Taking the Social out of Social Media

Following a previous posting about the censorship affects of the Trade Practices Amendment (Small Business Protection) Bill 2007, another story has emerged regarding the government's manipulation of public information - this time in the form of Wikipedia. Now, we all now that Wikipedia isn't the most reliable source of information - certainly if you referenced it in an assignment you would no doubt have earned that big fat 'F'. But it does serve as a resource for developing a foundational understanding of many topics and with over 1.95 million English entries, it is a resource which is widely used.

The government, now waking up to the power of social media (i.e. John Howard's recent YouTube cameos) has decided to manipulate the very basis with which Wikipedia is based - it's a wiki. The information on this site is completely user created and controlled - a two edged sword; on the one hand users get to have their work published for potentially millions to read, on the other hand as an SMH article pointed out today: "The site has come under fire lately due to the apparent ease with which anyone can add biased, erroneous and libellous information." It's no wonder the site has come under fire with the Australian Prime Minister's staff editing out information on the site which casts the government in a bad light. Articles focused on Peter Costello and the children overboard scandal are but a few which have been altered by government clickers.

Thank God for this new technology WikiScanner which can pinpoint organisations who have edited the information on Wikipedia. This has the potential to uncover astroturfing campaigns as well, as the technology can identify if the editor has worked through an organisation's network or through a ISP for home users.

Check out the article:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/pms-wikipedia-whiteout/2007/08/23/1187462441687.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1