Originally published February 15 2006
Wikipedia deals with scandals concerning quality
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Recently Wikipedia has come under fire for an article claming a former administrative assistant may have been involved in assassinations, and claims that former MTV VJ Adam Curry anonymously edited out key information on podcasting.
The scandals: First, a former administrative assistant to Robert Kennedy lambasted Wikipedia for an article that suggested he may have been involved in the assassinations of both Robert Kennedy and John Kennedy.
Then, a flurry of attention came when podcasting pioneer and former MTV VJ Adam Curry was accused of anonymously editing out references to other people's seminal podcasting work in an article about the hot digital medium.
Despite the inaccuracy of the Wikipedia entry on the Kennedy assassinations, it's unlikely that there is much of a court case against Wikipedia, according to legal experts interviewed by CNET News.com.
"Amateur editors vary widely in talent and knowledge, but mediocrity nearly always prevails at Wikipedia by the very nature of the open editing process, where consensus of opinion is valued over knowledge about the subject matter."
Thanks to section 230 of the Federal Communications Decency Act, which became law in 1996, Wikipedia is most likely safe from legal liability for libel, regardless of how long an inaccurate article stays on the site.
That's because it is a service provider as opposed to a publisher such as Salon.com or CNN.com.
In response to accuracy concerns, The New York Times has banned reporters from using Wikipedia as a research resource, according to a posting on Poynter Online.
Opinions among CNET News.com readers appeared to be split, with some saying they don't trust Wikipedia at all to others who equated the value of the information with advice requested from a friend.
A new outbreak of Sober may be coming, security experts have warned, even as e-mail systems worldwide work to get rid of the last infestation of the mass-mailing worm.
On a related front, a new worm that targets users of America Online's Instant Messenger is believed to be the first that actually chats with the intended victim to dupe the target into activating a malicious payload, IM security vendor IMlogic warned.
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