Screenshot of the website. As of August 22, 2007. |
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| URL | wikiscanner.virgil.gr |
|---|---|
| Commercial? | No |
| Type of site | Database tool |
| Registration | No |
| Available language(s) | Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Chinese |
| Owner | Virgil Griffith |
| Created by | Virgil Griffith |
| Launched | 2007-08-14 |
WikiScanner (also known as Wikipedia Scanner) was a tool which consisted of a publicly searchable database that linked millions of anonymous edits on the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia to the organizations where those edits apparently originated, by cross-referencing the edits with data on the owners of the associated block of IP addresses. (WikiScanner does not work on edits made under a username.) It was created by Virgil Griffith and released on August 14, 2007.[1][2] In his "WikiScanner FAQ" Griffith stated his belief that WikiScanner could help make Wikipedia more reliable for controversial topics.[3] Griffith also indicated that he had never been employed by the Wikimedia Foundation and said his work on WikiScanner was "100% noncommercial."[3]
As of 16 September 2011[update] attempts to run "WikiScanner Classic" from http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/ returned to the WikiScanner home page, which identifies itself as "WIKIWATCHER.COM"; invoking "WikiScanner2 PreviewNew!" at http://katrina.cs.caltech.edu/erenrich_rnd345/scanner_final/ leads to failure to load the page due to timeout.[4]
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The tool's database contains 34,417,493 entries on anonymous edits (those by users who were not logged in to Wikipedia) between 7 February 2002 and 4 August 2007.[5] Griffith stated that the database was constructed by compiling the anonymous edits included amongst the monthly public database dumps of Wikipedia. Griffith said he connects the organizations to the IP numbers with the assistance of the IP2Location, through which comparison he had found "187,529 different organizations with at least one anonymous Wikipedia edit."[3]
WikiScanner does not work on edits made by an editor who is logged-in under a username. In that case, the data shows only the username and not the IP address. WikiScanner also cannot of course distinguish edits made by authorized users of an organization's computers from edits made by unauthorized intruders, or by users of public-access computers that may be part of an organization's network. In discussing edits apparently made from computers in the Vatican, computer expert Kevin Curran was quoted by the BBC as saying that it was "difficult to determine if the person was an employee or if they had maliciously hacked into the Vatican system and were 'spoofing' the IP address."[6]
Griffith's WikiScanner FAQ notes that edits cannot be positively connected with representatives of the company, though they can be positively connected to the network. The FAQ goes on to say that "we can reasonably assume" that any such edit was from an employee or authorized guest, there is no guarantee that the edit was made by an authorized user rather than an intruder.[3] The likelihood of such intrusions varies with the security in organizations' networks. Some organizations, such as the Vatican Library, have public access terminals or networks.[7]
According to Wired, which first broke the story, most edits are "fairly innocuous".[8] Wired asked users to submit "The most shameful Wikipedia spin jobs",[9] which has generated many news stories about organizations, such as the Al-Jazeera network, Fox News Channel, staffers of Democratic Senator Robert Byrd and the CIA, that have edited Wikipedia articles.
Satirist Stephen Colbert (who has long featured stories about Wikipedia and its "truthiness" on his program) mocked Griffith's ambivalent stance on anonymity on Wikipedia, declaring it the "right" of corporations and governments to participate in the democratic process of deciding what is and is not true on Wikipedia.
According to the BBC, WikiScanner found that some editorial contributions to Wikipedia had originated from computers operated by the Diebold company, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Vatican.[10] The Times reported that an Internet address of the BBC itself had made edits to Wikipedia.[11] The BBC's Head of Interactive News, Pete Clifton subsequently published a blog acknowledging the omission. Clifton characterized the BBC's edits of Wikipedia in this manner: "Some of the examples are pretty unedifying, but for every dodgy one there are many, many more uncontroversial edits where people at the BBC have added information or changed a detail in good faith."[12]
The Associated Press also reported that computers owned by the Church of Scientology have been used to remove criticism from articles about Scientology on Wikipedia, including edits to the article Cult Awareness Network. The Associated Press admitted that edits to Wikipedia had been made anonymously from its own computers, though the news organization did not describe the content of the edits.[13] In its story on WikiScanner, the New York Times admitted that edits had been made from its own computers, as well.[14] Wired.com reported that the office of former Republican Senator Conrad Burns also edited critical passages.[2]
According to Maltastar.com, WikiScanner has shown edits by other large organizations, including Amnesty International, Apple Inc., ChevronTexaco, Coca Cola, the British Conservative Party, Dell Computers, EA Games, Exxon Mobil, the FBI, The Guardian, Microsoft, MySpace, the National Rifle Association, Nestlé, News of the World, the New York Times, the Government of Portugal, the US Republican Party, Reuters, Sony, the United Nations, Walmart, and a dog breeding association. The Canadian television network CTV reported edits by other organizations including Disney and the Canadian government.[15]
On August 24, 2007, headline reports in the Australian print and electronic media were made of anonymous edits to Wikipedia by staff in the Australian Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet in order to remove potentially damaging details from articles related to the Government. Information found using WikiScanner showed 126 anonymous edits from the Department to articles on sometimes controversial issues and on government ministers.[16][17] The Department responded by saying that Prime Minister John Howard did not direct his staff to modify the articles,[18] and later that day the head of the Department said that the changes were not made by anyone in his department or the Prime Minister's office, but by another user with the same Internet Service Provider (ISP).[19] Wikiscanner also identified Australian Department of Defence (DoD) employees as having made over 5,000 edits, prompting an unprecedented announcement from the DoD to block Defence staff from editing Wikipedia in case edits were interpreted as official comment.[20][21]
On 26 August 2007, The Boston Globe in “a Globe Editorial” published an article about Wikipedia, described as a “democratic fountain of facts” and related “WikiScanner” technology, reporting as among those companies found to have edited Wikipedia were Pepsi, Wal-Mart, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell, in which specific case "In 2005, someone using a computer inside Royal Dutch Shell, the oil company, rewrote a benign description of the company, claiming it is 'run by a group of geriatrics who find it impossible to make timely decisions and have an aversion to highly-profitable ventures.'”[22] The WikiScanner story was also covered by The Independent, which stated that many "censorial interventions" by editors with vested interests on a variety of articles in Wikipedia had been discovered.[23]
On 18 December 2007, Fortune magazine mentioned the use of WikiScanner in the 96th of its list of the "101 Dumbest Moments in Business" in 2007 saying, "A Washington Post employee is found to have changed a reference to the owner of a rival paper from Philip Anschutz to Charles Manson, while someone at The New York Times added the word "jerk" 12 times to the entry on George W. Bush."[24]
During the period of May 27 to June 4, 2008, edits originating from an IP address belonging to Industry Canada were made to the Jim Prentice (Federal Minister of Industry) article on Wikipedia. The edits included the removal of references to new copyright legislation and the addition of two passages about Prentice's recent accomplishments as Minister of Industry.[25][26]
Wikipedia co-founder[27] Jimmy Wales spoke enthusiastically about WikiScanner, noting in one source that "It brings an additional level of transparency to what's going on at Wikipedia" and stating in another that it was "fabulous and I strongly support it."[13][28] The BBC quoted an unnamed Wikipedia spokesperson's praise for the tool in taking transparency "to another level" and preventing "an organisation or individuals from editing articles that they're really not supposed to."[10] In responding to the edits from the Canadian Ministry of Industry, spokesman for the Wikimedia Foundation Jay Walsh noted that neutrality of language and guarding against conflicts of interest are two of the central pillars of Wikipedia, adding that "The edits which should be trusted would come from people who don't possess a conflict of interest, in this case, it would be worthwhile saying that if someone is making edits from a computer within the government of Canada … if it was someone within that ministry, that would theoretically constitute a conflict of interest."[29][30] Wales has speculated on a possible warning to anonymous editors: "When someone clicks on 'edit,' it would be interesting if we could say, 'Hi, thank you for editing. We see you’re logged in from The New York Times. Keep in mind that we know that, and it’s public information' … That might make them stop and think."[14]
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