Like many of the most popular websites, Wikimedia – which oversees
Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons among other sites and services –
publishes a transparency report in which it details commercial and
governmental requests for surveillance and content removal.
But of course, Wikipedia is a wiki, meaning that the way you
take something down is by editing the page, then defending your change
in the comments for that page – not by asking the Lords of the Internet
to get the food-coloring out of the swimming pool.
So Wikipedia’s transparency report is something of a joy. I mean, how
can you read this: “From July to December of 2017, we received 343
requests to alter or remove project content, seven of which came from
government entities. Once again, we granted zero of these requests” and
not rejoice?
On Techdirt, Mike Masnick points out that the very low levels of
copyright requests are a proof that the expensive, ineffective “filter”
systems demanded by Big Content are not the best way to take care of
copyright infringement:
40+ years ago a pair of Danish scientists acquired the mistaken belief
that Greenlanders had a very low incidence of heart disease (turned out
that people who live in extremely rural conditions without access to
modern medicine just have a low incidence of reported heart
disease); they concluded that the Omega-3s in their diet was responsible
and a thousand nutritional supplement fortunes were born.
But a wide-ranging, careful meta-analysis published in JAMA-Cardiology
found no meaningful link between Omega-3s and reduced risk of heart
disease. As Lifehacker points out, this joins reviews that show no
benefit from taking Omega-3s for “dementia, depression, inflammatory
bowel disease, or age-related macular degeneration.”
There may be a small improvement in breast cancer, and a small increased
risk for prostate cancer, and if you’re seriously Omega-3 deprived, the
supplements may be a good idea.
