Is Wikipedia being politically manipulated?
I’m sure that most of you are familiar with one of the most popular online Encyclopedias, www.wikipedia.org
(”an encyclopedia collaboratively written by many of its readers. It uses a special type of website, called a wiki, that makes collaboration easy. Lots of people are constantly improving Wikipedia, making thousands of changes an hour, all of which are recorded on article histories and recent changes. Inappropriate changes are usually removed quickly, and repeat offenders can be blocked from editing.)
However, did you know that the US Bush administration is editing Wikipedia’s content, from PCs connected to the US State Government?
Take a look at this Wikipedia URL: (quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ConsultantJoe):
“My Hobby: Your tax dollars at work in Wikipedia
I like to peek at the sort of Wiki edits that my colleagues at State engage themselves in when they have nothing better to do. Here’s how you can do it, too:
1. Everyone who works at a US embassy or consulate abroad reaches the Internet through their intranet which then, in turn, reaches the Internet as either sherman.state.gov or clayton.state.gov
2. Wiki edits made by sherman.state.gov users (IP 169.253.4.21)
3. Wiki edits made by clayton.state.gov users (IP 169.252.4.21)
4. This only shows what they do when they are at work. You can’t see what they do when they are at home and use private ISPs.
Their edits are for the most part harmless (with very little vandalism), but they usually get a higher-than-normal level of criticism from the rest of the Wikipedia universe.
(end quote)
The problem are the edits made by US State government personnel from their home computers.
When someone recently linked to my not-so-kind posting in an Wiki article regarding the movie “Death of a President” on Wikipedia, a presumed US state government employee removed the link to my blog in the original Wikipedia article…
The Wikipedia Encyclopedia has 5 pillars as a main foundation. One of them is very clear:
” Wikipedia has a neutral point of view, which means we strive for articles that advocate no single point of view. Sometimes this requires representing multiple points of view; presenting each point of view accurately; providing context for any given point of view, so that readers understand whose view the point represents; and presenting no one point of view as “the truth” or “the best view”. It means citing verifiable, authoritative sources whenever possible, especially on controversial topics. When a conflict arises as to which version is the most neutral, declare a cool-down period and tag the article as disputed; hammer out details on the talk page and follow dispute resolution.”
By using Government PC’s (or by using government personnel on neutral IP’s) to edit content the Bush administration just doesn’t like, I feel that the US government is using Wikipedia as a tool in their spin war. Often subtle, but very visible (see US government IP edits above). It is very likely governments world-wide are manipulating Wikipedia in a similar way.
By doing so, I believe the neutrality of several Wikipedia’s articles is controversial.





