{"id":24821,"date":"2019-04-01T16:39:47","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T20:39:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=24821"},"modified":"2019-04-01T16:39:47","modified_gmt":"2019-04-01T20:39:47","slug":"paying-to-whitewash-wikipedia-pages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/01\/paying-to-whitewash-wikipedia-pages\/","title":{"rendered":"Paying to Whitewash Wikipedia Pages"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffpost.com\/entry\/wikipedia-paid-editing-pr-facebook-nbc-axios_n_5c63321be4b03de942967225\">Ashley Feinberg<\/a> (via <a href=\"https:\/\/news.ycombinator.com\/item?id=19394169\">Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.huffpost.com\/entry\/wikipedia-paid-editing-pr-facebook-nbc-axios_n_5c63321be4b03de942967225\"><p>The vast majority of the people who propose and make changes to Wikipedia are volunteers. A few people, however, have figured out how to manipulate Wikipedia&rsquo;s supposedly neutral system to turn a profit.<\/p>\n<p>That&rsquo;s Sussman&rsquo;s business. And in just the past few years, companies including Axios, NBC, Nextdoor and Facebook&rsquo;s PR firm have all paid him to manipulate public perception using a tool most people would never think to check.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>One of Wikipedia&rsquo;s more well-known rules is its prohibition on editing pages that you have any sort of direct connection to. This, along with the fact that it&rsquo;s humiliating to get caught editing your own Wikipedia page, is usually enough of a deterrent to companies and public figures looking to inject a positive spin. But those looking to get around the site&rsquo;s conflict of interest rules aren&rsquo;t totally without options. Anyone, even someone financially tied to the subject in question, is allowed to merely <em>suggest<\/em> edits in the hopes that a less conflicted editor might come by, agree, and implement the changes for them. This is where a paid editor like Sussman comes in.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>He often replies to nearly every single bit of pushback with walls of text arguing his case. Trying to get through even a fraction of it is exhausting, and because Wikipedia editors are unpaid, there&rsquo;s little motivation to continue dealing with Sussman&rsquo;s arguments. So he usually gets his way.<\/p><\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ashley Feinberg (via Hacker News): The vast majority of the people who propose and make changes to Wikipedia are volunteers. A few people, however, have figured out how to manipulate Wikipedia&rsquo;s supposedly neutral system to turn a profit. That&rsquo;s Sussman&rsquo;s business. And in just the past few years, companies including Axios, NBC, Nextdoor and Facebook&rsquo;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2019-04-01T20:39:49Z","apple_news_api_id":"0a12fc81-8011-431b-b227-cca0262c8a91","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2019-04-01T20:39:50Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AChL8gYARQxuyJ8ygJiyKkQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[25,994,96,388],"class_list":["post-24821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-facebook","tag-media","tag-web","tag-wikipedia"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24821"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24822,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24821\/revisions\/24822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}