Step Up 3D Wikipedia article edited anonymously by US Senate http://t.co/8Cd1HfhUbP
— congress-edits (@congressedits) July 10, 2014
Choco Taco Wikipedia article edited anonymously from US House of Representatives http://t.co/rhbc5fAqro
— congress-edits (@congressedits) July 23, 2014
Gone are the days of congressional staffers and congressmen anonymously posting edits to the Wikipedia pages of Wendy’s, Choco Tacos, and Step Up 3D.
Wikipedia has placed a 10-day moritorium on edits to wiki pages from the House of Representatives IP address.
Wikipedia announced the ban on its UserTalk page last week.
“In response to vandalism from this IP address,” the posted warning read, “anonymous editing may be disabled. If you are an unregistered user operating from this address, note that it may be possible for your agency or facility’s administration to determine who was making contributions from this address at any given time and abuse reports may be sent to its network administrator for further investigation.”
The ban came after Congress Edits, a Twitter bot that chronicles edits made to wikipedia pages from congressional computers, revealed what the site termed “disruptive edits,” according to Fox News.
These ranged from editing the entry for intern to read “An ‘internship’ is a great method of on-the-job training for White-Collar workers and professional careers” from “An internship is a method…” to calling the website Mediaite a “a sexist transphobic news and opinion blog covering politics and entertainment in the media industry that automatically assumes that someone is male without any evidence.”
Most of the offending edits were removed within minutes by the site’s editorial policies. The 10-day ban is considered a minor warning or punishment for those who abuse the system.
