Guantanamo Officers Caught Modifying Wikipedia

James Hardine writes "Wikileaks reports that US armed forces personnel at Guantanamo have conducted propaganda attacks over the Internet. (The story has been picked up by the NYTimes, The Inquirer, the New York Daily News, and the AP.) The activities documented by Wikileaks include deleting Guantanamo detainees' ID numbers from Wikipedia, posting of self-praising comments on news websites in response to negative articles, promoting pro-Guantanamo stories on the Internet news focus website Digg, and even altering Wikipedia's entry on Cuban President Fidel Castro to describe him as 'an admitted transsexual' (misspelling the word 'transsexual'). Guantanamo spokesman Lt. Col. Bush blasted Wikileaks for identifying one 'mass communications officer' by name, who has since received death threats for 'simply doing his job — posting positive comments on the Internet about Gitmo.'"

Minor gripe

[Shanoyu (975)]

I would be hard pressed to call editing wikipedia articles to favor oneself "conducting a propaganda campaign", much in the same way that I would feel awkward referring to updating my blog as a press release.

Re:Minor gripe

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF (813746)]

I would be hard pressed to call editing wikipedia articles to favor oneself "conducting a propaganda campaign", much in the same way that I would feel awkward referring to updating my blog as a press release.

When it is a government employee doing this, on the clock, paid for by tax dollars, as part of their official duties... well that is what propaganda is. Why the hell are we paying for "mass communications officers" in the first place? Does anyone support their tax dollars going to pay for someone to go post positive comments on Digg about government programs? Say, are you by any chance a "mass communications officer?"

Re:Minor gripe

[Original Replica (908688)]

Why the hell are we paying for "mass communications officers" in the first place?

Because they are a part of the modern military: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_operations [wikipedia.org] (read it quick before it get's edited)

Now you might think that it would be wrong for the US Government to use a part of the military against US citizens, but then you would be supporting the terrorists. Here's why: The Terrorists can read the internet. It's OK to trample on you if it is in the name of Stopping The Terrorists. Any red blooded American should be proud to read purposefully distorted information, because they know that it is the only way to Stop The Terrorists and protect Freedom. America, fuck yeah.

Re:Minor gripe

[Original Replica (908688)]

In the realm of "counter to the interests of the US populace and unconstitutional" there is so much more important stuff than this. This is just an aftershock of the much bigger "counter to the interests of the US populace and unconstitutional" practices going on like Gitmo itself, not the Wikipedia entry.

Re:Minor gripe

[amRadioHed (463061)]

I think planting information to try to mislead the US populace is actually right up there among the most serious misdeeds the administration can do. Our entire democratic system relies on well informed people being able to vote for who best represents them. Any misinformation campaign run by the government can only be seen as a deliberate attempt to make the voters vote against their best interests. That's a pretty serious charge in my book.

Re:Minor gripe

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF (813746)]

Homosexual groups routinely monitor and edit any Wiki page having to do with the accurate perception of their identity dysphoria.

Way to miss the F'ing point. I don't care, so long as they aren't doing so using my involuntarily claimed tax dollars. The constitution is predicated upon the belief that the US government is the greatest danger to the freedom of the people. When homosexual groups start taxing me under threat of imprisonment, then I'll take offense. Until then, the point is what the government is doing.

Re:Minor gripe

[cduffy (652)]

Some would call that justified, but the skeptic would realize that any viewpoint that is overly dominant is dangerous when other viewpoints don't get a fair shake or are openly ridiculed.

Just so! The cabal which would have you believe that the Earth is spherical has such widespread and overt control of the media -- not to mention the liberal and "scientific" communities -- that the truth of the Flat Earth has been suppressed for centuries. Their representatives staff every school, and it's impossible to get representation in the media; any opposition has been unable to get a fair shake for centuries.

*snerk*.

Showing "both sides" of every issue may be "fair and balanced" -- but if one of those sides is arguing that the atomic weight of helium is 5 or 3+3=17, it does nothing to promote popular knowledge of objective truths.

Reality check

[geoswan (316494)]

In this day and age, there is a decidedly anti-government and anti-Bush perspective that is promoted by many in the mainstream media and, often, in places like Slashdot and Wikipedia.

Oh? Examples please? If this claim was really true why have so few of the stories about rogue GI had any legs. It seems to me that the MSM has dropped a lot of stories as if they were radioactive.

Here is a counter-example. Carolyn Wood. This officer was in charge of interrogations at Bagram when her troops slowly, methodically, brutally beat two innocent men to death. All the captives in her prison were subjected to a couple of days or a couple of weeks of beatings, isolation and sleep deprivation. The sleep deprivation was administered by having their hands shackled above their heads. If passing guards saw them nodding off, in spite the shackling, they were supposed to administer a "peroneal strike".

These two men died, while the others survived, because they got more than their share of blows. One was rumored to have a brother who was a taliban commander. He wasn't accused of being a member of the Taliban himself. But he was mouthy. Even though his autopsy showed he died of these blows. Even though the military pathologist classed his death as a homicided Wood failed to rein in her troops, and the other man was beaten to death. The troops didn't believe he was really an enemy. They just found his cries amusing. He was estimated to have received over 400 of these peroneal strikes. The military pathologist who examined his body said she had only seen legs so badly damaged once -- someone whose legs had been run over by a bus.

So, what happened to Wood? Court-martial? Dishonorable discharge?

Nope. She was given a Bronze Star, and a promotion, and a new assignment.

Next stop Abu Ghraib.

No. I am not making this up. It was mainly military police in the pictures the DoD released from the Abu Ghraib gallery. But in the background of some of those pictures you can see some of Wood's interrogators. The hapless MPs said that they had been instructed and egged on by Wood's troops.

Wood drafted the infamous "Interrogation Rules of Engagement" that went out of Sanchez's signature in September 2003. Wood's interrogators are known to have used unauthorized interrogation methods she developed in Bagram in Iraq.

So, what happened next? Court-martial? Dishonorable discharge? Have her Bronze Star stripped from her?

Another Bronze Star. And a plum assignment. She was made an interrogation instructor at Camp Huaxcha, the US Army's intelligence college.

No. I am not making this up.

The Fay-Jones Inquiry made the following recommendations to her commanding officers:

Finding: CPT Carolyn A. Wood, Officer in Charge, Interrogation Control Element (ICE), Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center, 519 MI BDE A preponderance of evidence supports that CPT Wood failed to do the following: *Failed to implement the necessary checks and balances to detect and prevent detainee abuse. Given her knowledge of prior abuse in Afghanistan, as well as the reported sexual assault of a female detainee by three 519 MI BN Soldiers working in the ICE, CPT Wood should have been aware of the potential for detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib. As the Officer-in-Charge (OIC) she was in a position to take steps to prevent further abuse. Her failure to do so allowed the abuse by Soldiers and civilians to undetected and unchecked.
*Failed to assist in gaining control of a chaotic situation during the IP Roundup, even after SGT Eckroth approached her for help.
*Failed to provide proper supervision. Should have been more alert due to the following incidents:

*An ongoing investigation on the 519 MI BN in Afghanistan.
*Prior reports of 519 MI BN interrogators conducting unauthorized interrogations.
*SOLDIER29's repo

Re:Minor gripe

[Wordplay (54438)]

I wouldn't. Propaganda just means tilting public opinion towards positive through use of the media and other mass communications, with an implication (but not requirement) that it's less than honest. That could be adding positive info, that could be deleting negative info, given access. Wiki is unusual in that it would actually let you do the latter, oversight considerations aside.

Enough people don't understand that Wiki's only -really- valid as a collection of other cites and take it at face value that this sort of thing could be very effective if it's not outed.

Tag suggestion

[by Anonymous Coward]

This lowly anon humbly suggests tagging the story "ministryoftruth".

Seems rather appropriate.

In other news,

[by Anonymous Coward]

The mass communications officer is expected to make a full recovery as a Slashdot editor and meta-moderator.

Altering Wikipedia is an assigned job???

[rwyoder (759998)]

Guantanamo spokesman Lt. Col. Bush blasted Wikileaks for identifying one 'mass communications officer' by name, who has since received death threats for 'simply doing his job -- posting positive comments on the Internet about Gitmo.'

Lemme guess: The officers name is Winston Smith, and he is assigned to the Ministry of Truth?

Eerie Similarity Between Washington and Moscow

[reporter (666905)]

There is an eerie similarity between (1) this incident involving military officers employed by Washington and (2) several incidents involving bloggers employed by the Kremlin. The American military officers modified information on a website by removing negative statements about the American government and by adding favorable statements. The officers also added negative statements about "enemies" of the USA.

As for the pro-Kremlin bloggers, A recent report [rferl.org] by Radio Free Europe states, "A new generation of pro-Kremlin bloggers, for example, is being cultivated to spread Putin's word online -- and to rapidly disrupt the activities of Russia's opponents, both real and imagined.

When Kasparov's Other Russia held a rally in Moscow on April 14, for example, a group of pro-Kremlin bloggers from the Young Guard youth movement flooded the Internet with reports of a smaller pro-regime demonstration on the same day. In doing so, they crowded out postings about the opposition march on Russia's top web portals -- creating a virtual news blackout in one of the last refuges of free media in the county. Pavel Danilin, the pro-Putin blogger who spearheaded the effort bragged to 'The Washington Post' that his team 'played it beautifully.'"

Is Russia becoming more like the USA, or is the USA becoming more like Russia?

An Asshole In an Office Paid Tax Money

[Shihar (153932)]

There are few things more annoying than when people ignore scale. What Moscow does and what Washington does in terms of media manipulation is night and day. Washington does merrily try and get its perspective thrown into a favorable light... like all the other governments in the world. It might even use shitty tactics some times. The difference is the scale. Washington performs card tricks while Moscow makes 747's disappear. Last time I checked, no one is dying to find a loop hole to keep Bush in office and his approval rating is hovering somewhere around a truly impressive 30%. If anything, all of Bush successors are trying desperately to avoid using his name as anything other than a curse word. The opposition party in the US (Democrats) are in the processes of trashing the shit out of ex-ruling party (Republicans). Moscow doesn't have any opposition parties beyond a small powerless communist party. Moscow doesn't even bother having elections for regional governors and just appoints them.

So, does Washington run propaganda campaigns? Sure. They should be. It isn't like the various groups opposed to the US are not running their own. They should be ethical in how they run their campaigns, but it absolutely is their duty to run them. If there is a breach of ethics, it should be investigated and dealt with. That said, I have to roll my eyes and yawn at the editing Wikipedia articles. If they hacked into Wikipedia and deleted change logs, I would be on the OMGWTF bandwagon. If some ass hole in a government office who was tasked with fighting a propaganda campaign was an absolute dumb shit and interpreted those orders as "go edit Wikipedia and leave behind my IP and change logs", than my out rage is reserved to the fact that we would hire such a dumb ass in the first place, not the fact that it was done. I am far more pissed off that my money was wasted on paying some dumbass who thinks that making a few edits to wikipedia, a website specifically design to be resistant against such bone headed attacks, counts as scoring a victory in a propaganda effort against Islamic extremist.

Re:Altering Wikipedia is an assigned job???

[ShieldW0lf (601553)]

According to the article:

Wolff, Richard M. MC1, USN, Mass Communication Specialist/Webmaster
Joint Task Force Guantanamo APO AE 09360 Cuba
Phone: [phone]
Ph DSN: 660-8135
Email: [e-mail]
Alt Email: [e-mail]

Wouldn't want that to get misplaced.

Re:Altering Wikipedia is an assigned job???

[Smauler (915644)]

The difference is that the officers were doing a job paid for by you. It is entirely appropriate that the public know where their money is going and who is spending it doing what. If the officers did this in their own private time, there would be a conflict of interest issue, but there would be no reason to leak their details. If the officers did this on your payroll, you have every right to know what they did, why they did it, and if they should have done it. If you are paying for something you have a right to know what people are doing with your money, obviously with certain exceptional limitations, this being far from any of those.

Re:Altering Wikipedia is an assigned job???

[Miedvied (1200629)]

The government has no right to privacy from the people, therefore this is not 'lawyerly equivocating.' The people are *supposed* to have oversight on government activities.

Privacy - individuals VS govt.

[J_Omega (709711)]

There's a big difference between the government invading the privacy of individuals versus individuals monitoring what their government does.

Re:Altering Wikipedia is an assigned job???

[cduffy (652)]

No, they don't do it for cash. You are right. They are too useless to add any real value, either service, or good, to the world, and they just hate people that do. So, they really are just looking to eake out some sort of a living, because what really drives these Sarumans is their hatred of inventive people. All they do is tear things down. They never build anything.

Just for the record -- this is the post I'm foe'ing you for; I quite enjoyed our other thread.

I can appreciate a good devil's advocate position -- but this isn't onesuch, even remotely. To play devil's advocate, one's position needs to be plausible, something an opponent might accept long enough to draw up a reasonable counterargument.

Look -- you claim to be a Libertarian-leaning Republican. How can you claim that all activists' work is destructive, when such a large branch of activism is centered around protecting the personal freedoms you claim you value? It's activists that got women the vote; activists who helped men and women escape slavery and flee to Canada; activists that ended apartheid; activists who uprooted British rule over their American colonies and started the revolution that lead to the very existence of the country you live in.

Devil's advocate or no, your claims insult the Constitution itself -- it was people demanding, agitating and giving their lives for change that resulted in the very idea of a government existing by the consent of the governed. If you'll spit on that for a chance to score a few points in some online forum, I will have nothing to do with you.

Curse them, this is our Internet!

[Rayonic (462789)]

Certain people shouldn't be allowed to post comments or edit Wikipedia. We gotta lock the Internet down; it's the only way to preserve freedom of expression.

This is why military intelligence is an oxymoron

[rgoldste (213339)]

I'm shocked that the military would try to edit Gitmo facts out of Wikipedia. Don't they know that pages' history is saved, so that improper deletions can be easily restored? Don't they know that there are dozens, if not hundreds, of editors paranoid enough about the Bush administration and war on terror to monitor the Gitmo page? Couldn't the military be doing something, um, useful to prosecute the war on terror? Didn't the military realize that these efforts would come back to bite them in the ass (thanks Wikileaks!) and further hamper their efforts?

And regarding Lt. Col. Bush's "He was just doing his job" defense, I'd like to note that that defense hasn't been recognized in law since at least Nuremburg.

We apparently can't get ethical intelligence officers, but can we at least get intelligent intelligence officers?

Something is very broken when....

[EmbeddedJanitor (597831)]

a military prison has a spin-meister.

Military prisons have a purpose

[EmbeddedJanitor (597831)]

Yes, the military is a state within a state. There are military laws, military police, military prisons etc. There are even military driver's licenses (I have a tank driver's license even though I've never been in a tank - go figure). For example, there are crimes such as desertion which have no civilian parallel. This pretty much holds for all countries.

But Guatanemo is being used outside of normal military usage which is probably why they also need spin meisters to make their case.

Re:Military prisons have a purpose

[geoswan (316494)]

The "Military Commissions" are not Courts-Martial. They do not follow the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Did you read David Hick's Australian lawyers account of why he was barred from attending his client's trial? The Presiding Officer wanted him to sign a disclaimer, stating that he would abide by the Commission's rules, and that he would be in trouble if he didn't. He says he was prepared to sign, once he had been allowed to SEE the rules he was agreeing to abide by.

So, why couldn't he see them? BECAUSE THEY HADN'T YET BEEN WRITTEN.

Nevertheless, the Presiding Officer insisted the lawyer agree to abide by these not yet written rules. And, when he wouldn't do so he was barred from attendance.

Military Prisons, like Leavenworth, hold people convicted of crimes. None of the captives currently at Guantanamo has been convicted of a crime. With three exceptions, none of the captives are even charged with a crime.

The DoD does not call Guantanamo a Military Prison. It does not call Guantanamo a POW camp. It calls Guantanamo a "detention camp".

David Hicks was convicted, because he pled guilty. But he only pled guilty after this shameful act where one of his lawyers, the one his family chose, was barred from attending his trial. Please don't confuse this with justice.

What's really funny

[zullnero (833754)]

Is the officer defending his guy for "just doing his job" to abuse privately owned and operated websites and spread misinformation. His job? I'm sorry, but spreading (mis)information is what the whole .gov domain was created for. There's no need to deface private websites and spam comments pages...and be paid to do it with our tax dollars. You do that, you deserve what's coming to you and it should be the military's duty to make sure they aren't assigning soldiers to such incredibly wasteful activities.

The incompetence of goverment....

[budword (680846)]

The incompetence of government is our only real chance at safely. These people are the reason I don't believe the government has covered up UFO's or a massive 9/11 conspiracy. They aren't competent. They can't find their own ass using both hands, much less scratch it without getting caught. The fixed ratio of stupidity to malice being constant means the damage these people can do will be sort term. (Short term being years though.) Much the same way the malice/stupidity ratio lead to the Nazi's being responsible for the very mistakes that lead to their defeat.

Re:

[malsdavis (542216)]

It's not just government which are incompetent. Most the big corporations excel at incompetence even more. That's whats good about small businesses, having the MD in the office - who's house and life savings are on the line if the business fails - is a great way to encourage competence.

As soon as you get national/multinational organizations, be they governmental or corporate, incompetence inevitable creeps in.

an admitted transsexual?

[m2943 (1140797)]

What is that supposed to mean? Fidel Castro is trying to pass as the bearded lady?

the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit

[TopSpin (753)]

That's the slogan which appears on the Main_Page [wikipedia.org] of Wikipedia. The provided link leads to Wikipedia:Introduction [wikipedia.org] which states:

anyone can edit almost any page, and we encourage you to be bold

I presume the "almost any page" refers to that tiny subset of pages that are locked at any one moment. No criterion for who is and is not permitted to edit Wikipedia are provided.

Now, Wikipedia does maintain a NPOV policy [wikipedia.org] that one might consider relevant to the case at hand. However, NPOV applies to the nature of contributed content, not the nature of the contributor. When he's not ordering political opponents assassinated, Putin is free to work to his own page, as long as the contributed content maintains a NPOV.

The Wikileaks page linked from our /. story lists the 60 edits [wikipedia.org] in question. If you actually examine these edits you'll find they appear to have no general focus. Edits include grammar and spelling corrections, elaborations on pop culture topics and other matters. Since the vast majority of these edits lack any obvious political agenda, Wikileaks helpfully "highlights" the 5 controversial edits, otherwise you might miss them:

1. Remove one sentence containing a gitmo detainee ID number. Remainder of topic unmodified
2. Remove one sentence containing a gitmo detainee ID number. Remainder of topic unmodified
3. Remove one sentence containing a gitmo detainee ID number. Remainder of topic unmodified
4. Alter one word to characterize the current Afghanistan conflict as a "war" instead of an "invasion".
5. Add the sentence "Fidel Castro is an admitted transexual."

Having read all of the same edits myself I can confirm that these 5 edits constitute the complete propaganda attack. I can only speculate why someone from Gitmo might feel the need to remove detainee ID numbers; perhaps the practice is obsolete. Who knows? The detainee topics themselves weren't harmed in any substantive way by the lack of ID numbers. The petty "war" verses "invasion" thing; they're both wrong. The only NPOV word that comes to mind for me is "conflict". As for the transsexual bit; puerile crap like this appears at a frequency of several Hz on Wikipedia, and is removed almost as quickly by various bots and many diligent editors. Ascribing this to some propaganda machine when it could just as easily have been some twit among the 3000+ active duty troops in Gitmo is a real stretch.

There you have it; 3 unexplained detainee ID removals which failed to significantly propagandize anything, a single word edit war in which both sides are guilty of violating NPOV and some vandalism.

Wow.

My clear and unambiguous take

[Master of Transhuman (597628)]

Anybody working at the Guantanamo prison deserves death threats.

Fuck 'em.

They deserve to be arrested, charged with war crimes, and sentenced to significant time in a military prison.

The US is torturing prisoners who have not been formally and legally charged with any crime. That is a war crime. The responsibility goes right up to the Commander in Chief George W. Bush and he needs to be arrested and sent to The Hague for trial as a war criminal along with the complete chain of command down to the prison guards executing the orders.

Nothing really to see here...

[geoswan (316494)]

I fixed a couple of the JTF-GTMO edits. There is nothing really to see here. Wikileaks found that something like 60 edits were made from an IP address traceable to the JTF-GTMO's Public Affair Office.

You can read here [southcom.mil], on page 3 of this pdf, about the most recent rotation of public affairs GIs. They are just kids. Most of what they do are puff pieces -- interviews for the "Chaplain's Corner". Sixty wikipedia edits, of this sort, could have been done by a couple of bored privates, over their lunch hour, the day the Sergeant was out of the office.

More notable is the goodbye essay of Colonel Lora L. Tucker, a retiring PCH officer, on page 2. The way I see it her retiring essay provides a big part of the answer to the question how could American soldiers be involved in abusing captives?

Guarding men, held without charge, for an indefinite term, would be bad for the morale of young American GIs. What I think happened is that officers like Geoffrey Miller, Harry Harris, made the conscious decision to demonize the Guantanamo captives, keeping up the GI's morale by vastly overstating the importance of the captives, the danger they represented, and the confidence responsible officers could have about their role in terrorist attacks.

Colonel Tucker seems to have accepted the unsubstantiated claims of spin doctors at face value.

Back in 2005 there was a brief period when camp authorities allowed the press to interview some of the ordinary troops who served as the camp's guards. I remember a brief clip the BBC broadcast about his frustrations about serving as a camp guard. He made two points:

Guards weren't given enough scope to retaliate against captives who spit on them, or threw urine on them.

(paraphrasing) "Half of these guys killed a US soldier." Well, I checked. At the time the guard made this comment 192 American GIs had died in Afghanistan -- including those like Pat Tillman who were victims of "friendly fire". At that point about 500 captives remained in Guantanamo. So even if every American death could be attributed to a Guantanamo captive, that still wouldn't have been "half".

When examined in detail the allegations faced by only a few dozen captives could be honestly reported to have been "captured on the battlefield" -- for any reasonable definition of battlefield. The allegations against most of the captives don't support the claim that they were "combatants". Under the Geneva Conventions a demobilized soldier is considered a civilian. According to the Geneva Conventions only soldier who are currently part of an army, or militia -- or civilians who choose to engage in hostilities against their countries invaders, are combatants. A veteran might be highly decorated, or admired -- according to the Geneva Convention, if that demobilized veteran stayed home, didn't try to re-enlist, and left his rifle hanging over his mantle, he remained a civilian.

The Guantanamo captives included a couple of dozen grandfathers, who were considered combatants because they fought against Afghanistan's Soviet invaders during the 1980s. One grandfather's military service dated back to 1960s, when he served in the Afghanistan Army when Afghanistan was still a monarchy.

And yet the guards believed, "over half these guys killed a US soldier". The authorities demonized them. And this set the stage for the abuse.

Just an idea...

[Stormwatch (703920)]

I just had the craziest idea! How about trying an open, honest approach to it? Rather than mess with the articles, they should write in their "discussion" area. Say, something like this:

Hello, I am [NAME], [MILITARY RANK AND CURRENT POSITION], and I believe this article is [BIASED / FACTUALLY INCORRECT / WHATEVER OTHER PROBLEM]; I would like to clarify that [STATE YOUR CASE, LIST YOUR ARGUMENTS, PRESENT EVIDENCE IF AVAILABLE]. If any further information is necessary, please feel free to contact the Army's Public Affairs division at [E-MAIL & SNAIL-MAIL ADDRESSES].

Seriously! Wouldn't that get a lot more goodwill than those recurring fuck-ups?

Re:Wow what a shock

[Seumas (6865)]

A better analogy would be "next you're going to tell me that Linus Torvals is working for the government and, while on the tax-payer's dime, is posting false information and deleting content that may be true but negative toward linux on wikipedia".

Also, the ideal goal is to keep Wikipedia as void of 'opinion' as possible anyway.

Re:Wow what a shock

[niiler (716140)]

While it is true that every bit of information out there is shaded by personal perceptions, I can better make my own informed decisions vis-a-vis said information if I know who is communicating it to me. What this information officer was doing is repugnant in a democratic society where people need to make informed choices. Saying that we've been doing it since forever doesn't set precedent as propaganda's general purpose is to control the public opinion: it seems antithetical to democratic societies. And while Wikipedia is not perfect on political topics, at least it's something and we can make discoveries about the editorial leanings of the contributors.

Re:Wow what a shock

[symbolic (11752)]

This isn't a matter of opinion. This is a matter of obscuring or removing factual information portraying what actually happened. To lie about something factual is entirely different than offering an opinion. And the motive is obvious - to circumvent accountability.

Re:Wow what a shock

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF (813746)]

Exactly... Isn't the whole point of Wikipedia that *anyone* can change it!

That is the point of wikipedia. That is not the important part of this story and, in fact, it mentions Digg and several other sites. The point of this story is the government is spending our tax dollars to spread "positive reviews" and misinformation related to government projects, thereby undermining the fourth estate. The other point of this story is they are incompetent at it and admit to doing it. Can't you muster up just a little bit of indignation that instead of providing ten poverty stricken youth with full scholarships to university we're paying at least one incompetent hack that money to lie to us on Web forums?

Re:Wow what a shock

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF (813746)]

Here, they spin things anyway they can to try to make themselves look good. Are you surprised about this? Do you think this is a new thing?

Of course not, but when they are caught they need to be punished and more importantly, stopped.

Be indignant that Wikipedia is not encouraging its users to question the data it contains, be indignant that Wikipedia does not have disclaimers and warnings as to its potential inaccuracies -- that's your true crime, your true deception, right there.

No it isn't. The crime is the government overstepping its mandate and working against the people it is supposed to serve. That is the crime. Wikipedia has no obligation to anyone.

Don't blame the Government (or anyone else's Government, or NGO, or Political party, or Corporation or cabal...) for the propaganda, they are only doing their jobs.

The government is the one that should be blamed. Their job is defined by the constitution. Read it. Whenever they overstep that, they aren't doing their job, they're violating the public trust and need to be called onto the carpet by the electorate. What are you some sort of paid shill trying to divert attention to a charitable project for not doing what you think they should? They aren't funded with tax dollars and have no responsibility to do anything and are thus, blameless.

Re:Fuck Bush

[LingNoi (1066278)]

Only people who share your viewpoint may edit wikipedia. People who have first hand knowledge may not. That is the cardinal rule.

Did you even read the summary?

...even altering Wikipedia's entry on Cuban President Fidel Castro to describe him as 'an admitted transsexual' (misspelling the word 'transsexual')

You're telling me that they have first hand knowledge of this?

Oh right you just wanted to troll about Wikipedia, my mistake.

Re:

[zaunuz (624853)]

You are probably remembering the article where IPs traced to CIA was used to edit the wikipedia-article about the iraq war

Re:uhm...

[f_raze13 (982309)]

This is different. The article specifically states that the soldier is their "mass communications specialist", and that he was being paid to edit the articles to support Guantanamo.

I could see your point if the article read "military IPs used to edit wikipedia", but this is being financed by the government. Lt. Col. Ed Bush came right out and said that their "mass communications specialist" was just doing his job.

Ignorant

[HalAtWork (926717)]

So ignore a truth unless the person saying it is guilt-free? Facts don't stand on their own anymore?

Re:Ignorant

[ultranova (717540)]

Who says that wikileaks has "facts". They are an organization with international support, and so to some extent, act against the interests of the united states as a sovereign nation.

Please explain how your conclusion (Wikileaks acts against the interest of the United States as a sovereign nation) in the second sentence follows from your claim (Wikileaks has international support) ? And please explain how the implied statement that Wikileaks doens't have facts in the first sentence follows from your conclusion in the second ?

Or are you simply spreading FUD about Wikileaks in an attempt to discredit it ?

Re:Ignorant

[AdmiralWeirdbeard (832807)]

nono, i think he's right. Colbert's been saying for quite some time that the facts have an anti-US bias.
Wikileaks contains facts, and is therefore by the transitive property operating with an anti-US bias.
thats math, you cant argue with that.

Truthiness revised

[Slur (61510)]

Actually, Colbert's truthy line is "...For as we are all aware, the Facts have a well-known Liberal bias." ...his implication being, that when you understand cause and effect, you realize that life is something that needs to be nurtured, not dominated, and that only by investing directly in the health, education, and general welfare of the people do you get a healthy and prosperous body politic.

Those whom he indicts in the government and press for distorting the truth, he also calls cowards. When the truth doesn't serve your ends, it is courageous and moral to change your course. But again and again those who have usurped the reins of power consider only their own distorted ends, without consideration for the reasonable will of the people. They would have us be ruled by false images so that we relinquish all our power.

One only wonders, to what end are they deceiving us and stealing our power? I suppose it must be private elite world domination, and the well-being of the people be damned.

Re:Yawn...

[WK2 (1072560)]

Yes. We should refrain from solving any problem until some other problem gets fixed. That'll get things done.

Re:Yawn...

[spun (1352)]

And you reactionaries often cry, "It was a joke!" when people call you out for being a dick. And please enlighten me as to how writing words, any words, can make one a thug. For instance, saying "tjstork is an enormous tool who kisses the ass of any American fascist he can lay his lips on" does not make one a thug. Thugs torture people with waterboarding and electric shocks to the testicles. They don't post messages on Slashdot saying things like, "tjstork's grasp of logic is as piss-poor as his grasp of sociopolitical realities."

Re:misspelling?

[ShieldW0lf (601553)]

From the article in question:

This is the American government speaking to the American people and to the world through Wikipedia, not identifying itself and often speaking about itself in the third person, Assange said in a telephone interview from Paris.

Army Lt. Col. Ed Bush, a prison camps spokesman, said there is no official attempt to alter information posted elsewhere but said the military seeks to correct what it believes is incorrect or outdated information about the prison.

Bush declined to answer questions about the Castro posting.

Assange said that in January 2006, someone at Guantánamo wrote in a Wikipedia profile of the Cuban president: Fidel Castro is an admitted transexual, the unknown writer said, misspelling the word transsexual.

The U.S. has no formal relations with Cuba and has maintained its base in the southeast of the island over the objections of the Castro government.

So, that's a lie. Also, from the link you posted:

Revision as of 20:55, 16 January 2006 (edit) ...my comrades: when he made his report he was fair enough to acknowledge as an incontestable fact that we maintained a high spirit of chivalry throughout the struggle.'' [http://www.marxists.org/history/cuba/archive/castro/1953/10/16.htm]

Revision as of 22:22, 16 January 2006 (edit) ...my comrades: when he made his report he was fair enough to acknowledge as an incontestable fact that we maintained a high spirit of chivalry throughout the struggle.'' [http://www.marxists.org/history/cuba/archive/castro/1953/10/16.htm] + Fidel Castro is an admitted transexual.

So, you're not just a liar, but also an idiot.

Re:misspelling?

[ShieldW0lf (601553)]

The user in question is simply a common wikipedia vandal. The only pro-US change he made was calling Fidel Castro a transsexual, yet he goes on to call the president "George Wanker Bush" and a "fag". Those two edits were the only politic-related pages he altered. Furthermore, his IP resolves to Romania, which is nowhere near Guantanamo or any place I would choose to conveniently locate a pro-US wikipedia propaganda artist.

More lies and propaganda. The link you posted was to the person who edited BEFORE it was altered. The link to the actual user who did this is here [wikipedia.org]

Reverse DNS lookup reveals that IP belongs to:

130.22.190.5 resolves to
"public.jtfgtmo.southcom.mil"
Top Level Domain: "southcom.mil"

So, how much do you guys get paid for doing this?

Re:Okay, so who isn't doing this?

[hey! (33014)]

If the government claims "lots of other people are doing it" as justification for anything it does, I want the same defense the next time a cop pulls me over for speeding, or when the IRS questions some of my more creative tax deductions. Otherwise, we're setting up a two track system: one for people who work the government levers, and the other for the people who pay for the levers to be there.

Re:Expert on subject modifying Wikipedia! Horror!

[thirty-seven (568076)]

So what happens if people on the inside are the only ones who know the real truth about a certain subject?

Wikipedia is not the place for original research; they have a policy against it. If you're the only one with firsthand knowledge of an event, or if you have made a new discovery, or even if you have some new well-argued analysis, then the thing to do is to publish it elsewhere (newspaper, book, website, press release) and, if they think it's worthwhile, others will add this information to an article on wikipedia and cite you.