Vandalism on Wikipedia
On Wikipedia, vandalism is editing the project in a malicious manner that is. Vandalism includes any addition, removal, or modification that is humorous, nonsensical, a hoax, or otherwise degrading.
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. Vandalism is easy to commit on Wikipedia because anyone can edit the site, with the exception of :Category:Wikipedia semi-protected pages|articles that are currently semi-protected, which means that new and unregistered users cannot edit them.
Vandalism can be committed by either guest editors or those with registered accounts; however, a semi-protected or protected page can be edited by only editors, or administrators, respectively. Frequent targets of vandalism include articles on hot and controversial topics, famous celebrities, and current events. In some cases, people have been falsely reported as having died. This has notably happened to United States Senators Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd, and American rapper Kanye West.
The challenge from vandalism on Wikipedia was once characterized by the former Encyclopædia Britannica editor-in-chief Robert McHenry: "The user who visits Wikipedia... is rather in the position of a visitor to a public restroom. It may be obviously dirty so that he knows to exercise great care, or it may seem fairly clean, so that he may be lulled into a false sense of security. What he certainly does not know is who has used the facilities before him".
Prevention
There are various measures taken by Wikipedia to prevent or reduce the amount of vandalism. These include:- Using Wikipedia's history functionality, which retains all prior versions of an article, restoring the article to the last version before the vandalism occurred; this is called reverting vandalism. The majority of vandalism on Wikipedia is reverted quickly. There are various ways in which the vandalism gets detected so it can be reverted:
- *Bots: In many cases, the vandalism is automatically detected and reverted by a bot. The vandal is always warned with no human intervention.
- * Recent changes patrol: Wikipedia has a that lists all the most recent changes. Some editors will monitor these changes for possible vandalism.
- * Watchlists: Any registered user can watch a page that they have created or edited or that they otherwise have an interest in. This functionality also enables users to monitor a page for vandalism.
- * Incidental discovery: Any reader who comes across vandalism by chance can revert it. In 2008, it was reported that the rarity of such incidental discovery indicated the efficacy of the other methods of vandalism removal.
- Locking articles so only established users, or in some cases only administrators, can edit them. Semi-protected articles are those that can be edited only by those with an account that is autoconfirmed. Fully protected articles are those that can be edited only by administrators. Protection is generally instituted after one or more editors makes a request on a special page for that purpose, and an administrator familiar with the protection guidelines chooses whether or not to fulfill this request based on the guidelines.
- Blocking and banning those who have repeatedly committed acts of vandalism from editing for a period of time or in some cases, indefinitely. Vandals are not blocked as an act of punishmentthe purpose of the block is simply to prevent further damage.
- The "abuse filter" extension, which uses regular expressions to detect common vandalism terms.
- The first warning and takes a relaxed approach to the user..
- The second warning does not assume any faith and is an actual warning.
- The third warning assumes bad faith and is the first to warn the user that continued vandalism may result in a.
- The fourth warning is a final warning, stating that any future acts of vandalism will result in a block.
- After this, other users may place additional warnings, though only administrators can actually carry out the block.
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.
on the English Wikipedia in December 2013.
ClueBot NG
The most well-known "bot" that fights vandalism is. The bot was created by Wikipedia users Christopher Breneman and Cobi Carter in 2010, and uses machine learning and Bayesian statistics to determine if an edit is vandalism.While the bot has been effective in helping keep Wikipedia clean, some claim the bot is to new users by not being able to apply a human brain's knowledge to the edit, and leaving impersonal.
Blacklisting">:Special:AbuseFilter">Blacklisting
The MediaWiki title blacklist extension prevents page move vandalism and creation vandalism by using regular expressions to identify bad titles. Titles on the blacklist can only be created by or moved to by administrators. Pages that are also created repeatedly can be protected to prevent vandals from recreating bad pages.In addition to the title blacklist, the spam blacklist prevents external link spamming, a form of vandalism. New/unregistered users who want to add external links are required to answer a CAPTCHA.
The "bad image list" prevents images that could be used to vandalize pages from being inserted, such as images with sexual content. Images on the list can be added only to pages where the use of the image is explicitly allowed.
The entirety of the MediaWiki namespace, the main page, and high risk templates are protected to prevent high server load and sudden interface changes.
The edit filter can also prevent vandalism by disallowing the bad edit altogether, or by allowing only autoconfirmed users or administrators to perform the edit.
Notable acts of vandalism
Seigenthaler incident
In May 2005, a user edited the biographical article about John Seigenthaler, Sr. so that it contained several false and defamatory statements. The inaccurate claims went unnoticed between May and September 2005, when 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:Stephen Colbert
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:- On a 2006 episode of his show, Colbert suggested viewers vandalize the article "Elephant". This resulted in an account named "" being blocked from editing, as well as many elephant-related articles being protected.
- On 7 August 2012, Colbert suggested that his viewers go to pages for possible 2012 U.S. Republican vice presidential candidates, such as the Tim Pawlenty and Rob Portman articles, and edit them many times. This was in response to a Fox News hypothesis that mass editing of the Sarah Palin page the day before she was announced as John McCain's running mate could help predict who would be chosen as Mitt Romney's running mate in the 2012 election. After Colbert's request and his viewers' subsequent actions, all these articles were put under by Wikipedia administrators, with editing restricted to established users.
Hillsborough disaster vandalism
In April 2014, the Liverpool Echo reported that computers on an intranet used by the United Kingdom 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. 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.Other notable acts of vandalism
- A vandal called "" moved thousands of articles so that their titles ended with "on wheels".
- In 2006, Rolling Stone printed a story about Halle Berry based on false information from Wikipedia, which had arisen from an act of Wikipedia vandalism.
- In August 2007, local media from the Netherlands reported that several IP addresses from Nederlandse Publieke Omroep had been blocked from Wikipedia for adding "false and defamatory" information to pages. A similar incident occurred with the Minister of the Interior in France in January 2016.
- Professional golfer Fuzzy Zoeller sued a Miami company whose IP-based edits to the Wikipedia site included negative information about him.
- In May 2012, media critic Anita Sarkeesian created a Kickstarter project, intending to raise money to make a series of videos exploring sexism in digital gaming culture. The idea evoked a hostile response, which included repeated vandalism of Sarkeesian's Wikipedia article with pornographic imagery, defamatory statements, and threats of sexual violence. More than 12 anonymous editors contributed to the ongoing vandalism campaign before editing privileges were revoked for the page.
- In May 2012, webcomic and humor website The Oatmeal published a comic in which it is suggested that Thomas Edison should be added as an example to the disambiguation page douchebag. After having Edison added and removed several times, the page is now extended confirmed-protected.
- In November 2012, the Leveson reportpublished in the UK by Lord Justice Levesonincorrectly listed a "Brett Straub" as one of the founders of The Independent newspaper. The name originated from one of the several erroneous edits by one of Straub's friends as a prank to Wikipedia by falsely including his name in several articles across the site. The name's inclusion in the report suggested that part of the report relating to that newspaper had been cut and pasted from Wikipedia without a proper check of the sources. The Straub issue was also humorously referenced in broadcasts of BBC entertainment current affairs TV program Have I Got News for You, with The Economist also making passing comment on the issue: "The Leveson report... Parts of it are a scissors-and-paste job culled from Wikipedia."
- In April 2015, The Washington Post reported on an experiment by "Gregory Kohs, a former editor, and prominent Wikipedia critic": "Kohs wrapped up an experiment in which he inserted outlandish errors into 31 articles and tracked whether editors ever found them. After more than two months, half of his hoaxes still had not been foundand those included errors on high-profile pages, like "Mediterranean climate" and "inflammation". "
- In July 2015, Donald Trump's entire Wikipedia page was replaced with one sentence critical of him. The page has since been blanked on several other occasions since this incident, causing editing privileges to be revoked.
- In August 2016, a sentence was added to Chad le Clos's Wikipedia page says that he "Died at the hands of Michael Phelps, being literally blown out of the water by the greatest American since Abraham Lincoln" after Phelps won the gold medal for 200-meter butterfly at the 2016 Summer Olympics. This particular instance of Wikipedia vandalism attracted moderate media attention.
- In October 2016, both Hillary and Bill Clinton's Wikipedia pages were vandalized and pornographic images were added to their articles. This was done by a member of the Gay Nigger Association of America, an Internet trolling group.
- In October 2016, 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.
- The week of 29 January 2017 saw various acts of vandalism committed on Wikipedia. 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. These cases of vandalism attracted media attention.
- On 25 April 2018, various pages related to American video game director Todd Howard were vandalized after a post went viral on Tumblr stating that his page would no longer be semi-protected as of said date. Although Howard's page had its protection extended, a massive raid campaign vandalized many related pages. These included , Lower Macungie Township, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, and Ferret .
- On 24 July 2018, Utah senator Orrin Hatch posted humorous tweets after Google claimed that he had died on 11 September 2017. The cause of the error was later revealed to be vandalism on Wikipedia inserting that as Hatch's death date.
- On 27 September 2018, the personal information of United States senators Lindsey Graham, Mike Lee, and Orrin Hatch were added to their respective Wikipedia articles during the hearing of Supreme Court Nominee Judge 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. 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. An internal police investigation located the person who made the edits, and 27-year-old Jackson A. Cosko was arrested and charged with multiple felony crimes relating to the incident.
- In November 2018, Donald Trump's Wikipedia page was vandalised. The lead picture was replaced with an image of a penis, a vandalism successful enough that it was eventually picked up by Siri.