The case of nazi symbols in Wikipedia – how to educate, but not to promote?
Wikipedia contains too much nazi symbolism? As it can be read on the Reuters site, german left-wing politician Katina Schubert withdrawed the charges against Wikipedia for promoting the use of banned Nazi symbols in Germany. In her opinion german Wikipedia contains too much nazi symbols, so it could be seen on the article describing the Hitler Youth movement.
Education vs. promotion
The spokesperson of the Wikipedia Deutschland fundation claims that the fundation is no responsible for the content, which is published on their site, because Wikipedia is created by the private (very often anonymous) editors.
Katina Schubert – as she have said – charged Wikipedia not to break the freedom of speech, but to focus public attention on the problem of totalitarian symbols available on Wikipedia, which can be used by the supporters of radical movements.
The article about Hitlerjugend has been changed – most of the nazi symbols were removed. Katina Schubert noticed it and withdrawed her charges, but the discussion about the main problem began. How to educate about nazi or communist (this is the same problem) historical movement preventing using this in the propaganda?
Wikipedia outranks traditional encyclopedia (again)
A little supplement can be added (thanks to the polish Dziennik Internautów): An analysis commissioned by a German weekly, Stern magazine, found that articles from the German version of Wikipedia are better than those in Germany’s commercial encyclopedia, Brockhaus. Here you can read about it in english and here in german. On these last article Jan Hodel comments comments also differences in the judges of Google and Wikipedia practise. Google is being accused of gathering too much control of the internet content, and Wikipedia is shown as a last real oposition, the independent source of democratic knowledge. As it can be read on the Hodel blog: Es ist schon interessant, wie sich das diskursive Feld formiert: Hier die üblen Burschen von Google (”Datenkrake”), die unser aller Daten möglichst umfassend sammeln und dann gewinnbringend verscherbeln – ja überhaupt den Datenfluss im Internet kontrollieren wollen. Und dort die wackeren, unbeugsamen Helden des freien, anarchischen, demokratischen Wissens (jaja, die Assoziation mit Asterix drängt sich auf) bei Wikipedia.
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