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British Politicians Delete Negative Wikipedia Descriptions Before Election

Posted by timothy on from the war-on-the-ground dept.

EwanPalmer writes: The Wikipedia pages of dozens of UK politicians had references to sex scandals, fraud and opposition to same sex marriage removed in the run up to the UK general election. Dozens of MPs had negative aspects of their online biographies removed or altered prior to the election in a bid to make them more electable. The changes include several instances of MPs' expense claim scandals being removed, as well as details of arrests and the use of 'chauffeur-driven cars.' The edits were made using computers with IP addresses registered from inside Parliament.

3 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. Surprised those edits weren't reverted by rockout · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've noticed in the past that most of those white-washing edits, especially when they're done by anonymous IPs, tend to get reverted by registered editors, so that the white-washing isn't that much of an issue.

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    1. Re:Surprised those edits weren't reverted by mwvdlee · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's an issue in that these politicians are wasting the precious time of honest, taxpaying volunteers.

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    2. Re:Surprised those edits weren't reverted by RDW · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Me, if I were a politician, I'd tell my staff to have NOTHING to do with any Wikipedia pages

      Personally, I'd have my staff whitewash my opponent's page, then leak that somebody had done this...