Ah, Wikipedia. Many of us at Grist frequently use this resource, but we do so knowing that just about anyone can edit a Wikipedia article at anytime. So, can we really trust the information contained within?
Fear not! As Wired reports, there is a new tool that sheds some light on who is editing what:
On November 17th, 2005, an anonymous Wikipedia user deleted 15 paragraphs from an article on e-voting machine-vendor Diebold, excising an entire section critical of the company's machines. While anonymous, such changes typically leave behind digital fingerprints offering hints about the contributor, such as the location of the computer used to make the edits.
In this case, the changes came from an IP address reserved for the corporate offices of Diebold itself. And it is far from an isolated case. A new data-mining service launched Monday traces millions of Wikipedia entries to their corporate sources, and for the first time puts comprehensive data behind longstanding suspicions of manipulation, which until now have surfaced only piecemeal in investigations of specific allegations.
Wikipedia Scanner -- the brainchild of Cal Tech computation and neural-systems graduate student Virgil Griffith -- offers users a searchable database that ties millions of anonymous Wikipedia edits to organizations where those edits apparently originated, by cross-referencing the edits with data on who owns the associated block of internet IP addresses.
And you can do your own sleuthing and share your discoveries on a special Wired resource powered by reddit called wikidgame. Here are some of the environment-related edits reported:
- ExxonMobil whitewashes Valdez cleanup story
- "Bad luck & poor investments" caused bankruptcy of native tribe destroyed by Exxon-Valdez spill
- The NRA changes "hunting" to "wildlife conservation & management"
- ChevronTexaco deletes "Biodiesel," Iraq fine
- Dow removes references to Bhopal, Agent Orange, breast implants
- Monsanto user spins Roundup effects
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Comments
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:19 pm
16 Aug 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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caniscandida Posted 3:04 am
17 Aug 2007
In my own experience, I have been impressed with the fairness of the Wikipedia articles that I have seen. But then again, I tend to look at articles on weird, off-the-wall subjects like Compsognathus and allied small predators of the late Jurassic Morrison Formation, in which maybe five people in all the world are keenly interested, and the systematics of Indo-European languages of Bronze-Age and early Iron-Age Anatolia, in which maybe three people in all the world are keenly interested.
But then again again (!), for those eight people at least, the way that those subjects can be presented in Wikipedia might most certainly be "controversial."
The examples of biased editing that you cite are all of them unethical, especially the one that assigns blame for the Alaskan native people's bankruptcy on themselves, not on the Exxon-Valdez oil spill. But I was under the impression that biased descriptions and accounts tend not to last very long in most of the more frequently visited Wikipedia articles, precisely because they will be re-edited by readers with an opposing perspective, who will quickly be aware of bias.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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sindark Posted 5:49 am
17 Aug 2007
"Someone tell the co-op student to head over to an internet cafe and remove all this embarrassing stuff..."
a sibilant intake of breath
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caniscandida Posted 3:15 pm
19 Aug 2007
On the other hand, I have not read that any assignment involves having to edit a Wikipedia article already in existence. But it would not surprise me if that has been happening.
Could that sort of thing lead to mischief, misinformation and mayhem? Oh, sure. But the managers of Wikipedia seem confident that the public-forum aspect of the thing will sort out all that M,M&M stuff. In time, at least. Meanwhile, as with everything else online, it is reasonable to be suspicious.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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