Tobacco Company Wikipedia Edits Revealed

Author: Gene Borio
Date: August 16, 2007

Now tobacco control advocates can look up tobacco company edits of Wikipedia entries.

According to an 8/14/07 article in Wired, "Wikipedia Scanner" is a new data-mining service launched Monday that traces millions of Wikipedia entries to their corporate sources, and for the first time puts comprehensive data behind longstanding suspicions of manipulation.

Investigators can submit their "most shameful spins" --and vote on others' finds-- at http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/wikiwatch/.

Current "shameful spins" are mostly oriented towards the political (someone at voting-machine company Diebold's IP address apparently deleted long paragraphs detailing the security industry's concerns over the integrity of their voting machines, and information about the company's CEO's fund-raising for President Bush) or technological, like manipulations of product information by Sony or Microsoft.

Though there are almost a thousand Philip Morris edits listed from PM-associated IP addresses from around the world--460 from PM's NYC headquarters alone--there are no tobacco company "shameful spins" referenced . . . yet.

Users of the Wikipedia Scanner may also submit their own requests for company IP searches. For example, tobacco control advocates may want to submit "Burson Marsteller," "Jones Day" or other advertising, legal or image-management firms.

LINKS:

Wikipedia Scanner:

http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/

PHILIP MORRIS edits from Wikipedia Scanner:

http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/name2ip.php?orgname=philip+morris&location=&pagetitle=

PHILIP MORRIS edits JUST from NYC location (460):

http://www.tobacco.org/scripts/jump.php?article_id=251202&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwikiscanner.virgil.gr%2Ff.php%3Fip1%3D146.148.0.0-98.255

PHILIP MORRIS edits on "Marlboro Cigarettes."

http://www.tobacco.org/scripts/jump.php?article_id=251204&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fw%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DMarlboro_%2528cigarette%2529%26diff%3Dcur%26oldid%3D10301205

Wired article:

http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2007/08/wiki_tracker?currentPage=all

Vote On the Most Shameful Wikipedia Spin Jobs

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/wikiwatch/.