Tableau Responds to Removing WikiLeaks visualizations

The latest WikiLeaks release has been all over the news lately, but I’ve largely ignored it as it has nothing to do with visualization.  However, I just found a hook in a recent move by Tableau with their free online Tableau Public data visualization offering.  Someone created some visualizations of the newest leaks using Tableau Public, and yesterday Tableau removed all of them.

Wednesday afternoon, Tableau Software removed data visualizations published by WikiLeaks to Tableau Public. We understand this is a sensitive issue and want to assure the public and our users that this was not an easy decision, nor one that we took lightly.

Of course, just as it’s someone’s right to publish the visualization, it’s Tableau’s right to refuse to partake in it.  Plus, their TOS make that quite clear:

Our terms of service require that people using Tableau Public do not upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any content that they do not have the right to make available. Furthermore, if we receive a complaint about a particular set of data, we retain the right to investigate the situation and remove any offending data, if necessary.

I’m personally saddened that they decided to take them down, but with the recent political turmoil and political moves like Interpol issuing arrest statements and recent moves in US congress to introduce “Anti-wikileaks” legislation, it seems they might have come down less gracefully in the future anyway.

What do you think?

via Why we removed the WikiLeaks visualizations | Tableau Software.

This story written by Randall Hand

Randall Hand is a visualization scientist working for a federal research lab, aiding researchers to discover the insights buried within their terabyte datasets generated on some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. He also runs VizWorld.com .