GMU Prof Teaches How To Falsify Wikipedia — and Get Caught 183
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by
timothy
from the ray-charles-is-god-see-footnote dept.
from the ray-charles-is-god-see-footnote dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Yoni Appelbaum reports in the Atlantic that as part of their coursework in a class that studies historical hoaxes, undergraduates at George Mason University successfully fooled Wikipedia's community of editors, launching a Wikipedia page detailing the exploits of a fictitious 19th-century serial killer named Joe Scafe. The students, enrolled in T. Mills Kelly's course, Lying About the Past, used newspaper databases to identify four actual women murdered in New York City from 1895 to 1897, along with victims of broadly similar crimes, and created Wikipedia articles for the victims, carefully following the rules of the site. But while a similar page created previously by Kelly's students went undetected for years, when students posted the story to Reddit, it took just twenty-six minutes for a redditor to call foul, noting the Wikipedia entries' recent vintage and others were quick to pile on, deconstructing the entire tale. Why did the hoaxes succeed in 2008 on Wikipedia and not in 2012 on Reddit? According to Appelbaum, the answer lies in the structure of the Internet's various communities. 'Wikipedia has a weak community, but centralizes the exchange of information. It has a small number of extremely active editors, but participation is declining, and most users feel little ownership of the content. And although everyone views the same information, edits take place on a separate page, and discussions of reliability on another, insulating ordinary users from any doubts that might be expressed,' writes Appelbaum. 'Reddit, by contrast, builds its strong community around the centralized exchange of information. Discussion isn't a separate activity but the sine qua non of the site. If there's a simple lesson in all of this, it's that hoaxes tend to thrive in communities which exhibit high levels of trust. But on the Internet, where identities are malleable and uncertain, we all might be well advised to err on the side of skepticism (PDF).""
Re:Noone read the articles (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly. If you create articles on obscure regional murder victims, then the chances are the articles won't be read.
If you then draw lots of attention to it, then you're more likely to get found out.
my experience (Score:4, Interesting)
My experience vandalising Wikipedia - and I do it every so often because it amuses me and because I think Wikipedia is one of the most harmful things the Internet has ever produced - is that Wikipedia is a power struggle game by the impotent.
So the number one rule for letting a vandalisation get through is to never openly disagree with "owners" of an article, i.e. those who make hundreds of edits to push their strong opinions. For example, you're not even going to get facts about Israel's atrocious behaviour in the Israel article, let alone bullshit. (However, it you write subtle bullshit which supports the position of the article owners, you're on to a winner.)
The second rule is to avoid the lazy syophants. Such toadying slimeballs observe all recent changes everywhere for nonsense edits simply to bump up their contribution count, so you need to make sure that no change you make is obviously nonsense.
The third rule is to appeal to stupidity. People who contribute to Wikipedia are neither very smart nor do they feel very secure, so you want to make an edit which is wrong but which makes them feel bad for doubting whether it's correct. If the statement you make is obviously irrelevant, or points to a mainstream source (e.g. mainstream news site) then it is easy to check, will be checked, and will be removed. If it cites a primary reference written for Adults, particularly if it isn't a guaranteed click away, you're much more likely to get away with the edit.
The fourth rule is to eschew braggadocio. Mentioning an obvious troll - your own or otherwise - on any public forum will guarantee that the troll is fixed. As the Stasi well knew, every community has its willing informants.
Reddit User don't even believe the truth... (Score:5, Interesting)
That is the reason Reddit picked up on it.
Just over a year ago, I posted (by request) some truths - was quickly lynched by several thousand users, branded a liar and a troll and forced out of the community.
Reddit users had just redefined the truth in their own image.
The dangers of community driven information - be it reddit or wikipedia.
Re:not exceptionally impressive (Score:5, Interesting)
There's another way this can happen, though:
1. Insert false information into Wikipedia without attribution on a subject that is likely to be of public interest.
2. Wait for a harried news reporter to pick up on the false information and use it in their article without attribution.
3. Go back and answer the [[citation needed]] with a link back to the news reporter's article.