Arthur Bergman at O’Reilly Radar has the lowdown on some changes Fox News has been making to the Wikipedia entries of their critics and competition (like Al Franken) which were traced back to a Fox News IP address.
Here is an example of an entry which was changed from:
The lawsuit focused a great deal of media attention upon Franken’s book and greatly enhanced its sales. Reflecting later on the lawsuit during an interview on the [[National Public Radio]] program ”[[Fresh Air]]” on [[September 3]], [[2003]], Franken said that Fox’s case against him was “literally laughed out of court” and that “wholly (holy) without merit” is a good characterization of Fox News itself.
into
The lawsuit focused a great deal of media attention upon Franken’s book and greatly enhanced its sales. Reflecting later on the lawsuit during an interview on the liberal [[National Public Radio]] program ”[[Fresh Air]]” on [[September 3]], [[2003]], Franken said that Fox’s case against him was the best thing to happen to his book sales.
Many companies use Wikipedia to build their own image, reputation and search rankings, but when it comes to damaging the Wikipedia entries of their competition, this crosses the line.
In the search engine world, search sabotage has been a hot topic as it is quite tempting to practice blackhat or obvious search spamming methods ‘on behalf’ of your competition to get them penalized by search engines or even Digg (like submitting all of your competitors’ blog posts to Digg with lots of bad grammar and spammy titles), but to witness a media outlet such as Fox News publicly change the Wikipedia entries of their competitors is quite embarrassing for News Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, Dow Jones and the reputable Wall Street Journal.
Then again, the move is not surprising, as this is also the company behind MySpace, Married With Children and Joe Billionaire :)
This is funny. I guess we will see a LOT more of this from other companies over the next few days.
Probably Patrick, but hopefully they won’t be using an IP address which can be tracked directly back to their company!
So the entry is already bias and opinionated so someone at Fox decided to change it to the other way around…what’s the problem?
The temptation to change user editable articles is always going to be around.
Shame they didn’t think more about IP tracking before making edits.
Wow, to think that “Fair and Balanced” Fox would make such play so contradictory to their position. Ha ha ha. Maybe they should have went to some WIFI location to do their sabatoge.
The difference is that yes, the previous entry did not positively reflect Fox News, but it was provided by a Wikipedia user and quoted Franken.
A news organization should not send in its employees to not only change Wikipedia entires, but also label other news organizations.
There is a major difference between reputation management and defacing. Fox was wrong to deface Franken’s quote with a negative and blatant change and then attack NPR in the same posting.
Even though I am a fan of FoxNews, I completely agree that they were wrong. My post was written with sarchasm intended.
This seems to be a pattern:
http://www.digg.com/tech_news/See_Who_s_Editing_Wikipedia_Diebold_the_CIA_a_Campaign
Why the silence on the other edits? This has been all over the blogosphere for the last day or two. Why no mention of the New York Times IP that added the word “jerk” to President Bush’s entry?
This is why non-politics blogs should stay non-political.
What’s so surprising? It was probably not Fox policy, rather a bored Fox employee who was having fun at work. Microsoft IPs have regularly defaced competing products, notably Linux, on wikipedia.
Why don’t you mention the DNC making insulting changes to Rush Limbaugh’s entry among others?
Because the DNC is not a media company which runs and partners with major search engines.
Web 2.0 has powerful potential. I hate to admit it, because I don’t like the elitist tone of the book, but Andrew Keen has gotten some of it right. The “Wikipedia Problem” is not going to go away. Web 2.0 has powerful potential. I hate to admit it, because I don’t like the elitist tone of the book, but Andrew Keen has gotten some of it right. The “Wikipedia Problem” is not going to go away.
Yo on Aug 15, 2007 at 11:36 am
So the entry is already bias and opinionated so someone at Fox decided to change it to the other way around…what’s the problem?
Get a clue, just because the truth looks biased to you doesn’t make it untruthful.
This is a prime example of why no one should be foolish to believe ANYTHINGthat they find on
Wikipedia since anyone can post anything true or not. Yet there are many that accept the site as
truthful and an unimpeachable source of fact. Nothing could be further from the truth.
It’s quite hilarious that the downfall of education is stupidity, such as the useless dribble of a sheeplike blogger, and his followers.
I can’t make any sense of this. What is “downfall of education”? Why is it funny?
And so, does everyone actually believe that they would make those changes with traceability?? Please!
And Yo to Bob … just because you believe it doesn’t make it true
I’d have to say this probably isn’t an official Fox News policy, but rather the actions of one employee – on lunch break, surfing while working, going a little too far…aka, AT&T’s recent musical censorship fiasco. Publicity like this will help crack down on such behavior however.
Get the DVD “Out Foxed”,… The Documentary shows Interviews with a number of ex-employees of Fox News and explains in Clarity, what this Propaganda network is up to.
“So the entry is already bias and opinionated so someone at Fox decided to change it to the other way around…what’s the problem?”
What on earth are you talking about? The original entry stated a simple fact (surely you can’t find ‘bias’ or ‘opinion’ in the sentence “The lawsuit focused a great deal of media attention upon Franken’s book and greatly enhanced its sales. “), then gave a relevant quote from Franken without editorial comment.
Lie to The People.
Control the Media.
Build Your Empire.
Time for all Americans to decide
what they want.
Truth and Democracy?
or
Lies and Endless War?
Fox: Unethical AND Stupid
Kind of like a certain President I know.
Tut, tut. Hire someone to do it for you if you must, but keep away unless you intend to live by the rules of Wikipedia.
Of course, this is all a liberal conspiracy to smear the only news agency which tells the truth.
I swear when I lived in the US I saw a TV Show on Fox News called, “Why Hitler wasn’t all bad”.
I jest of course.
Here’s the difference between having fun and pushing propaganda. Fun is sometimes innocent, satirical, offensive and obvious. Propaganda is insidious, covert, misinformative and deceitful. For those of you who ‘enjoy’ Fox News you might want to consider the truth editing that goes on during their broadcasts… that is unless you enjoy being patronized and lied to. It shows what dumb sh*ts they (Fox) are for getting caught. If the ‘higher-ups’ didn’t know about this and the douche didn’t get caught they’d probably reward him/her with a vitriolic ‘news’ show to further Rupert Murdock’s masturbatory quest to conquer truth.
Oh, children, GET A LIFE!
Now the question beggs did fox change this or did one of its competition ….. is there a conspiricy to discredit the discreditor?
Jana might be right… who, (or is there?) is the man behind the curtains
Who gives a rats ass about this. Completely a non issue.
Franken’s failed radio show was a failure and wasn’t remotely entertaining.
This guy hasn’t been funny in at least ten years.
Too bitter and angry.
This hardly rates the header “Fox caught sabotaging Wikipedia entries.” Wikipedia encourages editing of its entries and tries to vet them. The fox edit in no way changed the thrust of the piece and certainly didn’t malign NPR. Furthermore the Fox IP address was clearly used. Talk about manufacturing controversy!
Hate to break it to everyone, but not just Fox is doing this. Apparently just about EVERY corporation, political party, and news organization has been involved in doing this to some degree
I see the denial folks and the “so-whatters they do it too” are out in force today. These people evidently never took a basic psychology course (of course not, it’s a social “science” and may conflict with some egocentric belief they have). The words are projection, denial, and rationalizatoin. Look them up.
Loren has uncovered a real truth here: some people will try to make their point, push their agenda, etc. ad nauseum anytime and place they can. Was Fox the first, who know? Were they the only? Not even close. So why the concern when a news agency tries to do the same thing that other new agencies like CNN, PBS, MSNBC, etc. have or other organizations like both the DNC and RDC have done? I’ll tell you why I think the concern ranks the title this blog has: I believe it’s because the originator either dislikes the perpetrator (of this instance) or likes the one(s) he/she considers to have been befouled by this or a combination. Sadly, if it’s genuine outrage – it’s naivete in the nth degree – because as others have said – it’s VERY common. Is it right? No. Is it common: yes, so unless you want to start pointing your fingers at your own pet organizations, quit acting so outraged. And while wikipedia is a decent quick source, it is but by no means a definitive one.
This only serves to further weaken the status of Wikipedia as a definitive neutral observer. In the process of smearing Wikipedia, Fox has smeared itself. I mean if you can’t rely on truthfulness, what good are these organizations at all?
The reason that Farken’s comments are such pathetically banal and meaningless drivel is that he is really FRANKEN (get it) trying to be as ignorant and clueless and humorless as his critics. He is making fun of himself and his supporters by posing as a typical Fox viewing, kool aid drinking, dunderhead!
UNBELIEVABLE! But this doesn’t surprise me. I’ve read various things about how media controls what we see or read on the news also. Scary world out there. Many untrusting writer sites also.
Check these facts about Helium
So other than characterizing NPS as a liberal biased media outlet, which it is, and changing Al Franken’s highly self aggrandizing comments to a more objective statement (and not indicating they were direct quotes), What’s the issue.
Please tell me, Jim, what is :self aggrandizing ” in the phrase “literally laughed out of court” or the phrase “wholly without merit”?
What is the difference you ask? Well if I said that 2 plus 2 is 5 I would be wrong. If I said 2 plus 2 is 500,ooo I would be laughingly or pathetically wrong…like you are in your comments above.
NOOOOO! You are missing the point. Wikipedia strives to maintain its credibility as an entity that SEEKS factual information from its readership and wants its entries to be as factual as all of us can possibly make them. If you honestly can’t see the difference between the two entries in the case at hand (Franken), then your head isn’t really in the game.
Gee! I wonder if Faux News and their stable of Rove “talker” readers are O.K. with Big Brother watching now????????
In any case, there is an underlying point here. Perhaps, the developers and sponsors of Wikipedia had it in mind all along. All authoritative information and data should be checked and reviewed by the reader for corroborating sources and for personal bias of the poster.
You can’t alway believe anything displayed in bitmapped digital displays, or ptinted on paper, or broacast.
If you could, the national debt would be rapidly shrinking, we would be celebrating the return of or troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, we would be watching Osama bin Laden and his cronies on trial at the Hague for terrorism and crimes against humanity or Bush and Rove would be handing out 24×36 full color posters of the execution. . . . unfortunately that is only occuring in the fevered day dreams and imaginations of the Ineptocrat-in Chief and his overwhelming minority of loyal Busheviks.
Wikipedia and the graduate student with the digital internet address database have exposed again a old universal truth . . . Caveat Emptor! Hopefully by the next elections , more of us will be searching skeptic of the unsubstantiated prattle of greedy politician and pundits,
The “Wiki” pages are the best thing since sliced bread. But because they’re open-ended you have to keep ANY information on them at arms length. I did find something which apeared to be an historical account of something I know didn’t happen the way it is claimed to have but didn’t feel the need to correct it because it was someone elses “interpretation” of what they thought happened and nothing else!