Wikipedia Entries On NYPD Violence Get Some Edits From Headquarters

First reported by Capital, and picked up by Reason, it seems that "Computers operating on the New York Police Department’s computer network at its 1 Police Plaza headquarters have been used to alter Wikipedia pages containing details of alleged police brutality." Computer users identified by Capital as working on the NYPD headquarters' network have edited and attempted to delete Wikipedia entries for several well-known victims of police altercations, including entries for Eric Garner, Sean Bell, and Amadou Diallo. Capital identified 85 NYPD addresses that have edited Wikipedia, although it is unclear how many users were involved, as computers on the NYPD network can operate on the department’s range of IP addresses. Besides edits to entries about specific instances of misconduct, edits from the same NYPD IP blocks were discovered in Wikipedia entries about the city's stop-and-frisk program and about NYPD misconduct more generally.

Comments

Surprise level: 0

[Anonymous Coward]

Police tampering with what amounts to evidence of their own crimes? Wow, what a suprise.

Re:Surprise level: 0

[Etherwalk]

Police tampering with what amounts to evidence of their own crimes? Wow, what a suprise.

Wikipedia does not qualify as evidence--it would not be admissible as evidence of a crime. Don't cry wolf on that because when police really do tamper with evidence, it's a *LOT* more serious than making updates to Wikipedia.

I have no problem with wikipedia edits for tone or the like originating from NYPD officers, if there are errors or non-neutrality problems in the phrasing of the article, although they should be doing it in off-duty time. I do have trouble with edits that do not cite to their sources, because wikipedia is not supposed to be breaking new stories unless there's been coverage somewhere. At the very least cops should cite to a blog before editing.

Re:Surprise level: 0

[tylikcat]

It's certainly not about evidence tampering.

But there are two issues here, and conflating them with press releases is misleading. One is a failure to uphold Wikipedia's conflict of interest standards. That's an internal to the community manner, to some extent (I value wikipedia, and it matters a lot to me). This is the same kind of shennanigans that has had IPs of congressional staffers banned after making politically motivated edits. Yo, this isn't supposed to be your platform for spin doctoring, and if you're too close to the subject, step away a bit.

The other is propaganda. Look, if they are sending out press releases, one hopes they will be clearly marked as such.* But this is why the conflict of interest problem should matter to the rest of us - because this is a way of retelling the story from a particular point of view without marking clearly whose point of view it is. There's certainly plenty to wrestle with, trying to come up with a reasonable unbiased account. And people who are police officers, and people who are sympathetic to the pressures police officers are under should be part of the conversation - just people who are a step removed from the specific subjects being discussed.

* Yes, it's not unheard of for press releases to get printed as straight news. Stinks to high heaven, but there you are.

Re:Surprise level: 0

[TheGratefulNet]

here, we see how truly STUPID cops are. they didn't even know about hiding behind 7 proxies...

seriously, though; way to stand for justice, guys.

your day is over, cops. no one under 40 trusts you. we are all afraid of you - you are out of control - and only fellow authoriarians like you and associate with you. you are not part of the people, anymore and you have lost all our trust.

the war on citizenry has no winners. sadly, they don't understand enough to even SEE this, much less care.

Strategy

[jargonburn]

Control of information is Paramount in maintaining a docile populace.

Re:NYPD

[BitterOak]

Cyber warfare. Destroying or altering public records is likely a criminal offense.

First of all Wikipedia isn't "public records". Secondly, Wikipedia is set up that way. People can make edits. Other people can edit the edits. It's bad form to try to bias an article with opinions or to state facts without citations, but it's not illegal. These changes were caught by editors and presumably corrected if they were in error or introduced bias. That's the way Wikipedia is supposed to work. This revelation might be embarrassing for the NYPD, but it is hardly criminal.

Re:hmmm

[wiredlogic]

I dont see a problem with changing "choke hold" to "arm bar" is that is what the police call the move that was done.

There is a world of difference between a choke hold and an arm bar. One breaks your arm/elbow and you get to live. The other can be used inappropriately and the recipient ends up dead. They are in no way the same.

Ok, let me get this straight:

[Hartree]

You set up an open access, anyone can edit, system like Wikipedia, and you're surprised when people edit it when they might have a vested interest?

This is the very reason why Wikipedia is a poor source on some political or controversial issues. Usually it's better for some of the technical issues, but not always.

It's a powerful tool, but trying to make it something that it's not, a guaranteed to be unbiased source, is a bit unrealistic.

Re:NYPD

[ckatko]

If we can get Aaron Swartz to kill himself over "Hacking" by downloading a bunch of easily available peer-reviewed journals, why can't we treat "tampering of community works" with the same, broad, over-reaching laws?

Re:hmmm

[dirk]

I can see the revised police procedure manual now.

"When a suspect resists, but them in a "warm embrace" by placing your arm around their throat and squeezing."
"If a suspect does not follow your instructions, give them a "gentle scalp massage" with your night stick."
"Once a suspect is down, form a "cuddle pile" of 6 or 7 officers on top of them until they stop struggling."

"Cover up" is a US tradition

[msobkow]

"Cover up" and "media management" are US traditions.

"Justice" died a long time ago. About the same time the bar association came on the scene.

Expecting anything like "honesty" from a department that shoots or otherwise kills unarmed civilians is insane.