Vandalism on Wikipedia

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Vandalism of a Wikipedia article (Sponge). Section of page content has been replaced with an insult. Vandalized Wikipedia article.png
Vandalism of a Wikipedia article (Sponge). Section of page content has been replaced with an insult.

On Wikipedia, vandalism is editing the project in an intentionally disruptive or malicious manner. Vandalism includes any addition, removal, or modification that is intentionally humorous, nonsensical, a hoax, offensive, libelous or degrading in any way.

Contents

Throughout its history, Wikipedia has struggled to maintain a balance between allowing the freedom of open editing and protecting the accuracy of its information when false information can be potentially damaging to its subjects. [1] Vandalism is easy to commit on Wikipedia, because anyone can edit the site, [2] [3] with the exception of protected pages (which, depending on the level of protection, can only be edited by users with certain privileges). Certain Wikipedia bots are capable of detecting and removing vandalism faster than any human editor could. [4]

Vandalizing Wikipedia or otherwise causing disruption is against the site's terms of use. Vandals are often blocked from editing, and may also be further banned according to the terms of use. Vandals could be banned either for just a few hours/days/months or indefinitely depending on the level of vandalism they have committed. Vandalism can be committed by either guest editors (IP addresses), or those with registered accounts (oftentimes accounts created solely to vandalize).

To combat inappropriate edits to articles which are frequently targeted by vandals, Wikipedia has instated a protection policy, serving as a user-privilege merit system. For example, a semi-protected or fully protected page can be edited only by accounts that meet certain account age and activity thresholds or administrators respectively. Frequent targets of vandalism include articles on trending and controversial topics, celebrities, and current events. [5] [6] In some cases, people have been falsely reported as having died. This has notably happened to American rapper Kanye West. [7]

Prevention

Screenshot of "administrator intervention against vandalism" page on the English Wikipedia in June 2022 Screen capture of the AIV page on the English Wikipedia.png
Screenshot of "administrator intervention against vandalism" page on the English Wikipedia in June 2022

There are various measures taken by Wikipedia to prevent or reduce the amount of vandalism. These include:

Editors are generally warned before being blocked. Wikipedia employs a 5-stage warning process leading up to a block. This includes: [11]

  1. The first warning "assumes good faith" and takes a relaxed approach to the user. (in some cases, this level can be skipped if the editor assumes the user is acting in bad faith [lower-alpha 2] ).
  2. The second warning does not assume any faith and is an actual warning (in some cases, this level may also be skipped).
  3. The third warning assumes bad faith and is the first to warn the user that continued vandalism may result in a block.
  4. The fourth warning is a final warning, stating that any future acts of vandalism will result in a block.
  5. After this, other users may place additional warnings, though only administrators can carry out the block.

In 2005, the English Wikipedia started to require those who create new articles to have a registered account in an effort to fight vandalism. This occurred after inaccurate information was added to Wikipedia in which a journalist was accused of taking part in Kennedy's assassination. [2] [lower-alpha 3]

Wikipedia has experimented with systems in which edits to some articles, especially those of living people, are delayed until it can be reviewed and determined that they are not vandalism, and in some cases, that a source to verify accuracy is provided. This is in an effort to prevent inaccurate and potentially damaging information about living people from appearing on the site. [12] [13]

ClueBot NG

The most well-known bot that fights vandalism is ClueBot NG. The bot was created by Wikipedia users Christopher Breneman and Naomi Amethyst in 2010 (succeeding the original ClueBot created in 2007; NG stands for Next Generation) [8] and uses machine learning and Bayesian statistics to determine if an edit is vandalism. [14] [15]

Notable acts of vandalism

Seigenthaler incident

John Seigenthaler, who in 2005 criticized Wikipedia John Seigenthaler Sr. speaking.jpg
John Seigenthaler, who in 2005 criticized Wikipedia

In May 2005, a user edited the biographical article about John Seigenthaler Sr. so that it contained several false and defamatory statements. [16] The inaccurate claims went unnoticed between May and September 2005, after which they were discovered by Victor S. Johnson Jr., a friend of Seigenthaler. Wikipedia content is often mirrored at sites such as Answers.com, which means that incorrect information can be replicated alongside correct information through a number of websites. Such information can develop a misleading air of authority because of its presence at such sites: [17]

Then [Seigenthaler's] son discovered that his father's hoax biography also appeared on two other sites, Reference.com and Answers.com, which took direct feeds from Wikipedia. It was out there for four months before Seigenthaler realized and got the Wikipedia entry replaced with a more reliable account. The lies remained for another three weeks on the mirror sites downstream.

Stephen Colbert

Stephen Colbert in 2019 Stephen Colbert December 2019.jpg
Stephen Colbert in 2019

Comedian Stephen Colbert made repeated references to Wikipedia on his TV show The Colbert Report , frequently suggesting on-air that his viewers vandalize selected pages. These instances include the following:

Hillsborough disaster vandalism

In April 2014, the Liverpool Echo reported that computers on an intranet used by the British government had been used to post offensive remarks about the Hillsborough disaster on Wikipedia pages relating to the subject. The government announced that it would launch an inquiry into the reports. [20] Following the allegations, The Daily Telegraph reported that government computers appeared to have been used to vandalize a number of other articles, often adding insulting remarks to biographical articles, and in one case falsely reporting a death. [21]

Political vandalism

The article for Donald Trump was blanked twice on 22 July 2015. Wikipedia vandalism - history around revision 672598769.png
The article for Donald Trump was blanked twice on 22 July 2015.

Politicians are a common target of vandalism on Wikipedia. The article on Donald Trump was replaced with a single sentence critical of him in July 2015, [22] [23] [24] and in November 2018, the lead picture on the page was replaced with an image of a penis, causing Apple's virtual assistant Siri to briefly include this image in answers to queries about the subject. [25] Both Hillary and Bill Clinton's Wikipedia pages were vandalized in October 2016 by a member of the internet trolling group Gay Nigger Association of America adding pornographic images to their articles. [26] That same month, New York Assembly candidate Jim Tedisco's Wikipedia page was modified to say that he had "never been part of the majority", and "is considered by many to be a total failure". Tedisco expressed dismay at the changes to his page. [27] On 24 July 2018, United States Senator Orrin Hatch posted humorous tweets after Google claimed that he had died on 11 September 2017, [28] with the error being traced back to an edit to his Wikipedia article. [29] [30] Similarly, vandalism of the California Republican Party's Wikipedia page caused Google's information bar to list Nazism as one of the party's primary ideologies. [31]

The week of 29 January 2017 saw various acts of Wikipedia vandalism that attracted media attention. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer's Wikipedia page was vandalized and his picture replaced with that of Baghdad Bob, Dana J. Boente's page description was edited to read that he was "the newest sock puppet for the Trump Administration", and Paul Ryan's picture was added to a list of invertebrates, with the edit summary stating that he was added due to his lack of a spine. [32] [33] [34]

On 27 September 2018, the personal information of U.S. senators Lindsey Graham, Mike Lee, and Orrin Hatch were added to their respective Wikipedia articles during the hearing of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The information included their home addresses and phone numbers, and originated from the network located from within the United States House of Representatives. The edits were removed from Wikipedia and hidden from public view shortly afterwards. [35] [36] These edits were captured and automatically posted publicly to Twitter by an automated account. Twitter shortly removed the posts and suspended the account in response to the incident. [37] An internal police investigation located the person who made the edits, and 27-year-old Jackson A. Cosko (a staffer for Congress paid by an outside institution) was arrested and charged with multiple felony crimes relating to the incident. Cosko was sentenced in 2019 to four years in prison after pleading guilty to five felonies. [38] [39] [40]

Miscellaneous

See also

Notes

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Wikipedia</span>

Wikipedia, a free-content online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers known as Wikipedians, began with its first edit on 15 January 2001, two days after the domain was registered. It grew out of Nupedia, a more structured free encyclopedia, as a way to allow easier and faster drafting of articles and translations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vandalism</span> Deliberate damage or defacement of an object or structure

Vandalism is the action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property.

Susning.nu was a Swedish language wiki website created by Lars Aronsson in 2001 and active until 2009. In its first three years, the website ran as an open wiki that anyone could edit. Susning did not have a pronounced ambition and could be compared in scope to Everything2; Aronsson's stated original aim for Susning was "to make it into whatever the users want it to be". As such, Susning was an encyclopedia, a dictionary, and a discussion forum about any concept of interest to its users. Because of this, Susning grew and became Sweden's biggest and the world's next biggest wiki.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MediaWiki</span> Free and open-source wiki software

MediaWiki is free and open-source wiki software originally developed by Magnus Manske for use on Wikipedia on January 25, 2002, and further improved by Lee Daniel Crocker, after which development has been coordinated by the Wikimedia Foundation. It powers several wiki hosting websites across the Internet, as well as most websites hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation including Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons, Wikiquote, Meta-Wiki and Wikidata, which define a large part of the set requirements for the software. Besides its usage on Wikimedia sites, MediaWiki has been used as a knowledge management and content management system on websites such as Fandom, wikiHow and major internal installations like Intellipedia and Diplopedia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">German Wikipedia</span> German-language edition of Wikipedia

The German Wikipedia is the German-language edition of Wikipedia, a free and publicly editable online encyclopedia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criticism of Wikipedia</span> Controversy surrounding the online encyclopedia Wikipedia

The free online encyclopedia Wikipedia has been criticized since its creation in 2001. Most of the criticism has been directed toward its content, community of established volunteer users, process, and rules. Critics have questioned its factual reliability, the readability and organization of its articles, the lack of methodical fact-checking, and its political bias. Concerns have also been raised about systemic bias along gender, racial, political, corporate, institutional, and national lines. Conflicts of interest arising from corporate campaigns to influence content have also been highlighted. Further concerns include the vandalism and partisanship facilitated by anonymous editing, clique behavior, social stratification between a guardian class and newer users, excessive rule-making, edit warring, and uneven policy application.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wikipedia</span> Free online crowdsourced encyclopedia

Wikipedia is a free content online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read reference work in history, and is consistently ranked among the ten most visited websites; as of August 2024, it was ranked fourth by Semrush, and seventh by Similarweb. Founded by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger on January 15, 2001, Wikipedia has been hosted since 2003 by the Wikimedia Foundation, an American nonprofit organization funded mainly by donations from readers.

References to Wikipedia in popular culture have been widespread. Many parody Wikipedia's openness, with individuals vandalizing or modifying articles in nonconstructive ways. Others feature individuals using Wikipedia as a reference work, or positively comparing their intelligence to Wikipedia. In some cases, Wikipedia is not used as an encyclopedia at all, but instead serves more as a character trait or even as a game, such as Wikiracing. Wikipedia has also become culturally significant with many individuals seeing the presence of their own Wikipedia entry as a status symbol.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vietnamese Wikipedia</span> Vietnamese-language edition of Wikipedia

The Vietnamese Wikipedia is the Vietnamese-language edition of Wikipedia, a free, publicly editable, online encyclopedia supported by the Wikimedia Foundation. Like the rest of Wikipedia, its content is created and accessed using the MediaWiki wiki software.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reliability of Wikipedia</span>

The reliability of Wikipedia and its user-generated editing model, particularly its English-language edition, has been questioned and tested. Wikipedia is written and edited by volunteer editors, who generate online content with the editorial oversight of other volunteer editors via community-generated policies and guidelines. The reliability of the project has been tested statistically through comparative review, analysis of the historical patterns, and strengths and weaknesses inherent in its editing process. The online encyclopedia has been criticized for its factual unreliability, principally regarding its content, presentation, and editorial processes. Studies and surveys attempting to gauge the reliability of Wikipedia have mixed results. Wikipedia's reliability was frequently criticized in the 2000s but has been improved; its English-language edition has been generally praised in the late 2010s and early 2020s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conservapedia</span> American conservative wiki-based online encyclopedia

Conservapedia is an English-language, wiki-based, online encyclopedia written from a self-described American conservative and fundamentalist Christian point of view. The website was established in 2006 by American homeschool teacher and attorney Andrew Schlafly, son of the conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, to counter what he perceived as a liberal bias on Wikipedia. It uses editorials and a wiki-based system for content generation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WikiScanner</span> Defunct database linking Wikipedia edits to institutions

WikiScanner was a publicly searchable database that linked anonymous edits on Wikipedia to the organizations where those edits apparently originated. It did this by cross-referencing the edits with data on the owners of the associated block of IP addresses, though it did not investigate edits made under a username. It was created by Virgil Griffith and released on August 13, 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Block (Internet)</span> Restriction on accessing an online resource

On the Internet, a block or ban is a technical measure intended to restrict access to information or resources. Blocking and its inverse, unblocking, may be implemented by the owners of computers using software.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wikipedia Seigenthaler biography incident</span> 2005 editorial controversy on Wikipedia

In May 2005, an unregistered editor posted a hoax article onto Wikipedia about journalist John Seigenthaler. The article falsely stated that Seigenthaler had been a suspect in the assassinations of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

Conflict-of-interest (COI) editing on Wikipedia occurs when editors use Wikipedia to advance the interests of their external roles or relationships. The type of COI editing that compromises Wikipedia the most is paid editing for public relations (PR) purposes. Several policies and guidelines exist to combat conflict of interest editing, including Wikipedia's conflict of interest guideline and the Wikimedia Foundation's paid-contribution disclosure policy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wikipediocracy</span> Website for discussion and criticism of Wikipedia

Wikipediocracy is a website for discussion and criticism of Wikipedia. Its members have brought information about Wikipedia's controversies to the attention of the media. The site was founded in March 2012 by users of Wikipedia Review, another site dedicated to criticism of Wikipedia.

The Hillsborough disaster Wikipedia posts refers to vandalism edits on various Wikipedia articles, yet mostly the Hillsborough disaster article, via the use of British Government computers, causing a British Government scandal. On 24 April 2014, Oliver Duggan, in the Liverpool Echo, reported that users of computers that used IP addresses registered to the Government Secure Intranet had added derogatory and offensive material to Wikipedia articles, particularly the article about the Hillsborough disaster. The vandalism was quickly re-reported by other media, and subsequent reports highlighted other acts of vandalism, on various articles, originated by computers using those IP addresses. After an investigation by The Daily Telegraph and Wikipediocracy, the person behind the edits was identified as a "junior civil servant" within the UK government and was dismissed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Everipedia</span> Blockchain-based online encyclopedia

Everipedia is a blockchain-based online encyclopedia. Everipedia was founded in 2014 and was officially launched in 2015, as a fork of Wikipedia. Larry Sanger joined the company in 2017. In 2022, Everipedia was renamed IQ.wiki.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wikipedia bots</span> Internet bots that perform tasks in Wikipedia

Wikipedia bots are Internet bots that perform simple, repetitive tasks on Wikipedia. One prominent example of an internet bot used in Wikipedia is Lsjbot, which has generated millions of short articles across various language editions of Wikipedia.

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