In September last year, Peter Mandelson was fighting to keep his job as British Ambassador to the US after the first raft of revelations about the extent of his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
Within hours of the details emerging, an anonymous Wikipedia editor had made changes to Mandelson’s page that distanced him from Epstein and cast him in a sympathetic light. That editor has since been blocked for making undisclosed paid changes.
New details about the relationship between the two – including that Mandelson recommended a villa where Epstein could host his “guests” – have sparked a national scandal in recent weeks and led to pressure on Keir Starmer to step down as prime minister.
But over the course of two days in September, while Mandelson was still in his government job, the mysterious account made a series of edits that either reflected more favourably on him or pushed details of the Epstein scandal under unrelated information.
And when Mandelson was eventually sacked on 11 September, it moved within hours to remove the reason given by the Foreign Office for his dismissal: that Mandelson had told Epstein his 2008 conviction for sex offences was wrong and encouraged him to clear his name.
Paid editors are a scourge on wikipedia. Everyone with an axe to grind hires them. From revisionists trying to rehabilitate feudalism, or any of history’s great monsters it appears, to any monied interests. Whether it’s a polluting industry, and or a company exploiting workers in SE Asia in virtual slave labour, or a government official somewhere, there are dudes on wikipedia that are paid to do these things.
Wikipedia is only a good source on non controversial topics, at least unless you look at the actual sources submitted and can cut through the agendas, something most people can’t seem to do well honestly.
at least unless you look at the actual sources submitted
You can’t check the source for information that’s entirely been omitted. In any case, never assume Wikipedia provides the full story, or even a condensed and accurate one. What has been mentioned might be correct, but the devil is in what’s been left out.
I wonder what that person’s answer was when as a kid they got asked what they want to be when they grow up. Fireman? Astronaut? Pedophile PR? Well congratulations.
Coincidentally, when I was poking around https://jmail.world/ after the first tranche released, there was correspondence with the exact person talking about editing Wiki and Google seo for Epstein himself.
https://www.theverge.com/report/876081/jeffrey-epstein-files-seo-google-digital-footprint-emails
I have wondered the same about scammers. Like, if their mother knew they were going to do that with their life, she’d probably regret all of that wasted effort raising them.
Or their mothers just did a terrible job of raising them. Look at J.D. Vance and his street urchin mother.
I haven’t heard. What’s the deal with Vance’s mom?
I guess it’s fixed now… there are 61 mentions of Epstein on his page lol.
Good ol’ Streisand, coming to save us from people’s bullshit coverups.
Wait, so this editor made paid edits without disclosure and was not banned on the spot? And then it came back to add more edits? At least its banned now, right?
It doesn’t say when they told Wikipedia about the paid editing, but once Wikipedia investigated it they banned them and denied the appeal. The account never came back to make more edits after they were discovered.
That editor has since been blocked for making undisclosed paid changes.
Ok, I misunderstood this part. I tough it means they can’t do more undisclosed paid edits.
Wonder what other pages they “edited”
Hope all its edits get audited
It’s a good thing that lots of people have full backups of wikipedia.
I saved a copy for myself at the start of 2025. It took about 23GB of space if I’m remembering right. Maybe I’ll burn a blu-ray copy for long term storageWikipedia isn’t important because of its data. Rather because of the fact it is continuously updated, extended, and fixed at a gigantic scale.
If Wikipedia ever dies, its information will lose relevance by the day. After a decade or two without a similar-scale replacement, will anyone even care?
Imagine having a collection of Wikipedia backups and disclosing that on a first date.
What are we reading today, babe? 2020q1, the Covid hoaxes? Yeah, that’s the shit.
