Congress Is Still Editing Wikipedia a Lot — Here’s How We Know

Ever since members of Congress got busted for rewriting Wikipedia articles in 2006 , anonymous editors of the online encyclopedia on Capitol Hill have become more circumspect . But the 24-hour interval of under - the - radar editing are over , with a new bot that monitors each and every variety in veridical time .

( Photo : Shutterstock )

create less than a week ago by software editor in chief Ed Summers,@Congresseditsis what he calls a “ bot that tweets anonymous Wikipedia edits that are made from IP addresses in the U.S. Congress . ” grant to Summers’blog , he was prompt by the online British guard dog , @Parliamentedits :

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The simplicity of combining Wikipedia and Twitter in this path straightaway struck me as a potentially useful transparency tool . So using my experience on a previous side projection I speedily put together a short broadcast that listens to all major linguistic communication Wikipedias for anonymous edits from Congressional IP address vagabond . … and tweets them .

In less than 48 hours the @congressedits Twitter account had more than 3,000 follower … watch out the follower rise , and the deluge of tweets from them brought home something that I believed intellectually , but had n’t matte quite so viscerally before . There is an unbelievable yearning in this rural area and around the world for using technology to provide more transparency about our democracies .

“Fair and Accurate”

Evan Lehmann , a newsman for the Massachusetts newspaper , the Lowell Sun , helped jumpstart media scrutiny of Congressional redaction with his January 27 , 2006article , “ Rewriting History Under The Dome ” :

The staff of U.S. Rep. Marty Meehan [ D - MA ] wiped out reference to his broken term - limits toast as well as information about his Brobdingnagian drive war chest … .The Meehan adjustment on Wikipedia.com lay out just two of more than 1,000 changes made by congressional staffer at the U.S. House of Representatives in the past six months .

Matt Vogel , Meehan ’s head of staff , said he authorized an intern in July to interchange subsist Wikipedia content with a staff - written biography of the lawmaker .

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The change deleted a reference to Meehan ’s effort promise to cede his prat after serving eight age , a pledge Meehan by and by eschewed . It also deleted a reference to the size of Meehan ’s hunting expedition account , the largest of any House member at $ 4.8 million , accord to the latest data available from the Federal Election Commission .

An internal investigation by Wikipedia reason that out of the more than 1,000 edits traced back to Capitol Hill , most meet the cyclopedia ’s criteria of “ secure faith . ”

But , others did not . Asreportedby the Washington Post :

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This crime - scene - style probe indicate to staff member of at least five federal agency : Sen. Norm Coleman ( R - Minn. ) , Sen. Dianne Feinstein ( D - Calif. ) , Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. ( D - Del. ) , Sen. Conrad Burns ( R - Mont. ) and Sen. Tom Harkin ( D - Iowa ) .

An entry for Feinstein removed references to her net worth and a $ 190,000 fine she paid for not disclosing that her hubby , Richard C. Blum , had guaranteed her gubernatorial hunting expedition loan in 1990 .

Edits allegedly made by Burns ’s staff removed computer address to his calling Arabs “ ragheads , ” insert a paragraph alternatively call “ A Voice for the Farmer ” that touted his advocacy for agriculture .

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The edits to Biden ’s entree removed and altered references to incidents of alleged piracy . Biden spokesman Norm Kurz said change that were “ made to Biden ’s site by this office were designed to make it more fair and accurate . ”

Anonymous edits continue , even if they do n’t commonly virtue headlines . One exclusion was a report last August that someone in a Senate office had edited Edward Snowden ’s entry , deepen his description from “ dissident ” to “ betrayer . ”

The Truth Is Out There

Thus far , most of the edits tweeted by @congressedits have been mundane change , such as punctuation corrections . Others are oddly random — someoneeditedthe page about It ’s Always gay In Philadelphia to add Bon Jovi and Ludwig van Beethoven to the list of euphony featured in the series . ( So , yes , Congressional staffers are nitpicker bored at work , just like the rest of us . )

A couple edits are in the WTF ? category . Someoneupdated the biographyof the famed conspiracy theorist David Icke to mark that , “ He is also a disinformation agent fund by the Pleiadians . ” For those of you not up to rush on UFOlogy , the Pleiadians are supposedly Nordic looking alien being from the star cluster in the constellation Taurus know as the Pleiades . I ’m hoping this Wikipedia edit refers to societies of Pleiadian - believer , and not the Pleiadians themselves … in which font , someone sour on Capitol Hill has mislay their tin foil hat .

The award formost ego - serving editthus far go to Rep. Tim Huelskamp ( R - KS ) , whose position pasted into his biography : “ Congressman Huelskamp has become an self-governing , national conservative loss leader in Congress for his stiff commitment to Constitutional government , reduced outgo and over - regulation , fighting waste and putrescence , defending traditional values and civil liberties , stopping ObamaCare , and ensuring answerableness and transparency in Congress . ”

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2nd place go to conservative lobbyist and GOP strategian Brian Darling , who wrote a controversial memo on how best to exploit the Terri Schiavo fount . Perhaps reflecting an feat to make him seem more likeable , someoneeditedhis varlet to randomly note : “ While grow up , Brian was involved in breeding long hairy cats . ”

Looking ahead , the most challenging edits to keep running of will not be egregious ego - forwarding or even changes to Congressional biographies . Rather , I can fancy Congressional staffers making insidious changes to terminology or stick in convenient facts about contemporary issues and tilt that will mull over well on their respective positions and statute law .

Such edits could even be harbingers of coming insurance debates . Or alien infiltration . Either way , this could prove to get very interesting .

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