One of the cardinal rules of Wikipedia is that employees of companies/organizations should not edit entries about their employers, just as individuals shouldn’t edit their own biographies. The temptation is hard to resist for organizations seeking to bolster their public image, but the prospect of getting caught doctoring one’s Wikipedia entry is an embarrassment that most companies would rather not endure. Just ask Microsoft who recently got caught paying experts to “correct” entries about it on the site.
The risk that anonymous spin doctors will be spotted is now higher thanks to new software built by Virgil Griffith, a researcher at the California Institute of Technology. The software, called the The Wikipedia Scanner, works by comparing 5.3m edits made on the encyclopedia against the IP addresses of more than 2m companies or individuals. Smart companies will find ways to circumvent the scanner – perhaps by having employees edit entries from their home computers.
For now, you can get a full list of prominent culprits from Virgil Griffith’s site. Here are some highlights courtesy of The Guardian:
Republican party
Apparently replaced the term “occupying forces” with “liberating” in an article referring to the Iraq war. Somewhat less controversially, a Republican staffer also rewrote a biography of American revolutionary leader George Rogers Clark.
Democrat party
Somebody using a computer inside Democrat HQ edited a page on conservative American radio host Rush Limbaugh, calling him “idiotic”, “ridiculous” and labelling his 20 million listeners as “legally retarded”.
Fox News
Users traced back to the rightwing TV station have edited a number of pages about its presenters, including excising information about reporter Shepard Smith, who became infamous after saying “blowjob” on air.
CIA
Alongside numerous revisions about America’s national security and geography, a surfer using a CIA address also took the time to add extensive sections on lightsabre combat in the Star Wars movies.
Labour party
A section on Labour Students was edited to remove a section on the rise of the career politician. “It is sometimes claimed that Labour Students has helped the rise of careerists within the party at the expense of more radical leftwingers,” said the deleted text.
