Removal of all references to connections to living US Presidents

Question

Based on several G2G discussions, including the latest https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/687193/post-gdpr-mention-of-living-notables?show=687193#q687193

The US Presidents Project will be removing all references to living US Presidents/Vice President in the profiles of their ancestors.   The leadership is still in discussion about the project management of those profiles.

Comments

Just asking ...

Shouldn't this apply to all references to all living notables (not just US presidents, and not just in the notables' ancestors' profiles)? When I joined WikiTree 6 months or so ago (pre-GDPR), I noticed that quite a few WikiTree members included the names, profile links, and relationships to related living notable profiles in their own publicly viewable member profile bios. While such a link now (post-GDPR) probably points to an Unlisted Living profile, the name of the notable is likely still present in some of those publicly viewable member profile bios, which associates the notable's name with the notable's Unlisted profile.

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Thanks for your thoughts, they are shared by many, but the decision has been made by the Wikitree team.....Chris Whitten in particular.

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I understand the GDRP, but this is stupid.  If books and newspapers can list a living person's birth dates, birth places and ancestors, as can websites like Wikipedia and IMDP, why can't Wikitree?  Are we now going to go through every profile of a dead person and remove mention of a living person?  We have lots of obituaries that say things like: John Doe died at the house of his son, John Doe Jr. (a living person).  It is of genealogical importance. And it is nonsense to remove it when it has been published.  Let's get real.

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Does this mean that I can't mention that "so and so" (dead person who died at age 80) was really excited when he shook the hand of Bill Clinton (living former President who has profiles all over everywhere)?

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As I understand it, Vic, yup - that's exactly what it means.  I completely agree that this is utter nonsense, however I also understand that there are way too many lawyers in the world and that grossly stupid action by the European Union leaves places like WikiTree open to a very costly lawsuit at best and a fine probably more than Bill Gates could afford to pay at worst.  Under these circumstances, it is completely understandable for Chris to need to implement these rules.

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Removing all references to living US presidents has no discernible resemblance to any requirement of GDPR.

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Exactly my thoughts on this Horace. If there are any armies of lawyers waiting to pounce it will not be from the European Union which has too many more important issues to deal with. Rather the opposite - it would be from the North-American continent itself. I wanted to flag some of the previous jingoist comments because this GDPR-bashing is seriously annoying and plain uninformed, but a wise elf advised me to walk away when I start feeling the urge … So this is what I'm going to do now.

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Vic, I hope it would still be OK to note that "nn was really excited when he shook the hand of Bill Clinton" as long as you don't link to a wikitree profile of a living person. At worst, replace it with "he shook the hand of a former President". Though to be honest I'm currently doing my best to remove or hide all references to living persons from my profiles of dead people (who were all European).

Laws similar in effect to GDPR have been implemented by other countries well outside of Europe, by the way - and with that, I am out of this conversation.

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Why are we even discussing this? This is genealogy for "U.S. Presidents," which has NOTHING to do with the EU privacy laws. So, why are we discussing removing the references to Presidents of the United States of America?

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L, WikiTree is international and, therefore, needs to be mindful of things like EU privacy laws when it sets its policy.  Also, the EU set the bar - admittedly much higher than most of us (me included) think it should be - but other countries are likely to follow suit, although they will all probably differ.  WikiTree tried to do this just once instead of having to play hurry-and-catch-up every time another country passes another law.  Accordingly, they are trying to err on the side of caution and we are still holding out hope that when all the dust settles and people start to understand exactly what can and can't be said, WikiTree will feel that they can afford to relax the policy a bit.  For now, though, these are the rules and we must abide by them.

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However, EU laws still have NOTHING to do with the United States or its Presidents. I don't think we will be having such laws in the U.S.

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California put a similar one in place this summer.

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The California Personal Privacy Law of 2018 is not like the GDRP.  Here is what it is about. It is to protect California consumers, who will have the certain rights. They will have the right: 

• to know what personal information is being collected
• to know what information is being sold or given to others
• to refuse to allow their personal information to be sold
• to see their own personal information
• and even if they refuse to allow their personal information to be sold, they must get the same price and service.

This law will not go into effect for two years, and everyone expects that it will be softened before it goes into effect. And, there are lots of exception, including, among other things, that it will apply to companies with annual gross revenues of at least $25 million, and to companies that derive at least 50 per cent of their income from the sale or distribution of personal information.

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Of all the idiotic policies on wikitree this is now #1.  It is a policy which does not apply to me, does apply to the public figures mentioned, and does not even correctly follow the GDPR law for people in the EU.

Franky, I find your infringement on my rights to Free Speech and Free Expression to be fairly disgusting.

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I'm sorry, is California still apart of the United States? They don't see to want to follow any of the U.S. Federal Laws. However, it doesn't mean that the entire United States will have that kind of privacy idiocy law. Blocking info for all the U.S. Presidents will wipe out all the hard work done by those in the U.S. President project, and will make all that time and effort worth nothing.

Last I checked, California laws do not apply to the rest of the 49 states, and the United States does NOT have to follow the laws of the EU. Why are we kowtowing to their laws anyways? And, I agree. What happened to our rights?

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Joe and L,

Once upon a time (circa 1995) I had an idea for a web application that would track all nutrients in all foods that a user consumed.  It could be used for many purposes - people on diets to gain/lose weight, body builders, diabetics, etc.  I used the FDA's database that shows quantities of about 113 nutrients in a couple of million food items.  I had it ready for launch and was trying to find a partner who could do the marketing part of the job when I saw a news article about a woman who sued one of the major canned food manufacturers because one nutrient was misstated by something like .02 milligrams and, as a result she didn 't lose the weight she expected to.  For damages - including her pain and suffering, - she got something like 2 million dollars.  That was the end of my product, which I expected to become very successful - I even had several doctors who wanted to have their patients use it and nutritionists lined up as subscribers - but I was terrified that somebody would sue me for data behind my application, even though it was the FDA's data, not mine.

Perhaps that's why it's so easy for me to understand the importance to Chris of bending over backwards to avoid possible exposure to any lawsuit.  Even  if a suit were totally groundless, it could still cost more money than probably all WikiTreers combined have and take several years to successfully defend against it. 

Nobody is infringing on any of your rights to anything.  WikiTree isn't a country, of which you are a citizen, nor does WikiTree have a constitution granting you "rights to free speech" or anything else.  Nobody is obligated to give you a completely free soapbox here, from which you can disseminate anything - you thoughts, feelings, opinions, facts, or whatever.  You have been granted membership here, which gives you the right to add your genealogy information, provided that you abide by the rules of the site.  This is a private organization, with membership terms, privileges, and responsibilities.  If you don't like the rules or policies or any other requirements that may restrict your actions here as a member then the only right you have is freedom to cancel your membership.

I wish everyone would recognize the seriousness of the threat Chris feels that has led him to adopt such drastic measures.  Let's show our appreciation for what he is doing - his generosity in making this platform available and the risks he faces as a result - namely, existential ones to this platform as well as personal ones to himself.  The least we could do is to accept the policy he feels a need to establish in order to mitigate his risk.  C'mon folks, this isn't something up for discussion - it's a rule. I don't personally like it but I do understand why it's being implemented. I exhort y'all to either live with it or don't work here.

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Thank you,  Gaile! So well said.

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Very well put, Gaile. I was frustrated by the whole thing, too, but without the protections Chris put in place, WikiTree would be in a very precarious position, as you mentioned.

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Thank you Gaile, well said. I also don't like the new rules, but I understand the position Chris is in.

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It's just difficult to work, when major parts of your genealogy is unable to be accessed, which is why I'm upset about this "new rule." If anymore becomes unavailable, I will probably be back to total old school research all over again. Just very frustrating.

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Well stated Gaile, but you could set the example by not using language such as "that grossly stupid action by the European Union" (and make comments such as "Is that the same California that we're still waiting for it to fall into the Pacific Ocean?") The Europeans did not create Silicon Valley (yet globally we have to live with what it creates in terms of modern life - apps and modern technology and all of the effects that that have on our privacy) and they did not create the massive suit action culture that North Americans seems to suffer so much from. In your own example from 1995, the European Union was not responsible for the laws that gave that lady her millions. I live in the European Union and I am on WikiTree and also appreciate all that Chris and others are doing. So my plea to you is "to exhort to all to either live with it or don't work here" by moderation of our language and respect of each other.

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Actually, the quotes you noted were not made by me. However, I understand the work that others have done for the Wikitree website. I also understand all the genealogical work, and all the hours put in, that has been done by those on the U.S. Presidents project. Not to mention, my family and friends who have done genealogy work outside of Wikitree. Little by little, I've been seeing parts of my family tree becoming "unavailable," which makes things difficult to fill in the blanks left within the hundreds of years of genealogy. We have been working on some Presidential genealogy links on the family tree, outside of Wikitree, and it has been decided to not put it on Wikitree, for now, for fear it may disappear and be "unavailable."

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I can understand the fear of being sued or fined but this is far outside the bounds of common sense.

I would suggest to you, for example, that Wikipedia is a much larger target with much more to lose.  Yet they still have a profile of presidents Trump, Obama and Bush, Queen Elizabeth, Theresa May, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Lawrence and every other politician and celebrity on the planet.  This alone should be an indication that wikitree has absolutely nothing to fear from the GDPR with regard to profiles of public figures.

It is disingenuous to say if you don’t like it, then go away.  I have 62,700+ wikitree edits (all made one at a time without a gedcom upload) and hundreds of hours invested in making wikitree a better place.  I think I will stay Gaile, and argue for some common sense, even if it isn’t falling in line with some leadership decisions.  This is one policy which needs a little deeper thought put into it.

I do see these decisions as hurting both the promise and the future of wikitree.  Part of the fun of genealogy is being able to make connections to each other, to historical figures, and to celebrities.  Since the beginning of wikitree a key feature has been the relationship finder and the connection finder (how many steps are you from Queen Elizabeth and Kevin Bacon?).  Wikitree is less useful and more confusing to new people when you can’t even enter your immediate family and share your tree with your nearest relatives.

Again, this fear of being fined does not make any sense.  These people are public figures whose lives, data and connections are readily available from hundreds to thousands of sources (I would actually make this one of the criteria for what a public person is on wikitree).  Why should wikitree be the only entity taking such drastic steps?

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Joe, I agree. Thanks for reminding me of the disingenuousity and flippancy of the statement "if you don't like it then go away". I too have spend many valuable hours of more than 123757 edits without making one gedcom; I do not want to subscribe to this. WikiTree has to be prepared for class action law suits but with proportionality and understanding, not visceral emotionality that reeks of populism. I still believe in WikiTree and that it has a bright future.

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Repeating some things I said in another G2G:

WikiTree responded to the GDPR with a policy that could be implemented quickly and would not require a lot of interpretation to implement.  In spite of the apparent simplicity of the new rule, it was a lot of work for the Team to institute the necessary changes.

Now that the dust has settled, I hope that Chris Whitten and his attorneys will be able to acknowledge that the policy reflects an overabundance of caution. Nobody is going to sue WikiTree for revealing that Elizabeth is Queen of England and has a husband, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, nor that U.S. Presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush (both living) are father and son. Their profiles should not need to be Unlisted.

And it's painful to see members wrestling with the problem of getting a 90-year-old family member living in a nursing home to get access to a computer, sign up for an email account, register on WikiTree, verify their email address, log in, and  register their DNA test in their WikiTree profile. There should be some way for a person to indicate their permission to use their data without having to become adept at using a computer.

I hope we will see relaxation in the rather draconian measures that were taken to avoid legal issues. But I don't think WikiTree should be excoriated for its initial response to GDPR.

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Even though I am co-leader of the Presidents Project, in light of recent changes and extreme policies, I have seriously been considering withdrawing all my contributions to my tree and cancelling my membership.

Answer 1

I agree with Vic. I can understand us common peeps, but royalty, poiticians, and celebs understand that a certain amount of privacy is lost just because of their public status.

I never knew that Johnny Depp had a daughter until I saw Yoga Hosers.

Comments

Oh Lordy.  I Googled Yoga Hosers. "Sorry boot that."

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And there's a sequel.

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I own every early Johnny Depp movie, but I might not add "Yoga Hosers" and sequel to my collection.  Cry Baby, Blow, Gilbert Grape, Arizona Dream, Dead Man.  He's a chameleon.

Answer 2

Has anyone actually read (and understood) the GDPR?

Comments

I am confident that as the founder and President of Wikitree that Chris Whitten has read it, understood it and put in place the safeguards that he feels are correct for this site.

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I have not read the GDPR because I have no idea what the initials stand for.  Which is common on wikitree.  Is GDPR some Wiki Tree thing or is it refering to the EU data protection thing going on.

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Trudy,   Here is the original post from Chris that explains it all.  https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/601685/significant-privacy-related-changes-to-wikitree-for-gdpr?show=601685#q601685

Thank you for asking.

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Trudy, it's the European General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR) law.

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Thank You Robin. I read the link you provided. It was helpful.

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Eric thank you.

Answer 3

Can someone post the Living Person's App link that Jamie created? I want to see if I have anyone like that in my watchlist, including leftovers from the Presidents project.

Comments

https://apps.wikitree.com/apps/nelson3486/living/

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Thanks, Juha.

Answer 4

Just for claification.  Example:  son of a living notatable writes a book about the ancestry of the notable.  Does this mean that the book written about the notable can not be mentioned.  Even if the book is written with the permission of the notatable?  With the forward being written by the notable?  

I have 2 ancestors that may be the ancestors of 6 living presidents of the United States.  Does that mean that all references to them on the profile such as " direct ancestor of" will be removed.  Also should the profile be removed from the catorgory Direct Ancestor of a President of the United States or what ever it is.

Does this also mean there with be no more mention of " so and so" is 4th cousin of" what not who ever"

Answer 5

If taken literally, this means that we would need to remove the names of living authors from citations. Do we need to do that ?

Comments

Good remark. I hope we'll be able to find a compromise where it's possible to cite the names of people in the context of their public activity.

Otherwise, not only will have lots of stuff to delete, but each time a notable die we'll have to come back to all the profiles where they might be cited in order to repair the mentions of their name.

Answer 6

Sadly this is hampering historical research to make it easier to re-write history. It is also being used in lawsuits to promote censorship. Some is enforced, most is self-censorship.Things I was taught in 5th grade they don't even teach by 11th grade now. It's like the more sophisticated we get, the less we know.

The Internet radically changed this trend. Information was freely available to research. Views could be expressed. People could debate and learn. Now that is slowly being taken away one step at a time. I'm not blaming Chris for his decision, I'm blaming the EU who writes laws nobody wants and then enforces them on people that don't even live there.

Comments

I haven't seen this happening in the UK . Can you cite some examples? I note that some of the social media sites claim to have tightened up rules on their usage by children ( surely a good thing if it were effective)

 There was certainly a high profile case against the BBC that some Journalists suggest may have provided a precedent for restricting press freedom . That case was brought under previous laws not the GDPR. (Personally I felt that the particular reporting was intrusive and unfair but I'm not a lawyer

Note I haven't used the name of the ageing pop star involved but only because of wiki-tree policy .There is absolutely no problem with reporting this case  in European Countries . ( And we still have more than our fill of stories about 'famous' people including those about the Royal family , politicians and others in the public domain.)

As for historical research, I'm not sure how you believe we are being hampered. The most revealing research probably comes from oral testimonies. These are still  conducted and research based upon them can and will be published. 

The consent forms for such interviews may have in some cases been tightened up (but  not always since many research institutions already used compliant protocols) http://www.ohs.org.uk/advice/data-protection/