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Showing posts with label Wikipedia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wikipedia. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Trying to get their name cleared back from Wiki

Modern technology and its global reach can create a lot of ethical and moral dilemmas, especially in the cases when the policies of 2 different countries combine while the same site is available in both countries.
In this case, 2 people were convicted of a murder in Germany in 1990, and they served their time. Under German law, after serving their time, they are entitled to prevent their name from re-appearing with respect to the crime once they have served their time, while the American First Amendment ensures that the right to free speech is protected. As a result, the German language version of Wikipedia has already removed their names, but the quest is to remove the information from the English language versions (link to article):

The legal fight pits German privacy law against the American First Amendment. German courts allow the suppression of a criminal's name in news accounts once he has paid his debt to society, noted Alexander Stopp, lawyer for the two men, now out of prison. "They should be able to lead a life without being publicly stigmatized" for their crime, Stopp said. "A criminal has a right to privacy, too, and a right to be left alone."
Now Stopp, in suits in German courts, is demanding that the Wikimedia Foundation, the American organization that runs Wikipedia, do the same with the English-language version of the article. That has free-speech advocates quoting George Orwell.

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