"But if there is a history of violators linked to an . . . address, we'll go ahead and block them," he said. "If you don't want to play by the rules, go home."
In 2006, Wikipedia temporarily blocked certain Capitol Hill Web addresses when it was revealed that congressional aides had been deleting references to unmet campaign promises. This year, bloggers alleged that the site blocked computers at the Justice Department for removing references to certain terrorist groups.
Rosenthal said he did not know whether there was truth to those claims.
The Scientology dispute has raised questions about the role of free speech on the Internet.
Tim Wu, a professor of Internet law at Columbia Law School and the chairman of Free Press, a media reform group, said that more and more, decisions about free speech were being made online. Websites such as Google, Facebook and Wikipedia now act as gatekeepers of information.
"Wikipedia has more power over speech than many governments," he said. "We have to make sure that they're being reasonable."
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kate.linthicum@latimes.com
