Printed from www.pcpro.co.uk
Posted on June 29th, 2009 by Matthew Sparkes
Is it right to censor Wikipedia to save a life?
David Rhode is a double Pulitzer-winning journalist with the New York Times who just escaped seven months as a captive of the Taliban – yet you won’t have heard about it.
It’s extremely newsworthy, but coverage of the kidnapping would have made Rhode a more valuable hostage. The higher profile the captive, the more attention the captors and their demands get – and the lower the chance of a happy ending.
In situations like this, news organisations often agree to hold off on reporting certain events. They lose a story in the short term, but a reporter gets a better chance at coming home.
In any case, for better or worse, everyone gets their story eventually.
This mutual cooperation used to be relatively straightforward to organise – journalists, especially war correspondents, are a pretty cliquey bunch – but it is one of the long list of things that have received a thorough shaking-up in the internet revolution.
Wikipedia, in particular, was a major problem.
Just three days after the kidnapping, despite a total blackout in the traditional media, the first Wikipedia user made reference to it on Rhode’s article – the first of a dozen attempts.
The NYT got in touch with Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales, to arrange the removal of any trace of the story. Wales oversaw the effort himself, and spoke about it to the NYT.
We were really helped by the fact that it hadn’t appeared in a place we would regard as a reliable source. I would have had a really hard time with it if it had.
But the general public were not the only ones who’d be looking at Wikipedia. The next concern was what Rhode’s captors would see when they began researching him online.
A colleague of his, Michael Moss, began altering Rhode’s entry. He highlighted that many pieces of Rhode’s work were sympathetic to Muslims, and removed all trace of his work with the Christian Science Monitor, fearing that the religious associations of the name wouldn’t sit well with the Taliban.
The idea was to convince them that Rhode was on-side, worth keeping around.
I knew from my jihad reporting that the captors would be very quick to get online and assess who he was and what he’d done, what his value to them might be. I’d never edited a Wikipedia page before.
So, not only was the NYT suppressing information on a supposedly free, collaborative encyclopedia, but it was actively distorting it. An organisation devoted to shining a light on the facts was hiding them away, and even spinning them for Taliban approval.
Not so many years ago, newspaper editors decided what was and wasn’t worth column inches, and could hold off on stories to protect a group or an individual. It doesn’t happen that way anymore. A stray Facebook update, Tweet or blog post, and a story can explode whether mainstream media are involved or not.
The Iranian elections were covered extensively , despite strong efforts to stop any information leaks. Well, the door swings both ways.
In Rhode’s case the cat was kept mostly in the bag, but it required a massive and sustained effort. The help of Wikipedia’s founder, no less. That won’t happen every time.
Whether the NYT was right or wrong to do what they did is academic. If I was being held captive my idealist viewpoint on free information and open knowledge would be quickly distorted. In fact, it would be stretched to breaking point pretty much instantly.
PC Pro very rarely sends correspondents to war zones, but if it ever does I hope we’ll be dusting off those old Wikipedia accounts.
19 Responses to “ Is it right to censor Wikipedia to save a life? ”
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June 29th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
I applaud the NYT and Wikipedia. They ignored ratings and publicity to do what was right to save a man’s life and not further glorify the crimes of the jihadists.
June 29th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
If someones life depends on it then a media blackout of this kind (and bending of the truth) is absolutely right. We need to use every tactic possible to save people’s lives out in these war zones.
June 29th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
You seriously have to ask if censoring Wikipediage is worth saving a life for your title? Of course it is! Stupid question.
June 29th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
*Wikipedia
June 29th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Don’t be ridiculous. Of course it was right to hide the news. From the news-press.
You shouldn’t even be asking such a question – about Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is NOT a legitimate news source. Fortunately the NYT has name recognition and Wales could get some kudos for taking the name down. Normally he’d have ignored the request, even if someone’s life was at stake. Really. That’s what kind of a guy he is.
June 29th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
It’s interesting that the New York Times, of all publications, would be involved in seeking to quash a story. They’re the ones who have published the Pentagon Papers, identified covert agents, and felt the need to report any and all stories, regardless of the harm posed to individuals. All this was done under the guise of freedom of the press. Yet, they’re willing to suppress news when one of the cadre is on the line. What hypocrits!!
June 29th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
A story can wait if it will save a life.
June 29th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
I agree with Tom above. I think the NYT and Wikipedia did the right thing here, but wonder why they wouldn’t hold off on identifying covert agents whose lives were at stake, even after the US government asked them to.
June 29th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
I think the point of the article isn’t asking if this incident was justified. Most people would agree that merely delaying a news article for a few weeks to save a life is 100% justified. But it opens the door to further questions, how long might something be delayed and still be justified, how much information can be hidden for how few lives? What if the delaying action will only potentially save a life?
And the question isn’t purely academic. For example the terrorist interrogation recordings, having access to the information, (without it being public knowledge) could save lives, maybe only a handful if it allows some mission to be completed with fewer casualties or possibly thousands if it stops a terrorist attack.
So although this may be the correct response to this situation, it always needs to be examined with caution. Because the idea of some Orwellian regime deciding what information is “good” or “could harm the people” is not a pleasant thought.
June 29th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Let me see if I get this right. It is ok to manipulate public information, lie, censor and obstruct free flow of information to perhaps protect an individual but it is not ok to administer harsh interrogation measures to the Guantanamo prisoners to save thousands of lives. Double standards…
June 29th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
It shows you how the NYT can DISTORT the actual news. Proof in the pudding. Makes you wonder how many other stories have been distorted or supressed…. Hmmmm…
Yes they are a bunch of left winged hypocrits.
June 29th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
I forgot to add it’s OK for the NYT to publish details of cell phone surveillance techniques and interrogation techniques which would potentially save thousands of lives. When the NYT was so free and easy about publishing the story about how we were able to monitor cell phone chatter, the terrorists changed their method of communication. What would have happened in the Battle of Midway if the NYT published a story that Navy had broken the Japanese code? This critical battle would have been lost.
They’re hypocrits only interested in their own self interest.
June 29th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
What good would have come of releasing that info? Whether the life was one of their own or not is besides the point. The NY Times may indeed be hypocrites, but it doesn’t change the fact that the omission saved a life. While I’m at it, since when did wikipedia become a reliable place to go for news? I find its value in areas besides current events.
June 29th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
I too agree with what the NYT and Wikipedia did here. Too often freedom to do something, e.g. freedom of information is misunderstood as an absolute right, no matter the cost. But every freedom a person enjoys needs to be counterbalanced against another persons freedom. So in these cases you weigh the freedom of information and the rights of people to know what’s going on against the possible harm of human life. And as always there are shades of grey. In this particular case, merely delaying information that would have been of no use to anyone, was in no way more important than a person’s life. There are other cases where someone may just be inconvenienced by the release of information, in those cases the right to inform may weigh stronger. Anyway, in this case, this was the right decision and congratulations to David Rhodes for getting out of there alive.
June 30th, 2009 at 1:42 am
Todd– you are a fool, and worse, you can’t spell.
There is a difference between exposing misconduct by the government and reporting on a story in such a way that increases the chance that the subject of the story will be killed or harmed. And the latter sort of incident is quite rare.
There is a notion that new, journalism, reporters should all be free of bias. Yet editors, reporters and publishers know that this is an impossible goal, and simply do the best they can. They know they are partisan– in war time, it is us, including the media, versus them. And so some reporting is delayed, sometimes the media becomes an arm of government spreading disinformation– not to delude the public, but those on the enemy team reading the new here.
That same action, which we applaud when it is done to save the lives of our soldiers, like the action described above to save what amounts to a prisoner of war, is not permitted outside those narrow exceptions. In fact, many times, editors and reporters are asked to quash a story on the grounds that it will hurt someone’s reputation, drive someone to suicide or disgrace, and so on. And good editors and reporters suck it up and say they hope the asker does nothing rash, but the story is news and has to run. And sometimes reputations are ruined and sometimes people commit suicide. Oh well. News, mostly, is news. But no mistake, deluding or misleading an enemy of the nation in the interest of saving fellow citizens, whether private or government, is both the responsible and noble path to take.
June 30th, 2009 at 11:29 am
@ FarmerTom
You’re correct in saying Todd’s an idiot. However, the media is not as noble as you say it is – your ‘they might commit suicide, but really, that’s their problem’ point is a good one, but unfortunately, the media is demonstrably hypocritical on this subject. When David Kelly committed suicide, many of our newspapers were calling for Tony Blair and many others to be arrested for murder/manslaughter. The media does not and has not only released stories that lead to harming others because they were ‘in the national interest’ – they have done so for profit and increased readership figures.
The papers also immediately quashed the Metropolitan Police’s perfectly valid reasoning that the wider media was inherently racist – beyond a single interview on Channel 4 News, I saw nothing else on it, even though the Met had reams and reams of evidence showing that the media ignored pleas for help in locating missing children if they were non-white.
But Wikipedia is right to join the clique of the media in delaying stpories such as these and editing information – bits and bytes, dollars and pennies; none are equal to a person’s life.
July 2nd, 2009 at 3:00 am
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July 2nd, 2009 at 11:11 am
There’s nothing wrong with this ‘censorship,’ much of the stuff on the Internet shouldn’t be up there. During the World Wars, news magnates were gentlemanly enough to make an agreement with the government not to publish sensitive information, but nowadays that just won’t work. Anyway, it merely highlights the unreliability of Wikipedia – it would have been funny if someone had copied the incorrect article for their homework!
July 2nd, 2009 at 11:56 am
For goodness sake, principles of free press over someone’s life? Get a grip.
Anything that does not put another person in jeopardy is worth doing to save a life.
Imagine Rhode was a close family member – most of us would jump through hoops of fire to secure his safe release.