The case started in August 2021 with a complaint that de Paço was upset about the Portuguese and English language versions of the articles about him. The first judicial pass went well. But that’s where the good news ends. The next level of Portugal’s court system decided the lower court was wrong about everything, which means that — for now — the person wanting to memory hole past allegations at least temporarily has the upper hand. The Portuguese court ruled against them on 13 July, and demanded that the Foundation turn over personal data about multiple users who worked on the article.
Obviously, Wikimedia is not just going to hand over user info just because this court weirdly decided it’s the guy who just wants people to stop making (apparently) factual allegations against him. Not only would this surrender of info go against Wikimedia’s own standards, it goes against European law, which does not align with this strange decision by Portugal’s appellate-level court.
Is this César do Paço’s wiki entry?
Apparently he donated ten of thousands euro to Portugal’s right wing populist party Chega, and he really wanted to wipe that information out of existence
On 11 January 2021, Portuguese news channel SIC Notícias broadcast a story asserting that DePaço had donated over ten thousand euros to Portugal’s Chega party, and highlighted connections of several of its leaders to the DePaço Foundation.[23][24][25] This was controversial in Cape Verde due to Chega’s opposition to immigration.[26][27] The day after the SIC story was aired, Cape Verdean Foreign Minister, who had recently appointed DePaço as Honorary Consul of Cape Verde to Florida, resigned.[28][29] DePaço was subsequently dismissed,[30] At the time he was appointed, Cape Verde already had a consul in Florida.[31]
Also I just found out that Barbara Streisand’s first name is spelled Barbra
If Wikipedia wants to be resilient against these sort of demands for information, they shouldn’t store user information at all, no emails, no IP addresses, nothing.
They could allow people to register on the site using OAuth, yubikeys, and make edits through tor. It would make fighting spam a little harder but hopefully the OAuth barrier would keep that from getting abused.
But the point still stands if a website has the capability of revealing its users, it will be compelled to reveal that information.
Iirc it’s possible to edit Wikipedia articles without an account. In this case they publish your IP instead of a username.
Some user information is necessary for many users. E.g. email for password resets and notifications (discussions, …).
I do agree that all personal information should be optional, but I don’t know whether that’s the case atm. Logging IP’s is probably important for preventing spam and misuse. E.g. a german politician made the news a few years back because the IP who edited their article came from their office.
It’s difficult balancing act. But if Wikipedia has the information it can be extracted from them. Zero knowledge hosting is a interesting field, it intersects with user accounts difficultly
Clearly this particular suit by this particular person is iffy. However, I don’t think this framing is very good: the fact Wikimedia is headquartered elsewhere shouldn’t make it immune from being sued where an affected party lives.
Also, this part of the article seems a bit contradictory:
Just because someone doesn’t like what’s written about them doesn’t give them the right to unmask contributors. And if the plaintiff still believes he’s been wronged by these contributors, he can definitely sue them personally for libel (or whatever). What he has no right to demand is that a third party unmask users simply because it’s the easiest target to hit.
Ok, but how does he sue them personally without knowing who they are? It’s fine to say this shouldn’t be regarded as libel (I agree, it’s a factual point, should be covered by exceptio veritatis or whatever) but I think it’s a bit dishonest to say you can’t hit Wikimedia, go after the individual users; but also, Wikimedia shouldn’t be forced to reveal them.
Much better if the court would consider this information as being accurate and in the public interest.
Of course the GDPR cuts two ways here, because political information is an especially protected category, with certain exceptions (notorious information). So I’m not sure how the information on this person’s affiliation to the far right was obtained and so on.
If Portugal is in the EU, is there no option for them to ask them to get the suit dropped for violating EU law?
What does this have to do with Spain?
Huh, swear it said spain earlier…
fixed.
No worries, it makes sense now!
National courts to take EU law into account. If you don’t agree with their interpretation of EU law, your option is to appeal or ask to refer questions to the EUCJ.
