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There's an earlier article, dated July 1, 2017, on Monsters and Critics website that also sports the same photo of the wrong Nathaniel White, so Mike McPadden's article at crimefeed.com can't have been the original source of the misidentification (or not the only one, at least).
2001:8003:1DF2:D00:2482:6F1C:C109:DAC6 (talk) 07:02, 4 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for mentioning it, you're absolutely correct. I was aware of that page but had missed that it preceded the crimefeed article by a month. The show referred to on that monstersandcritics page, CopyCat Killers, was produced by another defendant in the suit, Reelz. This also seems to have a Discovery connection. The program is listed e.g. as episode 4 on https://www.discoveryuk.com/series/copycat-killers/?ss=2#episodes It should be obvious that Wikipedia has no business citing this sort of material. Discovery used to be reputable but has descended into the realms of pseudoscience and reality TV. --Andreas JN466 09:51, 4 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What could the WMF have done better

BLP policy implications

Sourcing and verification on Wikipedia is poor all round

Before people get too hung up on thinking this is about image sourcing, or policy or images in general, can I direct your attention to the very next edit after the mysterious stranger who removed the image. Another IP editor has changed the date of birth. They didn't say why, and didn't provide a source. Which is perhaps immaterial, because the original date, added all the way way in 2008, never had a source either. Who knows which is correct, if either even is. Why would that be important? Well, obviously, dates of birth are one way you can prove you're not the serial killer that Wikipedia says you are. On current evidence, a malicious actor, on seeing the press coverage, could have altered the date to make it look even more like the misidentified man is the serial killer. There's nothing here that suggests anyone would have even noticed. Even now, even after this article has been subject to much attention for lack of editorial oversight, still nobody appears to have noticed (or perhaps have but just don't care) that the date of birth is unsourced. A basic and obvious violation of BLP, if ever there was one. Policy is clear, and has been for a very long time. That unsourced DOB should be removed immediately. Would take seconds. And yet, it hasn't happened. There have allegedly been efforts to improve Wikipedia's sourcing. If those efforts have not even reached a quick first pass over dates of birth, it doesn't instill much confidence. One wonders what's behind the delay. Perhaps it is lack of editors all round (see below section for a related observation). Mackabrillion (talk) 18:17, 2 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, and while BLP are rightly a particular concern, it's poor sourcing all around. Most of my editing time on Wikipedia is on STEM articles, mostly geology and mostly noncontroversial. Much of that time is supplying missing sourcing. I find myself hesitant to rip out entire sections of articles that lack sourcing, out of fear that some source, somewhere, might support it, and because I am as prone to anyone to the magical thinking that if I simply put a "citation needed" mark on the statement, the source will magically appear. In spite of the fact that I can count the times that has happened on one hand with fingers to spare.
But, not long ago, I found that most of a geology article I had started reviewing was extremely well-written but suspiciously devoid of any sourcing. Sure enough, after some digging on Google Scholar, I found that it was a flagrant, extensive, and 16-year-old copyright violation. Copyright violation may not be as serious a moral issue as libelous BLP, but it's nonetheless a serious legal issue.
I am strongly inclined now to put a "citation needed" on an unsourced statement only if it really, really sounds right, is interesting and important, but for some reason I can't immediately dredge up a supporting source. Otherwise I just cut it and be done with it.
I am coming round to the view that if a statement in an article is unsourced (whether a BLP article or a definition of a igneous rock type) it should be removed immediately. It's nice if the editor makes a good-faith effort to find a supporting source first, but I'm beginning to think there is no obligation to do so. Sure, if we pull every "citation needed" statement out of Wikipedia today, the encyclopedia will lose half its content -- but I suggest that this content will not be much missed and the rest will acquire a much better reputation.
Apologies for the long rant. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 19:13, 2 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Kent G. Budge is right on the money here. Large amounts of Wikipedia articles, even highly viewed ones, have tons of uncited material that is very difficult to deal with, usually the easiest solution is to rip it out and start again, but it's so much work. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:36, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Mackabrillion, the article actually had two birth dates for more than six years, ever since this 2014 edit: [2] – 26 July in the infobox, 28 July in the lead paragraph. No one noticed or cared. The edit you mention made the two dates the same ... both wrong. The date in the article now (28 July in both lead paragraph and infobox) is sourced ... The article had nearly 12,000 views in a single day in August 2018, when the TV program aired. Overall, there were more than 128,000 pageviews during the time when it contained Mr. White's photograph. As a system for writing a reliable reference work, at least in this subject area, it's surely a very, very far cry from being "very effective at identifying and removing these inaccuracies when they do occur". Cheers, --Andreas JN466 21:28, 2 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Low participation is also a factor

What should also be noted is that although a mysterious IP editor did notice and remove the incorrect image, in all likelihood because of the press coverage of the lawsuit, they didn't detail why they were doing it. It could quite as easily have just been vandalism for all anyone knew. And after that edit was made, no other edits are made to either the article or the talk page for at least a year. While we can't know for sure, it seems quite likely that no established editor noticed the removal, or they did but they weren't sufficiently moved by the unevidenced claim that Wikipedia had misidentified a serial killer, to investigate and provide their colleagues with a positive indication that they had chased this down and found the press report. There was, as far as I can tell, nothing stopping the image from being readded from one of the sources that had reused it from Wikipedia. Most likely by someone who might never have even seen the IP editor's note in the edit history. Mackabrillion (talk) 18:17, 2 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The folly of being mostly right, most of the time

The Wikimedia Counsel cited a study in Wikipedia's defence that says Wikipedia editors are quite quick to removed most bad edits. And who knows, maybe that study is true. I am dubious of the Berkmam Klein Centre's findings, ever since it was quite obvious that in the case of a publication of theirs that mentioned Gateway Pundit, they had sourced basic descriptive information from Wikipedia. Information that didn't have a source here, and appeared nowhere else on the internet before it appeared on Wikipedia, suggesting quite strongly that this had been simply made up by a Wikipedia editor, and other Wikipedia editors either never noticed or simply didn't care (for obvious reasons, the Gateway Pundit isn't exactly going to get a gold star service from Wikipedia). The folly of resting on some assurance that you'll get it right most of the time, is when you have the risk of the few times times you do get it wrong, it can quite easily be very, very, harmful. It has been suggested that BLP articles should be fully protected. And to be honest, when there is nothing to suggest that in similar cases the editor community would not make the same mistake here again (chiefly to not notice press coverage of a lawsuit that mentions Wikipedia), that looks like a wise move. As this case showed quite well, other often suggested changes, such as preventing IP editing, might not yield the same level of protection. Mackabrillion (talk) 18:17, 2 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The identity of the IP editor

Probably futile, but an explicit on the record denial from the Wimimedia Counsel that to the best of their knowledge, neither he or anyone in the Wikimedia Foundation is behind the IP that removed the image from the Wikipedia article, would go some way to better understanding the true weaknesses of the Wikipedia model. Mackabrillion (talk) 18:17, 2 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment from Wikimedia Foundation

First, we note that the editorial makes some thoughtful suggestions regarding the possibility of taking greater care when dealing with articles and photographs of people accused of crimes. We agree with the editorial that the most ideal outcome would be that the mistaken photograph on Wikipedia had been caught and removed immediately after upload and we are supportive of the community's ongoing efforts to develop processes which improve the quality of potentially sensitive articles. At the same time, we also believe that the overall Wikipedia process for this case worked once the problem was discovered. It appears that the broader internet was not aware of the original research mistake until after the Discovery TV program came out. Once the mistake was reported on, Wikipedia’s open structure allowed someone (an IP editor) to remove the image quickly and there was no further problem on Wikipedia. This is a considerably better outcome than how the TV program responded and compared with other websites that hosted the same content. We would point to this as an example of Wikipedia’s open structure working well while agreeing that it could still be further improved to catch future mistakes sooner.

Second, we wish to offer a clarification regarding a misunderstanding in the Signpost editorial. The original blog stated “Instead, the law simply requires that litigants direct their complaints at the individuals who made the statements at issue, rather than the forums where the statements were made.” The Signpost editorial interprets this to mean that one should sue a specific Wikipedia editor, but this was neither the intent nor what the section stated. In this case, the “statement at issue” is the original research conducted by Discovery Television that misidentified Mr. White. Our intent was to highlight the fact that Mr. White actually did sue Discovery Television in his lawsuit and the case against them was not dismissed by the motion that ended the case against the Foundation. It is fairly likely that Mr. White will be able to proceed with the court and receive a full hearing regarding his claims of harm from the misidentification or to reach an agreeable settlement with Discovery Television. We would also note that in the cases that are most difficult to address on Wikipedia because they have an existing reliable source, there is very often a corporation that can be held responsible for what they originally published.

The goal of the people from multiple departments within the Foundation that came together to help Jacob author and factcheck the Diff article was to show that this is a successful case where the law worked well: Mr. White still has a route to compensation for his harm from the business that appears to have made the original mistake while the Wikimedia Foundation was protected from legal liability that could have significantly disrupted open community editorial processes. While many other websites have feedback links to report errors, this is yet another example of how and why it often takes less time to address these issues on open platforms like Wikipedia in comparison to closed platforms.

--Stephen LaPorte, Wikimedia Foundation Associate General Counsel — Preceding unsigned comment added by GVarnum-WMF (talk • contribs) 10:36, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

For reference, the relevant passage of the WMF blog post reads:

It is important to note that Section 230's broad protection of Wikimedia projects and other online services does not leave litigants like Mr. White without options. Instead, the law simply requires that litigants direct their complaints at the individuals who made the statements at issue, rather than the forums where the statements were made. This both allows litigants to challenge the appropriate parties responsible for their harm and protects online hosting companies like the Wikimedia Foundation from the costs associated with liability for user-generated content.
— Diff

If Wikipedia is the forum that was improperly sued here, then the Discovery Channel is not "the individual who made the statement at issue" in this forum.
I am certainly not alone in having interpreted the post this way. For reference, the top-rated post at last month's Slashdot discussion (which I was unaware of until a couple of days ago) of the Diff post reads as follows:

It is important to note that Section 230â(TM)s broad protection of Wikimedia projects and other online services does not leave litigants like Mr. White without options. Instead, the law simply requires that litigants direct their complaints at the individuals who made the statements at issue, rather than the forums where the statements were made.
So they want him to subpoena the IP address and sue the contributor who posted his image.
Seems like a fair compromise.

The effectiveness or otherwise of the quality control system is amply covered by others in the discussion above. I don't think the system works at all well in the True Crime area. Also, why should it matter what the "broader internet" is aware of? Reality matters. People matter. Mr. White matters. (And there actually has long been what I believe is a real photo of the killer on the Internet. It does not look like Mr. White, beyond their both being African-American men.) Regards, --Andreas JN466 11:38, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Some thoughts

If we learn any lessons from this, one of them ought to be that the nonprofit status of the Foundation does not automatically keep us from doing evil. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 17:46, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
An additional point I forgot to make, in addition to my first 2 points above. Since it is easy to make mistakes with articles about living people, the dangers of editing them could have a chilling effect on new editors -- which is not desirable. I would hope that the Foundation has some plan of action for those cases where an editor is being sued over a good-faith mistake. As I wrote above, lawsuits are expensive to defend, & editors should not be penalized for such mistakes. Even experienced editors can make mistakes that less haste or more sleep would help them avoid. -- llywrch (talk) 15:27, 4 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Invalid fair use rationale

Fair use rationales are not valid for images living people, this image should never have been uploaded in the first place. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:05, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I can't see deleted images, but the image was likely uploaded under a claim of being public domain - which is accurate for mugshots taken by the federal government, and I have no idea for mugshots taken by New York State Corrections. (See File:Thomas_Hagan.jpg for a suspicious example that's still current - is this really public domain?). That said, even if it was copyrighted, there are rare exceptions that do allow fair use images for living people when taking a fresh compatibly licensed photo is not reasonable, and prisoners may qualify. (As usual, no guarantees, FFD is a roulette wheel.) SnowFire (talk) 22:38, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Here is the log entry, which you don't need special permissions for: [3]. It says,
  • "(== Summary == This is an inmate photograph (mugshot) of American serial killer Nathaniel White, by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, United States, dated: after 1993. == Rationale information == ((Non-free use rationale 2 |description = After 1993 inmate photograph (mugshot) of American serial killer Nathaniel White. |author = New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, United States. |source = http://crimefeed.com/2017/08/31713...)" (The picture was only deleted because it was an unused non-free fair use image.) --Andreas JN466 23:02, 3 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Never mind, then. Guess it was uploaded as fair-use, surprising. SnowFire (talk) 00:24, 4 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This part of the edit that added the rationale was truncated in the edit summary: 

|commercial  = If this image is subject to copyright, it belongs to the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.  Which is a government (or government contracted) public service and not a commercial entity nor artist, and by using this low-resolution image it does not impact the department of any monetary value.  
|other information = Source (no image):  provides inmate data from the state’s department of incarceration:<br>
http://nysdoccslookup.doccs.ny.gov/kinqw00 <br>
DIN (Department Identification Number):   93A4050 <br>
Fair use: Ensured conformance with the image’s “low-resolution” sizing by using the recommended [https://tools.wmflabs.org/cp/resize.php Image Resize Calculator].

Vwanweb acknowledged that there was "(no image)" on the NYS Department of Corrections' website, and wrongly assumed that this was where crimefeed.com obtained the image from, despite the failed verification. – wbm1058 (talk) 13:49, 5 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

An observation: Good intentions do not justify cutting corners. I have to remind myself of that frequently. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 14:55, 5 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I've added a sentence covering images and media files to WP:SWYGT. Also, I learned today that the Discovery program only featured the picture very briefly, right at the end of the program. Of course that's long enough for anyone who knows a person to recognise them, but for everyone else it would have been far harder to memorise the face from that than from a stationary image on an internet page. --Andreas JN466 18:44, 5 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Discussions of this story elsewhere

Bottom line: We have just provided Exhibit A in favor of repealing Section 230, which already has broad bipartisan support. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 15:39, 8 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note that there is a difference between social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, where each post appears with the name of its author prominently identified, and Wikipedia. In Wikipedia, the names of the authors are obscured. Everything is published under the name "Wikipedia". And the Wikimedia Foundation collects hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of "Wikipedia". A lawyer could actually argue that the volunteers are not social media users, but unpaid Wikimedia Foundation staff. --Andreas JN466 15:51, 8 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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