To protect reporter David Rohde after he was kidnapped by members of the Taliban, The New York Times worked with other news outlets and Wikipedia to keep news of the kidnapping secret until Rohde escaped. That seven-month ordeal, reported in the Times, shows how social media-enabled fluidity in the spread of information is a danger as well as a valuable tool. Luckily, Wikipedia administrators worked with the Times to keep news of Rohde’s and his translator, Tahir Ludin’s, kidnapping off the site.

Michael Moss, a Times reporter and friend of Rohde, edited the Wikipedia page about Rohde to omit information, like the fact that he had worked for the Christian Science Monitor, that may have put him in greater danger. After Wikipedia users attempted to edit the page on Rohde to include his kidnapping, Wikipedia administrators froze the page until he escaped.

While these steps contradicted the democratic essence of Wikipedia, restricting anonymous users’ ability to post certain information could have helped keep Rohde and his translator alive until they were able to escape. Even so, Wikipedia users who had been trying to report Rohde’s kidnapping reacted angrily to administrators’ content control, the Times reports.

Increased use of social media sites like Twitter as news sources and the growing online presence of citizen journalism beg the question as to whether, in the future, there will be any way to keep news like this from spreading online. For now, internet users should take Rohde’s story into account as another reminder to be cautious about what you post online. While reporting the news may seem like a public service, it can also have unforeseen and harmful consequences that the average person might not think to consider.

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