Wikipedia Edits Exposed.
Wikipedia Edits Exposed.
August 16th, 2007: A host of blue chip companies, religious bodies and government organisations have been exposed for making heavily biased wikipedia edits.
A new tool named Wikiscanner, created by California Institute of Technology graduate Virgil Griffith, is lifting the lid on who’s been editing what on Wikipedia. The tool works by scanning the IP database of wikipedia edits and matching them up with known domains of companies and organisations throughout the world.
The damning results have showed up celebrities, government organisations, blue chip companies and even the associated press editing pages. Not only does the tool show who has been editing what page, it actually displays what edit was made.
The church of scientology has been editing out criticism on its wikipedia site almost non-stop. A computer from a Dell Computers IP address whitewashed a section on the company outsourcing its support division overseas. A representative from Electronic Arts has deleted whole paragraphs about the companies work practices and business methods. Even the Washington post has a recorded attack on competitor the Washington examiner by changing the owner of the paper to serial killer Charles Manson.
Oil companies are turning out to be completely edit crazy, ChevronTexaco sliced out sections on their site referring to bio-diesel and violations of the Iraq oil sanctions. A computer from Exxon-Mobil changed the company’s reluctance to pay the US $5 Billion in damages it owed for an oil spill to a self-congratulating reference to$300 million being been paid out to Alaskan fisherman.
The list of edits surfacing from the Wikiscanner tool is growing exponentially, the website has ground to a halt multiple times trying to keep up with demand as users mine through years of wikipedia edit records.
The end result of the increased transparency will hopefully mean more reliability and less bias in wikipedia stories. Unfortunately though, due to how important wikipedia has become as an information source, organisations will more then likely now move to greater lengths to hide their editing.