VIRGIL GRIFFITH, ONE SMART KID (take note nerds, this could be you!) has created a site that helps you "out" corporations and governments and organizations who alter Wikipedia for propaganda purposes.
DO YOUR PART TO SQUELCH BIAS IN REPORTING. CHECK OUT HIS SITE WIKI SCANNER.
MOST OF US USE WIKIPEDIA CAUTIOUSLY, RIGHT?
DO YOU THINK HIS SITE WILL:
1. ENCOURAGE CONTRIBUTORS TO WIKIPEDIA TO REMOVE BIASED WRITING AND IMPROVE THE ENCYCLOPEDIA'S CREDIBILITY? OR
2. MAKE READERS LESS LIKELY TO CONSULT WIKIPEDIA?
photo: Henry Strickland
HERE IS A LIST OF JUICY (ALLEGED) CONTROVERSIAL EDITS , COMPILED BY WIRED
QUOTES FROM THE MEDIA STORM IT HAS CREATED
Wal-Mart has a series of relatively small changes in 2005 that burnish the company's image on its own entry....changing a line that its wages are less than other retail stores to a note that it pays nearly double the minimum wage, for example.
The site also indicates that a computer owned by the US Democratic Party was used to make changes to the site of right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh.The changes brand Mr Limbaugh as "idiotic," a "racist", and a "bigot".
One user, with an IP address that points to a government office in Ottawa, removed Wikipedia's entire entry on homosexuality several times on July 20, 2005, and replaced it with such sentences as: "Homosexuality is evil,"
CBC
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales obviously appreciates the effort.
"It is fabulous and I strongly support it," Wales told the Associated Press.
Virgil Griffith (born 1983), also known as Romanpoet, is an American hacker
FOR MORE NEWS, key in "Virgil Griffith"
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