The Australian Prime Minister’s Office have been caught editing Wikipedia, the latest in a growing line of Wikiscanner entrapments.
Staff from the Office of Prime Minister and Cabinet (PMC) edited Wikipedia entries that were damaging to the Goverment, including pages covering the Children Overboard Affair and Mandatory Detention. Other edits included deleting the nickname of “Captain Smirk” from the Wikipedia biography of Australian Treasurer Peter Costello, and a range of bizarre edits, including the addition of the line “Poo bum dicky wee wee” to a Wikipedia article on Bubishi, a book related to Martial Arts.
Australia faces a Federal Election by November this year, and the edits have become major news locally. Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd accused the Prime Minister of directing public servants to change history to suit the Government and that the behavior was “odd.” Notably though, Rudd admitted that his own staff might have edited Wikipedia “for factual changes.” The truth I guess is in the eyes of the beholder.
The Australian press also discovered that staff from the Australian Department of Defence were the most active Wikipeda editors among Australian Government Departments, having made over 5000 Wikipedia edits. DOD edits included changes to pages ranging from the 9/11 Truth Movement, the Australian Defence Force Academy and the Vietnam War-era Pentagon Papers. A Defence spokesman said that the Department would move to ban access to Wikipeda for all staff.
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As horrible as this is, it doesn’t surprise me at all. People have been changing the accounts of history to be more favorable for their desired futures since the beginning of time. This is pretty funny though.
“Captain Smiley” is meant to be Captain Smirk, not so nice, but quite fitting when you see photos of him smiling.
Rudd’s comments aren’t quite as odd as they may seem. His own staff are paid for by his political party (Australian Labor), and it’s their job to engage in political activities.
Public servants, on the other hand, are paid for by the taxpayer and aren’t supposed to perform political duties - their responsibilities are administrative.
The line often blurs in practice, but it does exist.
jeff
apologies and fixed.
Guppy
incorrect. Rudd’s staff are paid for by the taxpayer, indeed for memory they are all paid via PMC. Standard backbencher gets 4 staffers, and it goes up from there. Rudd would probably have a dozen or so paid staffers (ie paid by the public) in his office. All are eseentially public servants, although in some respects you are correct, staffers are put there to assist the member in anything, including politics. Disclosure: I’ve twice in the past been a Federal staffer
Political Vandalism…. I guess Australian Prime Minister’s Office hired bunch of 5 year olds.
I don’t think entrapment means what you think it means, Duncan.
Awesome. We’d probably have scandals here too if the media actually covered it appropriately.
I like to give advice to Australian Prime Minister’s Office or political vandalism. You better be careful with your IP. 210.193.176.115
The government or Internal affairs or England will put under investigation such as corruption, illegal activities, treason, manipulation, lying Aussie authorities, etc…
Take care…
This is exactly why there won’t be any such discussions about Jason Calacanis and his new venture Mahalo, run on people and not by computer metrix.
People sign up on Mahalo to be the “editor mentors” and then he has “part time writers” that get paid if their pages are used…that are checked by approved peopel staffers.
Visit our weblog Biz Wax and find out how Mahalo differs. Watch two videos and read an article quoted by Fast Company.
http://bizwax.wordpress.com/
I think entrapment has more uses than you think it does, AW.
(Oops, sorry!) “spelling correction on “people staffers”
This is funny!!
Business as usual guys!!
I’m sure it does, Tom.
Unfortunately I’m not in the possession of a dictionary that doesn’t define the word as either as legal term or a geological term.
However, you seem to have more definitions — care to share? I love to expand my horizons!
@AW
From the Oxford
entrap |enˈtrap| verb ( -trapped , -trapping ) [ trans. ]
catch (someone or something) in or as in a trap : she was entrapped by family expectations.
Phillip … I think that’s the thing most people miss.
“Oh, the CIA changed an entry.” Everyone assumes it’s a bad change, but most times it’s been good.
Just because a change comes from a certain organization doesn’t mean it’s always nefarious. They are most of the time useful and help build wikipedia.
“who controls the past, controls the present”, George Orwell
I’m not sure this is such a big deal. Obviously we want to be aware of people making negative changes to Wikipedia content, but I think the majority are probably making positive changes.
There have been plenty of nefarious changes. Many of them have been caught and changed back. That’s a good first line of defense. Wikiscanner is a good second line of defense. If only either of those options were available in the mainstream media…
Isn’t it a little crazy to think of Wikipedia as THE source of truth on history? It’s community-driven, unchecked content. What’s there is there, but I wouldn’t be trying to defend your dissertation based on info you gathered at the site. For most of us, it is an easy way to check on random facts, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard “Well, at least what wikipedia says, is that….”
It’s all shades of gray. Some great content, some poor content, some content that is missing. Take Mike Arrington’s wikipedia entry. No mention of him being a lawyer. And is Achex THE back-end infrastructure for Western Union online? Or is part of the back-end infrastructure for Western Union online. At least I have my doubts.
Australia? No one gives a damn.
Wikipedia - is end of the day its a open jungle - any animals can play and invade.
~ MIR -
http://www.mailsiread.com
“Australia? No one gives a damn.”
Mike’s opinion: no one could give a flying f**k.
Believe it or not mate, the internet isn’t just made up of Americans. I happen to give a damn about what happens in my country.
mike’s a troll. He’s been posting ignorant flamebait on a few stories from what I’ve seen.
I’m with Jono…
Perhaps more disturbing was that the Australian Dept of Defence was guilty of ‘embellishing’ over 5000 entries, including sensitive info on the Vietnam War and the 9/11 Truth Report.
And I just read the last paragraph properly. Never mind.
I guess this all confirms what academics have believed for most of the past decade - don’t bother with Wikipedia. It’s still a great timewaster though.