The Radio Equalizer: Brian Maloney

15 August 2007

Rush Limbaugh, Wikipedia Vandalism, Democrat Party

DONKEY VANDALISM?

Guardian: Dems Changed Rush's Wikipedia Entry







Was Rush Limbaugh's Wikipedia entry vandalized by the Democrat Party? That's the amazing assertion made in today's edition of the left- wing Guardian newspaper. According to the piece, El Rushbo's listeners were called "legally retarded" and the host himself "idiotic".

In addition, the Guardian reports Labour Party insiders rewrote Wikipedia entries to remove criticism of its elected MPs.

All of this has been uncovered by using a program that searched the IP addresses of Wikipedia participants, which led back to the parties apparently involved. In other examples cited, FOX News, the CIA and GOP also edited entries, sometimes to suit their own interests and also for relatively bizarre reasons.

From the piece:


Edited entries

Republican party

Apparently replaced the term "occupying forces" with "liberating" in an article referring to the Iraq war. Somewhat less controversially, a Republican staffer also rewrote a biography of American revolutionary leader George Rogers Clark.

Democrat party

Somebody using a computer inside Democrat HQ edited a page on conservative American radio host Rush Limbaugh, calling him "idiotic", "ridiculous" and labelling his 20 million listeners as "legally retarded".

Fox News

Users traced back to the rightwing TV station have edited a number of pages about its presenters, including excising information about reporter Shepard Smith, who became infamous after saying "blowjob" on air.

CIA

Alongside numerous revisions about America's national security and geography, a surfer using a CIA address also took the time to add extensive sections on lightsabre combat in the Star Wars movies.

Labour party

A section on Labour Students was edited to remove a section on the rise of the career politician. "It is sometimes claimed that Labour Students has helped the rise of careerists within the party at the expense of more radical leftwingers," said the deleted text.


Here, Matthew Sheffield at NewsBusters looks at how Wikipedia is being used as propaganda tool. And the Huffington Post pumps up additional allegations of vandalism coming from Fox News.

Wow, this is really out of hand! From Wired, here's a much longer list.

NOTE: Rush interview with Karl Rove coming up at 1pm EDT. Update: here it is. Did you hear it?


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published by Brian Maloney at 11:32

14 Comments:

  • I read an article through Google News which linked to Wired News. They gave the impression that all of the abusers of Wikipedia had right wing agendas. They referenced Diebold, and even mentioned that Fox News modified the Wikipedia post on Al Franken. This got me curious, so I did a search on Google News for Wikipedian and Al Franken. 6 articles referenced that Franken's entry was modified by Fox News. If you try the same search with Limbaugh and Wikipedia, you only get the UK Guardian article. Conservative bias in the media my a$$.

    By Blogger RyanB, at 15 August, 2007 12:48  

  • well Ryan, the difference the correction on Limbaugh was accurate.

    this is your example of lib media? picking on Rush?

    well here my example of conservative media bias...

    THE IRAQI WAR, look no furthur than Judy miller's 10 "Iraq has WMD" stories in the "liberal" NY times, they are there, they are government propaganda news stories.


    so obviously Limbaugh is more important than the 3,700 dead US soldiers, thanks to the US media that sold Bush's war???

    conservative media bias??

    obiously

    By Blogger Minister of Propaganda, at 15 August, 2007 15:00  

  • MoPoop,

    You lie once again. The changes were not accurate, except in your warped mind.

    Oh, ask Hashie about his getting banned from another blog. Seems you lefties can't handle debate when you don't control what is considered true.

    By Blogger PCD, at 15 August, 2007 15:21  

  • PCD

    you prove the corrections are accurate, your functionally and emotionally retarded.

    By Blogger Minister of Propaganda, at 15 August, 2007 15:32  

  • MoPoop,

    Childish and shallow as usual. That is the reason you only have 50 listeners. How many are your relatives?

    By Blogger PCD, at 15 August, 2007 16:00  

  • PCD,
    that is all you deserve, your an anti-american, party over country scumbag.

    Go listen to Rove on Limbagh, I hear Rove announced "bush is well read", and Bush's critics (80% of America) are notning but elitists, I'm sure you believe every word, that "king on the truck stop restroom" Karl rove had to tell you.

    you do not deserve anything else than being clled retarded. Anyone who takes party over country, is retarded.

    By Blogger Minister of Propaganda, at 15 August, 2007 16:20  

  • Well done Hash. I consider it a point of honor to be banned from blogs. Which one was it?

    By Blogger elmonica, at 15 August, 2007 16:21  

  • El, why would you take anything fudgie says seriously?

    He's just doing what he does best, muckraking and lying.

    Now, folks, I am not knowledgeable about Wikipedia, but I'm under the impression that anyone can just go on there and write whatever they want to, on any given subject.

    If this is true, how can such a thing as "Wikipedia vandalism" exist in the first place?

    If you go to the blackboard at the front of a classroom, erase what was there, and write something else, is that "vandalizing" the blackboard?

    There is a poster here that I have observed on numerous occasions, checking in and imploring with great urgency that Brian simply MUST change such and such thing that has been written on his Wikipedia page?

    Is THAT vandalism? And who is the vandal, exactly? Is it the person who tells the other they should change it? Is it the person who wrote over what the last person wrote in the first place? Or is it whoever thought the subject matter was important enough to warrant a Wikipedia page in the first place?

    By Blogger hashfanatic, at 15 August, 2007 17:14  

  • "...3,700 dead US soldiers..."

    An interesting footnote to this unpleasant little stat (which, incidentally, I don't trust, I believe far more have actually died) is the fact that 3% of these American deaths have been by suicide...

    This certainly casts Limbaugh's complicity in these deaths in a far more sinister light, and goes a long way to possibly explaining some of his more self-destructive tendencies.

    By Blogger hashfanatic, at 15 August, 2007 17:18  

  • MoPoop alleged:

    you [sic] prove the corrections are accurate, your [sic] functionally and emotionally retarded.

    By Minister of Propaganda, at 15 August, 2007 15:32

    I'm usually not a grammar/punctuation nit-picker on the interwebs. I realize it's a casual communication forum. However, it's just too easy in this case.

    IMO, having read MoPoop's rants on Radio Equalizer for some time, he's more illustrative of emotional retardation.

    By Blogger John, at 16 August, 2007 02:34  

  • John, thanks for your thoughts on retardation. Sometimes an insider's opinion can be helpful.

    DEFUND THE BASTARDS!!!!

    By Blogger hashfanatic, at 16 August, 2007 13:05  

  • Hashish Lover said:
    "DEFUND THE BASTARDS!!!!"

    And just who will have the gonads to do that? Certainly not the current crop of spineless Democrat Presidential hopefuls. Edwards is folding like a limp noodle and shutting down some of his operation already. Obama's mouth is not big enough to insert any more feet. Hillary is smart enough to realize that immediate defunding of the troops is not feasible and it is political suicide. She will stay with the option of a gradual withdrawal, but definitely not defunding.

    Reid and Pelosi never even tried to run with the topic. They danced around it by trying some lame votes on withdrawal and they failed. Even Murtha has shut up.

    And no, it is not because they are all on vacation. They are taking their marching orders from the media - New York Times, et al.

    The Kossites and HuffPoes are loosing their grip on their politicians. Just like when Ned Lamont blew his chances to be elected during the Connecticut election. The newspapers and the general public realized how crazy his views were and Lieberman won handily.

    There is some hope for defunding the troops. That would be if the loopy left's Cindy Sheehan knocks Pelosi out of office. Highly unlikely.

    By Blogger The Benson Report, at 16 August, 2007 19:02  

  • So, Judith Miller is an example of conservative bias? Is that just because she reported on the Bush Administrations justification for the war, which was the same justification that the Clinton Administration used, and John Kerry once believed, and that Hillary Clinton also believed? Hillary said that she voted on the war based on not what the Bush Administration alleged, but based on what was learned during her husband's administration and through her own research.

    Yep, that damned conservative media. I'm sick of how they have been fawning and gushing over Karl Rove since he announced his retirement.

    By Blogger RyanB, at 16 August, 2007 19:29  

  • HILARIOUS IRONY

    Last night on his show, Bathtub Boy covered the Wikipedia alterations, but he highlighted the changes made to his entry (which were posted for a grand total of 90 minutes) by a supposed Fox employee. Notably absent was any discussion about the changes to the Limbaugh entry or those by the NYT or Al Jazeera.

    Now the irony: The change by the supposed Fox employee covered the part of the KO bio which refered to what started out as a eulogy for Peter Jennings (and his death which was due ultimately to cigaratte smoking), but self-centeredly shifted to KO's own kicking of the smoking habit--so the change was actually accurate.

    However, it is another unflattering example of how KO inserts himself as the focus of stories to which he truly is a minor component. His Worst Person in the World one night went to the person who accidently took his luggage at an airport--sort of like the self-centered kindergardener who thinks his parents are the Worst Parents in the World when they won't give in to his or her every wish.

    Pathetic!

    By Blogger Chromium, at 17 August, 2007 14:02  

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