The French Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence (DCRI) didn’t appreciate that Wikipedia had an article on one of their installations (link is to the English version of the page in question), so they asked to have it removed. However, because they wouldn’t specify what information in the article was sensitive (even though it was largely based on a French TV broadcast), the Wikipedia editors turned down the request. The DCRI then channelled their inner thug:
Wikipedia refused to delete it, and then things took a nasty turn, as a press release from the Wikimedia Foundation explains:
Unhappy with the Foundation’s answer, the DCRI summoned a Wikipedia volunteer in their offices on April 4th. This volunteer, which was one of those having access to the tools that allow the deletion of pages, was forced to delete the article while in the DCRI offices, on the understanding that he would have been held in custody and prosecuted if he did not comply. Under pressure, he had no other choice than to delete the article, despite explaining to the DCRI this is not how Wikipedia works.
As the Wikimedia Foundation goes on to note:
This volunteer had no link with that article, having never edited it and not even knowing of its existence before entering the DCRI offices. He was chosen and summoned because he was easily identifiable, given his regular promotional actions of Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects in France.
This is very similar to the situation discussed last week, where Benjamin Mako Hill seems to have been targeted because he, too, was easily identifiable. As we noted then, putting pressure on Wikipedia volunteers in this way is extremely problematic, since it naturally discourages others from helping out.
How did the DCRI learn about the Streisand Effect?
… the deleted article is, of course, back on line, in French and a dozen other languages. Moreover, the DCRI’s ham-fisted attempt to censor an extremely obscure Wikipedia page that hardly anyone ever visited, has achieved exactly the opposite effect: in the last few days, the page has been viewed over 45,000 times.
