Ron Livingston’s absolutely moronic lawsuit to get Wikipedia to stop letting someone edit his entry to say he’s gay has, as predicted, only added to the publicity surrounding Livingston’s sexuality. Did we know about his Wikipedia-sourced gayness before? Nope. Did we care? Nah-uh. Do we now? Hellz yeah! But Livingston did manage to score one coup by filing a lawsuit: His Wikipedia page is now under lockdown and only accessible by “select editors” who, we’re guessing, the website trusts not to go back in there and give Livingston the middle name “Prancing Fairy.”
Bill
Ron Livingston should have spent a little more time working on his non-existent career and a little less time obsessing about the world’s perception of his sexuality.
Maybe then he’d be a nobody.
Oh, wait…
Who is Ron Livingston, by the way?
EXACTLY.
Mike in Asheville, nee "in Brooklyn"
Who the fuck is Ron Livingston?
Though it does make one wonder what the fuck he did to piss off someone so badly that that someone is now cyber-stalking and cyber-bullying him?
Call Vegas someone, there must be a good bet: former boyfriend left out in the cold OR former girlfriend letting the world know he’s a prick? The odds would be pretty even.
FakeName
All the “lockdown” means is that one has to register a user name to edit the page. He could have accomplished the same thing by, you know, asking.
What’s even stupider, Livingston is suing Wikipedia so he can get the identity of the person making the false edits to his page, but the person’s identity is already known.
http://wikipediareview.com/blog/20091211/its-the-casting-director-lee-dennison-story/
Warning: link includes very fat man in tighty whiteys.
Bananabandana
I wouldn’t say the lawsuit was moronic in itself – he didn’t actually sue Wikipedia (or Facebook) directly, and it’s very unlikely that he would have gotten the article protected for a significant length of time by just asking. A week, maybe two at the most – anyone who knows how Wikipedia operates will tell you that.
However, considering that it took the Wikipedia Review people about 48 hours to find the guy, after this had been going on for the better part of two years (note that he apparently wasn’t doing a good job of hiding his tracks at all), Livingston might have been able to avoid the Streisand Effect by quietly bringing it to Wikipedia Review’s attention first, even if it was just through an intermediary such as his publicist. A fair number of people in the tech media probably read Wikipedia Review, but not so many in the entertainment media.
Then again, they say there’s no such thing as bad publicity, so maybe he’s OK with the Streisand Effect.
Nothing to do with Gay
You are mistaken if you think this is about the perception of being gay. It is about pushing back against obsessive people with too much time on their hands who actively use Wikipedia an attempt to distort public perception, while remaining annonymous themselves. Imagine if Wikipedia existed when Harvey Milk was alive.
Dave
@Nothing to do with Gay:
Look, dear. ‘Defamation’ means that somebody said something untrue about you that caused damage. Post Lawrence v. Texas, having gay sex is no longer a crime in any U.S. jurisdiction (that’s why old gay rumor slander and libel cases usually succeeded, since you were actually calling someone a criminal), so for this to be actionable, you have to prove that being perceived as gay caused damage.
No matter how you slice it, that’s homophobic.
Telling lies about someone is not a cause of action. Only telling lies that result in real (i.e. monetarily quantifiable) damage to a person is.
Nothing to do with Gay
@Dave
Your point is taken. I Certainly understand the issue from a legal standpoint and I hate that being called gay could still potentially cause damage. You are correct it is homophopic at the roots.
My point is about annonymous people in tighty-whiteys (or what ever other kind of under wear) maliciously saying whatever they want about anyone. The Heritage foundation armed with Wikipedia would quite likely have destroyed Harvey Milk at that point in history.
People with jobs and families cannot keep up with an obsessive angy person with an agenda and a broadband connection. In this case, I say more power to Mr. Livingston