In this file photo, David Rohde, center, interviews Afghans in the Helmand region in 2007. Rohde, who was kidnapped in 2008 by the Taliban, escaped to freedom earlier this month. According to the New York Times, Wikipedia agreed to bar edits to Rohde's page until the reporter was freed.
(File photo/AFP)Photos (1 of 1)
Was Wikipedia correct to censor news of David Rohde’s capture?
By Matthew Shaer | 06.29.09
The escape of David Rohde, a New York Times reporter captured last November by the Taliban, has today sparked a fiery debate over media censorship in the open source age. At stake is the Times’ decision not just to tamp down on any news of Rodhe’s kidnapping, but on updates to Rohde’s Wikipedia page – a feat that was apparently accomplished with the complicity of Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia.
According to Richard Pérez-Peña, a media reporter for the Times, the broadsheet’s top brass “believed that publicity would raise Mr. Rohde’s value to his captors as a bargaining chip and reduce his chance of survival.” Over a several month period, with Wales leading the charge, Wikipedia editors were asked to scrub Rohde’s page of any evidence of the kidnapping, which had been reported by a handful of smaller outlets and blogs.
Wales is quoted as saying he agreed to the Times’ requests because no major newspaper had yet reported the capture of Rohde, a former reporter at The Christian Science Monitor. “We were really helped by the fact that it hadn’t appeared in a place we would regard as a reliable source,” Wales told Pérez-Peña. “I would have had a really hard time with it if it had.”
Blackout
As Dan Murphy wrote in these pages earlier this month, the idea of a media blackout is always controversial. In 2006, for instance, when Monitor reporter Jill Carroll was kidnapped in Iraq, the Monitor was criticized for requesting that the case stay temporarily out of the spotlight. “That effort ended after about two days,” Murphy wrote, “with major news outlets saying they could not continue to sit on a significant story.”
But the Wikipedia blackout has struck many as especially egregious. Wikipedia, these analysts say, was created as a collaborative project, where a large group of volunteers can share writing and editing privileges. “Anyone is welcome to add information, cross-references, or citations, as long as they do so within Wikipedia’s editing policies and to an appropriate standard,” reads an introduction posted on Wikipedia.
Flexibility
Among the most vocal critics of the Wikipedia blackout is Kit Eaton, a reporter for Fast Company. Writing today on the magazine’s blog, Eaton argues that Wikipedia has permanently damaged its reputation as a “crowd-based and open-access information source”:
Wikipedia isn’t a traditional media outlet, and therefore has no hard or soft journalistic moral code to abide by, which means it can be more flexible in its actions – and the fact a life was at stake here is a mitigating fact. But Wales’ excuse still sounds particularly weak. As a result, the next questions about Wikipedia are: What other news pieces is it hiding? And will users trust in the site as a news source take a hit?
Over at tech blog The Inquisitr, Kim LaCapria arrives at a similar conclusion. “Luckily for Wikipedia, this issue was clearly life or death,” LaCapria writes. “But what if it isn’t?… [H]ow can you stop the crowd from releasing possibly harmful information – and should you? If so, when?”
Importantly, LaCapria and Eaton are here addressing Wikipedia not as a traditional news outlet, but as a new media machine – one beholden to an entirely different set of rules than, say, the Monitor. Traditional media rely on a complex, top-down vetting process; new media pushes all information onto the web, and leaves the vetting to the crowd. Under this rejiggered rubric, the Times – which relies on a top-down infrastructure – can feel free to withhold potentially dangerous information. Wikipedia, on the other hand, cannot.
Element of danger
Others have argued that Wales handled the situation correctly. “There are two competing values to balance here,” Murad Ahmed writes at the Times Online:
The first is freedom to disseminate information. The second is the effect it has on individual concerned. Put another way: freedom of speech vs a right to privacy. The internet (and newspapers generally) are, to my mind, skewed correctly towards freedom of speech. But sometimes someone’s right to privacy is so important it overrides the rule. Trying to keep Mr Rohde alive is one such example. Wikipedia’s maturity should be applauded.
Safety, in other words, trumps freedom of speech – a theme echoed by Adam Reilly, the media critic at the Boston Phoenix. Reilly parses the debate in terms of life and death: “The Times simply had do everything in its power to increase [Rodhe’s] chances of survival.” Furthermore, Reilly explains, although Wikipedia did “constrain” the freedom of its users – by erasing or otherwise editing posts on Rodhe’s kidnapping – there was no first amendment violation.
“The individuals who wanted to get word of Rohde’s kidnapping out could have contacted countless news outlets, for example; or nabbed a relevant blogspot account to publicize Rohde’s situation and Wikipedia’s response; or simply stood on the streetcorner handing out leaflets that did the same,” Reilly concludes.
—
Did Jimmy Wales make the right call? Tell us here – or on Twitter.
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2. Will | 06.29.09
For me the key to the story is “Safety, in other words, trumps freedom of speech”. Hell, I thought when I joined the military the idea was that safety did NOT trump our ideals of free speech, or other freedoms. I thought I put myself in harms way because freedom was worth risking safety. I would have also thought any reporter was was reporting live from a war zone also made the same choice…
3. Mary Townsager | 06.29.09
Heartily agree that Wikipedia did the right thing. The media blitz surrounding a kidnapping of a western correspondent in an Arab country plays right into the kidnappers hands. When a person’s life is at stake, every means to increase the likelihood of survival should be used, including press black-out. That gives those charged with rescuing the threatened individual much more elbow room to try different methods of securing his/her release.
4. mindthunder | 06.29.09
Perhaps Kim & Kit need to spend a little time being held hostage by Taliban? fat chance
5. pianom4n | 06.29.09
Jimbo made the right call. There weren’t any reliable published sources of the story (thanks to the NY Times) so it was right to keep it out of a BLP (biography of a living person). He said that if there had been a reliable source, he probably wouldn’t have gone along with keeping the story under wraps.
It’s normal to keep anything controversial without a reliable citation out of a BLP. For example, the Sasha Grey article. Her real name was known, but they couldn’t but it in for a year until the LA Times finally published it.
Of course this is different because the “reliable sources” were intentionally not publishing anything. So Jimbo’s actions were inline with Wikipedia policy, but the situation casts doubt on the reliable source policy.
I don’t disagree with what the NY Times did here, but the fact that the Times can hide a story worldwide is still scary.
6. Thoughtful Concern | 06.29.09
From the minute I started reading this article I was reminded of the 1919 Supreme Court case of Schenck vs. United States. This is the case where Oiver Wendell Holmes, Jr. wrote, “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic. […] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils…”
His point was that an abridgement of free speech may be necessary when there is a clear and present danger. I believe that the circumstances surrounding the reporter’s kidnapping meets a standard where divulging information would create a clear and present danger. I for one would like to be afforded the protection (of my life) if it were me that were kidnapped. Can anyone truly argue they would not feel the same way?
7. Lief Clennon | 06.29.09
Liberty and safety remain dichotomous. The majority continues to veer toward the latter. Are they wrong? I think so, but ultimately this is opinion, not fact. I can only plead my case until one of us convinces the other.
Jimmy Wales can do whatever he wishes with the site he owns, and this particular incident will not damage Wikipedia’s prior level of credibility. I will continue to trust pages which are not locked to the same degree I always have. However, the standards for page-locking appear to have grown beyond prevention of vandalism, and this disturbs me deeply. Again, this one incident is not especially harmful; but eyes must remain open lest it becomes a trend.
One interesting question, though. Were the initial edits regarding Rhode’s status simply reverted (still visible in history, just not on the front page) or was the history purged as well? If the latter, the damage is far more. If Wikipedia ever does that, or ever has, all credibility is lost.
8. Kent | 06.29.09
Who said anything about the 1st amendment? Talk about a strawman, I don’t think a single informed complaint about this issue ever mentioned the 1st amendment or free speech.
The question is how can WikiPedia act like a censored media outlet and expect to maintain credibility in it’s core mission. Wikipedia is already maligned by the “serious” community, if their credibility falters with the open information proponents that are it’s lifeblood it could have trouble. Hopefully the wikipedians give him a snootfull.
9. Lief Clennon | 06.29.09
To #6: I find that ruling terrible. Holmes’ oft-quoted statement is perhaps correct, but if so it would not be because freedom of speech can be reasonably abridged in such a situation; rather, deliberately inciting a public panic may be criminal regardless of the method. (I am not convinced that even this is the case, however. It strikes me as a matter for civil code.)
Schenck was circulating flyers encouraging draft evasion; how was Holmes’ opinion even relevant? I have never understood how certain figures are considered icons of the American way, when we profess as a culture to dislike totalitarianism.
Regarding the statement that you’d like your life to be protected in a similar situation… well of course, so would we all. But in what situation can we have what we want regardless of the cost to others? When the chips are down, the visceral response is always selfish, bordering on (or perhaps crossing into) conceit. Sadly, our trends in government have steadily slipped toward feeding that conceit, turning it into a sense of entitlement. See reply #2 for an admirable stance against this.
People die at the hands of others. So it has always been, perhaps so shall it ever, and never has the world stopped turning. These deaths are the fault of the killers, and only them, and while it is the responsibility of society to eliminate killers as swiftly as possible to minimize the victims, deaths at their hands are not our burden to bear. Incorrectly adopting that responsibility is in fact exactly what terrorism depends on us doing.
11. CH | 06.29.09
This is news? They’ve been whitewashing any negative references on Obama’s wiki page since he became a serious candidate for the presidency. Move along people, nothing to see here.
12. Woofus | 06.29.09
Jimmy Wales has intervened in the editing of Wikipedia numerous times over the years, often for selfish motives. One karate teacher blackmailed him into removing negative information from his (the karate teacher’s) article. At one point Wales was sleeping with some Canadian anchor bimbo, and used his position to make the article about her more positive.
A more serious problem with Wikipedia (since there are limits to the damage Wales can do) is its coverage of “cults”–small groups or topics of intense interest to a few people, but unknown to most–where the editing process favors those with the most time and devotion. In other words, the cult members. (The article on “Scientology” is okay though, since they’re famous enough to have attracted enthusiastic critics.)
13. Doug Franklin | 06.29.09
Why does anyone care? Why does anyone trust Wikipedia in the first place? It’s not even a bastard cousin of a reputable source beyond anything that’s physically verifiable yourself. Wales and company have shown repeatedly that they’re not interested in anything beyond self aggrandizement, viz the incidents recounted above and numerous others available with a simple Web search. “The wisdom of the crowds” is the logical equivalent of “mob rule”, just as pure democracy is, but with a decidedly “downward to the least common denominator” bent.
14. Quinn Weaver | 06.29.09
Does anyone else find it ironic that we are commenting on censorship in a strictly moderated forum? 
15. Ryno | 06.29.09
wales was presented with a serious life or death situation. both the reporter’s family and his employer had requested his kidnapping remian low key to avoid turning him into a high value prisoner.
in wales’s position could you have told the reporter’s boss or wife that wikipedia’s terms of service are simply more important than his safety.
16. Rophuine | 06.29.09
This isn’t a freedom of speech issue. Nobody was threatened with legal consequences for speaking their mind. This was a case of the wikipedia administrators deciding to avoid publishing information which could have caused the death of a journalist. I’m a little abhorred that somebody has decided to try to parallel this commercial and moral decision with a restriction on a constitutional right.
Controlling access and modification to a resource is NOT the same as curtailing your right to free speech. The person trying to make the change was entitled to ’speak’ this information any way they wanted, but owners of publishing services (including wikipedia) did not have a responsibility to then publish that speech.
18. Fred Bauder | 06.29.09
Wikipedia has a rule, Wikipedia:Ignore all rules:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ignore_all_rules
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Ignore_all_rules&diff=70516723
We did the right thing, and followed Wikipedia policy doing it.
19. Gregory Kohs | 06.29.09
If you want an example of an article appearing in Wikipedia, backed up with reliable sources (such as a feature-length piece in USA Today), that was made to just “disappear” from public view… look no further than the article about Carolyn Doran. It was “decided” by the Wikipedia elite that a redirect to the article about the Wikimedia Foundation would be sufficient “knowledge” for anyone interested in the Wikimedia Foundation chief operating officer who was a convicted multi-count DUI felon, shot her boyfriend in the chest, lost her husband in a drowning on their honeymoon, and kited fraudulent checks.
The WMF doesn’t really want you to learn about Carolyn Doran. They said she wasn’t notable enough. I would argue it’s because she brought down the reputation of Wikipedia. Thing is, their reputation suffered more in the cover-up of the article than anything Carolyn Doran did.
20. Blue | 06.29.09
I’d have a lot more sympathy for the NY Times if they exhibited the same sort of journalistic discretion protecting others in dangerous situations as they do for their employees.
21. Brian McKim | 06.29.09
The short answer: Yes.
The long answer, provided quite eloquently by Michael Yon:
“The New York Times and big media outlets are being blamed for suppressing the story and thereby giving special treatment to one of their own. It’s clear that they did give special treatment to one of their own. In fact, when police lose an officer, they also put special emphasis on the crime, and when soldiers lose one of their own, they also put special emphasis on rescue. Iraqi soldiers who helped us locate American soldiers were sometimes upset that we barely lifted a finger when their own were captured and brutally tortured. That the New York Times gave special treatment to one of its own is a fact. That the U.S. military does the same is a fact. Maybe it’s human nature.
Months after the kidnapping, I reported a few sentences after the story had been out there on the web, but I also kept subsequent information quiet upon request from related parties. This was not out of special treatment for journalists but in the name of decency. There are many soldiers out there who know that I also have not reported information that was free to be reported, but that would jeopardize their lives or the security of the United States or that of our allies. Scoop be damned.”
Read all of it, in his posting called “The Road To Hell: Part II”
22. Steve Brack | 06.29.09
My personal run-in with Jimmy Wales was over coverage of another New York Times reporter, Kurt Eichenwald, and his role as a source of funding for victim-turned-child pornographer Justin Berry. Wales himself deleted the article on Berry, despite the sources provided and without offering any specific complaints that could be addressed. He simply didn’t want it there and acted by fiat. Not the path a leader would take, I think.
Steve
23. FarmerTom | 06.29.09
The headline is the problem here. It makes the underlying assumption that censorship took place. I would suggest that merely delaying news for an express purpose, especially one that is so obviously not self-serving, does not qualify as censorship. A short term black out, or even distortion of the truth– with the assumption that the truth will come out soon– is a far cry from what we all mean by censorship. People have no right to news, especially news that doesn’t affect them personally. Sure, we think it’s important, but it is not more important than Rohde’s life, nor that of the lives of soldiers whose lives would be imperiled by “timely” reporting of their whereabouts. If the NYT and Wikipedia had let the story run its course, it is possible, even likely, that the story would have had a far less welcome ending.
24. sturunner | 06.29.09
Woofus is right. The Rohde situation is hot right now, but the bigger problem on Wikipedia is the cults. For those of us with real jobs and an nonpathological interest in something, the dispute resolution procedures are problematical.
25. Paul | 06.29.09
Suppose it was the Vice President for an oil company being held hostage by FARC in Columbia rather than a NY Times reporter in Pakistan? Would the Wikipedia editors have fought as hard to keep it out at the request of the company as opposed to a newspaper? I hope the answer would be yes but I’m not so certain.
26. Fen | 06.29.09
Situational ethics. The NYTs will out classified info that jeapordizes soldier’s lives, but when its one of THEIR guys then its somehow different.
Bets that their staff doesn’t pay taxes either?
27. JB | 06.30.09
Especially with regard to politics, Wikipedia is an insidiously biased and corrupt enterprise,
The sooner the public wakes up to this fact, the better.
28. OSPolicy | 06.30.09
Taking as true their assertion that publicity would have made Rohde’s life more valuable as a bargaining chip, they chose to suppress publicity, which must necessarily be a course of action that made his life less valuable. It happened to end well, but that was hardly the most likely outcome. And the most likely outcome leaves us with some interesting things about which to wonder.
If they kidnapped him to get attention and mere kidnapping was not enough to get that attention, doesn’t it seem likely that they would move beyond kidnapping to something that could not be ignored? I wonder whether the kidnappers would have given NYT 24 hours to break the story before they started mailing Rohde’s body parts start to various media outlets, or whether the kidnappers would have felt it would have more impact to just do it. If, in this hypothetical situation, the kidnappers did contact NYT in advance, I wonder whether NYT would have allowed itself to publish a story under threat, or whether they would have felt obligated to sit on the story for another 24 hours to prove a point about their journalistic ethics and independence. I wonder whether what was left of Rohde would have thanked them for their display of commitment to principle or preferred that they show a bit more flexibility. I wonder whether the NYT laid these concerns out for Jimmy Wales in advance to get his informed consent, or whether they just decided to let him get blindsided and deal with it if it became necessary.
29. 24AheadDotCom | 06.30.09
Whether what they did was right or wrong is just one side of the story, and I’ll punt on that. However, I don’t think WP would have done the same thing for a reporter from, say, CNS News. And, I’m almost positive they would have done the same thing for an independent journalist (such as one of those bloggers that many at WP hate). Another aspect to this story is that the NY Times has supposedly (I haven’t looked into it) published sensitive war-related information on those who weren’t their employees.
And, another aspect involves WP’s very special rules, as discussed here:
http://24ahead.com/wikipedia-helps-nyt-hide-truth-about-david-rohde-kidnapping-
One of their rules requires something added to an entry to be from a “Reliable Source”. In the current case, their “reliable source” gold standard (the NYT) was lying, and those WP *doesn’t* consider to be reliable sources (including a news agency founded in 1963) were the ones telling the truth.
Hopefully at the least many more people will realize that nothing in WP can be trusted.
P.S. If you want to do something about WP, stop linking to them.
30. E. O’Neal | 06.30.09
Of course Wales made the right call. The safety of a kidnap victim should take priority over an update of Wikipedia. The more interesting question is why the NYT expects other media to value the lives of its reporters more than the Times itself values the lives of U.S. soldiers and other American citizens when it publishes our vital national security secrets.
33. robotech master | 06.30.09
While what they did was correct in many respects…. the hypocrisy is massive being this coming from the NYT and wikipedia.
I’m also not sure where you’ve been but wikipedia has had a long history of covering up stories and altering history to fit their political beliefs. A classic case was where for close to 2 months(maybe 1 can’t remember) wikipedia deleted any info related to john edwards affair that he was having. Once the story was “approved” by the media overlords such as the NYT then it was ok to talk about on wiki… that was clearly a life or death matter.
The irony and hypocrisy coming from the NYT which take great glee in endangering US soldiers lives any chance they get and Americans in general is just insane. The NYT is one of the worst offenders when it comes to endangering ppl’s lives by both sloppy reporting and releasing national secrets… O BUT WAIT if one of THEY’RE ppl are in danger STOP THE PRESSES.
I think that what they did is right…however they would never do this for a FOX news reporter…(maybe now that they could be guilted into it) Delaying a story most of all a story that really has no real relevance on anything important to save someone’s life most of all on the small scale such as this is the right thing to do… however being that the NYT of all groups likes to publish those stories every chance they get with reckless abandonment whenever it isn’t someone from their “party” once again only displays the massive hypocrisy that the stalin times really believes in.
34. Erik | 06.30.09
Four words: Clear And Present Danger.
The right to free speech is not absolute. It’s close, but we _do_ recognize a very narrow set of cases in which it is correct to limit free speech: when it places others in unnecessary and immediate mortal danger. Publicizing Rohde’s situation would increase his hostage value and make him even more likely to be killed if were recaptured. It would have been deeply irresponsible for Wikipedia to have been in part responsible for that in the event it occurred.
Yes, it’s nice and easy to say that censorship is always wrong. This is in the class of answers that Heinlein called “clear, simple and wrong.” There are _always_ edge cases where something normally unacceptable is permissible, and this is one of them.
35. jay@miamicondolifestyle.com | 06.30.09
Actually, in response to Woofus, the editing process favors those with an axe to grind. As long as they can post rumor and inuendo on a website and claim it’s true, then they can cite it as if it is the truth in the Wikipedia.
The Wikipedia lost all credibility when it recently banned both the Scientology editors and the most ardent of the anti-Scientologists.
So they don’t like the constant flux between what the Scientologists say about Scientology and what their vocal critics say. Isn’t that what Wikipedia was supposed to encourage? “Rigorous debate” (as Obama phrased it about the post-election rioting in Iran).
Don’t trust anything in the Wikipedia. Look up any activity with which you are engaged and see if YOU agree with what it says.
Data evaluation is becoming an ever more important personal skill. Learning to think for yourself is a skill not widely developed, IMHO. Dependence on any encyclopedia (even the Wikipedia) for one’s *data* is sophomoric at best.
36. Kevin | 06.30.09
Jimmy Wales does not own Wikipedia, but he has his own cult who follow him and allow him to get away with the nonsense that he does. Jimmy Wales is an accomplished manipulator and liar. Wikipedia and Wales are both losing credibility quickly.
37. Harvey Pooka | 06.30.09
“Freedom of speech”, “First amendment”, I hear you cry. Did no-one here take a basic law class? The first amendment only applies to government infringement, not to private individuals or companies. Wikipedia is a company that can publish or not anything it wants to within the bounds of fraud, libel, and defamation laws. The only freedom of speech issue that would arise here is anyone using the legal system to demand that they publish something. That would be a first amendment violation.
38. GreenReaper | 06.30.09
Personally I prefer the term “subversive international organization”, especially when people are talking about the one I’m involved in. “Cult” is so twentieth-century. 
The thing about such topics is that normally those dedicated to them care enough about the project as a whole to tone down the real “true believers”. Those adding most of the content tend not to be those overseeing the process, which leaves them vulnerable to swift administrative action.
Most of Wikipedia’s most persistent and damaging edit wars actually result from conflicting nationalist groups. A group of editors attempted to build a policy to deal with such long-term conflicts, but disbanded having achieving little more than a detailed description of the problem.
39. Paul | 06.30.09
I’d like to recommend people look up the word ‘Embargo’ ( in a journalism sense). The information was only withheld until it was safe to publish it. It happens all the time!
40. DK | 06.30.09
Last time I checked, the 1st ammendment, and the rest of the bills of rights, protects the people from the Government, not Wikipedia. Also, I don’t think I’ve ever considered Wikipedia a “reliable news source.” If you believe everything you read on a user edited source, please donate money to save us from the horrible Dihydrogen Monoxide that’s infecting our planet.
41. Dennis | 06.30.09
I think the thing that stands out most to me is that the NYT has no reservations in reporting classified information that could, and often does, put intelligence and military personnel at risk. I have no problem with the suppression of information in this case, but question the NYT in the almost gleeful way they released classified information during the Bush administration. Information that quite often put living, breathing people at risk.
42. Igli | 06.30.09
I’m lost here. Is a “living biography page” a place where journalist can go to print their ‘dirty laundry’ or ’sensationalist’ stories, or more to the point, a story that would put one of their own colleagues in harms way? If you want to report the news, do it at a news site or in another valid news source. I am always appalled at the blood thirsty idiots who will report ANYTHING just to get a jump on a story, even if it means the life of another. You want a bloody story? Go to a war zone yourself and get yourself captured. I’ll even report it in Wikipedia for you if you ask nicely!
43. NP | 06.30.09
This really isn’t a freedom of speech issue. The government never made Wikipedia censor the page, they did it of their own freewill and the dictates of their conscious. Additionally they did so without agenda. To have hid the story for purpose of swaying public opinion would also be another matter, like say a cover up of a story involving Obama that would caste him in a negative light. But this is the life of an individual being protected by private citizens.
That said, number 9 I totally agree with your interpretation of the Schenck case, but as I said, this is not the actions of the government. Also I make no claims to the reliability of Wikipedia or any media for that matter, each person must decide the truth for themselves.
44. Tinian | 06.30.09
Wikipedia is a great place to find non-controversial information like the crystal habit of a mineral. It is a terrible place, however, to find information on any topic about which there is the slightest bit of controversy. I tried several times to add the to the Wikipedia entry for Ted Kaczynski the fact that a copy of Al Gore’s book “Earth in the Balance” was found in his cabin. A Wikipedia editor repeatedly removed my edits, saying it was “immaterial”. It’s immaterial that a murderous Luddite read “Earth in the Balance”? It’s more like an inconvenient truth.
45. morgauxo | 06.30.09
I think they did the right thing in this case. I do think however that “Safety, in other words, trumps freedom of speech” is a very dangerous statement to make.
First, it’s not like they were trying to permanently cover anything up. They just wanted to give the guy a chance to get away. It’s covered now!
Second, the kidnapping was something done by a group of individuals to another individual. It just doesn’t involve the majority of the individuals who go to read about it. There is no loss to me or most of you for not knowing this was going on. Those who were involved already knew. This is much different than, for example covering up the actions of a democratically elected government from it’s own voters which violate their own constitution.
46. Ben | 06.30.09
There is no problem with NYT asking to suppress the story for any reason they wanted. The problem is in WP’s agreeing to go along, as this deceives their readers who might rely on their coverage. Let us say you were in some war-torn backcountry and were invited to a meeting with such a person. Wishing to exercise diligence before going to the meeting you check online, including his WP page, and find he busily at work in the midst of important affairs — just the sort of person you’d want to be seeing — and so you and your entourage go to the meeting and have a very unpleasant surprise because WP has suppressed the awkward fact that he has been for some time in the hands of the bad guys. Suppressing the truth may help one person, but you have no idea how many others may be harmed by your untruth. C.S. Lewis said something to the effect that sacrificing truth in order to do good leads inevitably to evil.
47. MarcoVincenzo | 06.30.09
It was completely wrong of Wikipedia to censor! Their credibility is now suspect, and I’m really wondering what else they’re currently censoring that we should know about.
48. TBlakely | 06.30.09
I have a sneaking suspicion that if the reporter in question had been working for Fox News both the NYT and the editors at Wikipedia would have felt a moral compulsion to report all the details.
49. A Quest for Knowledge | 06.30.09
This is nonsense. Wikipedia did the right thing. I can’t believe people are actually complaining.
50. Gregory Kohs | 06.30.09
The one good thing to come out of all of this is that regular, average people who didn’t know much about the inner workings (and occasional fiendish behavior) of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation leadership, are now starting to question:
“What else are they censoring?”
“Why is this for Jimmy Wales to decide?”
“Is anything reliable on Wikipedia?”
“Why is there no article about Carolyn Doran on Wikipedia, even though her detailed biography appeared in the USA Today, the Washington Post, the Miami Herald, and Forbes?”
Keep digging, folks. You’ll discover that there’s nothing more entertaining than watching a collection of unprofessional, irresponsible “free culture” types try to manage what they claim is the “sum of human knowledge”. Seriously, there is no soap opera as completely engrossing to the discerning mind than this one headquartered at 39 Stillman Street.
(By the way, the WMF even tried to censor the address of their own headquarters!)
51. Rob | 06.30.09
I find it troubling that media groups create rules from themselves that they do not apply to other. What ever happened to the often used argument used by the press about the publics right to know? I personally think this justification is significantly overused. I do not believe that reporters should be able to create a seperate standard that protects them while leaving everyone else at the mercy of the public’s right to know.
52. Pedro Custodio | 06.30.09
Next time, after a kidnap, they just need to check wikipedia.
If *no* reference, then someone with power is *trying* to protect him. Value should increase.
For now on, every missing reference would put all kidnapped in more danger, using the same line of tough.
Ridiculous.
And by the way, all censure work like that: for a greater good.
53. John Heidema | 06.30.09
I only use Wikipedia, I’m not steeped in its principles or short-term “traditions.” I am impressed occasionally with just how current its information can be. And given its contribution and editing mechanisms, I tend to be just a bit suspicious about the accuracy of its changing content.
But I was once kidnapped (Ecuador 1996); and that experience educated me about kidnapping and anti-kidnapping tactics. I found that my incident had been deliberately suppressed by (and from?) the major news outlets on the advise of the kidnapping response specialists within the FBI. The news suppression ceased after I was forcibly rescued 5 weeks later.
(By the way, since there was one brief AP report on my 1996 incident within the first 48 hours, and since I live within their distribution area, I suspect that the NY Times was also aware of my incident and chose not to publish it — which isn’t quite such self-serving behavior as some others here are implying.)
I have grown to appreciate that temporary suppression of news, news that usually helps the kidnappers and hurts (and increases the danger for) the victim(s) — and their families. The temporary suppression of news about my incident is likely one of the reasons I am alive and healthy today and the kidnappers did not succeed in their life-endangering extortion. David Rohde will likely grow to have this appreciation too, if he doesn’t already.
News and information that endangers lives and livelihoods of honest people while aiding life-threatening extortionists is not “fit to print” until that danger abates — in my opinion. Your opinion and perspective may vary.
54. Steve | 06.30.09
Wikipedia just needs new rules. They need to determine when to hold back information (as in occasions like this), and then when there is info told hold, it should go in front of a panel of people from different backgrounds who make the decision based on the set rules.
Problem solved
55. Dana Pope | 06.30.09
I have read “liberty vs safety” as a dichotomy. Somehow, there is an issue with these two as the central aim. What people are missing is an age old ethic of protecting life. How important is it to protect an individual’s life? What is it that our Founding Father promulgated? “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
The Founding Fathers valued “Life” because of it’s intrinsic value. Any reporter, or reporting that doesn’t start with that premise does not understand what allows us as a “people” in United State to have the liberty of free speech.
56. ImThinking,ImThinking | 06.30.09
The nice thing about Wikipedia is how obvious its potential failings and the likelihood of it having missing or mis information. At what point did it stop being the place I go to read episode summaries of long canceled geek shows and start being a news outlet?
57. RoC | 06.30.09
What it comes down to is WHO REALLY GIVES A CRAP! Not about Rohde’s escape, but whether what Wiki did was right or wrong. If sitting on a news story has the possibility of helping the very person that the story is about, then I am all for it.
58. Tom | 06.30.09
Can we be entirely confident that Rohde was in fact in the hands of the Taliban and effected an escape from his captors? After all, we have only the word of sources who now admit they have not been entirely candid with us. What greater good might they think themselves furthering with their current version of the story? Faith, once shaken, quivers for quite a while. Rather like Jell-O.
59. Mark | 06.30.09
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a news provider. If this had happened on Wikinews, that would be a different scenario; as it looks now, this seems to be in line with Wikipedia’s general soft-pedaling (and restriction of editing) of current/unfolding events until they’ve stabilized to an encyclopedic standard.
60. Rich Belmont | 06.30.09
Pay close attention to this:
“We were really helped by the fact that it hadn’t appeared in a place we would regard as a reliable source,” Wales told Pérez-Peña. “I would have had a really hard time with it if it had.”
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a place for original research. Wales did not violate any fundamental Wikipedia principle.
61. Diego | 07.01.09
Think Wikipedia isn’t biased? Notice how Obama’s wikipedia page was scrubbed clean of controversy in the leadup to the election? It’s probably even cleaner now! They could easily have had a Controversies section but the discussion page showed any number of excuses why they didn’t.
62. waldo5 | 07.01.09
The Monitor/NY Times have their rules; whereas Wikipedia, being smaller, has not. Safety must come first, privacy of individuals–especially under wartime conditions. We do things differently in war than we do in peace. Censorship has its place during war for protection of individuals.
63. chaim perachia | 07.02.09
Jimmy Wales was 100% correct. The key point is that there was no “reliable source” that reported the kidnapping. Therefore, as per Wikipedia’s policy, the information was fully subject to being removed.
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1. John Doe | 06.29.09
What leads us to believe this was a life or death situation? Because the New York Times says so? Isn’t the NYT the same group that decided to cut off the information? What if it turns out the NYT was merely covering it’s own legal behind?
Beyond that, I’d like to know how I can get a “no reporting on things that might kill me” pass. I’d have sent mine to George Tiller. Oh, wait, I guess late-term abortions are in the public interest in a way that kidnapped americans in Afganistan are not?