McCain, Obama campaigns discovered making questionable edits to Wikipedia
Wikinews has determined through an investigation that the staffs for 2008 United States presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain have been spending some of their time making questionable edits to Wikipedia, the open content online encyclopedia. The investigation also found that Obama’s campaign staff seems to be removing more questionable edits more often than they are making them. McCain’s campaign staff in most cases is removing unflattering information in certain articles.
While using the online internet tool Wikiscanner, Wikinews was able to determine the Internet Protocol Address range for the campaign headquarters for Obama, Obama For America and McCain, mccain08hq.com. After determining the ranges, Wikinews found the individual IP addresses used to edit Wikipedia and cross reference them to current edits as early as August of this year for both campaigns.
As early as August 1, a staff member from McCain’s campaign using the IP address 12.47.124.18 edited a Wikipedia article titled: Xenophobia, in which the staff member removed a paragraph of information stating that “North America has had a current of xenophobia against black people, especially in the United States.” On November 2, 2007, a staff member using the same address removed information that criticized Liberty University. Staff members also performed other edits on articles that favor McCain which can be considered a conflict of interest.
Obama’s campaign staff was also participating in editing. One staff member using the IP address 208.116.214.66 apparently did not like Vanilla Ice saying on May 31, 2007, “Most recently, Winkle was the target of an unfortunate assault when, during a concert in Des Moines, Iowa, an Aryan-looking, bi-curious campaign staffer named Tom Vietor hurled an empty bottle at the performer’s skull.” The edit was immediately removed by the same IP address. Vietor’s last registered salary was in April of 2007. On August 6, 2007 another staff member using a different IP address from Obama’s campaign, 208.116.214.67, added “Adam Goldfarb is the biggest liar I know” to the Wikipedia article Liar. Goldfarb is listed as being on the New Jersey staff for Obama’s campaign. Later more recent edits from 208.116.214.66 appear to remove vandalism from articles on Wikipedia while the other stopped editing thereafter.
These edits come just days after a Wikipedia editor alleged the McCain campaign lifted background information from Wikipedia for an August 11 public speech about the Georgian-Russian crisis. McCain gave a warning to Russia stating, “Russian President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin must understand the severe, long-term negative consequences that their government’s actions will have for Russia’s relationship with the U.S. and Europe.”
This discovery occurred at the beginning of the 2008 Democratic National Convention which began on Monday in Denver, Colorado where Obama is accepting his nomination for the presidential bid.
Wikinews has e-mailed both campaigns, but as of publishing this report, there have been no responses.
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On August 11, US Senator and 2008 presidential republican candidate John McCain gave a speech regarding the crisis between Georgia and Russia. Following the speech, a regular Wikipedia editor noticed that his speech was very similar to an article on Wikipedia also regarding the crisis, in what could be considered plagiarism. Wikinews was able to talk to that editor about how he found out about the similarities and what he did in response. Wikinews also took a deeper look at the claim and investigated further.
McCain gave his speech in Erie, Pennsylvania and was speaking to citizens, giving a warning to Russia stating, “Russian President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin must understand the severe, long-term negative consequences that their government’s actions will have for Russia’s relationship with the U.S. and Europe.”
McCain continued his speech saying, “Georgia is an ancient country, at the crossroads of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and one of the world’s first nations to adopt Christianity as an official religion. After a brief period of independence following the Russian revolution, the Red Army forced Georgia to join the Soviet Union in 1922. As the Soviet Union crumbled at the end of the Cold War, Georgia regained its independence in 1991, but its early years were marked by instability, corruption, and economic crises.”
While reading the first few paragraphs, the Wikipedia editor Killing Vector, who wishes to be called by his contributor name in fear of retribution for coming forward with the claim, noticed a striking similarity to McCain’s speech and the Wikipedia article on the country of Georgia. Not only did he notice the similarities, but after reading through the article’s edit history, ‘Killing Vector’ noticed that his speech might have been lifted from Wikipedia, with some of the material in McCain’s speech dating prior to the start of the Georgian and Russian crisis.
“I began reading the text of McCain’s address on the Georgia crisis, and as I was browsing it the irregularity jumped out almost immediately. The paragraphs which discussed the history of Georgia simply didn’t fit with the rest of the speech; the rhetorical style was jarringly different. I figured, “where’s someone in a hurry going to get basic information on the Republic of Georgia?” I opened up Wikipedia, went to the article, picked a recent but not current revision more or less at random (July 24th), and hit gold on the first try; McCain’s speech and the Wikipedia article had significant strings of words in common, emphasized the same events, made largely the same word choices,” said Vector to Wikinews.
Although other media outlets reported the alleged plagiarism, the two passages below were dated at least one week prior to the Georgian and Russian crisis. The first two paragraphs of McCain’s speech appear to resemble the Wikipedia article in the history dated July 24, 2008.
“Two paragraphs, about an eighth of the full speech, contain material directly copied from Wikipedia or superficially modified from its text. Those two paragraphs constitute the entire factual background of the speech, though — the rest is reaction and proposed policy,” added Vector.
Example (identical wording is in italics.):
* Wikipedia – ….one of the first countries in the world to adopt Christianity as an official religion.
* McCain – ….one of the world’s first nations to adopt Christianity as an official religion.
* Wikipedia – After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Georgia had a brief period of independence as a Democratic Republic (1918-1921), which was terminated by the Red Army invasion of Georgia. Georgia became part of the Soviet Union in 1922 and regained its independence in 1991. Early post-Soviet years was marked by a civil unrest and economic crisis.
* McCain – After a brief period of independence following the Russian revolution, the Red Army forced Georgia to join the Soviet Union in 1922. As the Soviet Union crumbled at the end of the Cold War, Georgia regained its independence in 1991, but its early years were marked by instability, corruption, and economic crises.
McCain’s campaign denies they plagiarized Wikipedia, but also didn’t state whether they used it as a source for his speech.
“We did not copy Wikipedia in Sen. McCain’s remarks. There are only so many ways to state basic historical facts and dates and that any similarities to Wikipedia were only coincidental,” said a spokesman for the McCain campaign, Brian Rogers to The Politico. Wikinews contacted McCain’s campaign, but has yet to receive a response.
Wikinews e-mailed Jay Walsh, the director of communications for the Wikimedia Foundation to see what they thought of the situation, and what if anything they planned to do about it.
“We aren’t particularly concerned with this,” said Walsh who also added that “I’m only aware of this situation through media coverage I’ve seen, nor do we or I have any in-depth detail about the situation.”
“I would say it’s a good practice to attribute text or content whenever possible. Obviously when it’s a matter of copyright then there are legal considerations, but the Foundation is not able to examine individual cases,” added Walsh. Wikinews attempted to contact Mike Godwin, the legal counsel for the Foundation, but has yet to receive a response.
Vector stands by his claim and also notes what he calls ‘dishonesty’ on the part of McCain’s campaign.
“What concerns me more, as a voter, is the ethical issue. Plagiarism comes from dishonesty and intellectual laziness on the part of an individual, but McCain’s campaign’s later denial adopts that individual’s dishonesty,” stated Vector.
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September 3rd, 2008 at 6:19 am
[...] Wikipedia is just not the authoritative system that many people would like to believe it is. While much of it can be user edited, the whole process of editing has become much more like a political process, like the scrubbing of Paulins data before the republican national convention. [...]
September 3rd, 2008 at 10:48 am
I stopped reading this article when it described stating information similar to information in Wikipedia as plagerism and am not going to use any more brain energy to process any of the information further. Wikipedia has the intent of providing information for use – you can copy-paste and use it at will, including images. (I’m not recommending blind use of Wikipedia material, just stating Wikipedia’s own intended use.) Attribution is not required. Further, Wikipedia editors are required to use external sources for their material meaning that it all came from somewhere else to begin with.
The best thing for Wikipedia to claim is that McCain agrees with them. But I’m not sure I see that possibility in the attitude of the authors. A little biased maybe.
January 6th, 2009 at 6:04 am
[...] we use their information. For example …look at what both the Obama and McCaine Campaign Staff did – McCain, Obama campaigns discovered making questionable edits to Wikipedia | MND: Your Daily Dose of … Another – “Wikipedia bills itself as the web’s "free encyclopedia that anyone can [...]