Whilst browsing the web (read procrastinating) I came across this story about a new website designed to tie Wikipedia edits back to the company that made them.
The website created was created by Virgil Griffith who says he created WikiScanner “To create a cornucopia of minor public relations disasters for companies and organizations I dislike. “
The website tracks anonymous Wikipedia entries and links them back to an IP address. This means companies who are mis-treating their Wikipedia entries may have a “minor public relations disaster” on their hands.
Websites such as this, and this from wired are making it harder for companies to silently update any negative press about them.
Have you spotted anyone up to no good with wikipedia?
Duncan Morris : Duncan founded Distilled with WIll in 2005. He now has the overall responsibility of running Distilled. He focuses on both the company’s long-term plans and improvements to its day-to-day operations. He spends most of his time on recruitment, strategy (whatever that means) and client projects.
I don’t know if it was much in the news in the UK, but here (in Australia) Wikiscan got quite a bit of media attention, and caused a few chuckles. The federal government and New South Wales state government got caught out editing their own Wikipedia entries, sometimes just deleting embarrassing incidents.
The funniest and most embarrassing act was a government employee adding the random sentence ‘poo bum dicky wee wee’ to a martial arts page. The media loved it – and there were so many red faces the government looked like a field of tomatoes.
Also caught out deleting things was the Vatican and the CIA – oops! Just goes to show that nothing we do on the internet anymore is safe.
I didn’t hear about that (no mainstream press as far as I know). I’m sure if I was concentrating, I’d have picked it up on SEL or somewhere…
Very interesting though. Really goes to show, doesn’t it….