One of the most amazing things about Wikipedia is also one of the worst things about Wikipedia: the fact that absolutely anyone, anywhere, can add changes—anonymously—to any entry. However, the site’s volunteer police, so to speak, will block an IP address if it has been continually adding false data, edits, or been blatantly breaking the rules, which is why Congress is currently banned.
Wikipedia has imposed a ten-day ban on any edits coming from computers in the US House of Representatives, after anonymous changes were made to political and business entries from said computers—including one that stated Donald Rumsfeld, the former US defense secretary, was an “alien lizard who eats Mexican babies.”
The ban came to pass after a Twitter feed, @congressedits, posted every change made from a government-owned IP address originating in the House. While a staffer said they were being banned only “based on the action of two or three,” according to BBC, this is not the first time Wiki has had to crack down on Congress cyber-vandalism.
Wikipedia had already blocked the offending IP address for one day earlier this month, before discovering the Twitter feed of edits. Wikipedia has also been warning the House since March of 2012, but the edits have been continuing. This time, the edit that brought about the ban on anonymous changes was made on the Mediaite entry, which described the site as “sexist” and “transphobic.”
Staffers seem skeptical that elected officials could be the ones creating these “disruptive edits,” with one employee even stating that probability was “near zero.”
Yeah, let’s hope so, because, aside from the alien lizard thing? Changes were also made that stated Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated John F. Kennedy “on behalf of Fidel Castro,” that moon landing conspiracies were being “promoted by the Cuban government,” and that Ukrainian politician Natalyia Vitrenko was a “Russian puppet.”
Source BBC
Advertisement
