Wikipedia blocks users from posting criticism of Obama

Eligibility issue sparks 'edit war'
Wikipedia blocks users from posting criticism of Obama

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Posted: March 09, 2009
8:42 pm Eastern
By Aaron Klein
2009 WorldNetDaily

A WND article reporting yesterday that Wikipedia had been scrubbing President Obama's biography of criticism has resulted in an "edit war" on the website in which a large number of users were barred from posting on key issues, including any mention of challenges to Obama's eligibility.

Ultimately, administrators at Wikipedia, the online "free encyclopedia" mega-site written and edited by its users, entirely locked Obama's page so that only top editors could make changes to the entry – and only if a change is supported by a consensus of editors.

A perusal through Obama's Wikipedia entry yesterday found a heavily guarded, mostly glowing biography about the U.S. president. Some of Obama's most controversial past affiliations, including with Rev. Jeremiah Wright and former Weathermen terrorist Bill Ayers, were not once mentioned, even though the associations received significant media attention and became themes during the presidential elections last year.
Also completely lacking is any mention of the concerns surrounding Obama's eligibility to serve as commander-in-chief.

Following WND's report on Obama's Wikipedia page, the news outlet monitored the page as scores of users attempted to add entries about eligibility concerns, and the president's past associations with Ayers and Wright. All attempts to post on Ayers or Obama's birth certificate were removed within minutes by the site's volunteer administrators.

One mention of Wright was finally allowed. Obama's page currently states, "Obama resigned from Trinity [United Church of Christ] during the Presidential campaign after controversial statements made by Rev. Jeremiah Wright became public."

The Wikipedia entry does not currently outline some of Wright's remarks, such as exclaiming "God damn America," claiming the 9-11 attacks signified "America's chickens" were "coming home to roost" or telling congregants the U.S. government invented the HIV virus as a means of "genocide" against black people.

Following a large volume of attempted postings on controversial issues, administrators yesterday placed a "protection" lock on Obama's page, informing non-administrators that new postings would not be allowed until "disputes have been resolved."

Meanwhile, WND was inundated with e-mails from Wikipedia users yesterday stating their recent attempts to edit Obama's page were blocked. Some said they believed the site to be "biased" in favor of Obama. A sampling of e-mails included:

"As soon as Wikipedia found out I was conservative leaning and on the national lists of the righties, they banned me," wrote author Mark Paul Seber


"Thought you might be interested to know that Wikipedia's 'Family of Barack Obama' page contains inaccuracies about his paternal family relations and that when I tried to add the correct info it, too, was removed/changed," wrote an anonymous WND reader.


"Before the election I was banned from Wikipedia multiple times for trying to post a picture of Obama and Odinga in Kenya on Odinga's Wikipedia site," commented WND reader "Don."


"Back in January, I posted to Obama's 'talk page' – not the main entry, just the talk page. My post pointed out that FactCheck is lying about the 10/31 statement from the Hawaii Dep't of Health. I didn't go into speculation. As a result, my username was permanently blocked, what I posted was deleted, and a "conflict of interest" notice was placed on my old user page," wrote another anonymous reader.


"What you are looking at regarding the Barrack (sic) Obama article on Wikipedia is a 'liberalization' of not just that, but the entire website," wrote Brian Macdonald of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. "The people who control and edit in Wikipedia will present what they think should be the article on Obama; they will not post anything about his socialism, his Bill Ayers connections, former Marxist "New Party" which he was involved in, or anything else that would portray him in a negative light, despite the official Wikipedia policy that everything is to be neutral."
While Wright finally made it onto Obama's Wikipedia page – if only in one sentence – multiple times the past month, Wikipedia users who wrote about the eligibility issues had their entries deleted almost immediately and were banned from re-posting any material on the website for three days.

In one example, one Wikipedia user added the following to Obama's page:

"There have been some doubts about whether Obama was born in the U.S. after the politician refused to release to the public a carbon copy of his birth certificate and amid claims from his relatives he may have been born in Kenya. Numerous lawsuits have been filed petitioning Obama to release his birth certificate, but most suits have been thrown out by the courts."

As is required on the online encyclopedia, the entry was backed up by third-party media articles, citing the Chicago Tribune and WorldNetDaily.com

The entry was posted Feb. 24, at 6:16 p.m. Eastern Time. Just three minutes later, the entry was removed by a Wikipedia administrator, claiming the posting violated the website's rules against "fringe" material.
According to Wikipedia rules, however, a "fringe theory can be considered notable if it has been referenced extensively, and in a serious manner, in at least one major publication, or by a notable group or individual that is independent of the theory."

The Obama eligibility issue has indeed been reported extensively by multiple news media outlets. WorldNetDaily has led the coverage. Other news outlets, such as Britain's Daily Mail and the Chicago Tribune have published articles critical of claims Obama may not be eligible. The Los Angeles Times quoted statements by former presidential candidate Alan Keys doubting Obama is eligible to serve as president. Just last week, the Internet giant America Online featured a top news article about the eligibility subject, referencing WND's coverage.

When the user tried to repost the entry about Obama's eligibility a second time, another administrator removed the material within two minutes and then banned the Wikipedia user from posting anything on the website for three days.
Wikipedia administrators have the ability to kick off users if the administrator believes the user violated the website's rules.

Over the last month, WND has monitored several other attempts to add eligibility issues to Obama's Wikipedia page. In every attempt monitored, the information was deleted within minutes and the user who posted the material was barred from the website for three days.

The Wikipedia entry about former President George W. Bush, by contrast, is highly critical. One typical entry reads, "Prior to his marriage, Bush had multiple accounts of alcohol abuse. ... After his re-election, Bush received increasingly heated criticism. In 2005, the Bush administration dealt with widespread criticism over its handling of Hurricane Katrina. In December 2007, the United States entered the second-longest post-World War II recession."

The entry on Bush also cites claims that he was "favorably treated due to his father's political standing" during his National Guard service. It says Bush served on the board of directors for Harken and that questions of possible insider trading involving Harken arose even though a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation concluded the information Bush had at the time of his stock sale was not sufficient to constitute insider trading.

Angela Beesley Starling, a spokeswoman for Wikipedia, explained to WND that all the website's encyclopedia content is monitored by users. She said the administrators who deleted the entries are volunteers.

"Administrators," Starling said, "are simply people who are trusted by the other community members to have access to some extra tools that allow them to delete pages and perform other tasks that help the encyclopedia."

According to Alexa.com, Wikipedia is the seventh most trafficked website on the Internet. A Google search for the words "Barack Obama" brings up the president's Wikipedia page in the top four choices, following two links to Obama's official websites.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=91257

This does not bode well for wiki. When a site that has become the internet's version of the Encyclopedia Britannica, leans one way or the other, credibility and faith will be greatly diminished. It's akin to shooting themselves in the foot.
Snopes, trusted as a source of truth, has a similar situation going on. They are under the wire for doctoring up and covering facts related to BO's autobiography and his relationship with Bill Ayers.

Or as they are both American, it may be best for them to keep the new ruler happy whilst he has some clout?

Check his bio after his term in office... See if this happens after the next election...

Are we really surprised that a tool for truth and free speech is being manipulated to suit the views of those in power?

"History is written by the victors"

etc.

great post, sir. it makes total sense to me, they keep the masses happy, but the mass hysteria over BO is dwindling, so yup, they better keep their eyes open and keep it real.

It just seems to me that either Wiki are worried about what will happen to them if they allow Obama/any current president to be, fairly or unfairly, slandered on their site...Or Obama's crew have promised them something in return for good publicity...

(Or of course, those people banned from Wiki were actually posting erroneous things about him and deserved their bans. But that's not as interesting as a potential cover up gone wrong )

big fan of the cya....

lost me...

cover your ass
in reference to

sir wrote:(Or of course, those people banned from Wiki were actually posting erroneous things about him and deserved their bans. But that's not as interesting as a potential cover up gone wrong )

Was just where my train of thought took me.

But I see what you mean.

First I read it as an abbreviated see ya, and it was too confusing...

hahahaha

Wiki has to have some control over it though. Wiki is not a political forum to voice your opinion. Wiki has every right to not allow opinion about his administration. Again Wiki is not a politcal forum to post 'what you think'. The instances of them removing entries that were posted with newspaper references were more than likely their attempt to refrain from leaning too far left or too far right.

There's a lot of grey areas.

Big Slick wrote:Wiki has to have some control over it though. Wiki is not a political forum to voice your opinion. Wiki has every right to not allow opinion about his administration. Again Wiki is not a politcal forum to post 'what you think'. The instances of them removing entries that were posted with newspaper references were more than likely their attempt to refrain from leaning too far left or too far right.

There's a lot of grey areas.

What he said...

Wiki has very strict rules about what is allowed to be posted and what is not, and what sort of references are valid. The fact that some people claim Obama is not eligible to be president is not sufficient to include it on his bio. There is, however, most likely a whole page dedicated to the controversy, and probably another dedicated to Obama and Wright.



Yep, just as I thought.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Wright_controversy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ayers_presidential_election_controversy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_citizenship_conspiracy_theories

You can see the whole discussion of what is and isn't allowed on the page here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Barack_Obama

They don't just go around scrubbing things because they don't like them. Just because a conservative talking point is not considered factual by wikipedia doesn't make them a liberal bastion, and they're not censoring information, just separating it into different pages.

Update:

The author that wrote the world net daily article that sparked this issue was also the one that was trying to edit the Obama article against the wikipedia guidlines. He's creating his own damn news stories and then hiding it.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/03/wikigate-1.html

That's a lot of mind-slippage. You'd think at some point in the writing, Klein would have a revelation, slap his head and say, "Silly me! Here I am writing about my researcher following my instructions, and I'm making it sound like I don't even know the guy! Glad I caught that."
The only other example in Klein's article of a user being suspended from Wikipedia also traces back to a Jerusalem21 edit -- this time about William Ayers. That example found its way into the Fox News report. But, similarly, Klein forgot to mention that it was the same user -- his unnamed researcher -- and the same ban: i.e., the one that followed two successive edits accusing Obama of falsifying his birth.
If he'd disclosed all that, it might have been a different article. And "Man Fails to Get Crazy Conspiracy Theory Into Obama's Wikipedia Entry" is a story not even Fox would pick up.

What ever happened to journalistic integrity?

Kazza wrote:Update:

The author that wrote the world net daily article that sparked this issue was also the one that was trying to edit the Obama article against the wikipedia guidlines. He's creating his own damn news stories and then hiding it.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/03/wikigate-1.html

That's a lot of mind-slippage. You'd think at some point in the writing, Klein would have a revelation, slap his head and say, "Silly me! Here I am writing about my researcher following my instructions, and I'm making it sound like I don't even know the guy! Glad I caught that."
The only other example in Klein's article of a user being suspended from Wikipedia also traces back to a Jerusalem21 edit -- this time about William Ayers. That example found its way into the Fox News report. But, similarly, Klein forgot to mention that it was the same user -- his unnamed researcher -- and the same ban: i.e., the one that followed two successive edits accusing Obama of falsifying his birth.
If he'd disclosed all that, it might have been a different article. And "Man Fails to Get Crazy Conspiracy Theory Into Obama's Wikipedia Entry" is a story not even Fox would pick up.

What ever happened to journalistic integrity?

Journalistic integrity are two words that go together as well as military intelligence. What are they called? Oh yea, oxymorons.

I'm surprised that some big news agencies (like Fox) picked up on this. If they wanted to report honestly on wikipedia, they'd also say that the page on the 9/11 attacks doesn't mention anything about people thinking Israel or George Bush are behind them.

Kazza wrote:I'm surprised that some big news agencies (like Fox) picked up on this. If they wanted to report honestly on wikipedia, they'd also say that the page on the 9/11 attacks doesn't mention anything about people thinking Israel or George Bush are behind them.

This is true.