Politicians Abuse Wikipedia, Again

Posted on April 27th, 2006
By Todd Zeigler in Politics, Public Affairs

So, it looks like we have example #1,211 of a politician (or more aptly, their staff) abusing Wikipedia for political gain. This time Morton Brilliant, the campaign manager for Georgia gubernatorial candidate Cathy Cox, edited the entry of opponent Mark Taylor to include a reference to Taylor’s son’s DUI arrest. The campaign manager has resigned, and the typical media feeding frenzy is gearing up now. You can view a version of the entry with the DUI information here.

To play on an old saying: Don’t make any edits to Wikipedia that you wouldn’t want printed on the front page of the New York Times.

Damien Del Porto

April 28th, 2006 at 12:21 pm

Its interesting that so much time is spent on negative uses of wikipedia when all these campaigns should be taking advantage of the positive aspects of disseminating information through the medium. Or maybe the problem is that there’s not too much positive information to brag about in the first place.
Todd Zeigler

April 28th, 2006 at 6:11 pm

Agreed. Read some commentary about this issue that argued that it was perfectly legitimate to add the DUI info (meaning it’s relevant to the bio). But that’s missing the point - the motive of the person editing the entry here trumps everything.