Wiki Will Be Wicked For 2006 Campaigns
by Bill Simon
PoliticsOnline.com’s weekly issue has as their Top Story this past week’s clash of Georgia’s Democrat Titans: Mark Taylor and Cathy Cox, both candidates for Governor.
Here’s their story excerpt:
Secretary of State Cathy Cox’s opponent, Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor, said campaign manager Morton Brilliant altered an online encyclopedia entry to include a reference to Taylor’s son being arrested for DUI after an accident that killed his passenger. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales confirmed these accusations. The Taylor for Governor campaign responded by accusing Cox of exploiting a family tragedy for political purposes and calling for her resignation, although Cox denied any knowledge of the addition.
This story is only the most highly publicized of a number of recent campaign scuffles involving Wikipedia. Brilliant has also been accused of editing the Wikipedia profile of current Governor Mark Sanford. Nearly twenty more changes have since been made to Sanford’s profile, presumably by both sides of the aisle.
Wikipedia has attempted to deal with problems concerning politically motivated revisions by tightening its submission guidelines and setting up alerts so that operators know when Capitol Hill staffers edit online profiles.
Read more here: Wiki Woes
