U.S. Court of International Trade: Wikipedia is not a reliable source

In a case between BP and the United States in which BP challenged the Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) classification of its merchandise, the U.S. Court of International Trade went into reliability of Wikipedia. BP had frequently referred to Wikipedia to argue that its product was petroleum oil, and not a preparation.

In a footnote (FN. 10), the court goes into the reliability of Wikipedia and states that it does not accept Wikipedia for the purposes of judicial notice.

The court notes BP’s frequent reference to the website http://wikipedia.org in its description of this process. [...] Wikipedia is a “user-contributed online encyclopedia” compiled of articles placed on “[w]eb sites that allow users to directly edit any [w]eb page on their own from their home computer.” Thomas L. Friedman, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century [...]. Wikipedia’s construction is based on the theory that “allowing anyone who surfs along to add or delete content on that page” will result in “a credible, balanced encyclopedia by way of an ad hoc open-source, open-editing movement.” Id. Although the court is aware that some studies have led prominent scholars to promote Wikipedia’s veracity, see Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom [...], and acknowledges that several circuit courts have relied on it in opinions, [...] countless district courts have held that “Wikipedia is not a reliable source at this level of discourse,” [...]. Based on the ability of any user to alter Wikipedia, the court is skeptical of it as a consistently reliable source of information. At this time, therefore, the court does not accept Wikipedia for the purposes of judicial notice.