Hello.

I sometimes see entries about people on wikipedia. Sometimes there are photos. I am just wondering, did wikipedia specifically ask these people for permission to use their photos? If they didn't, can these people sue them?

Also, about the fact they write entries about people. These entries are creepy, because I mean, why do you know so much about someone. Even if they are someone in the public sphere. I mean I know Madonna but I don't know all those details about her, like what nick name her relatives gave her when she was young. Anyway, just wondering aside from the creep factor, can these people also sue wikipedia for infringing on their privacy like that?

Thanks.

As long as the information is already in the public domain, and it’s truthful it’s pretty above board. Not sure I’ve ever seen anything on there I’d describe as creepy.

The people with wiki entries do tend to already be in the public eye. If you randomly created a shitty article about your neighbour, it would probably be different provided they weren’t already well known.

I think it's creepy because of how detailed these entries are. It almost reads like they open dossiers and keep tabs on people like the feds do.

Anyway, what about the use of their pictures?

Also, you mention info that is "already in the public domain", which I think is kind of vague and up to interpretation.

For example, read the stuff on Richard Spencer:

Richard Bertrand Spencer was born in 1978 in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of ophthalmologist Rand Spencer and Sherry Spencer (née Dickenhorst), the heiress to cotton farms in Louisiana.[31][32] He grew up in Preston Hollow, Dallas, Texas.[33] Spencer attended St. Mark's School of Texas, then Colgate University for one year before transferring to the University of Virginia.[31][33] In 2001, he received a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Music from the University of Virginia and, in 2003, a Master of Arts in the Humanities from the University of Chicago.[31][33] From the summer of 2005 into 2006, Spencer attended Vienna International Summer University.[33] From 2005 to 2007, he was a PhD student in Modern European intellectual history at Duke University. He joined the Duke Conservative Union, where he met future President Trump's senior policy advisor Stephen Miller.[31][33] His former website says he did not complete his PhD at Duke in order "to pursue a life of thought-crime".[33]

I guess you can sort of claim this info is already in the public domain, in the sense that Richard Spencer probably does not try to hide it. However, as far as I am aware, he doesn't go around telling people about his parents' names and their occupations, either. It seems like a wobbler to me.

And about Madonna's nick name as a child. Honestly how can this possibly be public knowledge?

This post was edited by JessiWan on Dec 7 2022 08:01pm

Wikipedia is as accurate as politics

It's all deception and miss information

See those little numbers in brackets? They're hyperlinks to where the information came from. If someone wanted to look up Spencer's parents occupations without wikipedia, they could because as it has already been pointed out to you, the information already exists in the public domain.

I see. Thanks for explaining.

In that case, I will simply ask who put all that info out there in the first place. I doubt that Richard Spencer would volunteer his parents' names and occupations.

If you follow the citation it's from an interview he did with the Atlantic. So it seems like he did volunteer it.

I see, well that was dumb of him. Considering the path he took, people could really have a lot of hate for him and they could target his parents.

yup they are for sell

03:57 "and then there is wikipedia"

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