A Nebraska Catholic high school has filed a lawsuit over a unflattering description posted on Wikipedia. The school wants the Internet provider to provide the name of the subscriber associated with the IP address of the computer that made the edits and the provider has agreed. Once the names are known, the lawsuit will be amended with their real names. The actual entry for Skutt Catholic High School has had the statements removed and the Wikipedia folks have locked down the entry.
I’m left wondering what the point of the lawsuit is. Anyone can edit a Wikipedia page, so why didn’t the high school report the statements to the administrators, remove the offensive information, and let the admins lock down the page? They’re probably going to find out that it was some immature students at a rival high school who are going to get slaps on the wrist for this juvenile prank. So why waste money on a lawsuit, especially when it’s not certain that First Amendment jurisprudence is on your side?
Technorati Tags:Catholic, First Amendment, lawsuits, school, Wikipedia
