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Rush Limbaugh falls for Wikipedia hoax, Public Policy Initiative, Nature cites Wikipedia

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By Tilman Bayer

Talk show host fails to heed own warnings not to rely on Wikipedia

An article in The New York Times, "Limbaugh taken in: the judge was not loaded for bear", reports that conservative US talk show host Rush Limbaugh relied on erroneous information from the Wikipedia article about federal judge Roger Vinson when he told listeners that Vinson is an avid hunter and hobby taxidermist who, in 2003, hung the stuffed heads of three bears killed by himself over a courtroom door, to "instill the fear of God" into the accused. Limbaugh insinuated that this might improve the chances of the court case against President Obama's health-care act which Vinson is currently hearing.

The hoax information had been added by a new user on September 13 (UTC), who removed it the next day. Denying that the statement was based on Wikipedia, a spokesman said it came from an article on the website of the Pensacola News Journal – coincidentally the offline reference cited in the Wikipedia article (but with a non-existent date: "June 31, 2003"). However, its managing editor denied it had ever published such an article – a point also made in its own coverage of the affair (Rush Limbaugh falls for wacky hoax about Judge Roger Vinson).

Less than a year ago, Limbaugh criticized journalists who rely on Wikipedia without fact-checking as "literal professional scum", after false quotes attributed to him in Wikiquote made it into the media (see Signpost coverage). In 2005, he criticized Wikipedia as biased and announced he would insert the word "afristocracy" into Wikipedia to "spread" it (see Signpost coverage and deletion discussion).

Student newspapers cover Wikimedia's Public Policy Initiative

After extensive articles about the Wikimedia Foundation's Public Policy Initiative had appeared in Inside Higher Ed and USA Today (see last week's In the news), two student newspapers covered it from a local perspective:

An article in George Washington University's GW Hatchet (Wikipedia recruits GW students to edit website's content) quoted Dr Joseph Cordes, associate director of the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration, who had supported the three-day workshop at the school to train Wikimedia's "Campus ambassadors" (Signpost coverage), and Dr Donna Infeld, whose graduate course on public policy earlier this year had been the first at the university to offer Wikipedia assignments. One of her students was quoted regarding his experiences contributing to the article Don't ask, don't tell as part of that course.

At Georgetown University, The Hoya interviewed Professor Rochelle Davis (Wikipedia: a class tool), whose "Introduction to the study of the Arab world" course participates in the Wikipedia initiative. Correcting earlier media reports that she had assigned students to read Wikipedia, she said "some of the interviews seemed to have missed that. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. I wouldn't assign my students to read it, just like I wouldn't assign them Britannica."

Also last week, Indiana University announced that a seminar at its School of Public and Environmental Affairs program would be producing public policy articles for Wikipedia, proudly describing the School as "one of five leading public-policy programs where the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization behind Wikipedia, is debuting its Public Policy Initiative".

See other Signpost coverage of the Public Policy Initiative: "Introducing the Public Policy Initiative", "Public policy initiative announces advisory board, starts training campus ambassadors", "Public policy initiative announces participating classes", and "Experiments with article assessment".

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Rush Limbaugh

The user who did this, claimed trough a sockaccount, that it was a personal experiment to see what journalists would do, in the 15 minutes of fame this judge was enjoying. He was kinda shocked to see this in the NY Times and apologizes. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:20, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Y'know, maybe this is a teachable moment for one of my longstanding objections about Wikipedia's potential to do damage to people. There's situations where someone gets a blip of media attention, and in that relatively short time-frame, the potential harm from vandalism is enormous. I suspect too many people think this is a speculative concern, or dismiss it saying bad edits will quickly be reverted. But I've seen other instances, and the issue should be proven by now. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 23:19, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think there's a vast difference between a breaching experiment amounting to a prank, and malicious inclusion of unsourced information into a current biography. In neither case is the Foundation liable for libel, as I see it, unless we have been notified and fail to take reasonable steps to remove such information and prevent recurrence. It's my experience that most biographies are highly watchlisted and that unsourced negative material is removed within a short time; that some might slip through that net is perhaps more an indication of the notability of the subject of the article than anything else. Seth is IMO creating more heat than light, as usual, and as an advocate of a free internet, should realise that this is bound to happen in an open model. Bottom line is that I doubt we have anything to worry about. Rodhullandemu 23:56, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sigh. Not that I'm a fussbudget, but can I note, just for making the point, how WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF are suspended when it comes to critics? To address your personal accusation, if my goal was to "generate heat", I wouldn't be doing it in obscure comment threads. My whole point is trying to establish that this is something to worry about, and showing the evidence to belie the tendency to dismiss it. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 00:51, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So where is it, and where is any evidence of lack of due diligence, mutatis mutandis? The problem with self-proclaimed critics, as I see it, is that they may be keen to highlight the deficiencies without balancing that with the benefits. Also, they have never practised law in any real jurisdiction. Unreal. Let's put it this way: if you sought to brief me, I'd advise you hadn't a leg to stand on; if WMF briefed me, however, I'd feel more confident of success. Rodhullandemu 23:29, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Seth is right in both in the dangers of WP's current BLP system and how outside criticism is too often treated by Wikipedians. Cla68 (talk) 03:18, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is exactly where pending changes can be useful. Actually, it is the only place where it can be. These little watched BLPs. Of course, if not Wikipedia, then Twitter, so it's not really gonna solve anything in the grand scheme of things. Unfortunately, Pending changes is still not quite there yet, technology wise, it needs another iteration or two before it can be widely deployed, and then we still need to agree on WHERE to deploy it. Low quality BLPs seems an obvious choice to me, and trending twitter, google and google news items could possibly be another good choice. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 00:14, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Pending changes is all very well, but doesn't address the problem of libel; publication is still publication, even to a limited audience, in my experience. PC has a way to go before it is going to satisfy everybody to an acceptable level. Meanwhile, we still have to assume that if "Low quality BLPs" should qualify for some sort of protection or gate-keeping, if you will, there is no reason not to extend the principle to all biographies, since it is only from those articles that a libel action may arise. Perhaps we should be grateful that we have defensible protections in place and that perhaps because of that, no individual has yet taken the point. However, it would be an unwelcome and potentially expensive diversion if they chose to do so. Rodhullandemu 00:28, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

During "political silly season", it is clear that WP must be extremely vigilant against any POV-pushers adding defamtory content to any BLPs at all. This is, indeed, a far greater real concern that the myriad "unsourced" BLPs which were so hotly discussed earlier. And, as noted above, another strong argument for Pending Changes. Collect (talk) 01:14, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Pending Changes is a partial solution and I look forwards to it being improved and implemented more widely.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:44, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's an article of faith that Pending Changes will help. It would be nice if it did, but no one has yet provided meaningful results or a useful analysis of the two month test. Instead, everyone is busy arguing over whether the test should be continued indefinitely. -- llywrch (talk) 23:12, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't this sense of security all based on certain legal rulings? Surely it's only a matter of time before the courts take a different view and decide to punish Wikipedia - here in the UK being a prime likely candidate for such a punishment - with a swinging penalty it cannot afford. From that moment, the model will be broken. I suspect one day all BLP articles will either come down, or only a few will be allowed through after the most rigourous vetting. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 11:12, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not just rulings but law. US law is very clear that Wikimedia cannot be held liable for the libels posted to Wikipedia by others. And any crazy judgement in the UK would probably be unenforceable in the US, where the Wikimedia Foundation is based. Pending Changes are good for ethical reasons - they have nothing to do with legal liability, which remains unaffected either way.--greenrd (talk) 19:26, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
See also Libel tourism#Laws addressing libel tourism and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Regards, HaeB (talk) 20:21, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Despite the SPEECH Act of 2010, I agree it's likely someone will try to "break" Wikipedia. Amidst the discussion over Pending Changes, I've come to speculate wondered if the Foundation's best defense in such cases is to deflect the responsibility from the Wikipedia in question (& the WMF) to the person who made the edit. Doing that would solve the problem of defamatory material in biographical articles on living people far more effectively than Pending Changes, while allowing the necessary depth of information on public figures that is not necessary for, say, intellectuals. But I seem to be a minority of one when it comes to applying that legal concept to the BLP question. -- llywrch (talk) 21:45, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Section 230 in essence means that the person who made the edit is primarily responsible for it. And it is safe to assume that the Foundation and in particular Mike Godwin have put a lot of thought about the "best defense in such cases" already, see e.g. here (there's also more thorough references on this question). Regards, HaeB (talk) 15:02, 23 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Despite the reputation of the UK libel laws, it is unlikely that any significant risk is involved to the WMF, more than legal costs, and the willingness to revert, delete or otherwise remove egregious libel, plus the ability of the libelled to do so themselves (pace Pending Changes!) is going to remove a lot of force behind any arguments. Rich Farmbrough, 21:51, 23 September 2010 (UTC).[reply]
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