add captions to comply with the Indian government's demands.
** The Foundation publicised the fact the Indian government has uploaded its own official map of India in the expectation it will be used as a reference in making these changes
People can talk whatever bollocks they like about how India didn't actually win a court case or get the Foundation to make any edits, but they can fuck right off. All they are doing is refusing to acknowledge what actually happened here and what it says about the lies the Foundation tells people and the power of foreign laws over an American encyclopedia.
The absolutely existential fear the Foundation has that they might be blocked in a territory the size of India, which of course has the resources and national pride to set up an alternative in short order, meaning that even if the Foundation overturns the ban in an Indian court, it may be a very moot point by then.
For all the strong words about neutrality of the projects and editorial independence, it is a simple fact that through the above outcomes, the Indian government has already secured a massive advantage in what is essentially a content dispute.
For all the talk of how paid editing is banned and nobody can buy influence over Wikipedia content, the Indian government has effectively just used Indian taxpayer's money to buy influence over Wikipedia as a paid editor making direct and detailed requests for edits.
The Foundation has quite literally expended quite a lot of time and money on a matter it claims it doesn't do except in limited circumstances where they have a legal obligation. There is no Claifornian statute that requires the Foundation to perform what are in essence, editorial research activities, on behalf of the Indian government.
Having caved in quite spectacularly under the mere threat of legal action, the Foundation has sent out enough coded and not so coded signals to its editors that in the first instance, the Foundation would very much like these changes to be made expeditiously by their own hands, and in the second intance, if they are too lazy to do so, they should not stand in the way of anyone who does make these changes.
Local volunteers have absolutely no chance of resisting these changes, unless they like the idea of being identified as the reason Wikipedia got blocked in India. Indeed, the Indian government might actually be hoping the volunteers do make it plain that they will quite happily ignore and actively resist doing what even the owners of the website clearly expects them to do as part of their charitable mission, since this will only bolster the case that Wikipedia is not what it claims to be and must be blocked.
The Indian government has effectively just completely nullified English Wikipedia's policy against canvassing and their rules against conflict of interest editing. In the unlikely event nobody in India now volunteers to make these changes on behalf of their government, they are now free to hire their own editors to do it under the radar. As long as they don't do something daft like edit from a government IP, with this much public information and direction emanating from the Foundation, how could any Wikipedia Administrator hope to make the case that there must be an undisclosed conflict of interest at work, if someone now registers solely to make these changes?
It is highly likely that the volunteers might just lock these maps down totally, which will again further the Indian government's case.
Of course the elephant in the room is what damage will be caused when the other governments do the same thing. Pretty soon, the brand value of Wikipedia will be in the toilet in the sub-continent, since it will be clear that on entire areas of Wikipedia, the only editors with the time and energy to fight, are those being paid by their respective governments to do so.
The Foundation has clearly decided to do away with its principles and saddle itself with yet more reputational harm in a growth market, given the far worse alternative that a credible legal threat forced them to confront, no matter how unrealistic it actually is.
After all, it's not like Wikipedia hasn't been victorious in foreign courts before.....
It is pragmatism. And as such, it will drive the volunteer editors fucking crazy. They love nothing more than standing up for their rights as independent sovereign citizens of the internet. As long as they're not the ones paying the bill.
In short, legal threats work.