Is your Congressman or MP editing Wikipedia?

[Mancunium]

Your tax dollars are hard at work … editing the ‘Horse head mask’ page on Wikipedia
Washington Post, 10 July 2014 link

Apparently, congressional staffers don't have enough work to do, because they're editing Wikipedia pages for the most pressing issues of our time -- including (but not limited to) horse head masks. On Wednesday, someone with an IP address (a unique number assigned to devices accessing the Internet on a network) linked to Congress updated the "Horse head mask" Wikipedia page to include this essential detail: "On July 8th, 2014, [[President Barack Obama]] shook hands with a man wearing a horse head mask in [[Denver]]." [...] Over the years, there has been a lot written about Wikipedia edits – from the mundane to more serious accusations of revisionist history – originating from sources within Congress. In 2006, the Lowell Sun broke the story of a Hill staffer editing the Wikipedia entry of his boss, whose broken campaign promises were deleted while glossy biographical details were added. A newly formed Twitter account has automated the process of revealing those changes. @Congressedits is based on a similar account devoted to the British Parliament. The IP addresses are fairly easy to come by, and it uses a script similar to what you might accomplish with an "If This Then That" command to send notifications to Twitter.

Twitter
@Congressedits: link

These Bots Tweet When Government Officials Edit Wikipedia
Motherboard, 10 July 2014 link

Wikipedia's power lies in its openness, but how can you prevent the powers-that-be from gaming the system? A new series of Twitter bots aims to shed light on government officials tinkering with Wikipedia's articles by tracking and posting any edits made from government IP addresses. It started with the Parliament WikiEdits account, which was set up a couple of days ago in the UK. Made by Tom Scott, the Twitter feed runs off a bot that automatically updates whenever an edit is made from the Parliamentary IP addresses. This is presumably in response to the revelation that some obnoxious Wikipedia edits were traced back to the country's political headquarters, as reported by regional newspaper The Liverpool Echo in April. As other journalists dug into the story, it turned out that anti-Muslim statements, including “all Muslims are terrorists," and homophobic remarks also originated from a government intranet. The Parliament WikiEdits account hasn't actually tweeted any results yet, so it remains to be seen if the UK government trolls are going to crawl up from under their bridge once again, or if all that media exposure scared them off. (Staffers may also have wisened up enough to make their edits from home.)

International copycat accounts have taken up the mantle, and they've already shown some success. Congress-edits, the US-focused account, has broadcast that the Wikipedia entry for "Horse head mask" was changed yesterday. Another tweet notes edits to the Zhou Jiping article. International copycat accounts have taken up the mantle, and they've already shown some success. Congress-edits, the US-focused account, has broadcast that the Wikipedia entry for "Horse head mask" was changed yesterday. Another tweet notes edits to the Zhou Jiping article, and two changes in very quick succession on the Corpus Christi, Texas entry. Because these changes were made anonymously, and the only info to go in is the IP address, it cannot be determined which government employee decided to correct someone [...] Far from a trivial little toy to entertain Twitter users, these bots could be powerful tools to keep our politicians in check when it comes to changing publicly available information. For an open platform like Wikipedia, understanding who makes edits is just as important as ensuring that information is correct, and projects like these bots help shed light on any potential massaging being done by official sources.

Twitter
Parliament WikiEdits: link

Editing from Capitol Hill? Twitter is tracking those changes
MSNBC, 10 July 2014 link

Call it Wikipedia revisionist history. A new government watchdog is keeping Congress honest — about its Wikipedia edits. Congress-Edits, launched July 8, is a Twitter account that tweets whenever someone using an IP address associated with Congress makes anonymous edits on Wikipedia. How does it work? When an anonymous user edits a Wikipedia page, the site logs the user’s IP address, along with information on the user’s edits. Many congressional offices share an IP address, so every time Wikipedia registers an anonymous edit from a congressional IP address, Congress-Edits is notified and tweets a link to the revision. In the three days since its launch, Congress-Edits has registered three edits from people using a computer with a congressional IP address. The latest, an edit to USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah’s page, reflects a simple grammatical change. The previous edit immortalizes President Barack Obama’s interaction with a man wearing a horse mask in Denver. The first edit describes how Brian Darling of the Heritage Foundation spent his youth “breeding rare long haired cats.” [...]

[Poetlister]

If they're busy doing that, it means they're not doing disgraceful things like removing hostile POV from articles.

[thekohser]

Nobody cares about edits like these.

[Mancunium]

@Congressedits tweets anonymous Wikipedia edits from Capitol Hill
Ed Summers’ robo-tweet software aims to increase transparency.
Ars Technica, 11 July 2014 link

Tracking the Bizarre Edits Congress Makes to Wikipedia
Gizmodo, 11 July 2014 link

Hill Staffers Are Anonymously Editing Wikipedia Pages On The Horse Head Mask, 'Step Up 3D'
Huffington Post, 11 July 2014 link

The United States Congress edits Wikipedia constantly
Engadget, 11 July 2014 link

Imagine if our elected representatives and their staffers logged in to Wikipedia, identified much like Dominic (a federal employee at the National Archives) and used their knowledge of the issues and local history to help make Wikipedia better? Perhaps in the process they enter into conversation in an article's talk page, with a constituent, or political opponent and learn something from them, or perhaps compromise?

Dominic McDevitt-Parks, paid Wikipedia editor
and official government propagandist

[NotNormal]

Despite trying to be politically "neutral" in the forum...........

.........not sure who looks more scared, Obama or the horse.

[Mancunium]

Anonymous edits to Norwegian Wikipedia from Norwegian government IPs
Boing Boing, 12 July 2014 link

Here's Jari Bakken's collection of edits made to Norwegian Wikipedia from the IP range assigned to the Norwegian parliament and government offices. Imagine how great it would be if all these Norwegian bureaucrats, wonks, officials and others declared their interest and made their efforts public, working with Norwegian wikipedians to improve the quality of the encyclopedia in the open.

Anonymous Wikipedia edits from the Norwegian parliament and government offices
Hacker News, undated

This is a list of all anonymous edits of the Norwegian Wikipedia made from IP addresses from the Norwegian parliament and government offices from October 2004 to July 2014. A total of 1437 edits were found. The IP subnets used are 85.88.64.0/19 for parliament and 132.150.0.0/16 for the government offices. Data from dumps.wikimedia.org. Raw data for the table can be downloaded as CSV for further analysis. For updates after July 2014, follow @wikistorting, which will be updated from Wikipedia in all languages matching the IP ranges.

[Poetlister]

This shows how silly it is to call IP edits "anonymous". If they'd created accounts for editing, hardly anybody would know where they were.

[thekohser]

I'd put money on any analysis of these Norwegian government IP edits being no more "inappropriate" to Wikipedia's general mission of advancing knowledge than any other random set of IP edits. In fact, I would expect them to be measurably of higher quality than a randomly-selected set of IP address edits.

[EricBarbour]

I'd put money on any analysis of these Norwegian government IP edits being no more "inappropriate" to Wikipedia's general mission of advancing knowledge than any other random set of IP edits. In fact, I would expect them to be measurably of higher quality than a randomly-selected set of IP address edits.

Perhaps, but still, Tiny King Jimbo would not like it -- unless the people involved were directly venerating and/or paying him. Then it would be okay

[Mancunium]

I neglected to provide a link to the Hacker News information: link

Here’s How to Know What Edits Governments Are Making on Wikipedia
Slate, 14 July 2014 link

[...] Parliament WikiEdits (@parliamentedits) is a tweetbot that started last week to anonymously tweet out any Wikipedia edits made from U.K. Parliament IP addresses. And the developer, Tom Scott—who is also a co-creator of the emoji-only social network Emojli—made the bot's code open-source so others could set up similar accounts. And people have! There are now accounts to tweet Wikipedia edits made from U.S. Congress, Canadian government, Australian Parliament, and Swedish government IP addresses. Though it might seem minor at first, you can see how looking at what governments are editing on Wikipedia could shed some light on trending topics, how a government is trying to do image control about an incident, or which facts government officials—or at least their bored staffers—are concerned about correcting. [...] It seems like interesting tidbits or patterns could definitely emerge if people track the tweets over time, though.

[Mancunium]

OMG! The Newspaper of Record!

With Twitter's Help, Watch Congress Edit Wikipedia
The New York Times, 14 July 2014 link

In the Wikipedia entry for Tim Huelskamp, a Kansas Republican who has angered the House Republican leadership, somebody with a Congressional computer recently added a profile-boosting section labeled “National Conservative Leader.” Less substantively, someone using a computer inside the House or the Senate recently took the time to add Bon Jovi and Beethoven to the list of musicians featured in the TV series “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” These changes have become public thanks to a Twitter account called @congressedits that began last week and that tracks changes to Wikipedia that come from Congressional computers. The account, and others it has inspired in places like Chile, Australia and South Africa, provide a vivid example of the atomization of politics, in which even small events (or nonevents) are recorded and used in campaigns.

Aides to political opponents now follow around candidates with video cameras (a practice that made the slur “macaca” famous). During the 2012 campaign, the super PAC American Bridge 21st Century, funded by Democratic donors such as George Soros, supplied opposition researchers for a broad effort that included capturing Todd Akin’s comments about “legitimate rape” during his ill-fated Senate campaign. President Obama’s campaign automatically monitored Mitt Romney’s campaign website so as to see at once when something new showed up, sometimes discovering information before it was disseminated to the public.

The America Rising PAC is the Republican Party’s counterpart to American Bridge. Its plans include “cataloging every Democrat utterance,” a task that involves tracking statements and appearances in a database. Candidates now know that every public appearance they make (and some private ones) will be recorded and parsed for anything that might be politically useful to opponents. [...] The creator of @congressedits, a software developer named Ed Summers, wrote that creating the account reinforced his belief that people wanted more information about their democracies. Rather than focus on the current edits, he proposed extending the idea: “Imagine if our elected representatives and their staffers logged in to Wikipedia, identified much like Dominic McDevitt-Parks (a federal employee at the National Archives) and used their knowledge of the issues and local history to help make Wikipedia better?” [...]

Why has the legislative branch of government not been replaced by Dominic McDevitt-Parks?

[Mancunium]

Okay, Who Edited the 'Choco Taco' Wikipedia Page From Congress?
Via Twitter, a new way to add accountability to public—and political—information
The Atlantic, 15 July 2014 link

Here is an update sent yesterday from the Twitter account @congressedits:

congress-edits @congressedits:

Choco Taco Wikipedia article edited anonymously by US House of Representatives http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?dif ... =607245083 …
1:02 PM - 14 Jul 2014

Yes. This was to inform everyone that the Wikipedia page for the Choco Taco—a disappointingly brief entry, given the myriad cultural contributions made by Klondike's frozen dairy treat—had been updated. And updated from an anonymous IP address originating from, yes, the U.S. House of Representatives. The change made? A reference to the availability of Choco Tacos in the vending machines of the Rayburn House Office Building.



The Choco Taco edit was silly, but it was also a win for @congressedits, a bot that promises to tweet "anonymous Wikipedia edits that are made from IP addresses in the U.S. Congress." The program's creator, Ed Summers, was inspired by @parliamentedits, a bot that tweets Wikipedia edits made from IPs in the British Parliament; he decided to design something similar for the United States. Something that would listen, Summers writes, "to all major language Wikipedias for anonymous edits from Congressional IP address ranges." Call it ambient accountability. Wikipedia, after all, can serve as a kind of proxy battleground for political fights. (Remember when George W. Bush's Wiki page was updated to include the lines "Quite Simply, The Worse President In History! A Terrorist HimSelf, and a truly 'stupid' Mother F*cker who we all wish would leave this country for ever befor he starts another war and kills us all"?)

And while, given the structure of Wikipedia, pretty much anyone with an Internet connection can be a potential vandal ... political operatives have particular reason to add their own thoughts to Wiki's rough draft of history. They have vested interests in making their own candidates and team members look good. They have vested interests in making their opponents look bad. This is not new. There is, in fact, an entire page of the crowdsourced encyclopedia dedicated to "U.S. Congressional staff edits to Wikipedia." But it makes a bot like @congressedits, in its iterative way, useful. [... goes on to glorify Dominic McDevitt-Parks as the epitome of the very best type of Wikipedia paid editor ...]

1) These @congressedits and @parliamentedits Twitter feeds have now been so widely and loudly publicized that all future congressional and parliamentary edits to Wikipedia will consist of anodyne information about the location of snack-vending machines and such. The political spin will continue, but be carried out elsewhere.

2) Every single Wikipedia editor has a vested interest, a bias, a POV, and a COI.

[thekohser]

Okay, Who Edited the 'Choco Taco' Wikipedia Page From Congress?

Who dare say that Philadelphia is not a culinary birthplace of delightful foods?

[Johnny Au]

See here for a Canadian example: viewtopic.php?f=16&t=5021

[Mancunium]

Vladimir Putin finds @Congressedits useful.

Help from the Hill: Wikipedia-lovers from US House of Reps edited Russia articles
RT, 17 July 2014 link

Several Wikipedia entries on Russia were edited by someone using the IP address of the US House of Representatives. Crimea was called “'de jure' part of Ukraine, illegally annexed by Russia” and RT host Abby Martin became “a Russian propagandist.” The new ‘propagandist changes’ have been recorded by a Twitter bot that watches for anonymous Wikipedia edits from various IP addresses from the US Congress, reported Mashable, a British-American news website, technology and social media blog. According to this Twitter bot, someone used the IP of the US House of Representatives and re-edited at least 13 articles on Monday July 14. [...] One of the targets of Congressional editor was the article about Crimea. Earlier the article looked like this: “Sovereignty and control of the peninsula became the subject of the ongoing 2014 Crimean crisis, a territorial dispute between Russia and Ukraine.” However, on Monday the region which became the object of Russian Federation March 20 2014 after the referendum, suddenly turned out to be a part of Ukraine: “Although the region is a ''de jure'' part of Ukraine, control of the peninsula became the subject of the ongoing [[2014 Crimean crisis]], when the peninsula was illegally annexed by Russia.”



Another example of new editors’ remarks is the article about RT host Abby Martin. On Monday Martin suddenly changed her occupation – she became “a Russian propagandist.” A minute later she again became “an [[News media in the United States American journalist]].” Abby Martin commented on congressional Wikipedia rewrites in her RT show Breaking the Set on Wednesday. “The editing process of writing an online encyclopedia is very selective. A lead group of super-admins rule the narrative by majority consensus and mob opinion was accepted as fact,” she said. “Clearly this poses a big problem. By shutting down the freedom of information and by giving a zero room for discussion or disagreement with the content posted,” Martin added.



[... describes other harmless victims of the House of Representatives: the BLPs of Alex Jones, Lyndon LaRouche, and David Icke changed to describe them as disinformation agents funded by Russia ...]

The address was also responsible for changing the articles dealing with abortion. On March 16, 2009 it altered the Wikipedia article on Crisis Pregnancy Center, saying that the centers, "abortion mills, which exist only to kill people, also present themselves as medical facilities."

I am waiting for @Kremlinedits to sign up with Twitter.

[HRIP7]

And another Twitter bot ... https://twitter.com/oiledits

[Johnny Au]

The Canadian government runs a Twitbot that watches over WP, which became evident very recently.

[thekohser]

If someone wants to set up a "Comcastedits" Twitter bot, then I'll be happy to fill it with amusing edits.

[Mancunium]

Which Wikipedia pages have been edited the most from inside the Houses of Parliament?
We've looked at all the page edits attributed to the Houses of Parliament's IP addresses since 2003
The Guardian, 18 July 2014 link

Somewhere in the Houses of Parliament there's an expert on the taxonomy of tangerines. There's also a devotee of the 2011-12 Barnet F.C. season, someone making sure it's spelled "dalek" not "darlek", and many, many grammar fiends. A search into the Wikipedia revision history of two of the IP addresses operated by the House of Commons reveals the many intriguing (and some mundane) interests of the workers within its walls. Since 2003, 5,919 revisions have been made to Wikipedia articles by anonymous contributors with IP addressees from the UK government. This does not include users who have an account on the site as it's only if you choose not to log in when making edits to a Wikipedia entry that the website attributes the changes to your IP address. Here are the Wikipedia articles that have had the most revisions from within the houses of Parliament:



A significant number of Wikipedia alterations were made to MP's own pages. Unsurprisingly, their edit history reveals a desire to ditch the dirt and promote the positive. Someone wanted to be very clear that Sarah Teather did not claim her second home allowance. Often removed, this information was added from the parliamentary IP addresses 15 times. Persistent attempts were also made to remove mention of former-MP Joan Ryan's expense claims, and there were numerous deletions on Philip Davies's page regarding anti-Muslim comments he made to the Sun newspaper in 2006. Someone worked tirelessly to rid financial links from Chris Kelly's page, as well as a section detailing the MP's use of backchannels to seek a job for his sister. Parliament Wikipedians show a particular interest in Mike Weatherley. His page, the 8th most-edited topic from the targeted IP addresses, witnessed the (dogged) removal of references to a controversial gay marriage stance and a second wife's other life as a prostitute.

[... lovely Loughton and other curious contributions ...]

Recently, the Twitter account @parliamentedits launched, which sends out a tweet every time an edit is made to Wikipedia from UK parliamentary IP addresses. The account's latest tweet claims that Parliament has just recently changed its IP addresses.

[Mancunium]

Twitter account highlights history of Ottawa staffers making Wiki edits
CTV News, 16 July 2014 link

A new automated Twitter account is shedding light on government staffers' apparent use of Wikipedia, revealing that users on the federal network have seemingly edited Wikipedia articles to remove scandalous information and update MPs' individual pages, among other things. The edits are highlighted by @GCCAEdits, an automated Twitter account that tweets every time someone at the Canadian government anonymously edits Wikipedia. The Twitter account tracks government Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, which work like digital postal codes, identifying where someone is accessing the Internet from.

[... numerous examples ...]

Others show users at government IP addresses adding insults to people's Wikipedia pages. That was the case on Tuesday, when @GCCAEdits tweeted insulting changes to a conservative blogger's Wikipedia entry.

Small Dead Animals: Difference between revisions
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Revision as of 17:50, 15 July 2014 (edit) (undo)
192.197.82.203 (talk): link

'''Small Dead Animals''' (or '''SDA''') is an award-winning [[Canada|Canadian]] [[blog]], focusing largely on politics (Canadian, U.S., British and international) from a [[conservatism|conservative]] perspective. [[Saskatchewan]]-based blogger Kate McMillan founded the blog and remains its primary contributor.<ref name=NormanGeras> In June, 2014, the world record body crab was found in a pair of her discarded underwear by a homeless crack head.

[Poetlister]

Loughton, for the benefit of anyone who doesn't know, is a small town just outside London that for some reason is on the London Underground. The local MP, Eleanor Laing, is scarcely well known. Could she be responsible for any of those edits?

[Mancunium]

Loughton, for the benefit of anyone who doesn't know, is a small town just outside London that for some reason is on the London Underground. The local MP, Eleanor Laing, is scarcely well known. Could she be responsible for any of those edits?

And Loughton is thrilled to be at the top of the list.

Loughton's Wikipedia page has had more edits from inside Parliament than any other
East London and West Essex Guardian, 18 July 2014 link

Loughton has been revealed to be the most edited Wikipedia page in the Houses of Parliament. All the page edits attributed to the Houses of Parliament's IP addresses since 2003 were collated by the national Guardian, and surprisingly the Essex town came out on top. The top 20 edited pages were released today and Loughton came top with 75 revisions. The Wikipedia page of the Epping Forest town has a particularly large wealth of information for its size and a Westminster-based expert seems to be behind it. [...]

Loughton (T-H-L)

[Mancunium]

[TungstenCarbide]

could only watch two minutes before the motion sickness set in. What the hell was it with the swaying camera? Anyway, the congressional editor wasn't far off-- RT is a mouthpiece for Kremlin propaganda.

[Mancunium]

Twitterbot zeigt Änderungen in Wikipedia von Regierungsrechnern
Lampertheimer Zeitung, 18 July 2014 link

Google-translation from German link

Twitterbot shows changes in Wikipedia of government computers

[...] The @bundesedit that the Frankfurt-based software developer Thomas Schulze has initiated, the model is @congressedits modeled, the anonymous documented changes of Wikipedia articles about computers of the U.S. Congress in the United States. The monitoring at the IP address ranges refer the makers of @bundesedit according to own data from publicly available sources. The IP address of an anonymous author Wikipedia saves automatically. Whether the IP address of an author's consistent with known addresses of networks of the covenant, a message is sent via @bundesedit. [...] Besides@ bundesedit there is the Twitter account @ regierungsedits , in addition to the federal authorities, among others, the list of anonymous posts from networks of state governments and parties.

bundesedit @bundesedit
Veröffentlichung von anonymen Änderungen von Wikipedia Artikeln aus Bundestag, Bundesministerien, Bundesämtern und anderen Bundeseinrichtungen link

Regierungsedits @Regierungsedits
Anonyme Wikipedia-Änderungen von allen bekannten IP-Adressen der Bundesregierung, Landesregierungen, Ministerien, Parteien, Landtagen, Ämtern und Agenture link

[Mancunium]

Twitter Accounts Monitor Government Editing Wikipedia
The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit...anyone
True North Times, 21 July 2014 link

[...] There are now Twitter accounts in tons of countries that automatically tweet when someone from a government IP address make a change to any Wikipedia page. Since Wikipedia is where we all go to learn about the the people involved in the scandal of the day (and creepily learn about their family life), changes to those pages could actually make a big difference to public perception. These new accounts keep us updated on all government editing activities. [...] While pundits (read: Twitter users) everywhere are hailing this as a brilliant innovation that will help us know when politicians, or more likely their staffers, are trying to manipulate the infallible source of knowledge that is Wikipedia, there are some pretty obvious flaws. This system of accountability is subject to a paradox: it stops working when everybody knows about it, but only works if people know to check it. If we know to spy on Parliament Hill through Gov. of Canada Edits, odds are the staff of every MP and Senator also know that this bot exists. That means they’re going to be a little more hesitant to go change the Wikipedia page on their favourite summer cocktail, but also that when they want to change something about the latest scandal involving their boss, they’ll just do it from a personal computer at home. [...] Don’t get me wrong, these Twitter accounts are a fantastic innovation. They actually force political staffers to think twice before messing around with public data. More than that, they open the door to new ideas in using social media to increase government transparency. Maybe we can get livestreams of the office of every MP so we can see their drug dealers and mistresses drop by. Maybe we can use Reddit upvoting algorithms to do better polling, since election polling is clearly pretty horrid these days. [...]

[joshuaism]

I'd be happier if wikiscanner (T-H-L) were resurrected. Let the news orgs subscribe to 100 different twitterbots and monitor their feeds for juicy nuggets on house interns undying interest in choco tacos. I'd rather be able to examine an easily attributable history for a given page.

[Mancunium]

Glover staffers remove ugly details from Wikipedia
Winnipeg Free Press, 22 July 2014 link

Staff of Canadian Heritage Minister Shelly Glover anonymously edited her Wikipedia page to remove controversial details about her run-ins with Elections Canada. The information disappeared last week and involved a 2013 request by Elections Canada that the Saint Boniface Conservative MP be suspended because she filed inaccurate campaign spending reports. [...] The attempted edit was done by an IP address -- a unique address that identifies a computer connected to the Internet -- registered to the House of Commons. The Wikipedia website shows the same IP address has edited numerous other Wikipedia pages, including those of sitting MPs. In some cases, sections that detail a members' previous controversies are completely deleted. In other cases, sections are added advertising an MP's accomplishments, in words that could be found in a promotional leaflet. [...] The IP address in this case can be used by more than one person, the Wikipedia page for the address stated, as it refreshes with every reboot. The actual person doing the editing could be anyone on the Canadian parliamentary Internet system, the page stated. They could be in Ottawa, or in a federal MP's constituency office.

Changes to Wikipedia matter, because it is the only place many people go to for information, said University of Ottawa law Prof. Penny Collenette. [...] With campaigning for the 2015 federal election slowly ramping up, Collenette said Wikipedia pages will become even more important, and changes to them equally powerful. "MPs turn into candidates during an election, and (they could) decide they don't like what's there, so they'll edit it, or someone will do it for them," she said. [...] Winnipeg Centre NDP MP Pat Martin disapproved of Glover's office making the changes. "Attempting to sanitize your own Wikipedia page by removing facts that are potentially embarrassing is not only cheesy, it's revisionist and dishonest... it certainly shouldn't be done on the taxpayer's dime." Martin said by email. The address that edited Glover's page has also edited the page for Conservative MP Colin Carrie in 2009, removing a section about a defamation charge against Carrie of which he was eventually acquitted. In March 2014, it edited the page of Conservative MP David Kesteren (Chatham-Kent-Essex), adding in statements such as, "He is very proud of the riding and works hard every day to keep Canada a strong and prosperous nation, not only for our generation but for those generations to come."

[HRIP7]

Glover staffers remove ugly details from Wikipedia
Winnipeg Free Press, 22 July 2014 link

Staff of Canadian Heritage Minister Shelly Glover anonymously edited her Wikipedia page to remove controversial details about her run-ins with Elections Canada. The information disappeared last week and involved a 2013 request by Elections Canada that the Saint Boniface Conservative MP be suspended because she filed inaccurate campaign spending reports. [...] The attempted edit was done by an IP address -- a unique address that identifies a computer connected to the Internet -- registered to the House of Commons. The Wikipedia website shows the same IP address has edited numerous other Wikipedia pages, including those of sitting MPs. In some cases, sections that detail a members' previous controversies are completely deleted. In other cases, sections are added advertising an MP's accomplishments, in words that could be found in a promotional leaflet. [...] The IP address in this case can be used by more than one person, the Wikipedia page for the address stated, as it refreshes with every reboot. The actual person doing the editing could be anyone on the Canadian parliamentary Internet system, the page stated. They could be in Ottawa, or in a federal MP's constituency office.

Changes to Wikipedia matter, because it is the only place many people go to for information, said University of Ottawa law Prof. Penny Collenette. [...] With campaigning for the 2015 federal election slowly ramping up, Collenette said Wikipedia pages will become even more important, and changes to them equally powerful. "MPs turn into candidates during an election, and (they could) decide they don't like what's there, so they'll edit it, or someone will do it for them," she said. [...] Winnipeg Centre NDP MP Pat Martin disapproved of Glover's office making the changes. "Attempting to sanitize your own Wikipedia page by removing facts that are potentially embarrassing is not only cheesy, it's revisionist and dishonest... it certainly shouldn't be done on the taxpayer's dime." Martin said by email. The address that edited Glover's page has also edited the page for Conservative MP Colin Carrie in 2009, removing a section about a defamation charge against Carrie of which he was eventually acquitted. In March 2014, it edited the page of Conservative MP David Kesteren (Chatham-Kent-Essex), adding in statements such as, "He is very proud of the riding and works hard every day to keep Canada a strong and prosperous nation, not only for our generation but for those generations to come."

Again, press going for the easy shot. The biography was outdated: containing an accusation without reporting the eventual outcome. Glover was never penalised.

WP:ADAM (T-H-L) at work. Fuck Wikipedia.

[Mancunium]

Mystery Congressional Staffer Edits Wikipedia to Push Conspiracy Theories?
Mediaite, 23 July 2014 link

There is a House staffer (or someone on their IP) out there editing Wikipedia entries to accuse Cuban spies of, among other things, spreading the Moon Landing Conspiracy Hoax and coordinating the assassination of JFK. (Blaming Cuban intelligence for things is a hot new trend, lately.) Pando Daily looked into the edits, and discovered that the mystery editor not only tried to claim Cubans were behind the attempt to discredit the Apollo 11 moon landing, but that they also edited posts about the following:

Bohemian Grove
COINTELPRO
The Freemason temple in Washington DC
“Lizard People” theorist David Icke
Lyndon LaRouche and his staffers
Alex Jones (who may be, according to this staffer, a Russian agent)
RT reporter Abby Martin (who is apparently “not a real journalist”)
The New World Information Communication Order [...]

The IP of this conspiracy nut is 143.231.249.138. [...]

Someone in Congress edited the ‘Lizard People’ Wikipedia article
Death and Taxes, 23 July 2014 link

On Tuesday, someone in Congress anonymously edited the Wikipedia article for “Reptilians,” potentially confirming that our government is run by Lizard People from outer space who will soon make us their slaves. [...] The change was spotted by the Twitter bot @congress-edits, which automatically tracks all anonymous Wikipedia edits coming from Congress. [...] The “Reptilians” conspiracy theory, according to writer David Icke, contends that there are 5-12′ reptilian humanoids (aka Lizard People) from the Alpha Draconis star system living in underground bases beneath the earth, conspiring to destroy humanity. [...]

[thekohser]

Sounds like some youthful Congressional staffer is already seeing how to have some fun with the renewed attention. In fact, such pranking will have the net effect of people not caring as much about future edits that will actually be worthy of watchdog concern.

[joshuaism]

Well that escalated rather quickly.

Who’s banned from editing Wikipedia this week? Congress
Ars Technica, 24 July 2014 link

Not long after the website Mediaite wrote a story about @congressedits, Mediaite's Wikipedia entry was changed by someone in the House, calling the site a "sexist transphobic news and opinion blog" that "automatically assumes that someone is male without any evidence." That change was cited by the Wikipedia admin who imposed the ban, reported earlier today by The Hill.

So are we to assume that the ip editor is female and/or trans?

[HRIP7]

Referenced in the Ars Technica piece:

Julian Hattem, The Hill, July 24 2014: House staffers blocked from editing Wikipedia

Some House staffers and lawmakers have been barred from editing pages on Wikipedia for the next 10 days, after a series of “disruptive” edits that may have been inspired by a popular Twitter account.

The user-generated Web encyclopedia on Thursday suspended an Internet Protocol (IP) address connected to the House. The block could affect thousands of House staffers who do not have accounts with Wikipedia and are identifiable only through the IP address. [...]

[HRIP7]

Eric Geller, The Daily Dot, July 25, 2014: Someone in Congress is obsessed with conspiracy theories

There’s a conspiracy theorist working for the House of Representatives.

Thanks to the Twitter account @CongressEdits—a clever bot that tracks edits to Wikipedia pages made from IP addresses associated with Congress—we can present to you the wild editing adventures of IP address 143.231.249.138, assigned to the House of Representatives’ computer network, which include a handful of recent edits to pages that include “Reptilians,” “Moon landing conspiracy theories,” “Assassination of John F. Kennedy,” and “COINTELPRO.”

[...]

Skepticism is especially warranted considering Wikipedia banned the IP address for 10 days after a 143.231.249.138 user dubbed Mediaite, which covered the IP address's edits, a "sexist transphobic" publication on its page without so much as a Yahoo Answers page citing the claim.

[...]

[HRIP7]

Joe Miller, BBC, 25 July 2014: Wikipedia blocks 'disruptive' page edits from US Congress

Wikipedia administrators have imposed a ban on page edits from computers at the US House of Representatives, following "persistent disruptive editing".

The 10-day block comes after anonymous changes were made to entries on politicians and businesses, as well as events like the Kennedy assassination.

The biography of former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld was edited to say that he was an "alien lizard".

One staffer said they were being banned for the "actions of two or three".

[...]

[thekohser]

I'm amused that when this happens to Congress and 9,000 staff, it's news in multiple publications.

I can make the same thing happen to Comcast headquarters and 3,000 staff, and nobody cares.

[Mancunium]

Wikipedia blocks anonymous edits (and trolling) from a congressional IP address
The Washington Post, 24 July 2014 link

A Wikipedia administrator has blocked anonymous edits from a congressional IP address for 10 days because of "disruptive" edits being made by someone located in the House of Representatives, a spokesman for the Wikimedia Foundation confirmed. These otherwise anonymous edits were brought to light recently by the Twitter account @Congressedits which was set up to automatically tweet changes to Wikipedia pages made from within the Capitol. But the news media coverage, including this story written by The Post, seems to have emboldened the congressional staffers editors. The changes have become almost troll-like. Pando Daily reported that @Congressedits revealed a "Moon landing conspiracy theories" edit coming from a Congressional IP address; the congressional staffer editor blamed the Cuban government for spreading Apollo 11 conspiracy theories. Making matters worse, when the change was covered by Mediaite, someone from a Congressional IP address promptly changed Mediaite's Wikipedia page to add that the site was a "sexist transphobic" publication that "that automatically assumes that someone is male without any evidence." That was the last straw for one of Wikipedia's 1,400-some administrators, who have been approved by the Wikipedia community to monitor the site for abuse, vandalism and trolling. The Wikipedia community was notified of the block Thursday morning, according to Katherine Maher, chief communications officer for the Wikimedia Foundation. [...]

[Poetlister]

So are we to assume that the ip editor is female and/or trans?

No, it might be an undoubted male who has strong views about women's rights.

I'm amused that when this happens to Congress and 9,000 staff, it's news in multiple publications.

I can make the same thing happen to Comcast headquarters and 3,000 staff, and nobody cares.

That's due to people's warped perceptions. They imagine that somehow Congress is a more important body than Comcast. Ridiculous of course.

[Mancunium]

Wikipedia Bans Congress From Editing Pages
The Onion, 29 July 2014 link

After a Twitter bot was created to track Wikipedia edits made from congressional IP addresses and anonymous staffers responded by making “disruptive” joke edits to pages on the moon landing and Choco Tacos, the site imposed a 10-day ban on edits originating within the House. What do you think? [...]

[Mancunium]

Twitter account resumes posting UK politicians’ Wikipedia edits
RT, 31 July 2014 link

A Twitter bot designed to alert the public to edits made to Wikipedia content by parliamentary network IP addresses has been re-launched following attempts to block it. Politicians and Whitehall staff are known to frequently make adjustments to articles posted on the crowd-sourced encyclopedia via parliamentary network computers. A total of 5,500 edits have been made from within the Houses of Parliament since 2003. While the majority of edits are innocuous grammar edits, the open-source project, Parliament WikiEdits, offers a glimpse of attempts by MPs and staff to polish their online image, tarnish the reputations of opponents or adjust the tone of sensitive entries. This coup for online transparency was almost lost, however, when parliament changed its IP addresses and then refused a Freedom of Information request to reveal the new ones. The request was refused on the basis that “releasing the information would be likely to prejudice the prevention or detection of crime,” despite the fact that similar information has previously been released in response to parliamentary questions. Fortunately for the developers, the project is able to continue without the government’s help. The general IP bloc assigned to parliament is public knowledge, and even in the absence of specific data, people within parliament were found to be editing content from many publicly-known IPs. The creation of @ParliamentEdits by the journalist and developer Tom Scott followed a series of embarrassing news stories about elected officials and government employees modifying Wikipedia content, including offensive alterations made to an article about the Hillsborough disaster. A civil servant was sacked earlier this year after adding offensive remarks to the article about the crush at the Sheffield ground on 15 April, 1989, in which 96 Liverpool football fans died. [...]

Parliament WikiEdits @parliamentedits

The FoI request for Parliament's IP addresses has been refused on "national security" grounds. https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ ... sed_to_acc … Deciding what to do.
7:01 AM - 29 Jul 2014

[Mancunium]

Wikipedian-in-Residence Dominic (T-C-L) McDevitt-Parks, Bachelor of Arts (Reed College, 2009), is now giving the Government of the United States of America its marching orders.

Why congressedits Matters for Your Agency
by Dominic McDevitt-Parks
DigitalGov, 30 July 2014 link

If you haven’t heard about @congressedits yet, it’s a Twitter bot that was recently created to tweet out every anonymous edit made to Wikipedia from Congressional IP addresses. [...] Some of these have been productive and some embarrassing, but, in the past, some edits from Congress have been described on Wikipedia as politically motivated and even libelous. And they can make news headlines, especially when Wikipedia has to block a Congressional IP for abuse. @congressedits has gone viral, with media coverage and more than 25,000 followers. And dozens of other Twitter bots have been set up to watch other targets of public interest—including major corporations, other national governments, and, yes, now U.S. federal agencies. The lesson here is that there is undoubtedly public interest in what is coming from the IPs from of the federal government, and there is the potential for public controversy if it happens to be anonymous PR-type work (even if it’s just a small number of well-intentioned edits that didn’t stick) or worse. Wikipedia is more like a public forum than a brand page. There are valid, mission-centric and ethical ways to edit it, but editing articles for PR or politics is likely to get you in hot water. It is against Wikipedia’s ToS to make edits for pay without disclosing your employer, even if they are made in good faith.

So, what can you do?

First, agencies can find out for themselves what is coming out of their IP range before it becomes an issue. You’ll need to find out the IP range(s) associated with your agency or office. There are external registries listing IPs associated with organizations, but you are likely to have better accuracy by going to your IT department (try to find someone who works on network management or operations). With an IP range in hand, you can use XTools (an open-source tool on Wikimedia Labs) to search the contributions of all the individual IPs. For added certainty, you can try to find out specific IPs or IP subranges for public terminals or public wifi, if any of your facilities have public Internet access, to filter them out. And note that this method only surfaces anonymous edits, since that is the only time IP addresses are made public on Wikipedia. There could still be someone editing under an account name in your agency doing things that could reflect poorly if the affiliation becomes known.

Second, you may want to think about developing best practices around Wikipedia to channel any internal interest in Wikipedia in the right direction. At the National Archives we created staff guidelines about Wikipedia engagement and have published them publicly on Wikipedia; the Department of Health and Human Services has drafted guidance as well. Best practices might include principles like:
Always use an account and identify yourself when editing Wikipedia on behalf of your agency.
Abide by Wikipedia’s policies and practices on neutrality, notability, and verifiability.
If there is a potential conflict of interest (for example, the article about your agency), engage in an open dialogue with the Wikipedia community using talk pages and noticeboards, rather than editing the article directly. We also have blogged about our approach to conflicts of interest, developed standard disclosure language for the user profiles of staff Wikipedia accounts, and include Wikipedia engagement in our open government efforts. These sorts of activities enforce transparency and promote mutual understanding between staff and the public. They would also serve as important evidence of your good faith when dealing with potential issues in the future.

At NARA, we’re dedicated to engaging with Wikipedia in order to increase public access to government records. Wikipedia is an incredibly popular general information source—and the articles related to NARA holdings see over a billion views per year—which means it helps us reach greater audiences. For those agencies whose missions may align with Wikipedia’s educational purpose, I encourage you to consider participating thoughtfully and ethically in order to better serve the public. Want to learn more about NARA’s citizen engagement efforts (including Wikipedia)? Stay tuned to DigitalGov for more posts from NARA’s Office of Innovation!

Dominic McDevitt-Parks is a Digital Content Specialist, Wikipedian in Residence at the National Archives and Records Administration.

Editor’s Note: This post originated from a inter-agency dialogue within the SocialGov Community of 700 digital engagement managers from more than 120 federal missions. If you would like to join to the SocialGov Community, send an email from your .gov or .mil address to justin.herman@gsa.gov with “Subscribe to SocialGov” in the subject.

Dominic McDevitt-Parks in a Washington DC beer hall, organizing a putsch.

[Mancunium]

How to find out when UK politicians are editing Wikipedia pages
An oversight tool that alerts the public to edits made by staff in parliament is back in service - despite an attempt to block it
The Guardian, 30 July 2014 link

An open-source project to track edits to Wikipedia made from within parliament was nearly scuppered by the government’s refusal to reveal the IP addresses that MPs and Lords use to access the internet. A Freedom of Information request, which would reveal whether MPs and peers were engaging in “astroturfing” on the crowdsourced encyclopaedia, was turned down on the basis that “releasing the information would be likely to prejudice the prevention or detection of crime.” [...] Key to the creation of Parliament Edits was knowledge of the IP addresses that the legislature uses to connect to the internet, but in 2014, those addresses were changed, leaving Parliament Edits unable to function. Scott attempted to find out the new IP addresses, but was turned down by the House of Commons, which claimed that it would be predjudicial to attempts to prevent crime – despite the fact that similar information has previously been released by government ministers in response to parliamentary questions.

While he has the right to appeal against the finding, Scott says “I suspect it wouldn’t be fruitful to appeal, and it’s not a fight I have time to enter into right now”. The project can continue, even without the government’s aid. “Bear in mind that the general IP block assigned to parliament is public knowledge anyway,” Scott explained. “All that’s been declined is the more specific detail of which particular addresses parliament uses. I was hoping that they’d have a consistent response, given that they’ve previously released that data. “Even in the absence of that more specific data, though, Jonty Wareing has done an excellent job showing that folks within parliament appear to edit from many of those publicly-known IPs.” With that new information, and new code from web developer Ed Summers, the Twitter account has been brought back to life. [...]

[EricBarbour]

I'm having another one of those journalists-are-lazy-and-conformist-idiots moments......

We put out a press release about an outrageous Wikipedia scandal, and hardly anyone notices.

The WMF puts out a press release that some Congressional IP addresses were banned for ten days because of abuse, and it's MAJOR WORLD NEWS.

[Poetlister]

I'm having another one of those journalists-are-lazy-and-conformist-idiots moments......

We put out a press release about an outrageous Wikipedia scandal, and hardly anyone notices.

The WMF puts out a press release that some Congressional IP addresses were banned for ten days because of abuse, and it's MAJOR WORLD NEWS.

I can't imagine why anyone would give more credence to WMF than this site, or express more interest in something involving Congress than a purely internal Wikipedia issue.

[thekohser]

The Daily Show, moment of zen picked up on this, too.

[thekohser]

Does this mean that the famous "reptilian" edit was paid advocacy editing?

[Mancunium]

Twitter bots like @congressedits expose agency Wikipedia behavior
FedScoop, 1 August 2014 link

Mainstream media has been swirling with stories about the recently created @congressedits Twitter bot, ranging from hilarious pokes at congressional staffers’ taste in ice cream to the scandalous and potentially unethical editing of congressional members’ Wikipedia pages. But some advocates of the automated tool claim that it and others like it should not be thought of as mechanisms for public disgrace, but rather an encouragement for public servants to ethically participate in the Wikipedia community in a way that can benefit their agency or organization. “Really it’s not about shaming federal government, but really it’s about changing people’s perspective on how contributing to Wikipedia is about contributing to the historical narrative,” said Dominic McDevitt-Parks, the Wikipedian in residence at the National Archives and Records Administration.” There’ve been a lot of recent scandals about PR firms editing Wikipedia deceptively and those sorts of things. One of the foundational principles of Wikipedia is that it is open. It’s had to deal with all of these issues of bias and conflict of interest, so one of the things that has come out of that is that there actually a lot of strong community social norms and policies within Wikipedia for disclosure within Wikipedia for disclosure of conflict of interests.”

[... McDevitt-Parks laying down the law to federal bureaucrats, and implying that he is the High Functionary personally responsible for @congressedits, @pentagonedits, @NSAedits and @CIAedits ...]

“At NARA, our mission is about driving access to the government records that we hold. Wikipedia is a top-five website; Archives.gov is not. So this actually serves mission to think about how we’re getting our records viewed on Wikipedia,” he said. But contrary to what many might see as the supposed mission of @congresedits and other similar bots, McDevitt-Parks said the hope is more public servants will use Wikipedia and use it the right way, abiding by a set of best practices and with open government in mind. “The message from this shouldn’t be that agencies are not allowed to use Wikipedia or they’re not welcome,” he said. “It’s really something that’s important for government to be involved in and doing it ethically.”

[Midsize Jake]

Talking about what is, or is not "ethical" is often not appreciated by Members of Congress when directed at them and coming from an Executive Branch employee. Which is to say that perhaps Mr. McDevitt-Parks should try a lower-key approach to this issue, lest funding for the National Archives be reduced by an amount precisely equal to his own annual salary.

[Mancunium]

Anonymous user makes derogatory edits to Rep. Mo Brooks' Wikipedia page after 'war on whites' comment
al.com, 5 August 2014 link

An anonymous user changed Rep. Mo Brooks Wikipedia profile late Monday night following his widely-reported comments about Democrats waging a "war on whites." The changes, picked up by @Congressedits, include alterations to Brooks' biography. Under the religion category, a user with the name MoneyWarbucks changed non-denominational Christian to "devout Satanist." Under children, the user changed the entry from four to "six kid, and they ain't hid." Another change listed Brooks' occupation as "garbage collector," and showed his name as "Morris Jackson "Mo Money, Mo Problems" Brooks, Jr. The changes were picked up by @Congressedits, a bot that tweets anonymous Wikipedia edits made from IP addresses in the U.S. Congress. There is no confirmation that the edits were made from the U.S. House. Wikipedia sent the following message to the user who changed Brooks' page: "Please refrain from making unconstructive edits to Wikipedia, as you did at Mo Brooks. Your edits appear to constitute vandalism and have been reverted or removed."

Mo_Brooks (T-H-L)

[Mancunium]

'History is a human right': UK govt. Wikipedia edits obscure high profile killings
RT, 7 August 2014 link

UK government officials have reportedly edited an array of Wikipedia articles relating to the high profile killings of Jean Charles de Menezes, Lee Rigby and Damilola Taylor. According to an in-depth investigation conducted by Channel 4 News, government computers were recently utilized to add inaccurate data to a Wikipedia page documenting Jean Charles de Menezes’ death. De Menzes was shot and killed by Metropolitan Police officers at Stockwell tube station in 2005. Official state computers were also reportedly harnessed to edit the pages of Damilola Taylor, a 10-year-old Nigerian schoolboy who was murdered in Britain in 2000, and Lee Rigby, the 25-year-old victim of the 2013 Woolwich terror killing. A spokesman for the de Menezes family expressed deep shock that anonymous editors had used official state computer networks to alter vital information in his Wikipedia article. [...]

Internet censorship: 'Right to be forgotten' ruling

Government officials’ alleged editing of Wikipedia articles documenting the tragic and untimely deaths of Damilola Taylor and Lee Rigby have also generated criticism. The revelations have surfaced at a time when the Wikimedia Foundation has confirmed its decision to challenge the European Court of Justice’s “Right to be Forgotten” ruling. [...] The Foundation announced on Wednesday its plans to publish data of individuals, who issue formal requests to Google to remove pages about them from its search engine. In its first transparency report, the Foundation condemned the ECJ’s controversial ruling. The policy shift, enacted by the European court, undermines internet transparency and accuracy, according to the Foundation’s executive director, Lila Treitkov. [...] "A recent European Court of Justice (ECJ) decision is undermining the world's ability to freely access accurate and verifiable records about individuals and events. The impact on Wikipedia is direct and critical," Tretikov recently wrote in [her] blog. Tretikov argues that the ECJ has reneged on its responsibility to safeguard one of the most vital and universal rights: “the right to seek, receive, and impart information.” [...]

De Menezes

With respect to Jean Charles de Menezes, an official government computer was reportedly used to delete a crucial section of a Wikipedia article that criticized the Independent Police Complaints Commission’s (IPCC) handling of the deceased man’s case. An entire section pertaining to the IPCC’s admittance it had “got it wrong” with respect to leaks relating to Mr de Menezes’ death simply vanished, according to Channel 4 News. The covert editor, who is yet to be identified, also erased a quote that stated the Metropolitan Police Federation accused the IPCC of “perverse action” with respect to its mediation in the de Menezes’ case. [...] These edits surfaced in the aftermath of a report released in July, which uncovered the Met’s Special Demonstration Squad had effectively spied on 18 separate UK justice campaigns, including that of the De Menezes family. Eight years ago, official government computers were also used to incorporate slanderous information into one section of his Wikipedia article. On this occasion the editor alleged the deceased had “a high level” of Class A drugs in his system. Wikipedia editors were also approached to alter the rationale followed for employing the decision to shoot the young man. And in the early phase of the 2008 inquest into his death, official government computers were orchestrated to delete accurate data relating to Menezes’ immigration status.

Damiola Taylor & Lee Rigby

Following the firing of a UK civil servant over potentially defamatory data added to internet pages associated with the Hillsborough tragedy, an array of automatically generated Twitter “bots” have been created to draw attention to edits enacted by parliamentary officials. [...] One anonymous individual allegedly harnessed a government network to edit sensitive information about Damilola Taylor, a young schoolboy of Nigerian extraction who tragically lost his life in 2000. The person in question reportedly substituted the phrase “was murdered” to simply state the young boy had “died.” In the case of 25-year-old British soldier, Lee Rigby - who was attacked and killed in 2013 – another anonymous edit claimed his death was simply “not notable enough” for an article pertaining to terrorism. A complete section of the article relating to Rigby’s death was also deleted by the editor in question. The edits were all elicited from internet addresses that have previously been noted as being on an official state network called the Government Secure Intranet (GSI). [...] While Wikipedia has faced demands to remove approximately 50 search results to various articles, it plans to publish the details of each and every request. The firm’s first ever transparency report backs this measure. The Wikimedia Foundation has also stated it plans to host and update a page documenting Wikipedia pages censored in European search results.