'Facebook, Axios And NBC Paid This Guy To Whitewash Wikipedia Pages' (huffpost.com) 103
The Huffington Post ran a bombshell report this week on one of a handful of people who have "figured out how to manipulate Wikipedia's supposedly neutral system to turn a profit." They're describing Ed Sussman, a former head of digital for Fast Company and Inc.com who's now paid to do damage control by relentlessly lobbying for changes to Wikipedia pages. "In just the past few years, companies including Axios, NBC, Nextdoor and Facebook's PR firm have all paid him to manipulate public perception using a tool most people would never think to check. And it almost always works."
Spin reports:
The benefit of hiring Sussman, aside from insulating talking heads from the humiliation of being found to have edited their own pages, is that he applies the exacting and annoying vigor of an attorney to Wikipedia's stringent editing rules. Further, because his opponents in these arguments are not opposing lawyers but instead Wikipedia's unpaid editors, he's really effective. From HuffPost:
"Sussman's main strategy for convincing editors to make the changes his clients want is to cite as many tangentially related rules as possible (he is, after all, a lawyer). When that doesn't work, though, his refusal to ever back down usually will. He often replies to nearly every single bit of pushback with walls of text arguing his case. Trying to get through even a fraction of it is exhausting, and because Wikipedia editors are unpaid, there's little motivation to continue dealing with Sussman's arguments. So he usually gets his way."
NBC and Axios confirmed that they hired Sussman, and an Axios spokesperson told HuffPost that the site "hired him to correct factual inaccuracies." The spokesperson added "pretty sure lots of people do this," which may or may not be true.
Sussman's web site argues he's addressing "inaccurate or misleading information...potentially creating severe business problems for its subject," bragging in his FAQ that when he's finished, "the article looks exactly the same" to an outsider -- and that his success rate is 100%.
"Sussman's main strategy for convincing editors to make the changes his clients want is to cite as many tangentially related rules as possible (he is, after all, a lawyer). When that doesn't work, though, his refusal to ever back down usually will. He often replies to nearly every single bit of pushback with walls of text arguing his case. Trying to get through even a fraction of it is exhausting, and because Wikipedia editors are unpaid, there's little motivation to continue dealing with Sussman's arguments. So he usually gets his way."
NBC and Axios confirmed that they hired Sussman, and an Axios spokesperson told HuffPost that the site "hired him to correct factual inaccuracies." The spokesperson added "pretty sure lots of people do this," which may or may not be true.
Sussman's web site argues he's addressing "inaccurate or misleading information...potentially creating severe business problems for its subject," bragging in his FAQ that when he's finished, "the article looks exactly the same" to an outsider -- and that his success rate is 100%.
And I get paid... (Score:1)
...to post on Slashdot. Winning.
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There are editors who are such committed true-believers to their pet causes (9/11, marxism, feminism, making sure every blend word is called a portmanteau) that they'll do it with the same vigor of this lawyer. Like the kooks who stalk creimer or superkendall.
And they do it for free.
Re:OK by me (Score:5, Insightful)
People trust Wikipedia because they believe it to be untainted. That trust is what immediately makes it a target for corruption.
It doesn't matter if an information source is run by volunteers or paid staff; the payment method is not what guarantees neutrality.
In fact, nothing can guarantee neutrality. The instant anything is widely believed to be neutral, it becomes a target for corruption, and there is no final way to prevent that corruption from infecting the information.
Re: OK by me (Score:1)
The problem is deeper than that. We can't even apply the concept of neutrality because modern leftist ideology completely rejects the notion of universal, objective truth. They honestly believe that each person has "their own truth", and ultimately any "truth" that isn't compatible with the basic tenets of communism is "false".
The idea of neutrality requires a constant frame of reference: objective, universal truth.
Re: OK by me (Score:1)
Whereas rightists just make up stories that they claim is objective truth. Let's face it, extremists have agendas.
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Naw, they merely "trust" it to be a basic encyclopedia with basic information. They know that details will be incomplete or wrong
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Yep, I use Wikipedia as a guideline to understanding something. It's really been helpful in helping me learn more about the world but sadly, as I want to learn more, I keep finding agendas that seem to roll together.
for example, I see more of something I call chaining : one 'factoid' linked to another one, and to another one then to a false statement. it's become very frustrating.
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Are you fucking serious? He's being paid by companies to whitewash. Wikipedia isn't neutral, but that doesn't make what he's doing in any way right. You pretending he is doesn't help anyone other than those companies. So I'm against him. And useful idiots like you.
Disagree (Score:3, Insightful)
He's being paid by companies to whitewash.
You claim whitewash; do you have an example?
As I said before, I found the system entire corrupt and producing material factually wrong. So who are you to say the material this paid person is attempting to insert is not more correct? If I were a company paying him, all I would want is a factual account of what is really going on.
Indeed, you really need to read the article again because the way this guy wins is really by being correct, and explaining the ten thous
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He's being paid by companies to whitewash.
You claim whitewash; do you have an example?
Exactly what I would like to see. Especially as the source for all this is the HuffingtonPost. A """news""" website not exactly known for neutrality themselves.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
The fact that it is the Huffington Post automatically means the article loses all credibility. As the article stated all the man is doing is correcting articles and it getting paid for it. If the articles are correct and can be proven to be so, why does Wikipedia care if he is paid or not?
Here is my suspicion. This individual "corrected" some article that the liberal writer of this article didn't like. Since the author couldn't change the truth, he has decided to start a smear campaign against the wr
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Mod correction. The parent post should be moderated as +1, Insightful. Please apply your mods bases on factual content and not personal preferences. This way we can keep the mod system working as it is supposed too.
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The post uses the phrase "guessing", is at best speculative, and is clearly doing so in a biased direction.
My guess is this hired "editor" didn't five a damn about truth-- he's a bleeding lawyer for god's sake.
Re:Disagree (Score:4, Informative)
He's being paid by companies to whitewash.
You claim whitewash; do you have an example?
See the end of the article for a short example. He convinced wikipedia to remove the section on Nextdoor CEO Nirav Tolia's charges of a hit-and-run. The charges were later reduced as part of a plea bargain. Is that relevant for a public figure? Maybe. Is it whitewashing [wikipedia.org]? Sure.
Re:I'm With Him (Score:5, Insightful)
Because our corporate overlords have our best interests at heart, and no one has ever earned a salary doing something nefarious.
It's been a stunningly obvious problem with wikipedia-- THE_TOY_WEB [obsidianrook.com]-- all along, but they've somehow managed to keep their heads in the sand for decades.
You would not "assume good faith" if there were ten dollars on the table, so there's no way you would try to work that way if you were doing anything at all of importance-- like, oh say, hypothetically, running information infrastructure crucicial for the functioning of a modern democratic industrial state.
Re: (Score:2)
This process is called "lobbying." I LOL that wikipedia has attracted lobbyists.
Re:I'm With Him (Score:5, Insightful)
Kind of like /. moderators flagging something "troll" or "flamebait" when you post something demonstrably true/factual, like a direct quote or a news article, that (I'm guessing) they disagree / disapprove of -- often it's something about our President.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't see why "troll" or "flamebait" would be precluded by being true or factual.
Like, emacs is obviously superior to vim, but mentioning it might still be flamebait.
Or an opinionated rant about systemd might be entirely true, being indeed the opinion of the person claiming it is their own opinion, and yet they might still be trolling.
If I'm giving a -1 because something is merely untrue or incorrect, that is what Overrated is for. And I give out more flamebait or troll than overrated.
Re: (Score:2)
[Not worth reading this.]
Ban for-profit editors. (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems like the sensible solution here is to ban for-profit editors (and revert their changes). Regardless of accuracy, profitability creates a significant motive to corrupt Wikipedia.
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Ah, but how do you know they are paid. This is always the problem with "nice" things. Crappy people crap on it. Wiki was a great idea, and I still use it, but am aware it is easily manipulated by paying a toll(troll).
Re:Ban for-profit editors. (Score:5, Insightful)
That would be great if Wikipedia had any way to find out who was being paid to edit it. As far as I can see, they have no way to do that.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
True, but if you have no rules, you have no recourse when you do actually discover rule-breaking. If there was a rule against for-profit editors, then Wikipedia could now revert his changes legitimately.
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And the obvious conclusion is that they have to know who's editing, they need to start using verified IDs with, at a minimum a demand to disclose conflict- of-interest.
You can't have accountability without knowing who own's the account.
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Even with verified IDs, uncovering hidden conflicts of interest would take investigative powers that a private entity just isn't entitled to.
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When investigation is expensive, you try to compensate for that with severe penalties in the agreement.
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Even better. Now each page he ever touched is going to have a section saying "XXX paid some guy to delete YYY from this page, which they didn't want you to read."
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Honestly, the for-profit editors probably get closer to the truth than the for-philosophy editors
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
I recall a famous author being unable to remove a false statement in his own bio because he couldn't edit it, and other editors refused to do it because he couldn't cite a third party.
But here's the gist of that rule: how do you know it was a false statement? Because he said so? Okay, but what of the Notable source that provided that statement? Was that one in the wrong then? Isn't it at least reasonable that editors should put more credibility on a 3rd party notable source that presumably did research on the topic, compared to the word of someone who is hurt by that research and would prefer it to be vaporized?
See, if the statement is truly false, the author could have asked the cited s
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you are an idiot
And proudly so! :-D :-D :-D
Re: (Score:3)
Interesting comment and even more interesting that it got modded as interesting. I do think it's a bit simplistic. Also too bad the ACs can't read or understand your sig, eh?
I actually think there's a more general problem here, and I even proposed and discussed a more general solution approach with some people on WIkipedia. I am NOT surprised that nothing came of it. However, I would say that it was somewhat useful for me in terms of understanding the underlying symmetries more clearly.
https://meta.wikimedi [wikimedia.org]
Aaaand internet gobshite posts no proof as usual (Score:1)
Show us those edits. Show us.
I loathe mickeysoft but that's irrelevant, show me the edits on the history pages. Do it.
Biggest source of misinformation is people like you. Prove me wrong.
Re:Bi deal, nothing new (Score:4, Insightful)
Posting as AC.
Not providing a single reference for any of the claims.
There we have 3 red flags for bullshit posting on the internet. And at this point it's modded +4 Interesting of which are 30% Informative and 20% Insightful.
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Well, there's everything2. Or there's just putting something up on a vanity site, and letting the internet archive grab it, although your site may have to be around for some time before it will do so.
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any subject with sources can be covered and that multiple versions are allowed so you can't revert because there will always be an alternative version available
I think viXra [vixra.org] provides most of what you're looking for.
Encyclopedia vs. News (Score:2)
Wikipedia claims it's an encyclopedia but all too often it strays into the domain of news reporting. Of course people & organisations with power, influence, resources at their disposal, & a public reputation to maintain are going to do everything that can to push back at news reporting that they don't like.
News reporting is the job of journalists, their specialist editors, & their (very necessary) lawyers, not anonymous volunteer academics, experts, & laypeople. If you want to find informati
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Wikipedia is without doubt one of the greatest achievements on internet and it very much does what it's supposed to, just don't expect more than it can deliver.
Wikipedia's supposedly neutral system??? (Score:1)
Does anyone believe that joke, really?
People invested enough to be a Wikipedia editor are invested for crying out loud.
They are not neutral: They are invested due to strong personal opinion and/or by greed.
If they write things you agree with then you think them neutral, writing something you disagree with reveals them to be political hacks, corporate shills, sock puppets or worse.
Wandering through Wikipedia, snopes, or Slashdot provides ample evidence of all of us thinking we wrote or read something neutral
Sussman is User:BC1278 (Score:5, Informative)
User:BC1278 [wikipedia.org]
User's current talk page:
User contributions: last 500, article space only, hide minor edits [wikipedia.org]
New rule for wikipedia (Score:2)
This way anyone paying an editor when discovered losses all their changes and edits. Maybe even counterpoints are highlighted for a period of time, say 5 years. Help the Streisand effect work. Don't see another way to stop this. Maybe paying editors but that wouldn't really prevent this.
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Wikipedia already has a set of rules for paid content: WP:Paid [wikipedia.org]. TL;DR version: It is allowed provided there's disclosure and all the other rules are strictly followed.
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It sounds to me from TFA that Sussman annoys other editors until they do any editing that he is prohibited from doing. It sounds to me like an opportunity for automation, in the vein of CongressEdits. [wikipedia.org] Find who he converses with on User:Talk pages, correlate it to edits by those users, and report the results.
and they have done it here (Score:2)
This article is just a advertising for their services, but placed just as a information article. they are playing by the rules and yet passing their information anyway :)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I know this is a troll, but off the top of my head: Marie Curie, Lise Meitner, and Grace Murray Hopper. There have been brilliant women in plenty of fields.
Re: Wikipedia and its problems ... (Score:1)
Go to any right wing article (Such as "right wing" , "far right wing" etc, compare the 2015 version to now. Every single one has had large amounts of Nazism and racism references added.
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This article is about reputation hacking, not race.