{"id":49193,"date":"2013-11-20T16:26:48","date_gmt":"2013-11-20T15:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=49193"},"modified":"2013-11-20T16:26:48","modified_gmt":"2013-11-20T16:26:48","slug":"wikipedia-threatens-pr-firm-with-legal-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/wikipedia-threatens-pr-firm-with-legal-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Wikipedia threatens PR firm with legal action"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/wiki.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/wiki-193x250.jpg\" alt=\"wiki\" width=\"193\" height=\"250\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-49199\" \/><\/a>Wikipedia\u2019s parent company, <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.wikimedia.org\/2013\/11\/19\/wikimedia-foundation-sends-cease-and-desist-letter-to-wikipr\/\">the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF)<\/a>, has threatened <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wiki-pr.com\/\">Wiki-PR<\/a> with legal action for \u2018engaging in paid-advocacy editing\u2019 of articles on the online-encyclopedia, and demanded that this practice immediately &#8216;cease and desist.&#8217;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Wiki-PR positions itself as a Wikipedia consulting firm, but has come under media scrutiny for its <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/wikipedia-cease-and-desist-letter-to-wiki-pr-2013-11\">alleged<\/a> 300-strong team of sockpuppet accounts that write and edit articles on Wikipedia on behalf of clients that get billed between $500- $1,000 per piece and $50 per month for \u2018page management.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>WMF\u2019s law firm Cooley LLP today issued a <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.wikimedia.org\/2013\/11\/19\/wikimedia-foundation-sends-cease-and-desist-letter-to-wikipr\/\" title=\"Wiki\" target=\"_blank\">letter<\/a> to Jordan French, the chief executive of Wiki-PR, demanding that \u2018Wiki-PR cease and desist from further editing the Wikipedia website unless and until [they] have fully complied with the terms and conditions outlined by the Wikimedia Community.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>The letter, which was published on the WMF\u2019s website also threatened other publicity firms that engage in editing content on Wikipedia of running the risk of seriously damaging the reputation of their clients. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The letter read: &#8216;Sockpuppetry and meatpuppetry are especially harmful when used to disguise secret works of advocacy purchased by clients to promote a particular product, idea or agenda.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>However, even as Wiki-PR denies violating Wikipedia\u2019s regulations, it acknowledged that some \u2018bad calls\u2019 have been made by editors. <\/p>\n<p>French was quoted in<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2013\/oct\/21\/money-to-pr-firm-can-buy-good-image-on-wikipedia\/?page=all\" title=\"Washington Times\" target=\"_blank\"> The Washington Times<\/a> saying:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\u2018The \u2018PR\u2019 in Wiki-PR is a misnomer \u2014 we\u2019re a research and writing firm.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\u00a0We counsel our clients on how to adhere to Wikipedia\u2019s rules. We research the subject and write in an accurate and properly referenced way about it. What we do is get Wikipedia to enforce the rules so our clients are presented accurately.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wikipedia\u2019s parent company, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), has threatened Wiki-PR with legal action for \u2018engaging in paid-advocacy editing\u2019 of articles on the online-encyclopedia, and demanded that this practice immediately &#8216;cease and desist.&#8217;\u00a0 Wiki-PR positions itself &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":322,"featured_media":49207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[350,7272,82,3680,1109,5741],"tags":[101,5390,5391,5392],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49193"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/322"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}