File this under unintended consequences. It involves a bizarre case out of Germany over the weekend where a politician sued Germany’s Wikipedia over certain items that had been added to his biography. The politician is a member of the German parliament, and he argued that his Wikipedia bio included items he said were “false and slanderous.” He sued and a judge ordered the closure of the German portal for the Wikipedia, wikipedia.de, which was down for two days. It’s now back online.

The Wikipedia entry stated that the politician was formerly employed by the East German secret police. But this is not what he found objectionable, since that appears to be true and without question. What he found objectionable were items involving online pornography, questions about the status of his college degree and claims that he sent threatening text messages to an ex-partner.

AP reports the politician now says it was not his intention that the site to be forced to go dark, but only that the items on his bio he objected to be stricken. He withdrew his suit after the items were removed. Even though the version of the site housed in Germany was down, it was available to users who accessed another German-language version housed on U.S. servers.

I’m left wondering why the politician didn’t just edit his own pages and remove the inaccurate and offending material.

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Consumer Reports WebWatch and the Center for Media and Democracy (our partners on Congresspedia) joined forces to launch Full Frontal Scrutiny, a blog-driven, wiki-based site dedicated to exposing fake, corporate-funded front groups that are pushing agendas, while hiding their true identity or agenda. Full Frontal Scrutiny will give consumers, voters and citizens a resource for investigating organizations they run across in the media or elsewhere that have popped up to promote a particular opinion or bill in Congress. We love the banner on the site that include this quote from Jonathan Adelstein, commissioner at the FCC: "The American public deserves to know when someone is trying to persuade them." The organizers say it’s this spirit that is their motivation for exposing "hidden persuaders." This is a new battle being waged in the spirit of transparency.

Earlier today, for instance, the site posted a report titled Tricky Wiki, an expose of how public relations pros spin the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

 

"Workers at an array of corporate titans have altered their firms’ Wikipedia entries, in apparent violation of the site’s ideals," including ExxonMobil shining up their environmental record, a pharmaceutical giant making claims that their cancer drugs are better than a rival’s, and PepsiCo deleting references to potential health problems caused by its soft drinks, to name a few.

Craig Newmark, Sunlight board member, has checked it out and is impressed. "I’ve taken a good look at all involved, and they’re for real, CU and CMD have outstanding records for integrity and accuracy," Craig writes at The Huffington Post.

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