US Government Caught Manipulating Wikipedia

surfi writes "As The Inquirer points out, someone with a House of Representatives IP address has been feeding propaganda into the 'invasion of Iraq' article on Wikipedia." Well at least they are in good company with trustworthy institutions like the CIA and the Vatican.

Comments

They're not that stupid

[FalconZero]

I know "US Government Caught Manipulating Wikipedia" is a cool title, but seriously, does anyone think the US government, the CIA or the Vatican would be stupid enough to get caught if they actually wanted to influence a wikipedia article?

They'd probably at the very least get their 'operatives' to go home, get one of those free AOL CDs (etc), and do it from a public IP range.

What's more likely is that this is someone who got bored at work (at the Vatican etc), and decided to put their personal opinions in. The nature of their work usually implies their beliefs are coincident with that of their employers.

As for TFA, it states "One has to wonder how reliable an encyclopaedia is when it peddles government propaganda in an almost Orwellian manner"; Seems a bit like FUD to me. The whole point of wikipedia is that it is constantly peer reviewed. If things are incorrect, people will eventually correct them - I fail to see how that's Orwellian. If anything, changing pages in this manner actually brings MORE attention to the issue.

Re:They're not that stupid

[Otter Escaping North]

I know "US Government Caught Manipulating Wikipedia" is a cool title, but seriously, does anyone think the US government, the CIA or the Vatican would be stupid enough to get caught if they actually wanted to influence a wikipedia article?

This US government? Abso-fraking-lutely.

Re:They're not that stupid

[BUL2294]

AOL still has enough money to give out free CDs???

Re:They're not that stupid

[eln]

This is the same government that allows low-level employees to take home vast amounts of personal taxpayer information unencrypted on their laptops. The government is absolutely stupid enough to get caught.

The government is vast and composed almost entirely of low-paid operatives. I have no problem believing they could try something like this and get caught. I have a hard time believing in the government as shadowy cabal that is capable of concealing vast conspiracies for years or decades at a time.

Re:They're not that stupid

[Frosty Piss]

The government is absolutely stupid enough to get caught.

Get caught doing what? Editing "the encyclopedia anyone can edit"? There is a "rule" aginst this?

Re:They're not that stupid

[Pentavirate]

Bush/Cheney did claim that there was an Al Qaeda / Iraq connection and that Iraq had WMD, and that this posed a clear an present danger to the security of the United States. But then when faced with contrary information, e.g., from Joseph Wilson that Iraq was not in fact trying to obtain Uranium from Niger, Bush/Cheney attacked Wilson (by revealing his wife Valerie Plame was a CIA operative), instead of revising their public story.

Al Qaeda did have connections to Iraq, though not strong. The invasion of Iraq was never sold as being because Iraq and Al Qaeda had strong connections, despite what the history revisionists say. At the time of the invasion, Most Dems, Reps, and governments of the world believed Iraq had WMDs. Even Iraqi leadership believed it. Saddam Hussein was perpetrating a fraud on everyone because the belief of him having WMD was almost as good as actually having them. It should also be noted that a grand jury bent on charging the administration concerning the Valerie Plame "revelation" wasn't able to come up with any charges whatsoever except for a single perjury.

Later Bush/Cheney nefariously blamed "intelligence failures" when in fact they knew better than anyone else that there was no credible threat from Iraq. Cheney was encumbered by a conflict of interest because, in classic Washington revolving-door style, he was re-entering politics having just served as CEO of Halliburton who ended up profiting heavily from the Iraq war. This is absolutely relevant!

The CIA itself admitted the intelligence failures. You can't say that they were just covering because they've also been critical of the administration. The intelligence agencies of a lot of other countries also failed as they believed the same thing. As for Cheney's Halliburton connection, It's been shown that Cheney doesn't gain anything from Halliburton and hasn't since he left the company.

Bush, as commander-in-chief, is guilty of Dereliction of Duty by both starting an unnecessary war based on lies, and then grossly incompetently managing that war. The deaths of American service men and women were absolutely avoidable because they war was unnecessary and avoidable. Abusing power, and abusing the trust and dedication of military personnel by getting them killed unnecessarily is absolutely criminal and cannot go unpunished.

There were some obvious mistakes made during the invasion and occupation. Most of those have been corrected. The fact remains that no war of this caliber has had as few American casualties as this one. No war plan is perfect but this one is far from a grossly incompetent mismanagement.

The death of every American serviceperson and Iraqi civilian due to the war in Iraq is an individual charge of manslaughter against Bush.

Uh, yeah. Right.

There should also be criminal repercussions for the lesser, but still significant crimes, of distracting the US military away from the war against terrorism (in Afghanistan) to a distraction in Iraq, right when the US was most vulnerable to terrorism (after 9/11). The enormous waste of money is also criminal mismanagement.

I hate to break it to you, but the War on Terror is in more places than Afghanistan. I have 2 cousins that just got back from the African "front" in the War on Terror. If you want to read about successes in the War on Terror, check out what we're doing in Africa.

Don't be dissuaded or intimidated by misinformation on Wikipedia, the rabid invective of idiots on FOX News, or snide comments

Re:They're not that stupid

[jackpot777]

Looking at the top two hits on this Google search, it looks like people in Government don't even know the basic functions of Microsoft Word.

Those that do not learn the mistakes in File ---> Versions history are doomed to repeat them.

Re:They're not that stupid

[ShinmaWa]

The point is more that they're changing the original positions that were claimed as fact to being positions they claim were based on what was probable. Thats a BIG difference in my book. Who is "they"? There is no "they". Its a staffer in the office of a single Representative (1 out of the total number of 435).

This one person, and just a person who is using Wikipedia just like everyone else, is just a tiny cog in a little subassembly of a small piece of the "They" (meaning the US Government).

This whole damned thing is FUD. People in the US Government are allowed to edit Wikipedia, just like everyone else -- and the edits those people make are subject to the same peer review and revision, just like everyone else.

Its nothing if not backpedaling. You are right. It's not "backpeddling", so therefore it's "nothing".

Just because one employee of the US Government made a bone-headed edit in Wikipedia does NOT make it "US Government Censors Wikipedia" (the 'article' title). It doesn't make it "backpeddling". It doesn't make it anything at all other than a bone-headed edit by someone who just happens to work for the US Government.

Re:They're not that stupid

[Darby]

That's funny, I thought both were reprehensible. I guess that goes to show someone like you is willing to do whatever it takes to minimize your own transgressions.

No, all that shows it that you have no sense of perspective. Lying about a personal matter which a court has no business asking is an entirely different thing than intentionally and with malice aforethought lying on a massive scale in order to build support for robbing the American people blind to pay to murder a bunch of innocent people for the purpose of increasing profits for a few companies.

Your inability to understand the vast scale of difference between those things demonstrates you to be utterly lacking in anything even resembling morals, ethics, or even basic sanity.

Re:They're not that stupid

[aminorex]

Shadowy cabals are unlikely? Come on. Wake up. What do you think a political party is? What is Skull and Bones? What is the CIA? What is a state secret? Shadowy cabals fill the freaking news every freaking day. What is a board of directors? Why don't they publish their minutes? Because they are a shadowy freaking cabal, Norman. Even if they're not commiting any criminal conspiracies, they are a cabal by definition, and operating in secrecy makes you shadowy. Criminey. Take one cluestick and call me in the morning.

Re:They're not that stupid

[p4nther32707]

Al Qaeda did have connections to Iraq, though not strong. The invasion of Iraq was never sold as being because Iraq and Al Qaeda had strong connections, despite what the history revisionists say. At the time of the invasion, Most Dems, Reps, and governments of the world believed Iraq had WMDs. Even Iraqi leadership believed it. Saddam Hussein was perpetrating a fraud on everyone because the belief of him having WMD was almost as good as actually having them.

Let's take this a piece at a time.

Yes, everyone....even Valeria Plame....even the French... thought Iraq had WMD. Hint: this is why they wanted the weapon inspectors to go into Iraq. And, unlike what the revisionists want us to believe, the weapon inspectors DID go into Iraq.

That doesn't discount the fact that Wilson's finding showed that Iraq COULDN'T and DIDN'T buy yellowcake. That also doesn't discount the fact that someone in the administration went after Wilson's wife as payback. (And let's face facts, that's about the lowest thing any President's admistration has ever done. Gone after someone's wife to get at someone...AND put the the lives of patriots at risk who were working in field ... no, not Plame, but all of the other people who used covers from the same companies.)

Alas, only a single charge of perjury was found on that. Damn, almost makes one wish we had independent investigators again.

There were some obvious mistakes made during the invasion and occupation. Most of those have been corrected. The fact remains that no war of this caliber has had as few American casualties as this one. No war plan is perfect but this one is far from a grossly incompetent mismanagement.

That's true, we've never lost few casualities before for a war of this size.

Alas, that's not the war that was sold to us. That war would cost a mere $50 million and take under a week. The casualities we've had compared to a war of that size are astronomical (but I digress).

I hate to break it to you, but the War on Terror is in more places than Afghanistan. I have 2 cousins that just got back from the African "front" in the War on Terror. If you want to read about successes in the War on Terror, check out what we're doing in Africa.

I'd hate to break it to you, but to any American (except those in Africa and other places) the War on Terror is Iraq. Look at the amounts we're spending in Iraq. Look at the numbers of troops in Iraq. Look at the number of causalities in Iraq. The less than 1% in Africa aren't the War on Terror. (I agree that progress is being made in places....I wish we'd spent more time/money/people/energy on those places than...but I'm not CIC).

There's an irrational hate of Bush and Cheney, much like the hatred of some Republicans during the Clinton years. The fact remains that there is very little evidence of an intentional fraud to be able to invade Iraq for nefarious reasons. Take off the tinfoil hat and realize that this country is led by people that make mistakes but are working to keep us safe and make us great.

I listened to a great number of people who had the irrational hatred of Clinton. All of them argued that it wasn't irrational...that they had specific reasons not to like the guy. (To paraphrase a Representative, who was on the floor of Congress at the time: that's not my President)

Shrug. People want to hate Clinton but demand me to respect Bush. Bite me. There are reasons (beyond what's posted here) to dislike Bush and the Republicans under Clinton made it socially acceptable.

The best thing to do at this point is vote for who you think will be the best successor in 2008.

Finally something I can agree with.

Whoa, whoa, whoa

[daveschroeder]

Wait. Hold the phone.

You mean individuals within the government can edit "the encyclopedia anyone can edit", too?

*Pause for stunned silence*

Or do we only let people not affiliated with governments edit Wikipedia? Or perhaps only from home?

Or perhaps we'd prefer that governments edit Wikipedia from unattributable IP addresses...?

Or could it be that a person with a "House of Representatives IP address" is actually acting of his or her own will, making what they feel are appropriate changes to a Wikipedia article, which can be vetted, reversed, modified, and discussed, as can any change on Wikipedia?

How does one person with a House IP equate to "US Government Caught Manipulating Wikipedia"? The biggest surprise about this story is that it didn't read "Posted by kdawson". Seriously, is this the kind of politically-charged meaningless garbage that passes for front-page material on slashdot now?

Oh, wait, I guess I must speaking for the government now, and not myself. Perhaps this post is even propaganda...after all, anyone who works for "the government" can't possibly have their own views and beliefs, some of which might even differ from others. Oh, it's the Weekly Standard, so it doesn't count? This whole article is couched in assertions such as it being "bizarre" to make a connection between Iraq and Al-Qaeda.Except that such a connection was explored in various ways for a decade, long before Bush was in office.

John McWethy, national security correspondent for ABC News, reported the story on August 25, 1998:

Before the pharmaceutical plant was reduced to rubble by American cruise missiles, the CIA was secretly gathering evidence that ended up putting the facility on America's target list. Intelligence sources say their agents clandestinely gathered soil samples outside the plant and found, quote, "strong evidence" of a chemical compound called EMPTA, a compound that has only one known purpose, to make VX nerve gas.

Then, the connection:

The U.S. had been suspicious for months, partly because of Osama bin Laden's financial ties, but also because of strong connections to Iraq. Sources say the U.S. had intercepted phone calls from the plant to a man in Iraq who runs that country's chemical weapons program.

Oops.

No link was ever really substantive, but there were links, and that shouldn't be surprising in the region. But that isn't even the point.

Those who want to paint all these issues as black and white, or say that some official or another "lied" about complex issues related to WMD in Iraq, OIF, etc., are the ones who are effectively the liars -- by ignoring everything that doesn't neatly support their own political positions. They lap up the new Iran NIE like it's gospel, while simultaneously writing off anything else that doesn't support their own views as lies. How convenient...and disgusting, for people who fancy themselves as enlightened intellectuals.

Re:Whoa, whoa, whoa

[daveschroeder]

Looking at the examples of the edits shown for the summary, I don't see anything that is inaccurate, much less partisan. I do see things that people who don't agree with OIF and/or the current administration, especially the sort of folks who think literally everything that supports their position is true and everything else is a trumped up "lie", won't like, though.

In fact, every single edit I see on that page, save for perhaps the one in the first paragraph which is a little over the top, makes the article more factually accurate, if that's what we're interested in.

Re:Whoa, whoa, whoa

[daveschroeder]

First, it is factually correct to say "some say" instead of "it is so" in so many of those places. Because the article's older edit makes it appear as if it was unequivocally correct that any such links had been disproved, when that is simply not the case at all.

Substantive links that would justify an invasion on their own with no other reason or purpose were disproved. But various links existed nonetheless.

I included a link that showed the government found Al Qaeda ties in Iraq years before Bush took office. Just because someone doesn't source and cite everything with endless streams of URLs from people who have nothing better to do than construct their own perfect view of the world on Wikipedia doesn't mean it's not still true. If there are no sources AND is not true, it will most certainly be reversed in short order.

Unfortunately, the simple fact is that most people who regularly edit Wikipedia are very likely to prefer the article's older form, which ignores the nuance and difficulties of acknowledging there actually were ties, since it doesn't fit into the neat little box of "everything the administration says or does is a lie". Don't get me wrong: I think Wikipedia does a fairly good job. Damned good, in fact. But there is a LOT of bias in a lot of articles, and it's no surprise that bias tilts toward the views of majority of the demographic doing most of the edits.

Just because a little number isn't floating in the air next to one of the edits doesn't make it untrue. The fact of the matter is that all of these edits were actually increasing the accuracy of the article, weasel words and all. Using weasel words is sometimes the only way to quickly update an article where people are making sweeping statements and conclusions that are, quite simply, incorrect. So yes, "some people" believe that any ties to Al Qaeda were disproved. But that's not correct. At all. By all rights, that entire section should be rewritten to accurately represent the situation.

I think the last edit sums it up:

Such a link was never suggested by President Bush or the Bush administration as a justification for the invasion [emphasis mine]; rather, that such a relationship existed at all is seen as compelling.

And indeed it was.

Re:Whoa, whoa, whoa

[Junta]

The overall tone of all the edits were definitely partisan spin, without contributing any facts. However, reading the before and after also makes clear that there did already exist a somewhat opposing spin.

Probably, you can logically argue the injection of 'alleged' phrasing in any controversial point as making a statement more universally true rather than presenting it as true. However, the edit clearly demonstrated they only wanted to put alleged around points they didn't like, *and* wanted to remove the weakening 'alleged' term from a point they did like. Both the article pre-edit and post-edit seemed to be using alleged to weaken points that the editor didn't like.

The last bits didn't remove data, but read more like a debate that should be in the Talk section as to why a paragraph or two is irrelevant to the article. The post-edit seems confusing 'here is data point A, with respect to the invasion of Iraq. However, it had nothing to do with the invasion of Iraq'.

Particularly the first edit, though, points to some right-wing nut who happens to be in government, and not a conspiracy. I would imagine a conspiracy would have written more clean, less bitter sounding stuff.

Why is it a bad thing?

[xzvf]

Why is it a bad thing if our government representatives, staff and employees are contributing to Wikipedia? Its no worst than yellow journalism or biased professors at a university. For that matter can't Saddam supporters contribute also? Biased information is great for historical reasons, all we really need is attribution so we can judge the bias ourselves.

Except that this is old news

[CodeShark]

as most of the edits took place in 2005 and were just recently noticed, and most of the edits are apparently fairly minor. Adding some "it is claimed" phraseology etc. here and there, where the underlying fundamentals of the article remained basically unchanged.

What I found more interesting is that apparently the Register doesn't like Wikipedia because they refer to it as "whackypedia", and the statement that the edits were made by a "Bush friendly" source inside the House. Maybe the Bush friendly angle is true -- the Register article asserts it to be so without quoting the edits or commenting, but there is no way to tell by an IP address.

Which tells me that the Register article is basically shoddy journalism. No fact digging, no fact checking, polemics instead of the who what when why where that journalism is supposed to accomplish. So -- with all due respect to GOOD journalism, and while not a Bushie or US Govt. fan, I have to say that this tidbit is yellow all under.

Primary Source?

[Ohio Calvinist]

I know that this insertion of propoganda was not appropriate but hypothetically speaking on the idea of US Government representatives writing in wikipedia, I'd argue this is a good thing (if they can follow the guidelines).

Maybe my understanding is off, but wouldn't the US government be the perfect entity to write encyclopedia article given that they are the primary source in the scope of their job? Would the US Forest Service agent who was present in the California Wildfires in 2007 be the perfect source to write (if he could be objective, and without bias) of the factual events of the fires, such as "At 8PM 27 fire engines from 6 counties began working on and achieved containment at 10PM". Or In a "perfect" system, would not an encyclopedia only contain factual data such as "On 12/12/2007, this person was quoted as saying ..." or "The current cost of the war according to the GAO is ". I'd rather hear it from "the horses mouth" than the condensed version from news organizations who report the news as it meets an agenda.

Even from elected officials, such as congressmen, I think it would be great to have themselves or staff or a Gov't official append their voting record to their wikipedia page. I think having a wikipedia page for every bill voted on in congress with a short summary, the bills sponsor, the committee's vote, and the houses of congresses voting record, along with any Congressional Record indexing information would be a very useful resource, and one that would give Wikipedia's flexibility and limitless nature (as opposed to a print encyclopedia) a real advantage.

Just having the data there is a valuable work as other contributors help grind the content down to a consensual view. Someone just has to get the ball rolling and if the original author does a great job, we'll get a solid article sooner than if we start with a crap one.

I'd say the only problem would be is that politicians and "neutral-point-of-view" don't usually go hand in hand, but you have a certain level of bias in any peice of writing.

Re:Use /. moderation on wikipedia

[Mr. Underbridge]

What is needed is a /. style moderation and karma system so that any peer can review it without having to change it and indicate to other which are the best entries and editors.

And like here, it will help for egregious defacement, but will only ensure that the surviving articles match any communinty groupthink that may exist. Still better than a game of "who's the bigger asshole", but not an ultimate solution

Re:So you subscribe to the "stupidity" theory?

[iocat]

Anyone who thinks there's some monolithic "US Government" that acts as one and perpetrates conspiracies, or alters Wikipedia as a matter of policy, is a retard. A government is a collection of individuals, all pursuing wildly different agendas simultaneously.

For instance, on the one hand, the CIA is supposedly torturing people. On the other hand, the CIA is leaking info that the CIA is torturing people. Retard conspiracy theorists probably make this work in their heads by fantaszing that by leaking about its own bad actions, the CIA is diverting attention from some other, worse thing, like a Bigfoot-Alien alliance. Normal people think some people in the CIA didn't approve of the torture and leaked word of it (possibly illegally, but that's another subject) to the press.

supposedly?

[misanthrope101]

The CIA isn't "supposedly" torturing people. The CIA is doing things that were torture before we were doing them, or at least before we admitted we were doing them. When you're plainly, admittedly doing something, it doesn't become "supposedly" when the word torture comes up. We're doing it. It has been approved, legalized (thank you Woo!), and implemented--no "supposedly" there. The only uncertainty in this is that introduced by those who want to pretend that what's torture is a murky, uncertain question.

If a pretty white woman were waterboarded by 2 black cops in Atlanta, and died during the "interrogation", and then they packed the body in ice and faked the death certificate to say "heart problems," there would be no question in anyone's mind, least of all of the Attorney General or Vice President, that this constituted torture.

Our uncertainty as to what torture means is a sham--it's only torture because it's brown people who worship Allah and look sort of like towelheads. And everyone damn well knows that.