Information Society Watch

August 15, 2007, BBC News Service

In what could come as a major blow for Wikipedia's credibility, a web tool which enables the tracing of the source of edits has revealed that a number of edits on key people/institutions have been in fact done by government agencies. The more glaring instances include the CIA editing the story of the Iranian President, a edit on Sinn Fein leader Jerry Adams by the Vatican and so on. While Wikipedia is attempting to address the above issues on an urgent basis, it does throw serious questions on the nature of online collaborative works and the need for greater transparency in the entire process.

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