Dutch Wikipedia self-censors

Wikipedia
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Last year, ex-member of parliament Patricia Remak was convicted of benefit fraud, because she claimed wachtgeld for her work as member of parliament when she was already employed as a civil servant at the finance ministry and a member of the provincial states of Noord-Holland. She appealed this ruling, but was convicted again earlier this year. All these facts can be found in the English Wikipedia article about her, but if you look at the same article on The Dutch Wikipedia, no mention is made of this at all.

How did this happen? Simply because Remak complained to Wikipedia that mentioning her conviction was an invasion of her privacy, the details of her conviction falling under the Wet Bescherming Persoonsgegevens (WBP), which meant that only with her permission Wikipedia could’ve mentioned her crimes and conviction. Under the WBP any sort of publication of private data is strictly controlled, and in general can only be used with permission. A criminal record is one example of the sort of data that’s protected under the WBP, so Remakr had a case if she was just an ordinary citizen. However, as an ex-member of parliament, who in large part is only noticable for her conviction, the details of her crime and conviction are fair game, as shown by the simple fact that her case was widely reported on in the Dutch papers, not something that happens with every conviction for benefit fraud. It is a bit cheeky if understandable to then object to publication in Wikipedia, because who wants to be known as a benefit cheat forever?

It is disappointing however to see Wikipedia cave in, as by doing so it has been deliberately falsified. At the moment, everybodyknows Remak was a benefit cheat and was convicted for it, but how many people will remember this in five years time? In ten? In a hundred? How many people will take the Wikipedia article at face value and not realise that Remak was not just your average member of parliament, but one shown unworthy of the trust of the voters by committing fraud? And if it’s this easy to let Wikipedia remove unpleasant facts about yourself, how many other people and companies will start doing so? An encyclopedia cannot be reliable if unpleasant truths are omitted when people object to them.

That can only happen to us

funny, This 'N That
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Dat zeg ik, Gamma

Three days ago we finally bought a kitchen, after having spent most of the year looking for one. Yesterday, the shop we bought it at completely burned down.

Whoops!

It isn’t terrorism if you’re white, part XXXVIII

UK politics, War on Terror
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Last Wednesday I blogged the case of the socalled lyrical terrorist, who had her conviction for “storing material likely to be of use to terrorists” quashed; the material in question being some fairly ropey, anarchist cookbook style “terrorism manuals”. It was another in a long line of dodgy anti-terrorism prosecutions, with lots of media attention and lots of government hype, not justified by the endresults. Every so often another supposed terrorism plot is uncovered, a serious threat averted and it always turn out to be either be no-hoper wannabe-jihadists with no links to real terrorists, mentally disturbed fantasists or just innocent people looking a little bit too Muslim for the Metropolitian Police.

If the suspects are white however, it’s another matter. Remember the terrorism case in Burnley two years ago? Probably not, as apart from some mentions in the local paper, few newspapers or news shows deigned to pay attention to it, despite the fact that the people involved had massed a huge arsenal of weapons and such and were talking about the coming racewar. Unlike the heavy-handed prosecution of Muslim terrorism suspects, the government kept quiet about this case, didn’t whip the tabloids in a feeding frenzy and let the courts do their job. Last Friday, there was another such case, as a Goole Nazi sympathiser went on trial for making nail bombs, amongst other offences:

A Nazi sympathiser charged with terrorism offences after nail bombs were found at his East Yorkshire home has told a court that he made the devices when he was “just sat around bored”.

A jury at Leeds Crown Court heard how police found four home-made nail bombs in a holdall under a bed in 31-year-old Martyn Gilleard’s flat in Goole.

Officers also found “potentially lethal” bladed weapons, 34 bullets for a 2.2 calibre firearm and documents about committing terrorism, including how to make a bomb and how to poison someone to death.

Again, little attention has been paid to this trial, a Google news search finding less than twenty news articles on the subject, but you can imagine the hue and cry had this been a Muslim suspect. It’s not that I want the same hysteria for this case, it’s just that it’s so blatantly obvious how the British government atttempts to create a narrative about terrorism, by spotlighting those cases, no matter how weak, that fit the War on Terror and keeping quiet about those that do not. It’s easy enough to get the media to cooperate on this, as journalists, not to mention their editors, are lazy and under constant deadline pressure; few go out looking for stories that don’t fit pre-determined templates.

Fuck

Football
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Fuck.

As per usual then. Though it doesn’t help when the referee gives one Russian a second yellow card only to withdraw it after his linesman convinces him the ball had gone outside the line, when it hadn’t. But on the whole Oranje played its usual overconfident, lazy game.

Fuck.

Un-fuckin-believable

Football
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The save that got Turkey into the semi-finals

It’s at times like these that I miss Steve Gilliard, as I would’ve given my eyeteeth to see what he would’ve made of the Turkey-Croatia match. His blog was the best place I found on the net to talk football during the Worldcup two years ago and the previous Eurocup four years ago, and I miss the cameraderie of it. This game would’ve been great fodder for Steve and his commenters, something we would’ve relished liveblogging and discussing.

Because, wow, what a weird game this was. First we get some seventyfive minutes of Turkey playing the defense game, content to let Croatia attack and play all their balls back to the keeper, then they finally decide they have to attack and the game gets lively, but still ends in a goalless draw. In extra time the Turks played much stronger, getting various chances to score, only to see the Croats lob one in after their keeper made a stupid mistake, one minute before time. Desperately they attack, but Croatia intercedes and counters, turn out to be offside and some ten seconds before the end of extra time the Turkish keeper takes the free kick, gets it to
a Turkish attacker, who hands it over to his mate who shoots and scores. Penalties. Croatia misses twice, Turkey doesn’t and their keeper stops the last Croatian chance to stay in the game and turns from villain into hero.

Turkey’s through to the semi-finals, Croatia is gutted and going home after believing they had done it one minute before the end of extra time. What a game.