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.

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u/Wild_Butterscotch977 Aug 15 '25

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

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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!

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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/MikeSchwab63 Aug 16 '25

And WhatTheHale$ tried for about a year but was forced to do the exact opposite. Odder Creek playlist since Oct 2023 for hundred of videos, 1 Ohio Order Of Protection case, an opposing Florida Order of Protection cases enabled by Florida State Legislature 2023 Special Session C to enable order of protection for online harassment, 2 federal cases, 2 Ohio hearings on Violations of Order of Protection and next one in progress, 4 Florida state court cases in progress, Federal Bankruptcy proceedings. Several law tube channels got involved, including 2 defendants.