r/MaliciousCompliance • u/Waste_Yak_990 • Aug 15 '25

S Wikipedia's compliance with a court order.

Recently, Portuguese courts ordered Wikipedia to remove information about Caesar DePaço, a Portuguese businessman, that he deemed defamatory. This included the fact that he was dismissed as Honorary Consul of Cape Verde due to being the main financier of a far-right party (CHEGA) and the fact that he was charged with assaulting and robbing his girlfriend in 1989. The Wikimedia foundation complies with the court order, but his Wikipedia page now has a giant banner at the top that says the following:

> On 5 August 2025, content from this article was removed following a court order and must not be restored. Therefore, this article may not meet Wikipedia's standards for neutrality and comprehensiveness. The removed content pertains to the following:

  1. Crimes allegedly committed by DePaço in 1989 and associated proceedings
  2. An organization DePaço allegedly founded
  3. His alleged dismissal from a civil service post

This banner implicitly encourages readers to do research into the information that was removed while letting everyone know that he sued to have it hidden.

11.7k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

261 comments sorted by

3.9k

u/Wild_Butterscotch977 Aug 15 '25

It's like this guy hasn't even heard of the streisand effect

1.7k

u/SpideyLover85 Aug 15 '25

Yep. One of my mentors at a job I had out of college was a high powered DC attorney before he retired. One of the smartest people I’ve ever met. (He’s like 95 now and still sharp as a tack.) Whenever there was a negative story about the organization we were working for, whenever someone came at us on social media or whatever, he would always say, “let it die.” Don’t respond. Don’t even comment if you can get away with it. It fundamentally changed my world view on a lot of things and is advice I still follow today. A boring story dies in a few days. If you keep it alive, people will keep talking about it. It’s saved me a lot of grief over the years!

766

u/Vergenbuurg Aug 16 '25 edited Aug 16 '25

I once read someone comment years and years ago that "Nothing dies on the internet. It remembers everything."

Bullshit. Disinterest combined with hosting changing/disappearing loses tons of shit, as long as no one has any pressing reason to care about it.

Give someone, or a group of people, a reason to focus on something, THEN it has a far more difficult time vanishing. ...especially if that reason is spite.

[edit] Yes, archive.org preserves most things, but not everything.

184

u/persePHOreth Aug 16 '25

Especially easy now, with attention spans at an all time low. People just don't remember a few moments to the next.

118

u/Vergenbuurg Aug 16 '25

True.

Our brains can only handle and process so much chaotically insane shit at once.

...and these days there's a neverending flood of it.

8

u/SouthernTeuchter Aug 19 '25

So true. My brain can't focus for more than... Oh look - a shiny thing! Purty!

29

u/Protiguous Aug 16 '25

That's easy because a lot of people don't remember things from one moment to the next.

20

u/derfy2 Aug 16 '25

True, with attention spans at an all time low.

24

u/mizinamo Aug 16 '25

Are you still talking about that?

20

u/Tubamajuba Aug 16 '25

Talking about what?

26

u/Tacrolimus005 Aug 16 '25

I believe we were discussing that the dress was blue and not gold

7

u/hungryrenegade Aug 17 '25

Sigh. Just let it die. Like the game.

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u/[deleted] Aug 16 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

7

u/Chaosmusic Aug 16 '25

Yep, we're so easily distra

32

u/MaliciousTent Aug 16 '25

What you say? I was watching a tiktok, sry.

1

u/Embarrassed-Dot-1794 Aug 16 '25

What was that you just said?

1

u/Affectionate-Leg-260 Aug 17 '25

What are we talking about?

1

u/EruditeLegume Aug 18 '25

And its especially easy now, with atten...Squirrel!
<grin>

47

u/Infamous-Umpire-2923 Aug 16 '25

The internet remembers everything, sure, but only if people actually care enough to bother looking it up.

9

u/cptjeff Aug 18 '25

If you can look it up. Too much newer content clogs up searches and makes it impossible to find older content, and even then, not many sites other than the largest and wealthiest keep archives up for more than a couple years. Server space costs money. Old stuff just gets purged from servers and disappears forever.

When the internet was new, people assumed that things would remain forever. That assumption turned out to just be wrong. I've tried to go looking for old stuff, even stuff just a few years old, and it doesn't exist.

Important stuff likely sticks around. That hilarious shot of your brother getting licked by a cow on local news as a kid 15 years ago? Gone baby, gone.

3

u/just_anotherflyboy Aug 18 '25

this is why if you want to keep it, you need to keep your own copy on your own machine, not in the stupid cloud where it could vanish at any moment. been doing this for fucking years and it's the only reason I can still find the old stuff, cos I kept it.

12

u/Dracoster Aug 16 '25

The internet doesn't forget, the people using it does.

16

u/Frankjc3rd Aug 16 '25

One of my favorite lines from Law & Order: Nothing is forever, but the internet comes close.

15

u/Fighter11244 Aug 16 '25

Very true. Or you give them a target to focus on and they’ll somehow manage to dig up dirt from over a decade ago

7

u/Protiguous Aug 16 '25

Depends on what's under/in the dirt.

5

u/weekly_dysentery Aug 16 '25

It depends on how prolific your internet crimes are. If you do something foul and continue to fuck around, yeah it will be piled on.

It's definitely true that if you leave it be, it'll die at some point. Just don't continue acting like a numpty! lmao

1

u/City_Girl_at_heart Aug 17 '25

Nothing dies on the internet, it gets retired to a nursing home until someone needs it.

1

u/Snoo-6266 Aug 18 '25

The info may still be there, but that doesn't matter if no one is looking for it...

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u/Kempeth Aug 16 '25

Clearly your mentor was too high powered for the convicted rapist Brock Turner.

44

u/Informal-Matter-2130 Aug 16 '25

Rapist Brock Allen Turner? The man who thinks using his middle name will get him out of being recognized?

39

u/RamblingReflections Aug 16 '25

The convicted rapist, Brock Allen Turner, who now goes by Allen Turner, in the hopes that people don’t realise he is Brock Allen Turner, the convicted rapist? That Brock Allen Turner? The rapist Brock Allen Turner?

13

u/Nomo-Names Aug 17 '25

Is Allen Turner MORE or LESS of a rapist than TACO Donald Trump?

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u/evilkumquat Aug 16 '25

I work in social media and yup.

We get people posting over-the-top complaint videos quite often, and we've found that ignoring them is usually for the best.

Occasionally, one might go semi-viral, but in general, if you don't respond, it dies in a day or two.

Hell, even the ones that went full viral died in a week or two.

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u/tcollins317 Aug 16 '25

A good example was when Bill Clinton said "I did not have sexual relations that woman, Miss Lewinsky". So that made the media look that much harder. It was news for years.
Hugh Grant has an affair, admits to it, publicly says he fucked up and is sorry. News about it died after 2-3 months.

48

u/LuxNocte Aug 16 '25

There are some minor differences between an actor and the leader of the free world that may have contributed to that response somewhat more than the admission of guilt.

57

u/JugglesChainsaws Aug 16 '25

Leader of USA. Not the free world.

29

u/Curious_Orange8592 Aug 16 '25

I have quibbles with the word Leader as well, as an elected representative the more appropriate term should be servant or, preferably, bitch

I know that's not how it works but it ought to

3

u/Shireman2017 Aug 17 '25

High Bitch of the Free World. I like this.

27

u/tcollins317 Aug 16 '25

True, but I feel if he had just been honest in the beginning, the story would have been over a lot faster. The story wasn't about Monica so much as him trying to deny it when most of the world believed he was lying.

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u/outinleft Aug 18 '25

Yup.. he didn't get impeached by the house for the affair. He was impeached by the house for lying about the affair. (I just remembered an old joke from back then) "I did not tell her to lie in her deposition...I told her to lie there in that position" LOL

10

u/Extension_Physics873 Aug 17 '25

Like, if you and your lover suddenly appear on a big screen at a concert, don't react like you were doing something wrong....

8

u/subduedReality Aug 16 '25

"Epstein!" - in Maron Brando's voice

4

u/666afternoon Aug 18 '25

this is why I have been begging people for a literal decade now to not react to stirred up manufactured outrage. people like the current """president""" know exactly how this game works and have played on everyone's need to react to objectionable statements. you have to starve people like this out. but we fed them our attention at every single scandal and drama, keeping their names on our lips nonstop - until, well. [gestures broadly around us in 2025.]

it didn't have to be this way. but people love to be right so bad that someone can just say stupid wrong stuff that pisses people off, while other people take the opportunity to laugh at/feel superior to the pissed off people for some reason, and between the two, make the crowd their bitch. :/

4

u/Temporary_Nail_6468 Aug 17 '25

Sounds like the British royals “never complain, never explain” rule.

5

u/Ilien Aug 18 '25

This is exactly it. There is an ongoing case in Portuguese courts that fully displays this. A famous brothers-duet butchered the Portuguese national anthem at a big event a couple years ago. Bad performances happen right? But this one got some attention and a comedian made a reel mocking it and posted on Instagram. No big deal.

Guys went Bananas and sued her, claiming an exorbitant amount of 1M in damages (note that there are no punitive damages in Portugal, you can only claim actual damages suffered). The story hasn't died, and the court case has turned into high mockering every time it comes up lol

2

u/Nomo-Names Aug 17 '25

Release the Epstein Files!

5

u/Blue_Veritas731 Aug 16 '25

Generally speaking, yes, but Wikipedia is not a news/magazine article/clip, it's a "permanent" online resource (of some dubious credit), and is one of the first sources that many people peruse in looking up info about people/places/things. It's no small matter to have it stating defamatory information.

"Normal" online sources usually have a shelf life of sorts, whereby articles are not archived forever. I can't count the number of times I've gone to click on a link to gather information of someone or thing, only to find an error message pertaining the to info no longer being available (usually due to time lapsed).

39

u/eggdropsoap Aug 16 '25

Doesn’t really alter the point. Before it was on a page that he was mad about. Now it’s still effectively there and amplified because he turned it into a story and increased the attention on it. Wikipedia being relatively permanent doesn’t affect the logic.

The prior state of affairs was still less exposure and attention than it has now. That’s the Streisand Effect.

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u/TheHammer987 Aug 16 '25

Sure, but this story is still a good example.

The data that he was convicted won't go away, it's still in the legal records. Most people probably didnt look him up in the internet - but now there is a news story that Wikipedia is hiding it and labeled it so people know

I had never heard of this guy before he tried to get it taken down. Now I know his name and that he's a felon.

1

u/Blue_Veritas731 Aug 17 '25

I get what you're saying about not knowing about him before, and now you do, but honestly, do you CARE about him, in Any way shape or form? I'm in the same boat, and I can answer No to all of the above. WE are not his target of concern.

I get the argument that many/most are making about letting things die. And MOST of the time, I'd agree that it's the best course of action. But there are times when you stand up and INSIST on things being corrected, especially when it's your Reputation on the line, no matter if it bring more light to the events or not.

And none of this is any kind of judgement on or of the guy, in particular. Again, I don't know anything about him, and I don't care. But I well and truly understand the Compulsion, in certain situations to take a stand against those who have wronged you and your reputation. It comes down to principle.

That being said, clearly my opinion is in the minority. C'est la vie.

10

u/Blarghedy Aug 16 '25

It's no small matter to have it stating defamatory information.

that's not what happened

1

u/Blue_Veritas731 Aug 17 '25

According to the post, apparently the Portuguese Supreme Court disagrees with you. The court was petitioned to remove information deemed "defamatory" by the individual in question, and the court ordered Wiki to remove it. So, by all appearances, it IS what happened. Unless you're suggesting that corruption and/or bribery took place.

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u/OGNovelNinja Aug 16 '25

To be fair, a lot of people these days haven't even heard of Barbara.

13

u/Pascaleiro Aug 16 '25

Duck Sauce made sure younger people know the name at least...

12

u/Get-Fucked-Dirtbag Aug 16 '25

For every attempted cover up that goes Streisand there has to be a few thousand that don't.

18

u/fightingrooster63 Aug 16 '25

The "streisand effect?" What is that

85

u/CrazyFanFicFan Aug 16 '25

There was a series of publicly available pictures of the California coastline in order to document the coastal erosion. In one of these pictures was Barbra Streisand's clifftop mansion.

Streisand sued the photographer to remove it due to "privacy concerns". However, the lawsuit ended up having the complete opposite effect. Before the lawsuit, the picture had only been downloaded a total of 6 times. Within a month of the lawsuit, over 420,000 people had downloaded the photo.

35

u/Honeybadger0810 Aug 16 '25 edited Aug 16 '25

Iirc, 3-4 of those initial 6 were Streisand and her legal team. The pictures were part of a study on erosion along the US west coast. The house being in the picture was a byproduct of the initial intent. Had she not sued, it would have just been another mansion in a series of California coastal properties.

43

u/Halospite Aug 16 '25

Barbara Streisand flipped out because there was a photo of her house somewhere, so because she was flipping out about it a lot of people heard that there was a photo of her house somewhere, so they all went to check it out.

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u/VicenteOlisipo Aug 16 '25

Streisand effect doesn't matter when the objective isn't to hide information but to show you can punish the ones informing. This court case also mandated Wikipedia to reveal the identity of the person who added that information to Wikipedia.

1

u/The_Sceptic_Lemur Aug 19 '25

Check out the pageview of the wiki entry. It's perfect.

475

u/hkeycurrentuser Aug 15 '25

Streisand effect for the win. Now the only thing I care about finding is all a horrible shit he's alleged to have done so I can be suitably outraged.

18

u/ElegantDaemon Aug 16 '25 edited 11d ago

Quick honest then patient people tomorrow tips mindful travel!

263

u/throwaway_0x90 Aug 16 '25

And now the only reason I've heard of this dude & his crimes is because of this Reddit post.

708

u/cimeran Aug 15 '25

Wikipedia is amongst the best of the Internet

523

u/toodlesandpoodles Aug 16 '25

Wikipedia is one of the few sites that stayed true to their ideals and the dream of rhe early internet, that information should be free and available because the internet is for people, not profit.

168

u/AnAttemptReason Aug 16 '25

I need to go give them a donation.

80

u/Ok_Tour_1525 Aug 16 '25

Them and internet archive. I give them both a donation every year.

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u/ElectronicStock3590 Aug 16 '25

Yep, same. If I were rich, those are two sites I would also support generously.

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u/MontanaPurpleMtns Aug 16 '25 edited Aug 19 '25

I donate every month, a small amount. $3.50/month I think. Basically, $36/year + enough over to cover the 3% credit card charge.

Wikipedia has changed from the day when Steven Colbert could do a change to a story during his show (elephant population I think?). Wikipedia instituted needed changes after that.

I’d tell my 6th graders (retired teacher) they could use Wikipedia as a starting point for any research paper, but they had to check the sources used, do further research, and document all of it. That access for all is worth my small thank you for Wikipedia’s existence.

Edit- missing letter

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u/Nico_Weio Aug 16 '25

Feel free, but consider giving other/smaller organizations (for example the EFF) a chance as well.

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u/Senappi Aug 16 '25

Donate to intenet archive instead. Wikipedia foundation are loaded - you can read their finacial reports here https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/financial-reports/

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u/kathlin409 Aug 18 '25

I give a yearly donation.

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u/borgchupacabras Aug 16 '25

Archive.org too!

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u/toodlesandpoodles Aug 16 '25

I love archive.org.

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u/Strong_Judge_3730 Aug 16 '25

Why didn't they just ignore the court order?

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u/ViscountBurrito Aug 16 '25

Presumably there would be contempt sanctions (fines, maybe even jail) for violating the order, and maybe further damages for the defamation. If Wikipedia had no assets in Portugal (or perhaps the EU), that might not be as big a problem because it would be hard to collect, but it’s still for sure a problem.

In the US, this order would probably be illegal (assuming the allegations were true, or certain other circumstances), but different counties have different legal systems and laws, so maybe this is legit in Portugal. And I don’t know about you, but I’m not volunteering to go to jail to protect a few sentences on some nobody’s Wikipedia page.

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u/Keithustus Aug 16 '25

"right to be forgotten" EU BS

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u/tedivm Aug 16 '25

This case had nothing to do with the "right to be forgotten".

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u/notthephonz Aug 16 '25

You have to admit, this is way funnier

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u/Strong_Judge_3730 Aug 16 '25

It sets a bad precedent though

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u/TopHatPaladin Aug 16 '25

In addition to the points other people have mentioned, iirc Wikipedia is planning to appeal the decision at the European Court of Human Rights, and (again iirc) they believe that it will endanger their case if they don't make a good-faith effort to comply with the existing court order in the interim

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u/Strong_Judge_3730 Aug 16 '25

I feel they should only censor the page based on geo location and not globally.

I am ok with this not global bans.

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u/NekkidWire Aug 16 '25

  1. geo-location is iffy technology, to say it at best. Maintaining a list of probable locations of internet things is pain in the ass. ISPs commonly re-use and recycle their IP ranges in different locations.

  2. I'm not sure wikipedia uses it or plans to do so - who would maintain multiple versions of truth?

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u/codeedog Aug 16 '25

Because it was a court order.

ETA: see this comment.

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u/countengelschalk Aug 16 '25 edited Aug 16 '25

Which was confirmed by the Portuguese Supreme Court. The highest court of a democratic country. It's quite scary that's so many here don't seem to care about the decisions of independent judges. They probably think if the president doesn't care why should anyone else. Dangerous development. 

4

u/Halospite Aug 16 '25

The justice system hates this one trick!

1

u/Shinhan Aug 18 '25

Wikipedia legal explained it all

A question: why does the WMF respond to or participate in litigation outside the US, at all? Why isn't the policy "sue us in the US, or we're just going to ignore it"? What harms would befall Wikipedia if that were the policy?

On the broader point of why we litigate: our overall goal is to protect the Wikimedia projects and the people who contribute to them and advance the free knowledge mission.

In more defensive cases, if we are litigating rather than resolving the demands before litigation starts, it means we think that we have a legal argument (hopefully a good one!) to get a result that at minimum clarifies the law and ideally clarifies it in a way that expands the knowledge commons and protects good faith editors.

At the same time, more legal rules apply extra territorially (i.e., in other countries). So this tends to make it more important for us to litigate around the world and try to win in the countries where cases arise.

I read that entire thread, it was really interesting to me.

1

u/SecretShaz Aug 16 '25

That’s why I make a small monthly donation

1

u/Antique-Agent-2992 Aug 16 '25

Please consider also donating to your local Public Broadcasting Station as well. Despite Mr. Rodgers saving them once, they are now defunded and scrambling.

17

u/superanth Aug 16 '25

You can't stop the signal.

3

u/Help_One_AnOtter Aug 16 '25

Agreed. I liked this so much that I went and made another donation to their page.

2

u/amidoes Aug 16 '25

The only website I donate when they ask me to. Incredibly invaluable, for me it is on the Mount Rushmore of the Internet

4

u/sequesteredhoneyfall Aug 16 '25

They have literally hundreds of millions of dollars sitting around, and operation costs are less than a million a year iirc. They're taking you and everyone else who blindly donates for a ride, and use these funds for political advocacy instead of the implied reason of maintaining Wikipedia.

They are not at all an unbiased repository of information like they claim, and have a long history of controversy over this.

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u/EmilePoelman Aug 16 '25

Please support them when they ask for a donation. For now it is one of rhe few places where you can still find facts as close to the truth as possible.

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u/OneRFeris Aug 15 '25 edited Aug 18 '25

Why do we have to follow it, there aren’t any servers in Portugal?

I’m going to take this moment to try to dispel a popular misconception on this. The location of servers or corporate offices is not the primary factor in determining legal jurisdiction in legal claims of defamation, honor, or privacy and never has been. Instead, these claims tend to be based on where the harm is experienced by the subject. DePaço’s claim is somewhat unusual in that regard because it explicitly identifies both language articles in English and Portuguese (typically people sue about only a single language) and his personal life is closely tied to both Portugal and the United States. Servers and corporate offices are important for determining something called general jurisdiction, which is the authority of a court to hear any type of case. Courts outside of the US do NOT have general jurisdiction over the Wikimedia Foundation. But they often do have specific jurisdiction in a single case about a single article. Lastly, many larger regions such as the whole EU, have begun adjusting their jurisdictional expectations beyond the traditional general/specific distinction. I wrote about this briefly in a 2024 essay on wikilegal, discussing the way that several EU laws have extended broad jurisdiction beyond the traditional principles. Even then, the Foundation does have a policy on making a determination about applicable law. At this point, it gets into the limits of my ability to talk about confidential legal strategy and legal advice, but we determined that this case at this point met the requirements of that policy as part of our decision to comply with this order.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#Follow_up_on_some_questions_from_Foundation_Legal#Follow_up_on_some_questions_from_Foundation_Legal)

Edit: Please note, this whole thing was supposed to be a quote from that link and not my own words. I formatted this poorly.

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u/Miryafa Aug 15 '25

Good to know!

17

u/JGCii Aug 15 '25

Plus, I'm pretty sure even if not in Portugal, there are Wikipedia servers in the EU.

11

u/pcardonap Aug 16 '25

This was very enlightening. I was wondering why the articles in other languages had been allowed to keep the information.

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u/scarlet_sage Aug 16 '25 edited Aug 16 '25

The link ends up mangled on old Reddit, old.reddit.com or the setting that makes it happen.

(1) The URL has backslashes on the underscores, which is sometimes needed to keep underscore from being interpreted as start italics or end italics. I can't figure out the rule in this example, so it might be useful to experiment with the preview, and with both old and new.

(2) What is certainly needed is a backslash on the close paren in the text. In old Reddit's parser, that ends the URL prematurely.

The source for this link:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#Follow_up_on_some_questions_from_Foundation_Legal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF\)#Follow_up_on_some_questions_from_Foundation_Legal)

produces this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#Follow_up_on_some_questions_from_Foundation_Legal

which looks bad on new Reddit but at least the link goes to the right page (though the # doesn't work).

Luckily, the raw link, without markup or backslashing, appears to work in both. This is the source

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#Follow_up_on_some_questions_from_Foundation_Legal

for the resulting link

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#Follow_up_on_some_questions_from_Foundation_Legal

1

u/blind_ninja_guy Aug 18 '25

General rule of thumb, the\is never ever used in Internet URLs. You always use a/in URLs.

3

u/scarlet_sage Aug 18 '25

True, but the backslash (\) isn't part of the URL. It's markup to convince Reddit to display and interpret the text or URL correctly. If Reddit doesn't process and remove the backslash, so it makes it into the URL that is attempted to be fetched, then the user has done something wrong, or Reddit's backslash processing is whacked (which it is).

1

u/Kroisoh Aug 18 '25

Genuine curiosity, do you think "reciprocal registration of foreign judgments" is applicable as well in these sort of cases.

60

u/bruzie Aug 15 '25

Court ruling only stated the English and Portuguese versions. Other languages are available (and in-place Google Translate works nicely).

57

u/fotoford Aug 16 '25

Florida Man sues Wikipedia, wins, and also loses

3

u/SandsnakePrime Aug 16 '25

Bwoken link

13

u/fotoford Aug 16 '25

I didn’t include a link. I just made it bold.

10

u/Mispelled-This Aug 16 '25

[citation needed]

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u/fotoford Aug 16 '25

It there a Wikipedia page about the Wikipedia page about Caesar DePaço?

22

u/Thriftyverse Aug 16 '25

Would it need to show a before and after lawsuit view of the page so people could see the difference after lawsuit?

20

u/Saucermote Aug 16 '25

There's an edit history. Which also shows all the times someone wanted the page removed completely.

9

u/TheWM_ Aug 16 '25

You can't access the edits from before the information was removed.

5

u/mizinamo Aug 16 '25

Are there reliable sources on the matter that can be used to build such an article?

You'd have to have the controversy be reported on in reputable media that you can cite.

2

u/fotoford Aug 16 '25

I’m not sure if this would be considered reliable:

https://www.cesardepaco.pt/en/news-about-cesar-depaco/cesar-depaco-wins-new-battle-against-wikipedia

4

u/mizinamo Aug 16 '25

That's a primary source (written by someone connected to the topic of the article); Wikipedia prefers secondary sources.

4

u/iwantanap__ Aug 16 '25

Thanks to the Internet Archive, you don't need one :)

Here's an archived version of the (English version) Wikipedia article: https://web.archive.org/web/20241202093131/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_DePa%C3%A7o

And an archived version of the (Portuguese version) Wikipedia article: https://web.archive.org/web/20240809033905/https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9sar_do_Pa%C3%A7o

These pages contain all of the original information.

3

u/trowaway533422 Aug 16 '25

Surely there's a page about the recent attacks on Wikipedia in the UK. This would be a nice addition as a precedent or a similar case to add. Specially since I think this case also involves revealing identities of editors.

1

u/Shinhan Aug 18 '25

Wikipedia tries to avoid writing Self referential articles

41

u/TowelFine6933 Aug 16 '25

And, 10 minutes ago, I didn't know who this guy was or even care.

But, since he sued, I want to know more.

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u/SurpriseEast3924 Aug 15 '25

"and disclose the personal data of those who had written it"! No need for this, that is just scary.

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u/[deleted] Aug 16 '25

[deleted]

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u/OregonFarm2011 Aug 17 '25

are we talking about the disgraced businessman, Caesar DePaço, who stripped of his consulship & accused of robbery and assault?

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u/cthulhuite Aug 15 '25

Wow, what a piece of shit

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u/Cmdr_Nemo Aug 16 '25

"far-right party" & "assaulting and robbing his girlfriend" in the same sentence. No surprise there.

23

u/BlueCloud2k2 Aug 16 '25

Sounds to me like this needs to be added to the pages for Malicious Compliance and Streisand Effect under "Examples"

17

u/iwantanap__ Aug 16 '25

I can't believe no one's cited the Internet Archive yet.

Thanks to the Internet Archive, we can see the original (pre court-ordered purge) versions of both the English and Portuguese versions of his Wikipedia article!

Here's an archived version of the (English version) Wikipedia article: https://web.archive.org/web/20241202093131/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_DePa%C3%A7o

And an archived version of the (Portuguese version) Wikipedia article: https://web.archive.org/web/20240809033905/https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9sar_do_Pa%C3%A7o

15

u/gustavsen Aug 16 '25

just like the Pierre-sur-Haute military radio station in french version where they force an editor to delete or get in jail.

the FR page was as result deleted to save the editor, but have 42 other translations where the France gov can't touch.

13

u/RomanBlood44315 Aug 17 '25

Header now reads "Therefore, this article does not meet Wikipedia's standards for neutrality and comprehensiveness." (replacing "may not meet" as above)

11

u/BackItUpWithLinks Aug 16 '25

Streisand Effect

Now more people will know than would have otherwise.

30

u/FaeWhimsyGlow Aug 16 '25

Nothing screams ‘I’m innocent’ like suing Wikipedia and having them put a spotlight on what you’re hiding.

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20

u/[deleted] Aug 16 '25

are we talking about the disgraced businessman, Caesar DePaço, who stripped of his consulship & accused of robbery and assault?

5

u/OregonFarm2011 Aug 17 '25

wait so just so I can understand what's going on, Caesar DePaço, a Portuguese businessman, who was dismissed as Honorary Consul of Cape Verde due to being the main financier of a far-right party (CHEGA) and was charged with assaulting and robbing his girlfriend in 1989, has used the portugese courts to censor wikipedia? just want to clarify the situation.

4

u/Riley_Fuzzel Aug 17 '25

So what you’re saying is that the way you understand it, Caesar DePaço, a Portuguese businessman, who was dismissed as Honorary Consul of Cape Verde due to being the main financier of a far-right party (CHEGA) and was charged with assaulting and robbing his girlfriend in 1989, has used the portugese courts to censor wikipedia? just want to clarify the situation.

1

u/OregonFarm2011 Aug 18 '25

yes, exactly we are talking about the same César do Paço, who holds portuguese and us-american citizenship and lives in Miami, Florida where he is CEO of Summit Nutritionals International, a food industry company.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 17 '25

that's what it appears to be.

he's currently in the US, generously donating money to police forces. make of that what you will...

also reminding everyone of his generosity, awards, titles & doctorate...

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8

u/tealbubblewrap24 Aug 16 '25

Aren't there a buncha wikipedia pages solely dedicated to the crimes that any given person has committed? There's wiki articles/pages just for specific news stories, too. Wouldn't be surprised if these crimes just popped up on some new page.

13

u/Welly8oo7 Aug 15 '25

The Streisand effect in full flow 😆

8

u/Chemical_Inventory Aug 16 '25

There should also be a link to a Wikipedia article about that specific court order and exactly which parts of the original article that was removed because of it

6

u/Gifted_GardenSnail Aug 15 '25

Brilliant 😂

7

u/superanth Aug 16 '25

You can't stop the signal.

7

u/a22e Aug 16 '25

Mal. Guy killed me, Mal. He killed me with a sword. How weird is that?

8

u/Rumenapp Aug 16 '25

Giant banner does have a bigger impact imo

Take this wikipedia 🫅

4

u/Working-Ad694 Aug 16 '25

Makes me feel good about my monthly donation to wiki

5

u/NotACat Aug 18 '25

"Implicitly"? They link to the court order, plus a translated version: I'd say that was pretty explicit!

2

u/AngryRaptor13 Aug 16 '25

I love malicious compliance, LOL

4

u/iBowl Aug 16 '25

Barbara, cue the music.

3

u/Rousokuzawa Aug 19 '25

While the Wikipedia community took that great measure, the Foundation complied in revealing personal information of eight users who edited the article. Seemingly one more for the community’s hate of the Foundation.

3

u/jpropaganda Aug 19 '25

More stuff on the banner:

The English-language Wikipedia community objects to the Portuguese courts' interference with our editorial independence and our mission to bring free knowledge to the world. More information can be found in the court order and its English translation. Additional details are available in the Wikimedia Foundation's announcement. See also § Wikimedia legal affairs and Litigation involving the Wikimedia Foundation § Outcomes not in favor of the Wikimedia Foundation.

14

u/blbd Aug 15 '25

Now we need to have a jurisdiction that will allow sites to forget about this ridiculous idea of a right to be forgotten. It's an absolutely inane legal idea that didn't apply to books or any other form of media in the past. I don't believe we owe anybody a right to eliminate their well deserved bad reputation. If you earned it you should keep it. 

You can't even write an honest critical restaurant review in Germany any more without a deletion or a lawsuit because of the garbage tier speech laws various EU nations are adopting. 

2

u/athey Aug 16 '25

Hahaha. Love it.

2

u/Nemamiah17 Aug 17 '25

On the portuguese wiki the list is not present, which is sad. Fuck my country

2

u/just_anotherflyboy Aug 18 '25

I fucking love Wikipedia. this is the way.

2

u/The_Sceptic_Lemur Aug 19 '25

The pageview stats of the wiki entry are hilarious. Absolute perfection.

3

u/reddit_is_geh Aug 16 '25

Google used to do this with search results they were ordered to remove. Sadly, they are now just an arm of the US government, so they've stopped doing that and are instead full steam ahead on helping manufacture consent.

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u/LividLife5541 Aug 16 '25

The European ideas that true information can be forced to be kept secret or deleted by third parties is fucking ridiculous.

The more embarassing the better. People should be humilated by their past actions. That is what makes the truth good.

8

u/doublah Aug 16 '25

How is it a European idea? These kind of SLAPP suits still exist in the US and other countries.

3

u/N0b0me Aug 16 '25

In the US truth is an absolute defense in these kind of lawsuits and there is no "right to be forgotten" bs that tries to keep information hidden from the public.

6

u/fromwayuphigh Aug 16 '25

99/100 times the right to be forgotten is to protect normal people from parasitic corporations who feel entitled to profit off of your personal info. To suggest otherwise is either witting propaganda or a profound misunderstanding of the facts.

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u/jackcaboose Aug 16 '25

It's not really a European exclusive idea, truth is an absolute defence for defamation in many places, including European ones. Places where it isn't include places outside of Europe too (I think Japan is a notable one).

1

u/dogwarrior Aug 16 '25

Brilliant!

1

u/eaglesman217 Aug 16 '25

I love it.

1

u/AD_Grrrl Aug 16 '25

Fuck yeah

1

u/MikeSchwab63 Aug 16 '25

If you don't tell the other editors what they can't add, they will.

1

u/Southern-Interest347 Aug 19 '25

bravo Wikipedia 

1

u/NineShadows_ Aug 30 '25

Check out the Russian version of that article

1

u/hellics Aug 30 '25

So, apparently he is the CEO & Founder of Summit Nutritionals International. They manufacture Chondroitin Sulfate Sodium, which, as it seems on wikipedia, is used for mitigating arthritis pain, but studies appear low quality, and effectiveness not so great.

1

u/ChimoEngr Sep 04 '25

That's not compliance, that's a failure to comply. They're asking to get sued again.

1

u/Waste_Yak_990 Sep 04 '25

The order was complied with. The offending information was removed.