ON APRIL 6th Wikimedia France, the local chapter of the Wikimedia movement that runs Wikipedia, put out a rather strange press release. It alleged that it had been contacted by the Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur (DCRI), France's domestic spy agency, which was unhappy with an article on the French-language version of Wikipedia about Pierre-sur-Haute, a military radio base run by the French air force. The spooks wanted the article amended to remove what they claimed was classified information. When the Wikipedians refused, the DRCI is alleged to have hauled a French Wikipedia editor into its offices and forced him to delete the entire article, on pain of immediate arrest. Instead of hiding the information, this made the story spread around the world—a textbook example of what internet aficionados call the Streisand Effect.
