Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

COLUMN: We shouldn't be surprised at Wikipedia edits
By David Ryan
The Daily Athenaeum (West Virginia U.)
08/20/2007

(U-WIRE) MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — If you've ever searched for anything on the Internet, you're guaranteed to have come across Wikipedia at some point in your Web travels. Whether you're searching for Sasquatch or Jet packs, Wikipedia is usually the top search request for many items on the popular Google search engine.

Wikipedia, of course, is the Web's premier free encyclopedia that houses 1,956,000-plus articles that can be freely accessed by anyone with an Internet connection. Unfortunately for Wikipedia, its promise of being a trustworthy reference point for the world's information is hindered by its only means of sustenance: the fact that anybody in the world can edit it.

Last weekend, the BBC News Web site reported a program called "Wikiscanner," developed by U.S. computer hacker Virgil Griffiths, had traced page edits back to computers belonging to the Central Intelligence Agency, the Democratic Campaign Committee and the Vatican.

According to the article, a computer at the CIA had edited a mocking "Wahhhhh" to an article about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's plans for office.

The Democratic campaign committee edited entries on right-wing radio show host Rush Limbaugh's page that changed the entry "comedian" to "bigot," and then dubbed his listeners "legally retarded."

The article also explains that a computer traced from the Vatican had changed entries on the Wikipedia entry for Gerry Adams, leader of Ireland's Sin Fein party. The edited entries had removed comments linking him to a double murder that happened decades ago.

In response to the claims that the CIA had indeed changed entries on the site, an agency spokesman told the BBC that they "cannot confirm that the traffic you cite came from agency computers."

Adding, "I'd like in any case to underscore a far larger and more significant point that no one should doubt or forget: The CIA has a vital mission in protecting the United States, and the focus of this agency is there, on that decisive work."

These are, of course, the tip of the iceberg according to various reports about the story and the alleged Wikipedia edits.

When comparing an article on the Sydney Morning Herald Web site about the incident, it shows omissions from the BBC's own reporting of the happenings, including a specific change from the entry of President George W. Bush, changing his middle name from "Walker" to "Wanker" allegedly from a BBC computer.

In not reporting their own alleged abuses, the news organization makes itself look guilty. At the very least, they could have debunked the claims. But, as a reaction, that would defeat the purpose of the report.

According to "Wikidgame," a Web site run by Wired News, companies such as Starbucks, Best Buy and McDonald's have all edited entries critical of their business models. McDonald's took out references to the book "Fast Food Nation," a book critical of the fast food business model, and replaced them with "McDonald's: Behind the Arches."

But we really shouldn't be all that surprised.

The concept of an open source encyclopedia written for the people, by the people, is all good in theory, but not practice. Thanks to Griffiths' tool, we are able to see who the real editors of the encyclopedia are: the spin machines of the companies, organizations and whoever may be on the encyclopedia itself.

It is no longer about truth any more than it is about maintaining an image. While the encyclopedia may have started as a good idea, it's fallen victim to the people whose job it is to spin the truth into a specific cause.

Wikipedia is ultimately not to be trusted. While it may be a convenient reference point for the occasional tidbit of information, it should be taken with a grain of salt and approached with caution.

While being operated with good intent, these abuses of Wikipedia — and the daily that occur by private users at home — show that Wikipedia is nothing more than the Internet's game of Telephone — potentially billions of people playing, with no idea how the message will end up.

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