August 17, 2007 6:08 AM PDT
CIA, FBI computers used for Wikipedia edits
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62 comments
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just askin
It's an interesting idea, but no excuse for doing actual research into a subject. You might find more accurate information on a bathroom wall than on a wiki site.
The point is, before accepting some Wikipedia article as gospel, consider the source(s).
However, it does work. Wiki is an incredibly popular site, that contains an incredible breadth of accurate information.
I can tell you as an expert in my field, database administration, that to an incredible level of detail they provide information accurately.
Does that mean the government cannot edit it, and temporarily displace a graphic or put out some propoganda? The article both shows that it can happen, and that it is also self correcting.
(So 20th Century.)
Period. That's how bureaocracies work, and it's why we claim to
uphold "equal protection under the law". When we have
governmental agencies acting in political strategies, such as
influencing the information flow of private parties, we have a
problem. I'd say the same thing if CIA/FBI computers were used to
change articles on conservapedia or anything else.
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.conservapedia.com/" target="_newWindow">http://www.conservapedia.com/</a>
Most conservatives get banned from Wikipedia's Ultra-Liberal administrators, so they formed Conservapedia. Wikipedia is slanted way too far to the left, more left than Joseph Stalin.
What a tool you are.
No conspiracy, just motive.
The fact that it was found that the government had REMOVED data from the wiki entries means they are engaged in active censorship of public news in direct contravention of the freedom of speech portions of the Constitution of the United States. As such, the persons responsible for said action have committed FELONY crimes. Depending on how accurate the WikiScanner program is, it may be possible to identify the computers and individuals in the CIA who actually performed the censorship; which means we can actually have targets for prosecution.
The government didn?t shut down wikipedia, they allegedly just edited the entries and perhaps changed the POV. This isn?t a case of censorship. If the government shut wikipedia down because it didn?t like a gitmo article that?s censorship. Authors are free to reedit any alleged government changes.
What felony statutes have been broken? I?m racking my gray matter and can?t come up with any. So you?re alleging civil rights violations and felony crimes have been committed, and you want prosecutions? Keep swigging the grape drink you alarmist you.
It would be prudent for Wiki to red flag articles that have been touched with IPs of certain organizations that might be introducing a bias so they can be watched carefully for abuse. This should include all government agencies, passonate organizations (incuding liberal and conservative), as well as those with a history of abuse.
Massacre at Jenna? How about that? Flushed Koran?
Want more?
BTW, Fox is well /left/ of where the center was back in 1950. Even JFK was to the right of where Fox is today.
Everyone is Pixilated but you, eh?
In other words, real experts are not wanted and edited out, and fake experts with fraudulent credentials are wanted to make edits and receive awards and get promoted to admin status as they made edits from the basement of their mother's house using an old 486 Packard Bell system running AOL 4.0 and Windows 95 on a 32K BPS dial-up modem and move around from one fast food job to the next, but on Wikipedia they are experts with at least three PHDs or so their online profile says.
I demand a retraction and I'm alerting the news organizations that you're spreading propaganda via forums which are supposed to be the paragons of inalienable fact!
what crimes are being committed from afar using the internet. This
is why the Internet 2.0 is the most difficult project to get onto.
They aren't ignorant to this problem. The Internet 2.0 will replace
the Internet 1.0, and thus all information that is harmful to "them"
will be censored once again. This why we must defeat them before
the Internet 2.0 gets its chance.
We had freedom of speech over the radio waves back before NPR, PBS, and "Fairness Doctrine". The thousands of low power, independent radio stations, some in highschools, some in communities, one in nearly every college in the US, all closed down and made illegal. No more uncontrolled speech. (We are regaining this with the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine and the birth of Talk Radio, but the colleges have not regained their radio stations, nor have many communities.)
Political activists have nearly destroyed the utility of usenet as a discussion forum. They are working to shut down blogs they disagree with, subjecting them to DDoS attacks and attempting to sue them into silence.
Hillary wanted to find a way to control speech she did not like over the internet. McCain and Feingold gave her some of what she wanted. They want more.
Tyranny always finds a way to attack. We have to be on guard against anyone who wishes to silence others, even those we disagree with.
Don't be silly in claiming otherwise, it just weakens your point.
Also censorship is defined by WordNet as "deleting parts of publications". The fact that it can be re-edited is good, the fact that they did it, means they intended not for it to be immediately re-edit, but to have some purpose.
In less you are proposing they just waste their time doing random things?
If you are proposing that, then you are hardly defending the government anyway.
You didn't do a good job of defending your viewpoint. The original comment still stands.
The constitution didn't envision the government to act as a censor to private publications. If that publication is not respected, even the less reason to spend time censoring it.
What happened is serious, it shows the government as not respecting civil society.
HOWEVER, the edit that removed aerial photos, whether it came from someone bored enough to make Wikipedia edits at work from the FBI computer network or occurred as some sort of "cleaning," seems foolish and suspiciously unwarranted. God knows such editing occurs, on some level, in our news, is something the CIA probably already does to our major newspapers a bit, but these edits are NOT on the scale of some sort of policy matter.
BOTTOM LINE, these edits violate Wikipedia rules. Should we readers, however, allow them to become public relations disasters for the organizations for which the people who made the edits work?
What I don't understand is Wiki's policy of denying editing access to people/organization that are "close to an issue" when it would seem likely they would be the most informed on the issue. Naturally, they might also be most likely to wish to distort or conceal elements of the issue, but to assume such seems unfair and unjust.
It would be enough, I think, to note that certain sources made certain changes or contributions. Of course, maintaining and allowing viewing access to such a source audit would be a major addition to Wiki. But, it would be a better solution to the "problem" than simply restricting editing access to those furthest from an issue.
Where did he said CIA & FBI?
"What I don't understand is Wiki's policy of denying editing access to people/organization that are "close to an issue" when it would seem likely they would be the most informed on the issue. Naturally, they might also be most likely to wish to distort or conceal elements of the issue, but to assume such seems unfair and unjust. It would be enough, I think, to note that certain sources made certain changes or contributions."
In the Tom Delay's case, he argued that the judge who contributed to the so-called liberal organizations would be biased against him. Do you think that is unfair and unjust against the judge?
Not that I have much saying against CIA, FBI edits. I would need to know what changes they made before deciding whether it is appropriate or not.
Unlike a real Encyclopedia that hires experts to write articles on subjects that they have knowledge and education on.
Let us say for example that I am a computer expert with a bachelors degree. I write an article on Visual BASIC, which I use and program in it. I cite on my profile that I hold a degree and that I am an expert on the language having developed in it for over a decade. Some non-expert comes in, and reverts my edits, and links to some anonymous blog that says "Visual BASIC is horrible" and has untruths in it and opinions disguised as facts that say the exact opposite of what I wrote and properly cited to back up the facts I used in a neutral point of view. The point of view of the non-expert is heavily biased against Visual BASIC and Microsoft and Windows, and goes into rants. Then the non-expert wins an award and gets promoted to admin, and sees that I wrote a NPOV version of the article before him, and he decides to ban my user account so I cannot change his edits.
That is the way that experts are excluded from Wikipedia.
Really, before we even debate the idea that this is happening, can we ask if this stuff was actually fake propaganda or just differeing opinions?
Wikipedia - to me - has always been a suspect source of information. It's a great quick check on popular ideas, but hardly the most trustworthy of sources... I mean ANYONE can edit the thing! Anyone using it as a factual source of controversial information is just begging to be made a fool of.