Mez: Thin On The Sides (3#) -

I take a glance at the Murder of Meredith Kercher discussion page on Wikipedia from time to time. I don't want to intrude or participate at the moment, but I do want to comment.

A proposal was made to add a section that can address the issue of Controversy. In theory, there's nothing objectionable in that prospect. There is such a section on other pages there. The problem is: I am not aware of any widespread consensus on exactly what the controversy is.

Thus, I have attempted to to track back the provenance of Controversy in this case. But if you were to ask a half-dozen other people, you might get a half-dozen different responses.

As far as I can determine, the origin of Controversy in this case was the caption of a photograph Amanda Knox posted on her MySp*ce page which showed her laughing uproariously while pretending to shoot a machine gun.

The caption read: "the Nazi inside." And the Media reported it. The Media did not invent it. They believe they have a responsibility to inform their readers and they did so. Add to this caption of a self-professed Nazi the fact that the victim was a mixed race Minority, and the combination is explosive.

Is this the most controversial case of the 21st Century?

No, I don't think so. That dubious distinction might belong to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who is allegedly associated with the mass murder of about 3,000 people on 9/11.

Public discussion is not the same as controversy. There is a lot of commenting going on because the Internet allows more people to comment. [talk page]

...