Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-08-30/Op-Ed
We couldn't have told you this, but Wikipedia was censored
A high official of an unnamed religious organisation had a negative result in a court proceeding involving some young men in a land known as Downunder or Oz.
No, The Signpost is not practising how to say as little as possible in as many words as possible, but several Australian news sources had to invent even more ridiculous text and headlines to try to inform their readers of major news they were blocked from publishing. Wikipedia was cited, but not charged, for contempt of an Australian court's gag order. Thirty-six non-Wikipedian individuals and organisations were actually charged.
Since February, we have been free to say that, on 11 December 2018, a jury unanimously found George Pell guilty of raping and sexually abusing two 13-year-old boys in the 1990s. This was big news, not just in Australia but internationally; sexual abuse of women and children by Catholic clergy has been a scandal on four continents, and Pell is a cardinal, one of the highest-ranking bishops in the church. And not just any cardinal; at the time of his conviction, Pell was a member of the Council of Cardinal Advisers, and the Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, a post akin to the Vatican's treasurer. He was not just the senior Catholic in Australia, but one of the highest-ranking in the world.
Pell was still facing charges in another case involving teenage boys, so to avoid the jury in that second case being influenced by the verdict in the first, Victorian County Court chief judge Peter Kidd placed a non-publication order on all of the evidence and the verdict in Pell's trial. The use of these orders is more common in the state of Victoria than the rest of Australia; some 443 were issued there in 2018, compared with 456 in the rest of the country. The suppression order applied "in all Australian states and territories" and "on any website or other electronic or broadcast format accessible within Australia". This clearly included Wikipedia.
In Australia there is no constitutional right to free speech. The High Court ruled that there is a right to political free speech (although it recently ruled that it is not a personal right, and that government workers can be fired for anonymously criticising government policies online), but other forms of speech are not covered. In particular, commercial speech is not covered. Even countries that do have sweeping freedom of speech provisions often have protections for a defendant's right to a fair trial that can override the right to free speech; courts worldwide are attached to the fair-trial principle.
The court's gag order left news media organisations understandably frustrated. Some international media organisations, including The Washington Post and The Daily Beast , went ahead and published the story online, regardless. Neither had reporters on the scene.
On Wikipedia, an IP user in Canada made an edit of 12 December changing Pell's description to add "and convicted sex offender", with a reference to the Daily Beast article. This sparked a flurry of edits, and within four hours the article was protected for "violations of the biographies of living persons policy". There was a weird discussion on the WikiProject Australia talk page in a section titled "Article about a topic covered by a suppression order" that left some people scratching their heads wondering what those in the know were talking about. Wikimedia Legal was informed. We left an audit trail for prosecutors to follow if they wished.
Editing was not restricted to the English-language Wikipedia. The French was updated on 17 December, noting that a jury had found the cardinal guilty. This edit was reverted as "non fiable" (unreliable). Not so on the German language Wikipedia, where the edit remained. That the story was up on Wikipedia, at least for a while, was noted by the court, and by Pell's defence lawyers (hoping perhaps to get the second trial thrown out on those grounds).
Some media organisations, including The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian , responded by reporting on the gag order, saying that there was a big story about a prominent Australian convicted of a heinous crime, and that they couldn't report on it. The Melbourne Herald Sun ran a black front page with the headline "CENSORED" in bold type. The court was not amused by this either. At the time, I simply googled "big story about a prominent Australian convicted of a heinous crime" and up it came, complete with links to The Washington Post and Wikipedia. The George Pell article's talk page erupted with the heading "Conviction of Sexual Offences Against Children and Suppression Order in Victorian County Court".
As already noted, our BLP rules were not violated, as Pell was indeed convicted of a crime. Nor was there a problem with the sources, which were reliable and had indeed correctly reported the case. But "using the services in a manner that is inconsistent with applicable law" is a violation of our terms of use. So Wikipedians posting about the case could, theoretically, have been facing a ban from the site.
Fortunately, although Wikipedia was among the organisations cited for contempt, neither Wikimedia nor individual editors were charged. Some 23 individuals and 13 media organisations were not so lucky. Organisations included the The Herald and Weekly Times, Fairfax Media and Nine Entertainment. Individuals included Deborah Knight, Michael Bachelard and Ray Hadley
The second case never went ahead, and the gag order was lifted on 26 February 2019. All the while, the English Wikipedia had the story on the article page. With the official news release, the article recorded 150,249 page views in February and 231,295 in March 2019, more than double the 104,231 in December 2018. So while suppression orders are easily circumvented in the internet age, they are not completely ineffective.
Pell lost his appeal against his conviction in August 2019. His legal team is currently preparing an appeal to the High Court of Australia. If unsuccessful, he is likely to be transferred to the Hopkins Correctional Centre in Ararat, Victoria, where many paedophile priests are currently held.
What can we take away from this? It isn't the first time something like this has happened, and it won't be the last. Recall the case of Rémi Mathis, who was compelled to delete a Wikipedia article under threat of detention and criminal charges in 2013. We cannot assume that the law will not come after Wikipedians as individuals or WMF as an organisation. There are signs around the world of an impending crackdown on social media sites, given the recent behaviour of Facebook and Twitter.
We need to heed this as a wake-up call and put appropriate procedures and guidelines in place.
Discuss this story
This presupposes that Australian courts have anything to say about what non-Australian contributors do on a US-hosted server. They do not at all, IMHO. ☆ Bri (talk) 05:11, 31 August 2019 (UTC) [reply ]
(削除) WP:IGNOREALLRULES. No physical courts can or should control the digital environment. Cardinal Pell is a child molester, and let this be screamed from the rooftops. (削除ここまで)–♠Vami _IV†♠ 19:23, 31 August 2019 (UTC) [reply ]Thanks for an interesting topic! I'd suggest a category for Category:Wikipedia article subject to censorship and banner template. Banner could be used for articles currently affected, and category, for articles affected in the past. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:56, 1 September 2019 (UTC) [reply ]
- Bahnfrend, I actually went and read the full decision from Sheppard v. Maxwell (and I was the one who referred to the SPEECH Act, but I also went into detail why other such restrictions would also be prohibited under US law, so you quite mischaracterized and took out of context what I said). Did you actually read the Supreme Court decision? In it, they do list some pretty shocking things, such as Sheppard's chief counsel being "forcibly removed" from proceedings by a participant, and media being allowed so close to the defendant in the courtroom that he could not privately confer with his attorney, as well as the contact information for potential jurors being publicly released prior to the trial, allowing people to contact and harass them. Obviously, those things kept Sheppard from having anything that could be in any way considered a fair trial, and the Supreme Court was correct in its finding that he did not receive one. Such practices are no longer allowed in the US. But if you read section (c) of paragraph 1 in the holdings of the actual SCOTUS opinion ([1]), you'll notice that while the Supreme Court states several things the trial court should have done and failed to do, issuing a blanket gag order on nationwide media was not one of those recommendations. Presumably, the SCOTUS did not consider such a practice to be an acceptable one. In the US, prior restraint is considered to almost automatically be unconstitutional. The WMF should not enforce any foreign censorship laws or orders, period. I'm sure Chinese or Turkish censors will also tell you that their motives are good and they just want to help, and I suspect that they actually believe that. Almost no one is a cackling villain intent on harm. I suspect they genuinely believe they're doing a good thing, as does the Australian judge issuing similar orders. But censorship still is inherently harmful. When people are prohibited to know facts, they cannot make informed decisions. Wikipedia, and Wikimedia, should never assist in the suppression of verifiable and truthful information, even if that information is inconvenient to someone. Seraphimblade Talk to me 15:38, 4 September 2019 (UTC) [reply ]
- As I noted in United States v. Progressive, Inc. , prior restraint is not unconstitutional in the United States, only in certain cases. The World Press Freedom Index maintained by Reporters Without Borders rates Australia at 21st and the United States at 48th. [2] Both could do more to improve their ratings. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:39, 5 September 2019 (UTC) [reply ]
- Seraphimblade, I agree with Hawkeye7. The Wikipedia article on Nebraska Press Ass'n v. Stuart (1976) says that the Supreme Court decided in that case that "... it was inappropriate to bar media reporting on a criminal case prior to the trial itself, except in matters where a "clear and present danger" existed that would impede the process of a fair trial." [my emphasis] In the present case, there was a clear and present danger that media reporting on Cardinal Pell's convictions would impede the process of a fair trial of the then pending further charges against him. Under those circumstances, the restriction imposed by the gag order cannot be said to have been inherently harmful. As I indicated in my previous post, the right to a fair trial is recognised by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the trial judge's gag order must be viewed in that context, both in Australia and elsewhere, including the United States. Bahnfrend (talk) 01:47, 5 September 2019 (UTC) [reply ]
- As to US v. Progressive, as brought up by Hawkeye7, I'd actually thought about bringing that one up myself. If you read the opinions and history there, several judges said that cases of nuclear secrets are about the only place they'd even consider upholding prior restraints—and at the end of the day, those restraints were even overturned there, and Progressive was allowed to publish its story. So far as the example by Bahnfrend, of Nebraska Press Ass'n v. Stuart, the courts noted that there were other measures available to ensure a fair trial, such as careful jury questioning to ensure that jurors can and will remain impartial. Presumably, Australian courts are capable of doing that as well. Both of those are cases where prior restraint was considered and rejected by US courts, and one was specifically one with implications on the right of fair trial. US courts are generally highly allergic to prior restraint or censorship of any kind, and that's especially true when it comes to censorship regarding political or legal processes. The right of the public to know what government actions are being taken and to discuss them or disagree with them is considered core political speech, and that receives the absolute highest degree of protection. And the right to do so in a timely way when protest might be effective, rather than after the moment of controversy has passed, is always considered a core part of that right. Or basically, don't expect US cooperation with Australian gag orders. Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:21, 5 September 2019 (UTC) [reply ]
- US v. Progressive is hardly a useful precedent. The case was in a first instance District Court, not the Supreme Court, and was never finally decided, because eventually the government dropped its claim. As for Nebraska Press, none of the alternatives suggested in that case would have been effective in the present case. Cardinal Pell was not a relative unknown being prosecuted in a minor court in a small town, as in that case. On the contrary, he is very well known in Victoria, nationally, and internationally, as one of the most powerful figures in the Roman Catholic Church, his trial was being covered by international media, and he was being prosecuted against the background of very heated controversy, in Australia and in many other countries, over a long history of persistent child abuse by Catholic clergy worldwide. Bahnfrend (talk) 06:00, 5 September 2019 (UTC) [reply ]
The United States has a written constitution. This constitution has been expanded by amendments. The first ten amendments are known as the United States Bill of Rights. The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution states:Australia seems to lack such constitutional guarantees and the Pell gag order has no force under the U.S. Constitution. — Neonorange (Phil) 07:01, 5 September 2019 (UTC) [reply ]
There are two countervailing reasons for wanting the fair trial these gag orders (and other sub-judice measures) are meant to support. Firstly it it in the interest of justice for the defendant. Secondly if it can be shown that a fair trial cannot be held, or was not held, the defendant can escape justice, so it is in the interest of the prosecution too. A similar case in the UK recently involving a grooming gang, resulted in the imprisonment of someone reporting on it. All the best: Rich Farmbrough , 14:12, 16 September 2019 (UTC).[reply ]