Wikiscanner snares Oz PM’s office
p2pnet news | Freedom:- As p2pnet has noted a few dozen times, the world hasn’t been the same since the Net gave the population at large the ability to not only talk to each other one-on-one and group-to-group, whenever and wherever, but also do end-runs around the lamescream media and make available technology capable of influencing events in a way the corporate world could only dream about.
The sudden online appearance of Virgil Griffith’s Wikiscanner, for example, caught all kinds of supposedly upright organisations with their pants around their ankles.
One such is the Australian prime minister’s department which thanks to the Wikiscanner, now stands accused of editing potentially damaging entries in the Wikipedia.
“Workers made 126 edits on subjects such as immigration policy and Treasurer Peter Costello,” says the BBC, going on:
“Staff from the CIA and the BBC among others have also made changes, it has shown.
“A spokesman for PM John Howard said he had not asked staff to edit Wikipedia.”
What kind of changes didn’t Howard ask for?
“According to The Sydney Morning Herald, a worker in Mr Howard’s department added the word “allegedly” to the assertion that immigration detainees were subject to inhumane conditions,” say the BBC, and not only but also, changes were made to the online profile of Peter Costello, Howard’s deputy and treasurer.
“A derogatory nickname – Captain Smirk – was removed,” says the Beeb, adding:
A link was also added to a section on the children overboard affair of 2001.
The government had claimed that a group of asylum seekers had thrown their children into the sea to ensure they were rescued by the Australian navy – something later disproved by a Senate inquiry.
An employee added a link highlighting a Senate report which criticised a former government adviser who had claimed that Mr Howard misled the Australian public over the affair.
Feel like doing little checking of your own?
Click here to be instantly transported to Griffith’s Wikiscanner.
List anonymous wikipedia edits from interesting organizations, as he heads it up 
Also See:
pants around their ankles – Who are the Wikipedia censors?, August 20, 2007
BBC – Howard row over Wikipedia edits, August 24, 2007
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August 24th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
wikipedia is free for anyone to edit so what if there a bbc or political employee? don’t they have the same rights as anyone else.
if they posted deliberate lies then its another issue as that would violate the wikipedia TOS
one could say based on the article that this websites owner should not make changes to his wikipedia page (if he has one on him ) which has false information placed there by the RIAA.