metronews.ca 18 NEWS Thursday, October 9, 2014 Online meddlers can’t run and can’t hide from WikiWash

In March 2014, Metro’s digital team headed to Toronto’s inaugural edition of Techraking, a data journalism crash course sponsored by Google, the Center for Investigative Reporting and The Working Group. The prize at the end was a sizeable chunk of TWG’s time to develop a data journalism tool pitched by an attending team. Metro’s team won over the judges, and WikiWash is the result.

What is WikiWash?

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LUKE Wikipedia editors to the organ- Background start giving people open tools SIMCOE izations from which the chan- to create and share knowledge Metro Online ges were made. Griffith’s tool and participate in democracy, revealed edits made from IP ad- The seeds tions would worm their way corrected could go a long way then the sky’s the limit on what According to itself, Wikipedia is dresses connected to numerous into our notorious incum- to taming the more damaging they’ll actually do with them.” the fifth-most popular website governments, businesses and of an idea bent’s entry? If somebody aspects of Wikipedia’s crowd- Ed Summers, creator of on Earth. agencies, including the CIA, the was spotted sowing confusion sourcing model. the @CongressEdits Twitter ac- It boasts a staggering 21 Vatican and the Canadian gov- ANDREW on a candidate’s page, what So it was time to think count, agrees. The automated billion monthly page views ernment. FIFIELD other entries had drawn their big. How much data could account tweets edits made by and the English edition alone Griffith said he developed [email protected] attention? realistically be scraped from IP addresses assigned to the contains 4.6 million articles — WikiScanner “to create minor That kernel went on to be Wikipedia? Would we be able U.S. Congress. The project has 100 times that of Encyclopedia public relations disasters for It all started because we heated by several rounds of to search a constellation of spawned clones across the Britannica. companies and organizations I thought it would be fun to prodding and encouragement pages to dig up potential pat- world, including Canada. Since its inception in 2001, dislike (and) to see what ‘inter- map the sort of chicanery To- from our Center for Investiga- terns? What’s the best way to “I created @congressedits Wikipedia has become the In- esting organizations’ (which I ronto’s absurdly partisan pol- tive Reporting and The Work- display it? because I hoped it could en- ternet era’s de facto archive. am neutral towards) are up to.” itics inspired on Wikipedia. ing Group hosts. Eventually, chats with our gender more, better ideas and However, with that status Most of the edits discovered Shortly after Metro’s They challenged us to hosts grew shorter and the tools like it. More thought ex- comes great responsibility, for by WikiScanner were harm- digital team arrived at expand our idea and cast our question primarily became, periments. More care for our a single malicious or incorrect less, but it was a wake-up call. Techraking, we were assigned eye toward Wikipedia itself. “Wait, this doesn’t already communities and peoples,” edit can ripple outwards, car- The public learned govern- a fairly simple task: Come up The site’s open nature is its exist?” Summers wrote in a recent ried into the broader discourse ments and corporations had with a data journalism pitch greatest strength and its great- It didn’t. Now it does. blog post. by the 500 million people who Wikipedia on their radar and to throw your freshly tuned est weakness. WikiWash still has a distance It’s a lofty goal, and one visit the site each month. weren’t above meddling with it techniques at. A way to easily sort what to go before it becomes what that prompted Metro to create One of the earliest hoaxes to preserve their image. Our kernel was telling the entries are being targeted by we think it can be, but we WikiWash. Whether it’s uncov- on Wikipedia occurred in There are currently 287 lan- story of Toronto’s municipal ill-intentioned edits, where couldn’t be happier to share ering a political conspiracy, or 2005. An article on U.S. jour- guage editions of Wikipedia, election through Wikipedia the edits are being made from it with you while we watch just learning more about what nalist John Seigenthaler falsely meaning spin and vandalism edits. What invented indiscre- and even how they’re being it grow. makes Wikipedia tick, we’re claimed he was a suspect in on the site is truly a global excited to see how readers the Kennedy assassination. The issue. (Check out the map on make use of WikiWash. entry remained online for six the next page to see some edi- media outlets reported comput- you’ll find those with an in- on the Wikipedia page itself, Check it out and let us know months before being discov- ting controversies from around ers linked to the Kremlin were terest, an agenda or a point of putting any changes in context. what you find at wikiwash@ ered, and the ensuing outcry the world.) editing the Wikipedia article on view that’s not neutral.” While tools like WikiWash metronews.ca. led the Wikimedia Foundation As Wikipedia’s audience Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 With that in mind, Metro have historically revealed to ban unregistered users from continues to grow, so too does to downplay Russia’s possible News has created WikiWash. Wikipedia’s vulnerabilities, Ma- Online coverage creating pages. the capacity for political and role in the crash. Designed in the spirit of Wiki- her believes they’re a valuable Two years later, a 24-year- corporate spin on the site. “It’s not really surprising,” Scanner, the tool takes things a part of the project. old Caltech student named Vir- Earlier this year, a WikiMedia said Wikimedia spokesperson step further by allowing users “We’re always excited Follow @MetroNewsCanada gil Griffith created WikiScan- employee was fired after be- Katherine Maher. to track edits to Wikipedia in when we see them,” she said. on Twitter to find out when ner, an online tool that linked ing caught editing entries on “A place that’s relied on by real time. And unlike other “They’re really an extension of WikiWash will be available. changes made by anonymous behalf of paying clients. In July, so many is also a place where tools, WikiWash displays edits the intent of Wikipedia. If you metronews.ca Thursday, October 9, 2014 NEWS 19

A brief history of Wikipedia editing gone awry Malaysia Airlines U.S. House of Representatives U.K. parliament Flight MH17 B.C. parliament In 2005, the IP address assigned to the U.S. In July 2014, the Daily Telegraph buildings House of Representatives was blocked from edi- In March 2012, it was reported that IP addresses belonging ting Wikipedia due to “a deliberate attempt to discovered that U.K. MPs to the Russian government had edited Ahead of the 2013 B.C. compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia.” or their staff had made articles related to Malaysia Airlines provincial election, an almost 10,000 edits to the Flight MH17 to re- edit war erupted on the encyclopedia. Many of the move claims that Wikipedia entries for Lib- changes dealt with remov- it had helped eral Premier Christy Clark ing unflattering details provide the and NDP Leader Adrian from Wikipedia during the missile system Dix. Partisan supporters on 2009 expenses scandal. used to shoot both sides were accused down the of grooming the leaders’ aircraft. pages, removing any mention of past scandals.

California Institute of Technology Croatia In 2007, Caltech student Virgil Grif- Gulf of In September 2013, news- fith created WikiScanner, a tool that Mexico papers reported that the Goa, cross-referenced edits to Wikipedia Croatian-language edition and the organizations from which of Wikipedia had been hi- India the changes were made. Griffith’s In March jacked by a group intent on tool revealed potentially spurious 2013, it was promoting anti-gay senti- In January 2013, an article on the editing conducted by addresses revealed that ment. The malicious edits “Bicholim conflict” — an alleged war linked to numerous governments, an employee of prompted the country’s in the Indian Goa — was revealed to businesses or agencies, ranging British Petroleum minister of education to be a complete fabrication. Prior to the from the CIA to the Vatican. (BP) was editing the company’s issue a warning to students revelation, the article had been listed Wikipedia page following the not to trust the content of in good standing for more than five massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill. the site. years.

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