Turning the WikiScanner on ourselves
Virgil Griffith’s WikiScanner may well revolutionise how we Wiki… or at least teach us that media manipulation works better from the privacy of our own homes.
Wikipedia was launched a scant six years ago, and during that time it has spawned more than 8 million encyclopedia articles in over 250 languages (not to mention entering the term “wiki” into our modern lexicon, alongside “Google”). But the openness of Wikipedia - an encyclopedia created, edited, and moderated entirely by the Internet community - also created a grand opportunity for abuse of the system. As the site grew, often landing at the top of search engine rankings even for difficult keywords and company names, it seemed inevitable that companies would turn to creating and editing their own Wikipedia entries as a 21st century PR move.
Enter Virgil Griffith. Noting that Wikipedia’s database contained over 34 million anonymous edits, he set out to create a piece of software that would collate, catalog, and attempt to identify the IP addresses of those anonymous users. Using the ip2location database, Griffith was able to match up the previously anonymous editors against an international database of corporate and government IP addresses, thereby removing the shroud of anonymity from the Wikipedia editing process.
Dubbed the WikiScanner, Griffith’s software exposed a myriad of edits, additions and deletions from a diverse group of corporate and government employees, including:
- Microsoft
- Apple
- United States FBI
- The Dutch royal family
- United States Congressmen
- Portuguese government
- The Vatican
- Church of Scientology
- United Nations
- ExxonMobil
- Coca-Cola
- ESPN
While some of these edits were made in good faith, many others seemed to be obvious meddling by PR-minded staffers. And since Wikipedia are adamant about documenting all changes to the site, the uncovering of the “anonymous” editors on Wikipedia not only exposed who was behind the changes and deletions, but also what exactly they had changed.
Edits to Wikipedia ranged from well-intentioned spelling, grammar and fact correcting to more nefarious PR moves, like the ones made by the US Republican Party, who changed references to a “US-led invasion” of Iraq (in an entry on Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party) to a “US-led liberation” of Iraq.
In the past, the vast Wikipedia community - the majority of whom seem like well-intentioned individuals - caught many of the more blatant attempts at spamming or vandalising the site. But the corporate PR-ing of Wikipedia added a new level of blame and responsibility to the online encyclopedia, which has already faced widespread debates over the veracity of its material (for example, some university professors have banned the use of Wikipedia in their classes).
Virgil Griffith’s WikiScanner may take away some of this heat, at least temporarily, whilst never ceasing to remind us that nothing is ever 100% secret or 100% secure when it is on a worldwide network.
Conversely, the WikiScanner exposure also highlights what many global citizens are still unwilling to admit about the connection between politics, corporations, and the media - none of them are individuals and all operate for and by each other.
Take the obvious example of Rupert Murdoch, the Australian billionaire media executive and owner of NewsCorp. Murdoch is a staunch Conservative man who has long supported the Republican party both personally and financially. Not coincidentally, during the buildup to the Republican-backed Iraq War in 2003, all 175 newspapers owned by NewsCorp editorialised in support of the war effort; also not surprisingly, NewsCorp runs Fox News, which has long been criticised for leaning to the right of American politics.
Murdoch is just one strong example of the way the lines blur between government and politics, corporate decision-making, and the media, but there are countless others. The real danger, perhaps, lies not in the Murdoch’s of the world but the subtle biases - those not even known to the owners themselves.
When even the most innocuous of news stories is in fact a fight for public relations gold, what happens when the reporter has a real opinion on the issue? Who will get the last word in the article? Which quote will be presented as the leading expert? Is the media ever fair and balanced or is it a simply a festival of nepotism, favouritism, and partisanship?
Perhaps we ought to turn our attentions not to the Wikipedia community and its merry band of editors but rather on the media at large - including the Internet and those shiny, corporate websites - and stop to reconsider how we interpret news and information for ourselves.
The author of this article is liberal… but did you know that before we told you?
